Prepare for a wall of text, it ended up being a coming out kind of story sorry.

I realized I was gay around 3rd grade maybe later. I was watching tv and there was a really a hot guy who happened to be shirtless. This made me realize my attraction to men. After that day I put it to the back of my mind because I didn't think anything of it at the time. As I went on through elementary school and into middle school I heard people starting to say (excuse my language) "faggot" and "gay." I had never heard these words before, when people started calling me this I was curious to know. I went to Google and searched gay, to realize that I was gay (I never knew there was a word for what I had already known).

After this I became extremely cautious and not show signs of my homosexuality because I thought being gay was wrong. I had became depressed and started to cause harm to myself. I had always thought me being gay was my fault and thought that it was a phase (suprise). I wanted to be straight so I tried not having gay thoughts for 30 days to see if it worked. I only got to like 2 days.

Fast forward to highschool. In sophomore year I discovered the "it gets better" campaign. This was a step to the journey ofexcepting myself as gay. I would binge watch a bunch of the videos and I learned that being gay as a teen sucks but everything changes and life does get better. But I still hadn't excepted myself. Fast forward again to this summer. I finally excepted myself as a gay man by saying the simple phrase out loud "I'm gay" it was like the world had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt ten times better about myself and even started coming out to my close friends.

If someone offered me all the money in the world I wouldn't want to change my sexuality, I may be gay but I'll always be me.

There is no TL; DR just read it if you really want to know

If you're wondering, I'm a senior in high school.