Chapter Eight – We Don’t Need Fixing

Seeing how they reacted towards this girl gave me hope, hope that maybe there were people out there who didn’t care much about who kissed whom, they just were happy that people were living their lives.

I was looking forward to staying with people like that and removing the rest from my life. I slowly started separating myself from my friend’s sister. She made me learn how to hate myself, maybe I could learn how to love myself again without her in my life.

The more I removed people who found fault in me the more I started growing into myself. I found new friends on my soccer team, and they were more than amazing. When I told them I liked a girl they didn’t give me weird looks or tell me I needed fixing. They just laughed at me and asked me if she was hot.

It felt so weird to be with people who didn’t see fault in me. I couldn’t believe that they existed. They didn’t think I deserved to die or that I needed to sleep with a man to prove I wasn’t attracted to them, they just needed me to be me. 17-year-old me was so happy.

So I broke up with my amazing boyfriend then, mostly to set myself free. I realized that I wasn’t only hurting me but also him in that relationship. I couldn’t be the girlfriend he wanted me to be, I didn’t want him thinking something was wrong with him because there was none. He was a great human being if not close to perfect, he still is amazing even today, I just didn’t have feelings for him or any man. I was different in my own way.

Slowly I stopped praying for myself to stop feeling, I stopped praying to be like everyone else and started praying for self-love and strength.

It felt so great to be surrounded by people who wanted you to be you. I felt like everyday I had every right to live. The thoughts of death being the option weren’t there anymore and the thought of me needing fixing were slowly fading.

To be honest what would I have needed fixing with? Prayer failed, pleasing people failed, living a lie failed even the death scares failed. I still had feelings for girls.

I now had so many questions to all the people who called me names and taught me how to hate myself. Why did they feel I needed fixing? I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t do anything illegal. The only thing I did was feel, so trying to fix me was literally the same as killing me.

There were a lot of people who needed help or fixing in the world, but not the ones who felt love towards anyone the same gender as theirs. How could they fix someone for loving when love came naturally.

They couldn’t fix us, because we were not broken.