I’m a gay female. I’ve known since 4th grade, when I had a crush on my friend Julia, who was the smartest girl in our small Christian-school class. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to be her (I was a close second, we were both bookworms) or be WITH her. In 6th grade, I went to public school and suppressed it all throughout middle school as I was raised in a conservative Christian household, but my freshman year I fell in love with a close friend of mine who also had feelings for me. We dated in secret and eventually broke it off after 9 months. Since that time, I fucked around with other women, not succeeding at all just because i was still missing her a bit. My junior year of high school I got out of band practice and walked to my car, but saw my mom parked next to it. She took me in her car and told me she found all the letters, and that she knew about “S” (my ex). I was mortified. The next few days were tense, but I thought maybe I could get through it. I stayed at various friends’ houses and just didn’t come home after cross country or band practice so I didn’t have to talk to my parents. One day in early August, my parents told me I was going to counseling. The first session wasn’t terrible, but they started getting worse. It was a Christian counseling center, so I automatically felt awful about myself. She’d ask questions to try and “find the root of my homosexuality”, ask if “men ever did anything to me”, and ask if I had crushes on my friends. Coupled with a leg injury from running and MRSA, I almost considered the possibility of just ending my life because “it was only downhill from here”. My parents also restricted the time I spent with girls they suspected I liked or was talking to. At a band competition my mom made me stay in a hotel with her so I wouldn’t be with the rest of the girls. I felt so awful. In December of my junior year, I just so happened to attract the attention of a senior guy, who took me to our winter formal and hung out with me a bit. At the time, I was talking to a closeted girl on my track team who was also a close friend, and we were considering dating. Things fell out with her because she was scared of what people would say and what her dad would say. Eventually, in early March, the guy asked me out. I said yes. Over the past four months, I had developed a bond with him and was semi-emotional, somewhat physical. It was nothing like when I loved a woman, but the fact her cared for me and had sympathy for my situation got to me. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t start dating him initially because I wanted to protect myself. Shortly after I took my parents, I found a letter in the mail from the counseling service asking if we’d be continuing the monthly sessions, with some other insurance jargon at the bottom. I took the letter and threw it out. They stopped sending me as soon as they thought I was “straight”. Things between my parents and I have gotten better. I was never close with them before, but now that I’m 18 and presumably “straight”, they’ve been really nice and supportive of me and stuff. They don’t know that I have still engaged in sex with women (my bf and I have friends (both girls) who are dating each other and sometimes we have group sex), or that I still am attracted to women. I wasn’t planning on dating a guy before my current boyfriend, and if we were to break up, I don’t know if I’d date another guy again. I’m terrified of the future, but at the same time, I’m currently content with my life to an extent. I have felt like forgiving my parents and letting my hatred and animosity go, but is that really the right decision? Do they love me for “me”, or are they just glad I’m finally the perfect child?