Bisexual Teenager

READ THIS WARNING BEFORE READING: THIS IS BASED ON TRUE EVENTS THAT MIGHT BE DISTURBING FOR SOME READERS.

Bisexual Teenager

My name is Jennifer Straus. I am one of many people who opened up about my sexuality in High School in Portland, Oregon. This is my story of harassment throughout my high school career due to being different.

I was openly bisexual at the start of my Freshman year of high school. Along with a small population at my high school, I was part of the Gay Straight Alliance at Riverdale High School.

No one really knew, but I was teased and made fun of because “I couldn’t decide on if I was lesbian or straight”. I was teased in the locker room so I decided to start changing for sporting events and P.E. in the bathroom stalls instead. Most of my friends from middle school stopped talking to me. I became more depressed over time. I started thinking no one would accept me for who I am as a person and not care about my sexuality.

My primary care doctor decided to treat my depression with an antidepressant called Cymbalta to try to make my serotonin levels in my brain higher. No one, not even my family, understood why I was so depressed. They assumed it was a side effect of my ADHD medication.

During high school, I started horseback riding again. I decided to start doing “gender neutral” activities in attempt to stop the harassment.

Half of the people in this picture of my senior class mentally harassed and pulled pranks on me over my sexuality. The other half did not care or thought little of it. No one knew how hurt I was by their “jokes”. I just stayed quiet.

My parents noted my isolation tendencies and quiet behavior. They decided I needed therapeutic treatment without knowing or trying to figure out what the cause of the strange behaviors were about.

I continued to be harassed online and with pranks, jokes, and rumors around my high school about me. The antidepressant wasn’t helping my mental state and the therapy seemed like a waste of my time...

I found a very dangerous, but slightly relieving activity that some doctors and therapists would call Self-Harm. I started cutting my inner thighs where no one would see....

I spoke with my therapist and was taken off of the ADHD medication I was on. My therapist acted as if it was “NORMAL” for children under the age of 18 to want to cause themselves harm on these medications.

I finally got the guts to talk with my school counselor about what had been happening with all of the teasing and online harassment. He helped me stop my self-harm and get my grades back up.

I was told by my doctor late that if I had cut any deeper, I could have punctured an artery in my leg. I could have killed myself. I thought of how I could have caused my family a lot of hurt since I had half my family die before high school. I remembered all of the funerals and memorial services I had attended and decided to stop self-harm activities and get myself the help I needed to stop the urges for the sake of my family.

Don’t let what happened to me happen to your friends.

Stop LGBT Bullying. It could save a life.