I never used to be a shy kid. My parents told me that I was interacting with strangers with no fear.
I remember my kindergarten times as wild, colorful and with no boundaries. A place where creativity and individuality were welcome and supported.
School changed everything. I somehow must have gotten a sense of what visiting school is about because my parents told me that I never wanted to go there. I wasn’t excited about it like other kids were. That was the time when I started to become quieter. A teacher once called me a ‘daydreamer’ because I was looking out of the window a lot.I got criticized at school for not being good at all the important subjects. And being good at Art, Music and Sports only brought me some tired smiles. I am a sensitive person and as a Kid, I got it all wrong and thought I’m not good enough as a person. Puberty made it even worse because when I found out that my desire for other boys was called homosexuality and doesn’t fit the average picture society is expecting it only fed my worries and anxiety. When my classmates found out that I was gay I got bullied but I tried to stay strong and wrote love letters to boys I liked and opened my heart. Unfortunately I never became a positive reaction.
Later on at university, I was still unsure about my Identity and drowned my loneliness and sorrows in alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. Until I had a big Accident that almost made me lose my Life. That was the point when I started to realize that I needed to change something fundamentally. Thanks to some good friends I found some professional help that showed me that I need to focus on my no.1 topic in my life, my identity, and with that, of course, my sexual identity which is my homosexuality. Which I found out was one of the best things in my life. I believe that as a homosexual we need to go the extra mile to accept who we are. We are a minority. We live in a heterosexual world. If we want to live in a world that fits OUR reality we need to make it!
I’m still shy if I meet strangers but as soon as there is a certain trust I finally can open up and show a bit more of who I really am again. And that feels amazing. The shyness will probably stay but the threshold becomes smaller step by step. Also focusing on my art and expressing myself through it helps me cope with my issues, win back trust in myself and become proud of who I am again, a loveable person.
