To my dearest family and beloved friends,

The words in this letter don’t come easy for me and it has taken me quite some time to prepare. What you’re reading is the result of many days and nights’ contemplation, many redactions and many edits. I once read somewhere that perhaps spending time to go prepare a detailed and thorough note would give sufficient time for one’s mental state to change, and provide a good opportunity for reflection and ultimately change one’s opinion. Here is hoping that no one has to read this – at its worst, I suppose, it provides a little more closure than would otherwise have been granted.

To leave a note that outlines a justifiable reason, an insight into my thoughts and feelings, provide closure; hmmm… that seems quite a task. I suppose the best place to start would be the beginning. I guess the starting point would be that throughout my entire life I have felt different to everyone else, and therefore felt isolated. Even now: I have let countless people know that I don’t feel very well and that I feel best when I am with other people, though despite this everyone always seems to have better things to do than to spend time with me. That sounds very needy and pathetic, and I know that I cannot blame others for the faults of my own, and that these problems are mine to deal with; I know that this is a reflection of my own failure and not of others.

I have always struggled to maintain a relationship with anyone. People are often quick to criticise me as being self-centred, arrogant and narcissistic. Although I consciously and deliberately do my best not to display any of these traits, they are criticisms that are often repeated by people of all social circles. Perhaps people get this impression of me because I try so incredibly hard not to let people see what I actually am: a shallow, shy, miserable wreck. When I do come across someone who happens to tolerate me, it seems that I give way too much to the point where the other person feels crowded and will do their best to limit our interaction. Perhaps I am incredibly needy after all?

My sense of feeling different was obvious all throughout my life, and while I put up an exterior of seeming like I could cope, it was often quite the opposite. My interest in computers, electronics, science and politics was seldom shared by my peers and often left me as emotionally isolated as I was physically. In primary school, my peers were quick to see that I was not like them and naturally responded as most children do: to bully, tease and harass. I quickly developed an ability to fight, and ensured that they knew they were welcome to continue, but I would respond in-kind. My school days were filled with torment and harassment, and would come to an end with me feeling dread at the thought of having to go home.

For me to write this is perhaps the hardest of anything I’ve ever done: I know it will bring to light some things and perhaps have a reaction beyond what I intended, but I feel that this must be discussed for other’s sake. My childhood at home can only be described as horrendous and traumatic. The day-to-day was filled with varying counts of physical abuse and torment. If I were not on the receiving end, it would be a ritual of being forced to witness physical brutality and cruelty beset upon my sister. My out of control and trading mother was contrasted and offset by a father who would sit idly and ensure that we children knew that we were in the wrong, and that we must respect our mother. Perhaps the most disgusting memory I have of my childhood was playing with my sister, and both being conscious of the fact that we were unable to laugh as it would result in physical punishment. When leaving the room and walking to the kitchen, I made the unfortunate mistake of maintaining a smile on my facing from having just won connect-four. Mother demanded to know what was funny, and slapped me across the face as a result. I came to learn quite quickly that displaying any form of happiness would not be tolerated. My sister and I would routinely have our heads smashed together if we made the error of laughing audibly. Perhaps the worst part of all of this is that despite mother having an obvious psychological issue, not member of our immediate or extended family put a stop to the abusive behaviour to which we were subjected for many, many years. I can recall only one situation where father had intervened, I was about 7 years old. Mother was belting my sister so severely that I legitimately thought she would be killed. He intervened to remove her from my sister, and tell my sister that she was grounded and should apologise to mother. Everyone who sat idly by with the knowledge of what went on in that house is just as guilty as the mentally-unstable perpetrator.

I recall that one day after school, in Year 10, I was waiting to be collected. I stood there casually talking amongst my group when I saw mother’s car pull up. As I was about to leave, a friend pulled me to one side and said, “I’ve noticed that every time you are about to go home, your whole demeanour changes – is everything okay?” Of course I reaffirmed that everything was fine, but to this day it leaves me to question how a 15 year old child was able to determine that something wasn’t quite right, but not a single teacher noticed the bruises or obvious emotional issues?

