Coming Out of the Story
What is the story you are telling yourself?
“Are you okay?”
The young barista held out the lactose-free iced latte with an extra shot. I hadn’t noticed. I had just been staring at her.
She must have been about twenty, a little taller than me, blonde and enticing blue eyes.
Classically pretty.
My heart raced. At first, I thought I was having a panic attack, but the steam train of dark thoughts wasn’t there.
There were other thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings that made heat rise to my face and increased blood flow to other parts of my body.
“Oh yeah sorry.” I grabbed the coffee and stormed out of the cafe.
It was a stunning sunny day - as is often the case in this part of Australia.
The lake sparkled as a group of old ladies walked their various Maltese and oodle-type dogs beside it.
Meanwhile, I stood there shaking. Tears started to stream down my face. Out of fear. Out of joy.
I felt as though I was seeing colour for the first time.
It’s not every day that you realise you are experiencing and recognising sexual attraction for the first time.
Especially not at 30.
Especially not towards other women.
Especially when you’ve been in a happy relationship with a man for nearly eight years.
Years of therapy and self-work and yet still there was this uncomfortable looming feeling of something being wrong.
Nails down the chalkboard of life.
Anxiety is your jam.
You chalk it all up to that damn anxiety always operating in the background.
As time goes on you dig deeper and deeper into yourself. You never find the anxiety leak.
You are just broken. This is just a part of you.
You would live with this nagging sensation that everything isn’t right, even when everything is right.
Great partner.
Safety.
Running water.
Good friends.
Promising career.
Physical health.
Tick! Tick! Tick!
You have it so good!
That part where you don’t relate to your friends and their descriptions of romantic experiences and sex - that’s just because you’ve always been a bit odd.
A bit detached. They’re more sensitive than you.
You’ve been told by professionals that you are probably on the “spectrum”.
See that supports the story!
It’s normal for you to remind yourself your partner will want to be shown affection.
You have to remind yourself that you kiss and hug him when you get home or haven’t seen him for an extended time.
You don’t like being touched because well - you just don’t like being touched.
That stuff is a real chore and boring. That’s your personality and neurodivergence. Nothing wrong with that.
You repeat these facts to yourself like a mantra.
Live with it.
You’ve been away on your own for a month since moving from North America to Australia - following a stint of severe anxiety and the need for a change.
He had to stay to finish a contract. You haven’t missed him that much. Again that’s just who you are in this story.
The story! Stick to the story.
But you have been questioning your story lately.
You did that writing exercise. The one where you describe your ideal day in 10 years time.
Except when you read it later you feel disgust.
You feel like you are wearing someone else’s skin.
You are broken. That’s your character.
Why doesn’t it make sense?
So one day you wake up from some really weird vivid dreams.
You read a Twitter post from a woman you follow in the UK. She jumped nude into a pond in a forest which makes your stomach and heart twist uncomfortably when you think about it.
You are just off today. Ignore it.
You go to order a coffee.
You lock eyes with the barista.
The story takes an unexpected twist.
Hey! This isn’t how the story goes!
The world fades from black and white into colour. You realise what has really been broken this whole time.
It’s a new dimension of thought, feeling and experience.
You question reality.
Your life turns upside down.
No! Your life turns right way up.
And it isn’t just because you realised you were gay.
It’s because your mind and body didn’t believe the story.
You were telling yourself a story - a fiction.
So you step out of the story closet.
You no longer have to tell a story to yourself or anyone else.
You just live.
You might enjoy some short fiction:
Burning Willow
Gazing deep into the leaping flames it was easy to forget the world had ended. Short Story.
Or more navel-gazing non-fiction:
Dear India,
I’ve hesitated sharing my story with you because I felt like I’d be just another Western backpacker who espouses some kind of spiritual awakening after visiting.