alexscloset-blog1 - Tumblr blog

[alexscloset-blog1]

My parents were not exactly understanding but the purpose of this tumblr was to inform y’all that it does get better. Surrounding yourself with friends, looking forward to the future and working on yourself are all key elements in doing so!

Making sure you keep good and healthy relationships with your friends who support you is key. Additionally, taking care of yourself and going to therapy is crucial in your coming out story.

Looking forward to the future is also important in keeping you going. All I know if that I would constantly think about the future and my plans to motivate me to get me out of my currently situation. Having a plan is crucial.

I am so happy to say that in a couple weeks of writing this, I will officially be living with my girlfriend Maddy. We both worked extremely hard to graduate and pursue our dreams of working professionally for the Walt Disney Company. 

Working toward a goal that can get you out of your situation is important because, as cliche as it sounds, it is literally the light at the end of the tunnel.

Go find your light and live your life unapologetically!

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This video just came out in time for pride month and I can’t get enough of my two faves!

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We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity.

George Takei

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So here’s the story about how my parents found out that I am dating Maddy:

Yes, you heard me. They FOUND out. After over a year of me untagging myself from social media posts and hiding it from anyone who had a connection to them, they found out. In the worst possible way too. 

So, like I mentioned before, I go to UCSD. I was moving into a new apartment from the one I had stayed in my 3rd year. Everything was going smoothly; we were cleaning the kitchen, packing up my room, ya know, normal moving stuff. My dad was taking apart my bed in my room and I was in the kitchen when I suddenly heard him yell from my room, “ALEX COME HERE.” I was confused but when I went in he shut the door, handed me a photo as asked “what the fuck is this?” It’s a photo strip from when Maddy and I first started dating and at the bottom it was a picture of us kissing. 

I felt so much heat take over my body and I was so scared. My immediate reaction was to say “do you want to talk about this” which I know is so stupid but I just did not know what to say. He then lashed out, called me a man, angrily threw things and then sat in the car until we were done. I was so scared I started crying to my mom. I knew she didn’t agree but she also was not one to lash out so she continued helping me.

This was super traumatic for me considering I was literally practicing exactly how I wanted to tell them for a year. It weirdly felt like a relief but also it was just extremely scary. Everyone always works up the perfect way to come out and say things so to have come crumbling down just because my dad found a picture was not what I wanted.

Two weeks go by of my dad ignoring me at home (I still lived there until school started). He refused to even look at me which made me extremely depressed as my own father could possibly not love his daughter anymore.

However, as I was about to move back to SD he hugged me goodbye and told me he loved me. 

Since then we have been fine and just have never brought it up again, which is entirely unhealthy but as long as he doesn’t lash out at me again, I would say that’s all I could do for now. I just need to move forward.

[alexscloset-blog1]

There is only one you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself.

Anthony Rapp

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I absolutely love all of my friends. From the moment I come out to them they have been super supportive. 

I am writing this to help any of you in need to use your friends as resources, they can be your family if times get tough and your family can’t.

Just know that it will get better especially if you surround yourself with even a couple of people who love you!

My friends have always asked about my relationship and have been pretty invested and nice about everything. It’s definitely beneficial to have people to talk about the issues in your family and also the normalcy throughout your relationship. They are a good resource if you can’t see a therapist ASAP.

Make sure you are in a good place in your friendship to come out to them. Make sure you are ready to answer questions they may have. Just be prepared for the worst, even though if they’re your friends they will be incredibly supportive! 

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If you come from a Latino background, you know what I mean when I say that the “machismo” ideology is still prevalent.

My family is pretty catholic and pretty Mexican in that there are a lot of patriarchal ideologies they follow, mainly my dad. My mom is wonderful and has become more “woke” as the kids say. But my dad is definitely very entitled in his masculinity and always has been. I grew up with him making weird jokes about having a gun in case a boy comes around trying to date me. It was weird and traumatizing? 

Anyway, he also has pretty dramatic anger issues, so that added to the reason why I did not want to come out to him. 

He was incredibly entitled and always showed how fragile his masculinity really was in that he expected my mom to perform gender roles. Which she did. But probably not to anger him. She would cook, clean, do his laundry and still look pretty for him since that is what he expected. 

This idea in his head that he’s had for years just proves how he definitely expected a very linear, straight life from me. Get a boyfriend after college, get married and have kids. Just to feed into the norm of the family structure. 

