Why the Closet Didn’t Kill Me—But My Family Almost Did

I used to believe that the closet was the worst place a person could be. That silence, that suffocating, unbearable silence, felt like drowning in slow motion. But I was wrong. The real danger wasn’t the closet—it was what came after. It was stepping into the light and realizing that the people who were supposed to love me saw me as something unworthy of it.

Coming out wasn’t a moment of liberation. It was a declaration of war. A war I didn’t start, but one I had no choice but to fight. At sixteen, I wasn’t just told to leave—I was erased. Every framed picture of me taken down, every trace of my existence scrubbed clean as if my love, my identity, my truth was something that could be undone with enough force. But they didn’t understand—truth is not something you can unmake. Love is not something you can punish out of a person.

I was alone. No home, no safety net, no soft place to land. And let me be clear: the world isn’t kind to kids like me. It doesn’t hand out second chances. It doesn’t wait for you to catch your breath. I had to fight for every meal, every night of shelter, every inch of dignity. And the hardest part? It wasn’t hunger. It wasn’t exhaustion. It was knowing that the people who raised me, the people whose love I once felt, had chosen their comfort over my existence.

But here’s what they didn’t count on: I am not easy to erase. They wanted me to disappear, but instead, I became undeniable. I built a life from nothing but my own two hands. I learned how to navigate a world that wasn’t designed for me, how to carve out space where none was given. I survived. And survival, when the world expects you to break, is the loudest rebellion of all.

The scars of rejection don’t fade overnight. The feeling of being unwanted, of being disposable, lingers. I carried it with me in every interaction, every friendship, every relationship. Was I too much? Was I still trying to prove my worth to people who had long stopped looking? It took years to unlearn the idea that love is something I had to earn. That I had to shrink myself to fit someone else’s idea of who I should be.

For anyone who knows this pain—who has tasted this kind of abandonment—I see you. And I need you to understand something: their rejection does not define you. Their inability to love you is not a reflection of your worth. You are still here. You are still breathing. That means you still have a story to write, a future to claim.

Find your people. Build your own version of home. Love louder than they ever feared you would. And never, ever let the world convince you that you are anything less than extraordinary. Because if you made it through the fire, you are unstoppable.

And if you’re still in that place of doubt, of fear, of wondering whether you can survive this—let me tell you: you can. The pain won’t last forever. The loneliness won’t last forever. There is a life waiting for you beyond this moment, beyond the people who failed you. And when you get there, when you finally find the love and acceptance you deserve, you’ll realize something: you were never the problem.

You are not alone. And you never will be.