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For years now, I have been struggling with my identity and my personality. Even before I became a teenager, I was always thinking about who I was and what I was doing to help the world. I never really knew that the lgbtq+ world even existed or that it was something that you could get hated for. Which made my coming out story quite funny... I think.

I have a girlfriend and I told my mom straight up that I had one and she nodded. I asked her about it a couple of days later and she said, "No, I think it's a phase. Like your phase of liking Panic! At the Disco and Gravity Falls. You'll get over her soon enough." I looked at her, blinked twice, then walked upstairs. She told my dad that night, whom doesn't live with us because of work. My girlfriend has really anti gay parents, so she never came out and won't for a while.

Soon enough, her parents got suspicious, and we had to break up. I remember not going to school the next day because of me not getting any sleep and just crying in my mother's arms all that night. We ended up together again and , thankfully, we still are.

Flash forward to the beginning of seventh grade. I was starting a new year and I planned to have the best one yet... But my mind had other plans. Around the second semester, I slid into heavy depression and anxiety. I didn't go one day without having a panic attack. It got to the point of self harm, which I told a guidance counselor about and she gave me a coloring book, earbuds, and some candy and said, "I'll go get your work from your classes and when I come back, I need you to explain to me how and why." She was so understanding and helpful, along with her student teacher. She recommended me and my mom to several therapists and my mother took me home.

My mom, after we left, took me home and asked me why I did that. I was under enough stress and it ended in a big fight with me crying. Me telling them about my self harm caused a huge thing at school with if they found one cut on you, you're suspended. I felt guilty about what I did and I went to school the next day, but I didn't pay attention to anything they said. I just needed time to think. Soon enough, I got a therapist, but that one because too expensive, so we left. Nothing wrong with her, just we were in really horrible dept. She helped me come to the conclusion of my frustration of my gender identity an I soon came out to my mom about being non binary. Which, again, she said she didn't like. She still says it's a phase. She says I'm too young to make the decision and that I would've known when I was younger, which makes no sense to me at all.

Soon after I came out, my grandmother passed away due to her lungs. It collapsed because of her addiction to smoking. That's when I really began to shelter myself and I didn't talk. Still really don't. I began to rebel at school and stay quiet at home. I acted more like the way my mother wanted me to. She is becoming more and more controlling of me and I didn't realise why until yesterday after a session with my two new therapists. She was talking to one of my past teachers and she said, "I am slowly realizing that they aren't me." I almost because infuriated. I immediately thought, "That's why I can't be myself? Because you think I'm you? You want me to be normal? You think you can control me anymore? No. I'm done. I'm. Not. You. I couldn't buy that shirt I wanted at Walmart, I couldn't get my hair cut, I couldn't get a better relationship with my grandmother because of you thinking me and my siblings are you? No. This is it." I now realise this isn't a phase. My gender and my sexuality is not a phase. Also, mom, newsflash- still not over Panic! at the Disco or Gravity Falls. And, let's get real here, I probably won't

I'll never regret telling anyone that I'm bi or non binary. I'm fine with who I am. The only thing I hate about being out is that people will try and change you, but don't let them. Be true to your peers, your community, your world, and most of all- you.