I was 8-years-old when I first heard the word "gay" and found out what it meant. I was 8-years-old when my mom told what that meant, and told me not to ever talk about it, or ever let anyone know that I knew what it meant.

I was 9-years-old when I drew a rainbow to put on the fridge, one of my favorite things to draw, and my mother told me to stop drawing those because the "gay people had taken it and perverted it."

I was 11-years-old when I found out that being gay was supposedly a sin.

I was 12 when I started questioning my sexual and gender identity.

I was 13, when I realized that I shouldn't live by the code that's been set for me, and that I should pave my own path rather than listen to everything I'd been told all my life. I was 13, when I found that I disagreed with some aspects of the Bible, and that I didn't want to go to church, where I'd be forced to worship God in the most uniform way possible, rather than how I wanted to. I was 13, when I started to lose faith. I was 13 when I found out that the word "homosexual" was never originally in the Bible, but was rather added as a purposeful incorrect translation from the word "pedophile."

I was nearly 14 when I decided that from now on I would fight the battles in my life and I wouldn't back down, and I would always keep fighting, granted that value took some important people to learn, but either way.

And today, I stand strong as an ally with opinions independent of a religion or political party, and stances that differ from most people my age, where every day I take a stand against my family in my head, too terrified to ever say a word aloud, but screaming in my head about how wrong they are. And silently terrified that one day, everything will change, and my entire life will never be the same, I consider the notion every day of what will happen, how long I might have to wait to find someone I can be myself with and who I can take solace in.

Today, I wonder if my brother will return home from a deployment overseas without a scratch, as he is the only one I would trust to always be there if I needed him, no matter the circumstances.

So when people ask me why my opinions are so strong... this is why. The way I was raised, the silent screams I screech every day of my life within my head, the battles I wish I had the strength to fight, the fear that overwhelmed me and paralyzes me more and more, day by day, as I write stories about things that could have happened to me, or that would've happened to me, or that I wonder if they'll ever happen to me... sometimes what I wish would happen to me... and other times what I wish I could make myself do. I live with my dreams and ambitions squashed every minute of the day that I hear that a simple differing sexuality or gender identity is a mental illness or a phase, something that will pass, that is "fixable." All because I'm scared.

Of the possibilities. Of the inevitable. Of the breaking dawn coming every single morning that I am alive to see it, wondering if my life will ever change for the better, and wondering if anything will ever be worth it all.

It was less than a week ago when I awoke and had a minor mental breakdown, to the point where I was wondering "If we suffer through it all, is life really ever worth it? What is the point if death is inevitable? Why should I not give up now?" And to the point that my body physically shut down and forced itself to sleep, to relax my mind under the stress I put it under every day. And every day I apologize to my mind and body, to my soul, for the hell I put it through day in and day out between my stress and my bad habits.

Sometimes I sit and I think. Sometimes I want to do nothing except for give up on all of it, to run away, maybe not just from home but from life. And every time I wonder if I'll ever be able to take that step or if I'm too scared and I always wonder if I need help with thoughts like this and every time I tell myself that "I'm being dramatic and I don't need help."

It's taken a lot to pull me out of the current, and I'm still in the water and I'm still thrashing and trying my damndest not to drown, but I'm no longer at the mercy of the riptide. It's taken the help of people who I don't know, who'll never know me.

But I guess that's life, crazy and depressing and terrifying and complex. But one day, I'll see the good in life. I'm promising myself that now, that one day I will see the point, I will see the happiness, the joy, the excitement, everything that I don't feel I'm worthy enough to know now...