How Being Outed Landed Me In Rehab

When I was 15, I was outed by someone I thought I saw as a friend at a pool party for a band camp thing between my freshman and sophomore years at a local Catholic high school. I had been holding it in for so long I felt like I was going to explode. So I told him. He said he was glad I felt comfortable with telling him stuff like that. We chatted some more and I went home. The next day rolls around and I’m surprised to find my phone flooded with text messages, 58 to be exact (I’ll always remember that number). My parents were already aware I was gay, but had to break the news to me that someone had outed me on a group chat for the junior and senior classes. I remember hearing my mother on the phone screaming about during if the school doesn’t do anything about it. The guy I told I was gay was given a week’s suspension and had to do three weeks of community service. Those texts that were sent to me? Full of messages telling me to go k*** myself, that “f****ts deserve to get their skulls kicked in.” The school said the investigated the claims but nothing really became of it, because who’s going to believe a queer guy over the Dean of Students’ son. Shortly after, I started self medicating with liquor and drugs. I was willing to drink my life away for some dumb preppy bitch at the time. Then two weeks before my birthday, the depression was so bad that I “shot up.” I OD’d and was rushed to the emergency room where it took the ER doctors 3 minutes to resuscitate me. I had to celebrate my 18th birthday in a rehab facility but at least I was alive and not on a slab in a morgue. I’m proud to say that I got my 5 year sobriety chip today and wouldn’t trade it for the world ❤️