Despite all of this going on, I had bigger issues to deal with. At the age of about 10, I became aware of the fact that I was potentially or possibly gay. The thought frightened me, and I decided that it was likely just a phase that I was going through and besides, I’d often be told that “one day, when you’re older, you’ll like girls.” I decided that these are thoughts and feelings that I’d keep to myself, and dare not let on. By the age of 14, I was very aware that I was sexually attracted to members of the same sex. I was worried by this, because I was very aware of the homophobic and intolerant culture which plagues our community. Even at home, I was very aware of the views my parents held towards gays, and how they shouldn’t be allowed to marry, shouldn’t be allowed to raise children, should be questioned in public about their preferred sexual position.

In my teenage years, my socially awkward-self found refuge in the online world. Here there were people that were open-minded and like-minded. For what felt like the first time, I was at home and comfortable. I had friends, and I had people that cared about me. I had discovered computer games and this quickly became my sport. Looking back, I think I could safely say that I would have spent a minimum of 8 hours each day, every day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks in the year online. The natural result was that I became incredibly good at computer games, and incredibly competitive.

However, there was a problem. Even in this online world, I felt different and slightly isolated and many of the people that I’d befriended would later go on to describe me as being self-centred, arrogant and narcissistic. To this day, I still do not know what causes people to take such offence to my personality. I would eventually find myself with just as few friends in the online world as I had in the offline one. Typical to both worlds, I’d find that typically people would only engage me in conversation if they wanted something: mostly money, occasionally advice, and often assistance with hacking someone or something.

By the time I was 17, I had become increasingly nervous that I hadn’t begun to like girls. I would often wake in the morning and see myself in the mirror and feel guilt, embarrassment and shame. Moreover, I felt like a monster who had failed my family. I had decided that I would let people know in the online world that I was bi-sexual. I was scared about the potential reaction: I had made real friends, and there were perhaps real consequences. All in all, I wanted to see how it would go, and at the worst case I could simply change my alias and start afresh. The best part was that I was completely anonymous, so it was a good test-bed without affecting my real-life self. The response was surprising to me: on the whole people didn’t care at all. Many people confided in me that they felt the same way. Suddenly, I didn’t feel as different as what I had thought.

Come age 20, I was still living at home because I still had a little sister to protect and look after. I was now boxing six days a week, and had the physical size and build that would allow me to handle myself. Any time my younger sister would unintentionally acquire mother’s attention, I would do something that would see her vent her rage at me. I was often left with bruises and bleeding arms as a result of bites or scratches, but at least I could handle it. One weekend stoush was particularly bad, and I was kicked out of home. I’d spoken to father, and he said that I should apologise for what I did. I felt completely betrayed. Lost, angry and frustrated – I quit my job and flew to Melbourne, Victoria the next day to spend time with a friend I had made in the online world.

Once in Melbourne, I met up with my friend at Crown Casino and had a great time. I felt incredibly relaxed to be away from it all. He organised for some of his friends to come around and that we’d all go out for a drink. When being introduced to one of his friends, my heart skipped a beat – I felt an instant bond and attraction to this person, and had never felt this way about anyone in my life. He asked if I wanted to go back to his house, and without hesitation, I ditched my mate and went back with him.

We got talking, and I told him about how I was kicked out and what was going on. He offered that if I wanted to move to Vic to get away from it all, I could live with him until I got a job and got myself sorted. I agreed and couldn’t have been happier. The next day, I had gotten a call from a company back in my home state where they said they’d heard I was out of worked and was wondering if I would work for them. They gave me an offer which I could not turn down. I told my newly met acquaintance of the news, but that I really enjoyed his company and that I would buy a house when I went back and that he would be welcome to live with me if he wanted.

While back home, I was working 7 days a week and hours so long that I was basically living at work. My new friend and I would skype and sms each other every day. Ten months later he told me that he had not renewed his lease on his property, and has given notice at his job as was ready to live with me. I told him that I had unfortunately been unable to purchase a property as-yet. He noted that it was no problem, he would live with his grandparents here until I got sorted. To catch up again, I had paid for us both to fly to Qld for a holiday. We spent a week together travelling around the Gold Coast, trying many different restaurants and spending way too much at the casino. At the end of the week, he asked if I would be able to fly him back to my home-state with me. I obliged; he left everything behind and moved in with his grand-parents.

In the same state, we both spent all our free time together. We would go to night clubs, pubs and restaurants together. Go to different ice cream places, and go on long car cruises together. We’d go to the movies together, go to the casino together, and play computer games together. We were inseparable. As I was still living at home, and he at his grandparents, the only way for us to sleep over was for me to get a hotel room – which I did, almost ritually every weekend for about four months.

