Sadly, five young gay men have killed themselves in the last three weeks. In response, Dan Savage, who writes the sex-advice column, Savage Love, has started a YouTube project called, “It Gets Better”. The idea is for gay people to post videos talking about their lives as homosexual teens and how much better their lives have become today. Hopefully, the project will help gay kids realize that there’s a future out there, after high school, after the bullying - things may suck now, but life gets better.
Here’s a link to the project:
And here’s what Dan had to say about it:
I don’t know, maybe this witnessing. But knowing that there’s a healthy group of gay people here, I thought maybe some of them might like to share their stories. Too damn many suicides.
I’m for it. As a parent of a not-gay-as-far-as-I-know-but-I-honestly-wouldn’t-care-if-he-was teen, I appreciate anyone’s genuine help with this raising a teenager thing. It’s freakin’ hard, and my kid isn’t even a particularly problematic one. And it’s easier for a lot of teenagers to really hear and appreciate words coming from adults who aren’t their parents, even if their parents would say the same exact thing. It’s a perfectly normal part of the individuation process for kids to believe that their own parents are complete and utter idiots, but that other selected adults are pretty okay. I like that this lets teens listen to people they’re willing to listen to. Of course, I hope the advice remains sincere, factually accurate and not too terrifying. So I like that they’re reviewing the videos before adding them to the channel.
I wish I could go to high schools and tell the outcasts and the bullied a simple and blindingly obvious fact yet one that would have made all the difference to me:
“You know kids, after graduation… you never have to see these assholes again. Ever ever ever ever ever ever.”
A girl I went to high school with, who I now know is gay, attempted suicide during her junior year. Through another friend I learned long after the fact that she had tried to talk to a teacher at the school (that everyone was pretty sure was also gay) about what she was going through. The teacher basically turned her away. Years later they crossed paths and the teacher expressed heartfelt grief at not having been able to help her, but she was afraid for her job should anyone find out she was gay. This story breaks my heart in 16 directions.
Remembering that I graduated from high school 24 years ago I had just assumed, since there are LGBT Unions in schools now, that things are better.
some facebook friends have shared this video posted by Ellen DeGeneres.
I read about this kind of thing, or see it in TV shows, and I just feel… pity towards the bullies and the queen bees who think that anything they do as the leaders of the high school social scene ever mattered to anybody outside their tiny world, and will ever be relevant ever again.
I’m not gay, but I was bullied - for being smart. And the teachers pulled my mother into a conference to tell her (and I) that I had to dumb it down to get along with others.
And my mother looked at the teacher and the principal and said “why?, she’s never going to see these assholes again, she has another two years and she’ll go to college with people who are smart.”
I graduated early. My mother was right. And she rocks.
High school is a small and insular world. If you don’t find your niche, its rough. The wide world - there are LOTS of niches for you to fit in.
Dumbing down is never the answer, but it doesn’t hurt to learn the skill of actually being able to (amicably) interact with people who are not as intelligent as you. Plus, I find that high scholastic intelligence seems to coincide with lower social intelligence. I spent most of my time in high school studying how people interacted with each other.
Plus, I’ve noticed that almost everyone I know that has been homeschooled has social skills deficits. You don’t necessarily need to get along with your class, but it is helpful to learn how to get along with people in general. Or heck, how to deal with people who don’t like you.
It’s shit like this that makes me really glad to have been homeschooled. I never had to deal with the bullies (either for being gay, or for being smart or for any of the other crap).
That’s not to say I didn’t have my share of issues, but yes…it does get better. Becoming an adult and finding out you’re NOT alone and there ARE people out there who will love and accept you for who you are is a wonderful thing. I truly hope these kids can learn to hold on that few extra years it takes to get to find that out.
I just told my youngest daughter exactly this just last week. I’ve had a number of teens come through my house and I’ve told them the same thing.
It’s not worth it to stress over people whom in the long run aren’t likely to be a part of your everyday life once you graduate. Keep trying to find someone to connect with to help you sort yourself out a bit better so it can get better.
When I was 16 my birth giver left my stepfather and started dating a woman. They were “roommates” for the longest time but I figured there was something else going on.
It was strange in high school because there weren’t too many kids with gay parents that I could relate to and I really wish I would have picked up a clue that there were gay students that I could have gotten to know. Now, many years later I’m finding out just how many gay students I went to school with and it’s pretty cool. I just wish I had known 20yrs ago.
My 14yo son’s best friend just told us recently that she’s gay and my kids didn’t even bat an eye. It doesn’t matter to them in the least. And I introduced her to my birth givers first girlfriend that has to this day been an amazing parent to me in hopes that my son’s friend can feel a bit better about herself and see that yes, it does get better. She’s a great kid anyway.
