I’m 17. I live in a Wog and Catholic household.

For the past 16 years, my family and friends have always known me to be “straight”. Three years ago when I met a girl through the sport I was playing, everything changed. I looked at this girl differently. We were trialling for a state representative team. She didn’t make it into the team, I however did. This girl and I lost contact and I started thinking of another girl in the team the same way. I didn’t understand considering this girl and I never spoke and as far as I was concerned, I was straight. But I thought about these two girls differently and I was always too scared to talk to them. After the comp was over, I tried so hard to ignore my feelings, but eventually, I started looking at girls in my school, all the girls on social media differently, basically, I would even start looking at my best friend that way. At first, I started thinking it was because of my eating disorder and low self-esteem that I was just admiring their beauty. But it never made sense because the girls I would look at had the same build and the same things as me. Acne, belly, thick thighs, kinda sorta unfit but also fit at the same time if that makes any sense? My goal for my body image was nothing like what I already was.

I was dating a guy at the time, but I was liking this other girl more. I was liking both of them more. After the guy that I was dating and I broke up, my cousin and her boyfriend set me up with this other guy. I was still confused with the first girl I was liking. I ignored my feelings for the next few years and acted like I wasn’t secretly looking at girls at the same time as looking at boys.

I understood and had my boundaries.

My best friend of 10 years, she was strictly a friend.

The girls who were straight, I left them alone.

The girls I knew were gay, I never spoke to them.

I never told anyone how I was feeling and how confused I was.

It got even worse when I started playing in a team full of women and I was the only “straight” girl on the team, I was also the youngest. But then I started to like this other girl on the team. I soon learnt she was 21 and had a girlfriend. I was 15 at the time. Later in the season, I started feeling differently about another girl on the team, however, she too, was 21. I quickly decided to ignore the feelings I was having.

I started dating more guys, not telling anyone about the thoughts I was having. For a few years, I was fine. Until I dated this one guy behind my parents back. He was too immature and started saying stuff like “women belong in the kitchen” which I obviously have an extremely strong opinion about. It was nowhere near his. He didn’t like that, I didn’t like him.

The first girl from three years ago, the first girl I ever had a crush on, she added me into her private story on Snapchat. One day, she posted something so depressing, I was worried and messaged her. No sooner I saw her response, all the feelings I had for her flowed right back into my body. I dumped my boyfriend at the time and told her how I was feeling. A few weeks after, We were officially dating and I was in my first-ever lesbian relationship. A week after that, I started telling my friends and my cousin who I was really close with. All of them were so happy for me.

Nearly two months later, my girlfriend and I got into a little fight because of how I was keeping her a secret. I felt bad and knew what I had to do. I had to tell my wog, catholic, parents.

I started with telling sister. Same again, she was also happy. Sadly, I can’t say the same for my parents.

Strangely, my 56-year-old, full-blooded Italian father was okay with it. He sorta accepted it. However, he constantly reminds me that he does not agree with it, but as I am his daughter and he still loves me. Just doesn’t like my relationship.

My 45-year-old, mixed wog mother on the other hand. The mother who had always accepted people from the LGTB community, the same mother who said she would prefer me to come home and say I’m a lesbian than come home as a teenager and say I’m pregnant. The same mother who said she would be fine if I was bisexual a few weeks before…She couldn’t even look at me.

My family isn’t aware of this, but each time I go to school, it is so hard for me to catch the right bus to go home and not go to my girlfriend’s house who I subconsciously had a crush on for three years prior to us getting together. It is so hard for me to not cry each time I see her face and hear her voice as I sit at my dining table studding for my HSC (which is now one of the most recent rules from my parents until they accept that I’m gay) as she also spams me with voice recordings reminding me how much she loves me and how no matter what happens, at the end of the day, I will still be hers and she won’t leave me.

My parents have said that I can not see her for the next 2-3 weeks or until they accept the fact that I am gay. My parents are convinced that because of the amount of “morons” I’ve had in my life, that the only reason why I’m gay is that I haven’t had the chance to meet the right boy, the only reason why I’m dating her is because of how “I feel bad for all the stuff she’s been through” to even “You’re only doing this because she’s the one giving you that type of attention, she’s the one that is making you think you’re happy with her. She’s the one that influenced you to be a lesbian. Your low self-esteem doesn’t help with this either” 

My father, still convinced that the only reason why I’m with her is due to the fact that I’ve had such a bad experience with men and the only reason I’m with her is because of how she and the environment have influenced me. They could be right. I don’t know.

My father still thinking that I am just a delusional teenager thinking that I love her, thinking that she loves me, thinking that I’m happy, thinking that she’s happy. My father thinks he knows what it is that is going on in my head, saying exactly what I’m apparently thinking. Thinking I don’t know what I want, thinking I’m just acting up because of my relapsing Eating Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, thinking the stress of year 12 is getting to me, enabling me to find my true identity. Problem with his theory is, he is not in my head. He does not understand what I am thinking. He does not know what I am going through. He does not understand how I feel.

My mother thinks I don’t understand the difference between a friendship-relationship and a love-relationship. I try to explain it to her in ways that she can relate to and she will be able to understand. It never works. She says to me “the inner wog in me is trying so hard to not tell you to leave her right here right now”

I sit here, at the dining table, trying so hard to hide my tears and my smile from my girlfriend being a crackhead to make sure I don’t cry, but also reassuring me constantly that no matter what we will get through it and we will still be together.

As I also look up and make sure that my suddenly homophobic parents don’t see my tears and my smile, scared they’ll make me stop talking to her.

Counting down the days until I’m 18, my first HSC exam and my final so then I can finally leave and be with the girl I love.

Waiting for my parents to understand and accept my sexuality and relationship status is killing me slowly, especially when I can’t even see the girl who has kept me alive through all the stress of my parents rejecting me and year 12. I guess I’ll just have to keep waiting because I know the day will come where my family will just be happy that I am happy. Well, hoping so anyway