At the end of this period, I had managed to buy my own home. I got the keys to the property at 7pm in the middle of the week; we both moved out of our previous homes and into our new one that night with nothing but a couple of air mattresses and a backpack each of clothes.

The next couple of months were the best I could recall. I was on my own and had an amazing person to spend all my time with. We continued to do everything together: continued to go watch movies together, go to ice cream places, and go on car cruises and other such fun activities. I think I was actually happy – probably for the first time in my life – genuine happiness.

Four months later, everything seemed to … well I don’t know really. Out of nowhere, he told me that he had got a girlfriend and asked if it would be alright if she could come over and we’d all hang out and perhaps watch a movie. A little bit surprised by this, I said sure – that it was fine by me. When she came over, we were introduced and shook hands. They both went into the bedroom and shut the door. As I could hear them having sex, I decided to sit outside so I would not have to hear anything. About seven hours later, they come out and he says to me that they’re going on a car cruise and will be back later. They didn’t come back for quite some time, so I went to bed. The next morning they were both in their room together, and I waited until about midday and decided that I needed to do something, asked if they wanted to come for a drive or something and they said no. I went off for an hours’ long drive on my own. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel quite down at this point in time.

When I had returned, she had gone. I asked if he wanted to do anything, go out to a restaurant or whatever, he said that he wasn’t interested. For the next week, each night I suggested to do different things, but he said that he wasn’t interested and would rather just watch some TV. On the beginning of the weekend, he said that he was going to his gf’s and didn’t know when he’d be back. On my own, I decided to try to entertain myself back in the Online World. Unfortunately, by this time I had lost most of my friends there – I was no longer playing the game that they were, and had lost touch with most. It seemed there was nothing to do and no one to talk to. It was now well into the night, I was on my own and running through everything in my head. I felt incredibly down and felt like I had just been dropped like a hot potato. I know that we weren’t dating or anything, but despite it all I couldn’t help but feel that there was something there. I felt that overnight I had lost my best friend and a partner in one go. Not only that, but I had no friends either online or off to talk to.

Contemplating how much of a fool I had been, how naïve and how stupid, I decided that there was nothing left for me. This isn’t the first time I had felt like committing suicide. From about 13 I learned that perhaps 3 times a year, for a period of about a week, I would feel extremely down and thought nothing but self-hatred. I learned that if I could just make it through those weeks, I would be right. I found the best way to deal with those periods was to shut myself in my room and stay away from everyone and everything. But this was a little different – I have never, ever felt so incredibly down. I think what I was feeling was a broken heart.

I had been a failure my whole life, I was isolated and it was impossible for me to maintain a relationship with anyone. I couldn’t stand to see them together, as it was a constant reminder that what they had, I would never, ever have. After hours of running through the situation in my head over and over, I took some tablets that had drowsiness as a symptom, sat outside, drank a heap of beer and then tied a plastic bag over my head. I remember my breaths starting relatively shallow, and then becoming deeper and deeper. I remember starting to feel dizzy and then my eyes beginning to close.

I’m not too sure how much time passed, by I remember being woken up by my friend shaking me in a frantic state shouting my name. As I started to come round, he was pacing back and forth swearing and asking someone for a phone. I told him that it wasn’t necessary and he demanded that I talk to him, that I could tell him anything and that he would be there to help. I told him that I was gay… and that I was in love with him. Wow, the first person that I’d ever told. He sat down and we had a beer, and talked for most of the night. After many beers, he told me that when he was living in Vic he thought that he was gay, but didn’t want to be and that the only reason he got a gf was to prove to his parents that he wasn’t gay. He said that he wasn’t all that in to her anyway, and was likely going to break up with her.

I felt relieved and confused. I felt different that I had actually told someone that I was gay. I had spent my whole life carefully monitoring everything I said or did to ensure that no one knew. I had ensured I didn’t do anything or act in a particular way that would encourage people to question my sexuality. And in the odd occasion that someone did ask if I was gay, my face would go bright red, I would deny it and people would move on. To go from hiding your entire life, to suddenly being able to be yourself is quite a confronting experience, especially when you don’t actually know what yourself actually is. It was very comforting to hear that someone else felt like this too, especially my best friend of all people.