Raguleader, I know. High school is just so abnormal in terms of social stuff. I think it was Stephen King who said that you can’t even cadge a beer on being a high school football superstar after graduation. High school is just a WTF world. The good news is that it does seem like a lot of the queen bee and Yah Dude types who rule the school are the kind who will end up meth heads who eat catfood. Antoir, my girlfriend was homeschooled as well and she cannot believe how bad my experiances were. (deaf, fat LD and queer kid in a very homogenious suburban school. I still shudder about my experiances and I pretty much have PTSD from high school)
When I was a kid, the word “gay” wasn’t even in our vocabulary . . . But “homo” was . . . and “queer” and “faggot” and many others. There were all kinds of negative words for what I was, but nothing positive. I wish my 2010 self could go back and tell those kids that it gets better. And it’s not just the gay kids who need to be told. It’s also the bullies. They need to be told that the damage their words can do is temporary; that the targets of their hate can become strong and happy individuals . . . and so can they.
I don’t think it is necessarily ‘hate’, well, maybe it is. It is ignorance and fear. Like they can catch the gay. Unfortunately, the only thing that is caught is The Stupid.
Bullying is a way for someone with a low esteem to help themselves feel better than someone else. Everyone out there has been a victim of bullying of some form. It stings and you never forget what an asshole that person was to you at that moment. Emotional scars from teenage years cut deep. Bullying has taken place since there were two kids on the planet and will ALWAYS take place, despite the No Bullying Zone signs at school and all the touchy-feely stories in books. IF you do not learn from the BULLYING and Learn how to be a BETTER Member of Society and Learn Compassion, they you haven’t learned shit, grown into the person you were meant to be and are still a victim. A victim of some teenage punkass with zits who has free rent in your head for (x) years. And that is sad.
**A RANT **
Bullied for years at school not because of my race, sexual preferences or creed, but because I had a funny name. Not like Marmalade Vestible size=1] It is an actual name, srsly. . But because my last name was a Noun of sorts in a round about way. Dei. It is latin for God. You know, Je-fucking-hovah. Pronounced die. yeaaaah. You are just sitting there thinking back to your teen years and all the jokes you can make with my last name. Trust me. There isn’t one I haven’t heard. Ever.
Every fucking day. In every fucking class. It was like key people just said my name in its offensive form over and over. (Well, that was my first name abuse.) After the first time, it.wasn’t.funny. It’s called beating the gag to death. You don’t do the same gag twice, you tards. That was 7th grade. Then it morphed into another non-funny name regarding my last name. It excelerated during high school, as one can imagine because I was a carcass to their jackal mentality.
Every.fucking.class. Under people’s breaths in the hallway. Notes in my locker. Whispered in class behind books at me. Well, aren’t you all so goddamn funny and amusing? We don’t know why my grades sucked. Well, when you think no one likes you and you are constantly picked on by a herd of retards, your head is FUCKING CRAMMED with other SHIT other than the bookwork before you. And yeah, I thought of killing myself because I was so tired of it all and so very alone and had a SHIT LOAD of OTHER FUCKING DEPRESSING SHIT going on in my life death, death, a fucking shitstorm of a depressing disease for my brothers’, mental illness running rampant in the boundaries of my house. Full plate, TYVM. Woooooooo! and the school just told me to go to church and pray for help. Well, a fucklotta good that did.
No one ever stepped in and said, " Stop it."
Not one teacher.
In a Catholic School.
Not my Mom. Her mentality was it was something you had to put up with. YAY for victimhood!
Not my Brother’s. One leech, two vulcans and a Street Corner Prophet. The latter always threatened to beat up anyone who hurt his baby sister, but he was a) a live wire to say the least b) paranoid about jews and niggers getting him. I’m not sure if they were after him as a large group or planning single handed jew-ninja attacks. But that was his world and I didn’t invite friends over because he was ummmm a little much. I have nothing against the demographics that haunted his paranoia.
Never got help in those quarters ever. School. Church. Family.
But I knew as I wallowed in self pity as only a teenager can, laid there on my bed just wanting to disappear until it was ALL OVER and shit. Or someone would fucking rescue me from it all. thanks disney! I KNEW it had to get better. I knew if I killed myself I would miss out on something fucking better than the steaming pile of dog poo that was high school.
My comebacks started and it was the beginning of the Sarcasm. puns were later. Sarcasm is always a first line of defense. You have to know I was pretty f’n shy too.
Because of the bullies, I have a razor sharp wit and think differently than the rest of the herd.
It hasn’t been an easy row since high school with crap in my family that is ongoing, I have a great and understanding husband, Fantastic children and a cat that hates me, but I have always been able to make people laugh and that, too me, is something.
Thanks, bullies.
fuck, I have 20 min. to shit,shower and shave, pack a lunch and go to work.
[/rant]
