My first blog post. How did I get here?

I have debated for months, albeit silently, what the niche/direction and first post of this now 5-month-old blogging website would be. I have always yearned for an outlet for my thoughts, feelings, and emotions beyond a relationship with a paid (licensed mental health) professional. As someone with a B.S. in Psychology, I understand the importance of therapy, and I urge everyone, regardless of how “okay” they might feel, to try to see a therapist if it is within their means financially.

However, I sometimes crave the sort of interaction that is only truly possible through conversations or discussions with others who can closely relate to my experiences. I am also a recent college graduate, and most of my friends are now either in other states or on an entirely different continent. Therefore, having a blog where I could simply be unapologetically myself felt like a very appropriate next step. And the only way that I can be fully myself is to not hide any aspect of my identity, so…

Here we go…

Consequently, I made the conscious decision to quit trying to figure out what could be the most profitable niche and just simply share my life and all of the ups, downs, and in-betweens that come with it. If it resonates with at least one other person, I am satisfied. If it remains in some dark, unreachable spot of the internet and is seen by no one, that’s fine too. I, at the very least, created a safe space for myself.

Writing this blog post will set the tone for my website, career, and conceivably even my life from this point moving forward. I anticipate that the repercussions as they relate to my relationships with relatives may be severe. Despite this, however, I know that this is an important post to write because it is not just about me. Reading about my experience could potentially save one person, and that is worth any amount of backlash that might come from it.

Growing Up (My Childhood)

Growing up in Dominica, I did not learn much about sexuality; it was rarely a topic of discussion in the household or the classroom. However, whenever the topic did arise, the discussion usually entailed fierce criticism or opposition to everything that strayed from what society deemed acceptable or normal. Therefore, from a very young age, I realized that society labeled people who identified as part of the LGBTQ+ community as abnormal or immoral individuals.

Consequently, while being unaware that this was happening, I developed a similar mindset. I would subconsciously and silently cast judgment on individuals around me who seemed different. This is not something that I have ever been afraid to admit. I am mature and educated enough to acknowledge that I was simply a product of my environment. It is the same reason that I have never faulted my relatives who still express this kind of behavior and mentality.

Core Memories That Shaped My Experience

• Being told that I danced like a girl and I should dance more manly at the age of 7 or 8.
• Being called “maco,” “makoumé,” and other Afro-Caribbean derogatory words for homosexual males for all of my life.
• Having been proposed that I go see a priest by someone after piecing together the truth of my sexual orientation.
• Being constantly questioned if I was gay, accompanied by a disgusted look.
• Being constantly targeted and ridiculed by older school guys who “could tell I was different.”
• Having to endure sexual harassment from other people at the expense of not coming across as weak or feminine if I told anyone about it.

The Realization

Later on, however, that mindset was challenged for me personally. Around the age of fourteen, in early 2016, I realized that I was different than most of my peers. I was a teenage boy who did not find girls attractive, but boys instead. Not only was I a gay male, but I was a gay Afro-Caribbean male living on a very conservative island; therefore, I fell victim to the prevailing mindset.

Depression

I degraded myself the same way I had witnessed the people around me degrade the LGBTQ+ community. At a certain point, my struggle with my sexuality consumed me almost completely. I was at a dark place in my life. Life got to a point where I found no happiness in doing the things that I had always loved doing before. I felt severely depressed. I spent most of my time in complete darkness in any bedroom that was available. Growing up in a single-parent household meant I did not have the privilege of my own bedroom. Therefore, complete solitude was never an option.

However, music became my escape. I would go to school, come home, and listen to music all the time. Artists like Troye Sivan and Becky G became safe havens for me in those years, especially Troye, who was gay himself.

I rarely spent time with friends because I felt like no one could relate to me. No one knew what I was going through. At least, that is what my mind wanted me to believe. However, in actuality, that’s what society had conditioned me to believe. I learned from such a young age that homosexuality was abnormal and immoral that I thought there was something wrong with me. I felt diseased, and the people around me reinforced that feeling.

Beyond solitude, I ate very little and started missing school… a lot. My grades dipped quite a bit, and so did my weight. Given that I was always labeled the “smart one,” I started being scolded for not taking my academics seriously anymore. While this was far from the reality of the situation, I did not have the heart to explain to my mom what was going on. It was my cross to bear.

