It gets better: A Christmas note
To my beloved rainbow family.
Christmas/ Hannukah is the time we’re supposed to spend with our family, the people who’re supposed to love us, who brought us into this world and who’ll support us no matter what.
Unfortunately for many of us it’s not that easy. For us this holiday is not just about wrapping and unwrapping gifts. Family meetings to us are oftentimes a reminder of how different we are and that no one understands us. Surrounded by so many people who all have a connection with one another we feel even lonlier than usually.
It doesn’t help that not everyone’s relatives accept and respect and love us for who we are. I personally spend these gatherings pretending to be somewhere else, staring at the wall and trying my best not to get involved into any conversations.
Christmas is also the time in which depression gets worse. Statistics clearly show a rapid increase of suicide attempts during the winter holidays. For the gay community this is fatal.
Did you know that there’s probably not a single queer teen who’s never thought about suicide?
It’s not even always about wanting to die. Not everyone makes a real plan how to end their lives. But sometimes we wonder what it would be like not being around. What if we could just quit breathing? What if we could quit thinking? Would the pain stop? Would anyone miss us?
Sometimes the pain grows so big that we want to just quit existing and the only reason we’re still alive is that we’re too afraid to die.
I’d like to dedicate this little (and very spontaneous) post to my great cousin, my only gay relative, who took his life before I even got the chance to get to know him… simply because no one even talked about him before. It happened almost a decade ago and it’s times like this that I think of him and wonder what he was like. And I wish I’d have the chance to talk to him and ask him… I don’t know… everything.
I’m not a very religious person, but I’d like to send a prayer out to the whole LGBT community. Because these holidays which are supposed to be about joy and love are sometimes really hard to endure.
Just, you know, stick around. Don’t give up. You’re not alone and you’ll never be.
<3
- G
This.
Deserves a reblog.
