Kasha’s story: Finding peace with my sexuality and religion

I grew up in a religious family and religion was a really important part of my life. When I turned 16, I discovered that I was gay and I knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation to have with my family.

Once I did tell my family, the years that followed became increasingly difficult. Most people in my family couldn’t understand or accept how I was feeling and the worst part was that I was told I was no longer a part of the faith that had been a huge influence for me.

It’s important to say that coming out didn’t cause my mental ill health; it only added to it. At this time, I was already starting to show signs of my illness [anxiety, depression and OCD] and, with the added pressure from family, my mental health continued to deteriorate.

During the early days, I gave up on a lot of things. I turned away from my faith, pushed my family and friends away and lost a lot of hope in myself. I was prepared to throw my life away, because I didn’t feel it had any real value or purpose any more.

Some years passed and the emptiness inside was painful. People around me had come to accept me to a certain degree, although there was always an elephant in room we didn’t talk about.

It was during this time that I revisited my faith – only this time through a new lense. I picked up books and read them. In doing so, I found my own peace between my faith and my sexuality and this gave me a reason to keep going. Of course, people still made comments from time to time, but I knew that practising my faith as best as I could helped ease some of the issues I had.

The biggest impact of all of this on my mental health was how isolated I felt. I didn’t have the support from the most important people in my life, which meant I didn’t feel that I could talk to them.

Shame prevented me getting support

My mental ill health was there before all this started, but because I was ashamed, I wasn’t able to talk about it. It took a decade and a major mental breakdown for me to finally come to terms with what I was going through. Ten years of my life lost when I could have been getting treatment to get better.

I would like to share some important observations. Firstly, mental illness is not just a part of being LGBTQIA+, even though there are high levels of depression and anxiety in the community. Secondly, LGBTQIA+ people can have strong religious beliefs, and the two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Finally, showing compassion for another person in spite of their sexuality does not take anything away from you. Excluding people, pushing them away and making them feel unwanted only leads to them looking for acceptance elsewhere and this can often push them into the hands of people who will do them harm.

What might have improved things for me?

What would have made my story better? Here are five pieces of advice if you’re receiving news that a loved one is gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans, and you want to be there for them.

• Remember that your LGBT family or friends haven’t changed. Don’t treat them differently or push them away.
• Do some reading yourself. Try and find a way that you can support that person by being better informed.
• Have open and honest conversations with them about their sexuality, but don’t push it. Take the time to build up trust and you will find that open conversations get easier.
• Take time out for yourself to reflect. When someone drops a bombshell like this, it can be easy to get lost in the wreckage.
• Remember that the person going through this is having a hard time too and it is probably a lot harder than what you are experiencing.