Pride 2023 Stories: Part 2 - Susanna & Kimeron

All month long, I'm highlighting the coming-out stories of queer writers I've worked with 1:1 or inside my Write Yourself Out mentorship and community, as well as the stories of other awesome queer humans.

Read Part 1 of the series here.

Back in 2016, when I was still married to a man and grappling with my sexuality—was I gay? Bi? Sexually fluid? Maybe it was "just her"—this one female friend I was in love with?—I joined a secret Facebook group for women who were coming out or questioning their sexuality later in life.

Like me, many of these women had been married to men for decades, had children, had enjoyed a life of straight privilege.

Many of these women felt guilty, terrified, selfish about the fact that they were considering leaving their marriage. "Destroying" or "blowing up" their families. Causing pain to people they loved.

Before we found each other, we felt so alone. So isolated. We scoured the internet for other stories of people who had felt the way we felt and had gotten to the other side.

There weren't many of these stories, y'all.

THAT'S WHY WE NEED MORE QUEER WRITERS TO RAISE THEIR VOICES AND WRITE THEIR STORIES.

Representation matters.

Here's a beautiful and brave coming-out story, from Susanna Musser (she/her), mother of 14 living children and another one of the awesome queer writers in my Write Yourself Out mentorship and community:

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

In the spring of 2018, as a 46-year-old conservative religious mom to 14 children, 5 of whom had multiple disabilities, I began to experience the warning signs of a breakdown.

My therapist’s advice: Make whatever changes were necessary to reduce the stress load on me. Even drastic steps were preferable to the more drastic scenario of the mom of this family ending up in a psychiatric hospital.

I determined to live like a healthy person until I became a healthy person. That’s how I found myself in a gym in early 2019 for the first time in my forty-seven years of life.

I began heavy weightlifting and running and went from being embarrassed that I had to have a body to being amazed at what my body could do. I went from mistrusting myself to gaining confidence to think for myself.

Then COVID hit.

I had time to think and began processing the fact that what I had experienced from birth to adulthood was traumatic religious abuse and indoctrination. I became a free person, and at the age of forty-eight, it felt to me like my real self was just beginning to live.

During this same period, I was processing my growing awareness that I have never been straight. The moment I realized I was a lesbian and not a broken straight woman, a wave of relief and euphoria swept over me. It felt like the last puzzle piece of myself falling into place.

The summer I started coming out to myself, I discovered trail running and was instantly head over heels in love. A trail-running friend listened patiently to my processing as we ran many rugged miles together. He gave me stellar advice which I will never forget: “Other people and their opinions will come and go throughout your life, but you are the only person who will be with you for your entire life.”

My integrity within myself is what matters.

I immediately began coming out to my closest circle. I was not prepared for how many of them would mention that it had already crossed their minds. Coming out to those I knew would celebrate with me was easy. It would also have been easy for me to hide my gayness from the wider world. I am a straight-passing, stay-at-home mother to many children living in a conservative area.

As I prepared to come out on social media, my question for myself was, “Am I ready for integrity between my internal self and my public self?”

My answer to this question will always eventually be “Yes.”

Because for me, to choose otherwise would be to attempt to live with mud slathered over my soul, unable to breathe, or to see, or to love, with freedom and clarity.

Today, I am more whole, free, and in love with life than ever.

And here's a coming-of-age, coming-out story from my client Kimeron Hardin (he/him):

Struck by Lightning

My coming out process happened in stages. I think that even as a young child, I related to boys differently than girls. I found girls cute and sweet and fun to play with, but there was something intriguing in a different way about boys.

It was around age 13 that I was combing through our Encyclopedia Britannica set, looking for all things sexual, that I stumbled upon the word “homosexual” and its definition and it was like I was struck by lightning. “OMG! If there’s an entry in the encyclopedia, there have to be others like me out there!” I thought.

Growing up before the internet and in a conservative, fundamentalist Christian household in rural Appalachia made it hard to find more information and made it essential that I keep everything on the down low. So coming out to myself happened long before I dared to come out to another person.

I did find a few books along the way like Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner about a male college track star who falls in love with his coach, that stirred passion and possibilities in me. I devoured Gay Spirit: How to Become a Sensuous Homosexual by David Loomis, but where I found it in my town of 7000, I now have no idea.

So much energy went into both keeping my public persona separate from my carnal and emotional self, fearing the worst if my secret self was discovered until one day, at 17, my parents learned of my affair with someone from our town.

I was so exhausted living my double life, that when they asked the inevitable question about what was happening, I summoned every ounce of courage to say out loud that I was indeed a homosexual.

The months that followed were hard, including threats of spiritual reprogramming or electroshock therapy or being tossed onto the street, but somehow, I managed to survive and ironically, the freedom from worry and hiding probably gave me the strength to get through it all.

My authentic life truly began when I escaped to college and began to create the whole self I am today. I found my tribe, I met my first love, and I began a lifelong commitment to supporting political and social efforts to improve the lives of the LGBTQ+ community.

Once I spoke the words finally owning the suppressed side of myself to my parents, something shifted inside, pushing me constantly to raise my voice.

I never want another young queer person to feel alone again, or scared or less than, and I was driven in my career as a psychologist to write and publish self-help books just for our community including Loving Ourselves: The Gay and Lesbian Guide to Self-Esteem and Queer Blues: The Lesbian and Gay Guide to Overcoming Depression.

Now, later in my life and career, my next step is to share my personal southern coming-out story through my “in process” memoir, tentatively titled Battered and Fried, with awesome guidance from Suzette Mullen, my book coach.

These stories matter.

Your story matters.

Representation matters.

Happy Pride!