A week later I began to become a bit concerned. I was still feeling down and still filled with thoughts of self-hatred and a motivation to commit suicide. For most of this time I spent alone, my friend was mostly at his girlfriend’s house. I was worried because for the past ten or so years, I’d need only make it past a week and I would start to feel normal. I still found myself motivated to cry, scream and filled with a sense of rage. I just wanted to get into my car and drive it into a tree, or to jump of my balcony, or to hang myself. I think what I really wanted was to just go to sleep and to never wake up. Yes, that was it and how lovely it would be: to go to sleep and to never wake up. At 2am, I got in contact with an old friend from the online world, one of those people who can get anything for a price – you know the type.

I asked him if it were possible for him to source me some Nembutal – a drug used for euthanasia capable of putting a human to sleep and having them never wake up; exactly what I wanted. He said that it was possible, but asked me what was wrong – he said he needed a reason before he’d supply something like that. I told him briefly what my issue was, I re-assured him that I was going to commit suicide anyway, and that his intervention could only change whether or not I did it peacefully. He gave me a price and said it would be there within two weeks.

For the next two weeks, while I waited for my drug to arrive, I shut myself in my cupboard and stayed in there all day, leaving only to go to the toilet or to go to bed. I did this for days on end. On a random day in my third week of this episode, laying in the cupboard with tears running down my face, out of nowhere I felt like this huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I knew that everything was over, that I could finally leave my cupboard and not be plagued by these thoughts and feelings anymore. I messaged my contact online to tell him not to worry about it, he told me that he never bought it and never intended to, and he said that he was just trying to delay me and hope that I’d have changed my mind.

Over the next week, I decided that what I’d like to do is tell my family what I really was. It took many days before I finally built up the courage to drive to my old home and sit down with mum and tell her that I was gay. We always had a close relationship, I knew that she would understand – but I was worried to tell my father whom I didn’t know too well. “Mum, I’m gay”, I said. She burst into tears. Well, that was unexpected. I told her everything, about how I’d known for a long time, about how depressed I had been about it for a long time, about what has happened recently, and about how I had decided to kill myself. “Are you sure?” she replied. “But how can you be sure?” “You don’t look gay” “You don’t act gay” “Maybe you’re just shy” “Have you tried with girls?” “Well at least you can just be celibate for life.” After about a two hour discussion, I said that I had to go and asked her to promise me not to tell dad. She agreed not to.

Well that all went surprisingly worse than expected. I honestly did not expect that reaction. A week later, I had built up the courage to tell my sister. I sat down with her, and said, “The reason I wanted to see you today is to tell you that I’m gay.” “YAY!” she said, “That’s wonderful”. Hmm… I didn’t expect that reaction either. A week later mum had phoned to tell me that she had told dad, that she was sorry she couldn’t keep it a secret, but that he has known from the day I had told her. He never said anything to me, and didn’t change the way he acts towards me, if anything we have been closer since. I didn’t expect that reaction. I guess you really can’t really predict how people will respond to a situation.

So there is me now, a different person to the one I’ve known my entire life. No longer having to hide, free to be me. But what is there for me now? I am still the same lonely, socially awkward, failure of a person today as I was a year ago. The only difference is that now people know that I’m gay… one more reason to add to the list: self-centred, arrogant, narcissistic and gay. I have done my best to meet like-minded people, but I suppose I don’t really quite know where to look. I have tried websites, but it seems that everyone there is after something different to what I want. I feel just as isolated there as I did in primary school: no one seems to be able to hold a conversation, and having interests in electronics, science and IT seems to be a very lonely field indeed.

I have asked if people would accompany me to a gay club as I don’t feel confident or comfortable going on my own. I can sense their body tense up as they are presented with the awkward and uncomfortable request; they quickly change the subject. At the end of the day, I suppose I just need to be kept busy, distracted and around other people. Knowing this, on a Friday night, I have messaged about twenty odd people asking what they are doing. Of those that have replied, most have indicated that they have other plans, have no money or that they are simply too lazy to do anything: all have rejected a request to do something, to simply spend time together or grab something to eat – even if I have offered to pay.

So where does that leave me today? Well, I am a socially awkward failure of a person who has spent the last couple of hours alone, typing up a manifest based on the advice of some self-help website.

Has it changed my thoughts on anything? Absolutely, my thoughts on quite a few subjects have changed when you actually take the time to reflect and recall the details.