Published: 2018-07-18T00:00:00.000+01:00
Edited: 2025-02-24T00:00:00.000+00:00
Status: 🌲evergreen

How biphobia almost drove me to suicide

Reading time: 5 minutes

In my post about why my bisexuality is worth talking about, I spoke about its relationship with my mental health.

Today I want to expand on that and talk about how my bisexuality has had an impact on my mental health. Or more accurately; how other peoples' reactions to my bisexuality have had an impact on my mental health.

And a detrimental one at that.

I want to talk about one event in particular.

I have spoken rather candidly about my suicide attempt in early 2017. It's not a secret that's something I went through and am still recovering from.

It's also the main focs of this story, so if that's gonna be not great for you I advise you back out now.

While I've written extensively about my suicide attempt, both here on Medium and elsewhere, what I haven't really talked about is the role my bisexuality, and societal reactions to my bisexuality, played in getting me to that point.

So, story time.

I have been out as bisexual to most of my friend circle for years. Comfortably so. I've never shied away from talking about my sexuality with them, and have been open about my sexuality over on Twitter since July 2014.

In September 2016, for bisexual visibility day, I came out on Facebook. Where the family are. The people who's reactions I was most worried about.

The reaction I got to that announcement was mostly positive. Some of my friends were a little surprised it wasn't as widely known as they'd assumed, but they were great about it.

Some people just didn't comment, and their silence is as damning as anything else.

Some family members... well, let's just say their reaction left a little something to be desired.

In the grand scheme of things it wasn't even the worst reaction to coming out. Thank fuck.

And it wasn't anything so bad that it shattered my relationship with that particular person; a few days of frosty silence and an awkward phone call pretty much sorted things out.

So no, it wasn't anything particularly heinous, but it was still a thing. And it hurt.

More than I really let on at the time.

The first time I really noticed my mental health taking a dive was in November. Less than two months later.

For more than a year I tried to chalk it up to coincidence, putting the blame squarely on other factors and ignoring the effect my coming out and the reaction I got might have had on my mental health. I can't do that any more.

Coming out wasn't the trigger that sent me off the deep end---that would be the US election, thanks guys---but it was certainly a contributing factor in the overall decline of my mental health.

It's not easy to admit, but it's the truth.

The less-than-ideal reaction I got from family upon coming out as bisexual was one of the factors in my worsening mental illness.

That's gonna be a punch in the gut for anyone who can see themselves in what I'm saying but hey, now you know how I felt.

Smash cut to February 2017, when I was at my lowest point. The day I decided I didn't want to love any more.

I'd been out to my family (those who have social media at least) for almost six months at this point, so coming out isn't directly responsible for me trying to take my own life.

But the way society as a whole treats bisexuals definitely is. The way society treats me.

I haven't actually talked that much about what the actual trigger was that day, the thing that pushed me from merely being horribly depressed to being actively suicidal.

Part of that is because the details are still an intensely private thing, and I never ever want to trigger the same feeling in anyone else by giving too much detail.

But mostly it's that in the immediate aftermath it didn't feel as important as other factors. Things like getting me the support and medical help I need to not want to kill myself any more.

You know. Little things.

But now, almost 15 months later, I'm finally ready to talk about it.

(I do want to take a moment to celebrate though. I am 15 months post-suicide attempt and I am doing great. I have survived 15 months longer than I thought I would, and I've worked hard to make sure I've got at least another 15 months ahead of me. Fuck you brain, you don't get to win.)

Okay, back to what happened.

I was at work the day I decided life wasn't a thing I could cope with any more, working a shitty retail job that I'd taken on over Christmas and had somehow become full time.

One of my least favourite things about that job was putting newspapers through the till. There was something about sudden and unexpected exposure to headlines screaming about how the world was an escalating dumpster fire that made my mood plummet.

The overt racism, xenophobia and fascist sympathising most of the British press regularly engages in wasn't a fun thing to be exposed to either.

I'm not 100% sure on the details of that day, but I'm fairly sure there were a couple of trash headlines that day. So my mood was already hovering around zero.

And then on one of my breaks I read an article.

I can't remember where I read this article, and honestly I don't care to go looking for it, but suffice to say it was about biphobia in the LGBT+ community. Which, if you look up the stats, is pretty fucking rampant.

I read that article and something just... broke in me.

I was barely able to cope with the world being shitty in general, and utterly floored by this evidence that it was being shitty to me in particular. For something that I can't help, that's intrinsic to my characters and that I don't want to change.

There was this crushing realisation that there was nowhere I could go and really fit in. Nowhere in society that truly wanted me. The straights didn't want me but neither did the gay community. I was an outcast in both.

For the rest of my life I would have to live with these truths, that whatever community I found myself in wouldn't ever fully accept me as myself.

Sure I could pretend, but I've never been very good at that. Even before I was out I never really hid my attractions, I just thought that some of them "didn't count".

So living a lie and pretending to be heterosexual was out.

And the prospect of living with the knowledge that no one wanted me for me hurt too much.

I'd been self-harming and having ideation for a while, but that was what pushed the idea of killing myself from a 'maybe, at some point' to a 'today, and I have a plan.'

Now we all know I didn't actually go through with, for which I am eternally thankful. But I came far too close for comfort. And it didn't need to happen.

I have lived with this uncomfortable truth for over a year, the shape of it itching under my skin, but no more. I'm calling out those who's shitty behaviour has had both a direct and indirect effect on me.

Next time decide to be biphobic, no matter what form that takes, be it reinforcing the idea that we're greedy or choosy or sluts, or making statements that actively exclude us from your community, think of me.

Think of the fact that your exclusion, your belittling, your dismissal and your stereotypes almost cost me my life.

Think of all my fellow bisexuals who weren't so lucky.

Think of all my fellow bisexuals who have been ostracised by family, left by their partners and shunned by their communities for being honest about who they are.

Think about everyone who has ever been beaten up for being bisexual.

Their blood is on the hands of anyone who perpetuates hate and violence against bisexuals. My blood was almost on those same hands.

My bisexuality didn't cause me to almost take my life. I want to make that perfectly fucking clear.

My sexuality is a beautiful thing. The fact that I a attracted to people of more than one gender is amazing! I can look at people of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds and think "dang they're pretty. I'd kiss them if they let me."

Because that's what my bisexuality is. That's what people hate me for. For finding people attractive and maybe wanting to kiss them.

That's it.

My bisexuality is a beautiful thing.

The hate I have gotten, still get and will get in the future is not. It is ugly and hurtful and it kills.

It almost killed me.

I'm glad it didn't and that I get to be my beautiful bisexual self a little while longer.

Because I don't want my cause of death to be bigotry. And neither should you.

Originally published at medium.com