I interviewed my brother, Grant about his expereiences for coming out as a young person.
By Nicole Battersby
About a boy
I was about to walk home from school with my 14 year old brother, Grant. We never usually walked together as we didn’t get on well, but we were both late home. His friend Pete asked to speak to me alone before I went. He told me that Grant was bisexual.
This is the story of how my brother came out as bisexual and how in the past six months it has affected him, me, my family and our school life. I was shocked by what Pete told me. I asked if he was serious but he said he was just joking, so I left it there. Pete had just come out gay himself but only to his friends. Walking home that’s all I could think about. I wondered if he just said it was a joke because he panicked at what Grant would say.
Eventually I confronted Grant about it. He admitted it was true. This made me feel very much in shock as I hadn’t an idea. All the same I was fine with it as he’s my brother and I accept anything he does or is. I was really curious and asked him lots of questions like, ‘how long have you known?’ and ‘When are you going to tell mum and dad?’ He told me he wasn’t going to tell them. Also he made me swear not to tell anyone either. I promised but I thought he should tell my parents as I knew they would be supportive.
We continued to talk about the situation and whether he would tell our parents or not. He always said that he didn’t want to tell them and we just got in arguments about it. Soon enough we went back to not getting on as we were before. When he was home he just locked himself in his room and stayed on msn all day. I later found out he was chatting to friends who understood. It worried me that he’d shut himself off from me and others. It seemed as if there was nothing I could do.
After a while he stopped going to his lessons at school. He started staying with the school mentors all day. I went into his room one day to try and speak to him and he showed me a really deep cut on his wrist. I asked him what happened and he said he used scissors and did it him self. He gave me 3 pairs of scissors that he had in his room and made me hide them from him. He said he had told the mentors and promised not to do it again. It worried me massively though, in case he resorted to it again. I knew he had done it because he was frustrated and felt alone.
Knowing this, and that Grant didn’t want my help, was incredibly hard. What made things even worse was the fact that Grant has heart problems and a simple infection in his blood could be fatal. The mentors had been trying to get Grant to tell my parents about it but he refused. I continued to support him as best I and slowly he started to open up. There was countless times where I would hold back crying to the mentors or my friends. I know how terrible it must have been for Grant but it was a struggle for me seeing my brother suffer without letting anyone really help him.
Soon enough he started having panic attacks. Panic attacks are when a person has a loss of breath and weakness of the body. These can be caused by lots of things such as stress and feeling alone.
These would happen quite frequently. They started happening about once a day, then it got worse. At one point it was happening around 8 times a day. It was awful having to see this. All I could do was try and help him by being there. If I panicked he would panic more which he didn’t need.
About a month and half after I found out, Grant text his friend Amy from my mum’s phone. Mum read Amy’s reply before Grant did, not knowing it was for him. It said something in the text about his sexuality. Later she confronted Grant about it and he admitted it was true. My mum told my dad. I was so relieved that our parents finally knew and as I thought, although they were shocked, they were fine about it.
Grant and I got on a lot better following him coming out to our parents, as he was happier knowing they were fine about it. I was overwhelmed by the fact that he could confide in me. Life got easier for him which made it easier for me knowing that he was happy.
Soon enough he started telling members of our family and friends. My family were really proud that he had the guts to come out at such an early age. They all told him they love him for him regardless of his sexuality. Grant said, ‘I felt relieved when my family knew because there was no awkward moment…like oh Grant have you got a girl friend yet?' He is a very bright and talented teenager and amazing at acting. He loves to be on stage and also makes all his own acting videos for youtube. My family and friends all love watching his videos and he is also very musical and good at singing, guitar, drums and piano, teaching himself most of what he knows.
His friends at school were all happy for him and the news travelled fast. After a while Grant got fed up of people asking him if it was true and also he didn’t care anymore. Grant said, ‘All of a sudden when I was in my German class at school I just shouted out, I’m Gay…I don’t know why.’ Surprisingly people were happy for him and lots of people though he was really brave for coming out and telling everyone. Since people have found out he has lots more friends and this has helped boot up his confidence. Grant’s comment on this was, ‘I thought I’d get bullied to be honest but it didn’t work out like that and I’ve got more friends.’ He has got better at school with his work and music. Also he used to keep himself to himself but now he seems more open. I’m really happy for him and I’m really glad students at our school have reacted in this way.
This has been a difficult journey for me and has had a great impact my life as well as Grants. It was especially hard when I found out about the self-harming. Not being able to tell anyone about this was hard. The only person I could really speak, so as not to break Grant’s trust, was the mentor that Grant used to stay with.
Grant is a lot happier too. He said he has no regrets of coming out and that, ‘Now people know about my sexuality, I can have a relationship with another boy.’
This has dramatically affected mine and my brother’s relationship. We used to just stay out of each others way, but not anymore. He speaks to me when he has a problem or if I’m not there he will ring me just for a chat. No one would have ever thought we would be like this, least of all me! We still have little arguments as siblings do but other than that we always stick up for each other and tell each other everything. Im proud of my brother and his sexuality isn’t even a huge part of him as a person. I love him for who is regardless of his sexuality. That’s not all we are as people.
My advice to anyone who has family members going through this my advice is just to be there for them and ensure they know you’re not going to give up on helping them out. The main things is don’t give them grief. This is who they are and whether you like it or not they are not going to change and also they don’t need trouble from their own family.
Grant also gives this advice to anyone who is hiding the fact that they are gay...
‘My advice to anyone that is in the situation I was in is to tell your closest friends and let it escalate from there. And if some of your friends are not your friends after you’ve told them then really that’s good for you because they weren’t proper friends in the first place if they can’t accept you for who you are.’
For young people between the age of 13-17 that are gay or bisexual there are groups were you can go. The one Grant goes to is called the fruit bowl. This is run by two people, Joy and Gary who know what you are going through as they are in fact gay themselves.
If you want to hear more about how Grant felt going through the process of ‘coming out’ go to www.radiowaves.co.uk/cube
