Do you have an experience, belief, or characteristic you were once unwilling to share that you now discuss openly? What made you willing to share?

I used to be afraid to saying I was an atheist or really expressing any type of secular thought. I was also afraid of revealing my liberal beliefs since I am in the military. I started not caring because I realized I shouldn’t have to hide my beliefs just because they’re not common. I don’t care if I’m ostracized (which I haven’t so that’s good), I’m not letting ‘them’ win.

I used to be much more reticent about disclosing anything about my gender identity issues. These days, I am much more vocal about my own experiences. It took some years to get certain ideas of mine clarified, even for myself.

Being gay. It used to frighten me that others would find out about it. Now, I’m completely open.

Nope.

I always felt as if there were something wrong with me because I was less social than most people. I find activities like reading and writing more enjoyable than going out and socializing. I prefer to do things on my own and move at my own pace when getting to know someone. It wasn’t until I was an adult with children that I realized that I was merely an introvert and not a social loser. Now I don’t have a problem keeping to myself or turning down invitations – I know what I like and I’m fine with that. And I don’t have a problem discussing it with those who are curious enough to ask “What’s wrong with you?”

I wouldn’t talk about what happened in my family of origin as a kid because I was afraid of the repercussions (a beating at least, being sent away and responsible for “getting them in trouble” at worst), and refrained for a long time as an adult because I was ashamed of what happened to me and of the family members involved. I wanted to distance myself from it all and not accept it. I felt that their poor choices and behaviour towards me reflected on me as a person and marked me as unworthy. I wanted to maintain the illusion that by keeping their awful behaviour a secret, then that meant I was showing my love for them and that love would be reciprocated. As long as no one knew, then I was like everyone else, “normal”, and deserving of good things and love. I was sure the moment someone found out, I’d be cast aside as “that chick whose crappy, low-class family abused her”. I have no idea how I came to decide this.

Maybe because I was explicitly taught not to reveal anything that happened at home or anything of my origins, which weren’t “nice”. Time and maturity have taught me that I am free to own my entire experience, and if some of it makes some people look bad, then it’s up to them to own and accept what they did. If some of it makes people think less of me as a person because I didn’t grow up in Brady Bunch-land, then they can get lost. I’m not charged to hide any part of my life to keep my former abusers safe from the opinion of others, nor of other people who want to imagine they live in some sanitized world.

It took a few years for me to be comfortable enough to tell people that 4 of my children passed away. I am able to talk about it now. I spend a number of years helping parents through the grieving process when they lost children.

Psychic sensitivity.

I thought I still think, sometimes that it’s perverted to watch porn and masturbate. But I can sometimes be a really too open person. But I have 2 very close friends who I’ve told about me masturbating to porn, one of them does it too and we even watched porn together sometimes:DD

I’m completely open about being transsexual now. I started talking about it to online friends only, about three or four years ago. One online friend in particular gave me the courage and motivation to come out to my family and friends, which I started to do just after the new year. Now everyone knows about it.

I am now happy to admit that I find women sexually attractive. I tried to deny it for a long time but now I am quite proud to admit it. In fact the strange thing is, my boyfriend is the only male that I feel physically attracted to, all my “crushes” are women!

I kept the fact that I had been raped quiet. No support system. Through years of therapy I learned that, although necessary at the time, it was very harmful to my emotional wellbeing. I’ve slowly started to open up about it. Actually, I talk more about here than anywhere else but that is due to the nature of this site.

I also kept quiet about the abuse that my siblings and I endured as kids. There was no sense in mentioning it as our greatest fear was to be “taken away” and split up which surely would have been done as there are six of us. I started talking more about it as an adult.

I used to be uncomfortable to disclose how fluid is my sexuality and why I choose the lifestyle I do but not much anymore. The great thing about surpassing my 20’s was few people really were surprised or gave much of a damn in the big picture of things how much I might like women or men. I like it this way.

My severe panic disorder. I noticed once I was the one willing to talk about this first then other people started opening up to me about this issue. I was quite surprised at how many other people also suffer from this disorder other than me.

I am also not afraid to talk about odd “paranormal” or obe’s that I experienced as well. I notice other people will bring their own odd experiences on this issue out in the open as well once I was willing to share my experiences first.