"I got my bags, walked around the corner, and cried for about an hour on the street..."

"One weekend when I was about 17, I lied to my strict Christian African parents that I was at a church function for the weekend when I had actually got a train to Heaven in London with my best friend at the time. Somehow, details of clubs, venues, and names of who I had been spending my time with had been produced to my mother unbeknown to me and when I returned home, I found my bags packed by the front door and my mother in tears of rage.

"She screamed at me, 'Are you gay?', and I thought to myself, End it now and admit it, or suffer more years of secrecy. I shouted back in fear, 'Yes, Mum, I am – and what are you going to do about it?' At that, my father came flying down the stairs, shouting at me in Shona (my original language) in words I'd rather not repeat. I started crying profusely because it had just dawned on me that that was the first time I had said those words out loud and this was the situation I was presented with. My father screamed at me that no child of his could be gay and that I had a demon in me that needed casting out. My mother, however, was no longer angry; she was now weeping as though she had just been told I had died. She simply touched my shoulder and told me to get out. 'Get out and go to those friends you have now that can accept what you've become, because I cannot.'

"I pleaded and cried with them to no avail until I got to the point of anger where I thought, Fuck this, I'm going. I got my bags, walked around the corner, and cried for about an hour on the street until it started to get dark and I realised I had to go somewhere. I ended up staying with my then best friend for about nine months. My family did not talk to me in this time at all.

"I randomly got a phone call to come home nine months later from my mother. It wasn't easy, but I did. It took a few more months for things to smoothen out and my family to accept I was even in the house, but fast-forward nearly 10 years later, and I now openly talk to my parents about my life and relationships. It was the hardest time of my life in all honesty and I'll never forget not knowing who had decided to out me in such a fashion. It was later revealed to me that my best friend at the time, who took me in when my parents had kicked me out, had been the same person who had delivered the blow – who had made the call and informed them of everything. The irony."