He would always make comments about how I looked, how I need to be more like my mom (lady-like), and would just promote being his only daughter.

He also always made it vocal when he would get mad when my brother would sort of perform out of his gender norms. For example, my brother collects a lot of Stitch plush dolls, so he always makes comments about how he’’s acting childish or that his choice was too girly. He would never just accept us for who we are and would find any rhyme or reason to bring us down so that we fit this mold he created in his head.

I loved growing up in my Mexican household, don’t get me wrong, but the granular details about the ideologies my parents hold definitely steer me away from referencing back to it all as a positive experience.

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I absolutely love the softness oh Kehlani’s voice. This is a cute little gay song that I enjoy and relate to. :)

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On June 12, 2016 49 beautiful people lost their lives when a mass shooter came into Pulse night club in Orlando, FL. This, at the time, was the deadliest mass shooting in the US, but has since been surpassed by the Las Vegas Massacre. 

Like I mentioned previously, I did the Disney College Program from April - August 2016 in Orlando, FL. 

I remember waking up on the morning of June 12 with countless missed calls and texts from my parents wondering if I was okay. They mentioned that there was a shooting in Orlando. I was confused because the day before Christina Grimmie was shot and murdered in Orlando, FL as well, so I thought they were referencing that. I told them I was fine and that it was only one girl who died to which they replied and said “No. Over 50 people were shot in Orlando last night.” Instantly my heart started racing and I looked things up myself. Me and my roommates all sat together, anxious, upset and frustrated as we caught up on all of the news. 

This was so so so surreal. We had even considered going out the night before, since there is usually a party bus that takes you to all of those clubs in Orlando. To hear that THIS many people lives shook me. 

Upon finding out it was a gay night club, it shook me even more. It was so surreal to me that this hate crime would occur today as people are in their safe space having a good time. To top it off, it was Latino night at Pulse, which meant that many of the victims were Latino. Reflecting back on this now it adds a lot of impact considering I am a Latina Bisexual woman. 

We all had shifts that day because that’s what you do on the Disney College Program -- work. We were all expected to go into work, put on a smile for thousands of tourists on vacation and pretend it didn’t happen. 

I was so scared to go into work, especially since I work at Disney World which could easily be another target for something drastic. And since the details about the motivation of the shooter wasn’t released, it put me even more on edge. (Once details came out a few days later it was revealed that Disney property was one of the potential targets)

Once I got to work, the energy in the break room was awful. There were TV’s on on all sides of the room, playing news networks that were covering the story. It made me want to cry so hard. It was hard. Going on stage and having to put on a show was difficult when every break I got I would be watching live coverage of the shooting. 

A few days went by and the same energy persisted throughout the Disney Resort. It was determined that a few people who lost their lives were Disney cast members so there was a trend to take pictures in your costume at your work location to show solidarity. It was beautiful to see the unity take place but still incredibly scary and sad.

My close work friend Jose had to take a couple of days off, because unfortunately one of his good friends died in the shooting. Seeing someone close to me be impacted in this way solidified how close this tragedy was to me and how deeply it has affected me. 

I am proud now and represent #OrlandoStrong whenever I can. It taught me a lot about myself during my time there and this event itself helped me embrace the community.

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We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity.

George Takei

[alexscloset-blog1]

Upon coming home from the Disney College Program, it was immediately hard because I had to deal with the long distance of my amazing relationship. The other hard part: dealing with my homophobic family. Don’t get me wrong, my brother is extremely supportive (actually it turns out he’s gay too!), but the issue was my parents. 

I felt like if they found out they would disown me, not support me, or do something drastic. I grew up in a Catholic household, going to church, eating the body of christ, I LITERALLY CONFIRMED for crying out loud. I did it mainly to make my parents happy. All I have always wanted was to make them proud. They’re Mexican immigrants so you can only imagine how hard they worked to give me and my brother a wonderful life. I owe a lot to them, how on earth could I tell them I was gay?

 I didn’t. 

I actually had it bottled in me for about a year, which is not okay. To cope I ended up going to therapy, which is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. They even actually recommended group therapy which I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend to anyone else going through this too. It might help to hear similar stories. I did not want to embarrass my parents by posting about Maddy and it somehow getting back to them, so only my close friends new for that long period of time, which was extremely hard.