The Repercussions

The suicidal ideation

As one might expect, the depression that I experienced, combined with an intense feeling of being stuck in a toxic environment, resulted in suicidal ideation. This is not something that I am proud of, and very few people in my life know about this part of my life. I can recall the most intense suicidal episode that I had very vividly.

I was 17 years old at the time. We were living in a small town called “Canefield” (see below) in a two-story house where the landlord resided on the lower level. I was home alone, which was a rare occurrence, and it was a particularly difficult day mentally.

Feeling very alone and emotionally exhausted, I was sobbing uncontrollably. I remember grabbing a knife and holding it to my wrist. I moved it across the thin flesh over the vein and started to apply pressure. Luckily, for some reason that I cannot exactly recall, something interrupted me. My phone might have beeped, or someone might have come home. Whatever the reason, I did not go through with it, and I am very thankful.

Anger

As I matured and became more informed about how the society around me operated, I started to change a lot. I became very angry. I was angry at everyone, especially my mother and brothers. It took years for me to understand the anger that I felt towards my mother. I understood the anger that I felt towards my brothers because I was constantly jealous of them and how normal their lives seemed. Compared to what I went through, their lives did not seem to be plagued by the same level of pain. I was angry because I wanted what they had.

The anger I felt towards my mother originated from elsewhere. I was angry with her because I blamed her for the life I had to an extent. I blamed her for having to grow up in a place that made me feel so guilty for being born the way I was am. It took years for me to realize that I had misplaced this anger. Interestingly, it took me being physically out of Dominica to forgive my mother for something she did not even do. However, it was so real in my mind that it did not matter. In a similar vein, it took me leaving Dominica to forgive myself for the anger I felt towards my mother.

Gradually separating myself from the church

I grew up going to church almost every Sunday. It was very important to my mother, and it became an important aspect of my life as well. I also went to a catholic high school, which meant that religion was sort of intertwined in every corner of my life and identity. Therefore, you can probably imagine how much pain this caused as I tried to navigate my sexual orientation.

What is interesting, however, is that I have always felt a strong connection to God. I see scripture as historically misinterpreted and constantly bent in ways that allow it to align with the outdated and discriminatory rules/laws that very religious nations like Dominica have. For this reason, in my early adolescence, the church left a rather bad taste in my mouth. I stopped feeling welcomed because I knew the type of conservative mentality that plagued such spaces in Dominica.

Consequently, I started going less and less as I got older. However, I think that this made me more of a spiritual person than anything else. I realized that I could still have a relationship with God despite this separation from the church. At this point in my life, I am still figuring things out in terms of religion, though.

A Fascinating Disparity

It would be rather remiss of me not to mention one final thing. Throughout my life, I observed that there is a certain disparity concerning tolerance from society to lesbians vs. gay men in Dominica.

This is not to say that lesbian women do not face their own struggles from society in Dominica. I witnessed first-hand the derogatory words that both men and other women call women whom they think are different. I can’t even count the number of times I heard a young girl called “zami” if she seemed to be spending too much time with other female friends.

At the same time, however, I noticed that it is much easier for parents to accept or tolerate a lesbian daughter compared to a gay son for some reason. This is easy to see on social media, even with some women being more vocal about their sexuality when they are lesbian. It is virtually impossible to find a gay Dominican male on the internet who is vocal about his sexual orientation.

It is also quite commonplace for men to view these women in some type of sexual manner, which is also a thing in societies all over the world. The negative consequences of this are quite obvious, and I do not feel the need to go into them. On the other hand, heterosexual men are quite violent towards seemingly homosexual men.

Therefore, the disparity in treatment, thought, and tolerance is quite apparent.

Conclusion

With that, I conclude this blog post. I know I could have easily hinted at my sexuality throughout this blog in different ways. However, I know the way the internet works. Sooner or later, someone from back home would come across this, and it would deeply impact me. By making this post, I am controlling my own narrative. Simultaneously, I am also opening myself up as a resource for anyone who might be experiencing even a sliver of what I went through.

Life can get better. I am the happiest I have ever been. I met people who have become family and have saved my life time and time again. My hope is that someone finds this post, navigates through my page, and connects with me to see that, despite all I shared here, I made it through, and they can too. It won’t be easy, but you just have to try.

Thank you for reading. I am happy to converse in the comments.