On September 16, 2010, I wrote words in my journal that would change my life forever. I would say that my childhood was pretty average and overall a great environment for a person to grow up in. I had two supportive parents, and I was the oldest of my brother and sister. My dad always had a job and my mom had the ability to stay home. My worries consisted of homework and what was for dinner.

However, my challenge came at the age of 14. I moved from Indiana to Missouri the summer before my eighth grade year. Coming to a whole new place and moving to the little town of Ste. Genevieve, which had about 4,000 people in it, I was not happy about the future. School started out fine, I made some friends, and life went forward. However, I started getting teased and bullied in gym class and on the bus.

One of the strangest things in life is to be yelled at and called names, and to realize that you fit the description of the names you are being called. One day it was really bad, and for about 20 minutes home on the bus I was called "fag," "faggot," and "gay." I came home and went straight to my room. In that room I laid on my bed and wrote in my journal. I wrote about what had happened and that in fact, I was gay. That was the first time I had ever said it, but it scared me so much to say it!

By 15, I was moving closer toward telling someone. The teasing and bullying had stopped, but the constant voices in my head or the random infatuation with the guys on the baseball team never seemed to go away. As the days went on, I realized that I needed to tell somebody. So I decided that Daniella would be my first friend to know. She rode the bus with me every morning and was one of my closest friends at the time.

I told her on a Wednesday. In my high school, we would have something called Dragon Days on Wednesday. School wouldn't start until an hour later and the first hour was left for people that needed tutoring to go and get it. The students who didn't need tutoring could hang out in the gym or the commons area.

Daniella and her friends wanted to go to the gym, so I followed them. We all sat down in a circle and started drawing things on a piece of paper or writing secret notes and passing it to each other. For whatever reason, I chose to write with crayon on this white piece of paper, "I am gay." I folded it up and passed it to her while the others in the circle seemed preoccupied by there own secrets.

Daniella opens the note and gasps as she reads it. Then she drops the note and looked at me like she has just learned something that would change her life. Instantly the other people in the circle grabbed at the note and read it as Daniella buried me in a hug. I attempted to grab the note before anyone saw it but it was too late. I made everyone in the circle promise not to tell anyone.

Obviously someone got a little too excited in that circle because within a week, my entire school knew. People asked me about it randomly and I thought it was strange to admit to them, but at that point I was confident. I was proud of who I was and it seemed to only get easier the more people that I admitted it too.

Now, telling my parents was a different story. I told my mom first when we were driving in the car. Fun fact: if you're going to come out to someone, don't choose to do it why in a vehicle. You can't escape if things don't go as planned. When I told my mom, I started to cry. She said to stop crying and everything was going to be OK. She asked me if I wanted her to tell Dad. At that point, I didn't care and was just ready to end this conversation.

As soon as we were home, I went down to my bedroom. About 10 minutes later my dad came into my room saying that he wanted me to come outside and talk to my mom and him. I texted my best friend saying I had told them and may need a place to stay if things didn't go as expected.

My parents were sitting in my basement in a family room on the couches. As I sat down, my dad told me what I had told my mom only minutes ago and informed me that at the age of 15, I could not choose to be gay. I couldn't say anything. For some reason, everything that I had learned about what was wrong with me and my difference, I couldn't seem to get to leave my vocal chords.

My father proceeded to tell me that I needed to have sex with a guy and a girl in order to choose if I was going to be gay. He then told me that if I was gay I had to quit Boy Scouts and couldn't be a part of that. At the time Boy Scouts was my life, so that really got me upset. My father also proceeded to explain to me how gay sex worked and asked if I would like that. Once again I was silent. I had nothing to say. I had never felt so ashamed.

For the next two years, it was the elephant in the room, but it wasn't talked about unless politics got really deep. The nights that it got really bad, I would leave the living room and go into my bedroom usually yelling or crying or both. Before college, I was informed not to tell anyone because if I did, I would be disliked and not treated like a "normal person."

I didn't take their advice. I encourage people be themselves in college. Today my relationship with my parents is a lot better. We talk about me being gay just about every time that I am home. I can call my mom and tell her that I went on a date with a guy and my father now understands why gay people have to come out and that discrimination does exist within the LGBT community. It does get better, sometime it just takes time and education.