I also go to school about an hour and a half away from home, so that in itself helped a lot in letting me be myself away from their constant surveillance. They were super strict about anything so sometimes I would not tell them I was driving 300 miles to see Maddy. (She went to Cal Poly SLO and I go to UCSD) It was hard to hide, however, when they would hound me with questions asking where I’ve been, the one time I got a speeding ticket and the one time I lost my wallet in SLO, prompting the police to pay a visit to my home address. 

Anyway, I ended up keeping this huge secret from my parents for over a year, which was very hard on my mental health. If you’re in this situation where you’re not ready to come out, seek help! You will feel better right after that first therapy session. 

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One song that I heard during the early stages of discovering myself is Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko. The video was also cool to see as I felt represented. Also, it applied well to my situation at the time. ALSO IT’S A BOP!

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To start off my story it is critical to understand the context and the stage of my life I was in. So, I did the Disney College Program in Orlando, FL during the spring quarter of my 2nd year at UCSD. It was the most amazing and magical experience of my life for many reasons. It taught me more things about myself that I didn’t know and helped pushed me in the right direction in relation to my career. 

The Disney College Program, for those of you who don’t know, is a program that allows college students to intern at the Walt Disney World resort. It has three components to it: Living, Learning, and Earning. Living being that you learn to live with other young professionals in Disney Housing, you learn by taking Disney sponsored classes, and earn by literally working in the resort and earning money. It’s a super fun program and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested. 

I met 5 other girls on Facebook (there’s a specific college program group) and we all decided to live together. We all got along super well and out of the 6 of us, my roommate Victoria was gay and my other roommate Maddy was Bisexual. At this point in time I just thought of myself as straight, however I always knew something was different about me in that sense. 

After freely being myself and enjoying my time with my roommates in a non-stressful setting, I began to develop a sense of acceptance toward maybe finally acknowledging the feelings I’ve had for a while. My roommates being openly gay, the effects of PULSE in Orlando during my time there (I will talk about this in a later post), and the overall accepting community that Disney embodied created an atmosphere where I was finally able to feel comfortable.

Fast forward a couple months into my program: Maddy. Maddy was my roommate roommate, meaning she was the lucky gal I shared a room and bathroom with. We started noticing that all of our other roommates had a lot of drama but between the two us there were no issues. We actually got along really well. We had so many of the same interests, a similar sense of humor and just meshed really well as roommates. We even ended up falling asleep in the same bed sometimes, after a late night of talking or watching something on Netflix. It felt completely normal.

One day I finally came to terms with being Bisexual, but I didn’t know why I felt the need to tell Maddy specifically. I had not come out to anyone prior so I was actually confused with myself and why I felt comfortable telling her. After literally hours of circling around it I finally told her I was Bisexual at probably 3 in the morning. Shee was obviously completely understanding and kind of excited that I told her. I finally felt comfortable with telling other people so I told my other good friend shortly after, who was also in FL doing her college program. 

We then continued our routine of falling asleep in each other’s beds and that eventually led to holding hands. A couple weeks of butterflies, hand holding and cuddling later, we were girlfriends! We told our roommates and the only one that had suspected anything was Victoria, our other gay roommate. 

I never realized exactly why I told Maddy first until a few months after when I had a chance to reflect on that day. It’s cause I liked her in a romantic way - DUH. I’m so glad I had her as a resource because obviously she was an amazing friend. However, I ultimately confided in her because I loved her. (LOL)

We’ve been doing long distance for almost 2 years now so it has been hard considering we were living together at one point. I am excited though because we are finally graduating and can finally be together after all this time.

I owe a lot to the Disney College Program in helping me discover things about myself in an amazing and magical way. 

[alexscloset-blog1]

Hello everyone!

My name is Alex and I am starting this blog specifically for my TDGE class but more importantly to help others in need. To give you a little backstory, I am Bi and I came out as Bi right before the start of my 3rd year here at UCSD. I have always known that a part of me was not 100% straight, but because it was normative I just went along with it. I have an amazing girlfriend who I’ve been with for 2 years now and this journey would not have been the same without her. I am going to share my story throughout a series of posts while also offering motivation to those of you who may still be in the closet. It gets better for sure. Now, I won’t spoil anything in this post, but trust me when I say it does get better. I come from a family that is not incredibly supportive but I am slowly working my way to a better place in life. I also can’t wait to share insight on my experience and even pop culture that has helped me. Oh- my girlfriend might have some insight to share as well, but for now I’ll keep it short. I love this quote because coming out is always an uphill battle that’s not always steady. But once you finish the climb the view is great.

- Alex