I’m going to make this as short and sweet as I possibly can.. Here goes..

So I’m a 22-year-old female who is a lesbian. Big whoop, right? Wrong. My parents are both controlling, close-minded, homophobic Arab Muslims and I’m scared for my life when I think bout what they would do if they found out. Only a couple of people know that I like girls and one of them is my long-distance girlfriend whom I have never met (that part of the story is too complex to explain). My mom found out that I loved this girl about a year ago and she had a mental breakdown and made it seem like I was an abomination and was ashamed of me. Genuinely scared for my life, I lied to her and told her it was “just a phase,” knowing damn well it’s not. I’ve never had the desire to date a guy and have only had legit crushes and fantasies about girls ever since I was in preschool. I cannot have feelings for a guy, period. I’ve only had feelings for girls my whole life. Ever since that day that my mom found out about my girlfriend, she has NEVER trusted me again, blaming it on all of my “American” friends and peer pressure, which is so ignorant being that my parents moved to America to give birth to and raise me and my brother.

My life this past year has been the worst, most stressful, anxiety-ridden year of my life and is not going to get any better from what I can imagine. It was bad enough that my parents were controlling of my life before my mom found out about my “phase,” but now my mom is always suspicious of every single thing I do (no exaggeration) and asks a million questions every time I’m on my phone or she finds a receipt for something I bought or want to hang out with my friends because she doesn’t trust me. I have grown to hate my mom in the past year and it has come to the point where I’m REALLY scared of her. I can’t even look her in the eye anymore and sometimes wish for her to die in my head (you would understand if you were as scared for your life, freedom, and happiness as I am). I feel like if my parents were gone, I would be FREE to live and be happy. I feel like she is always watching me and I always have to lie to my parents about what I’m doing because I know they would disapprove of it even though I’ve never drunk or smoked or done drugs in my life, ever. I just feel this compulsion to lie to them about what I’m doing.

I’m so stressed out and sick of living my life hiding in the closet, not being able to express myself and meet other lesbian women. I’m sick of not having someone to physically and emotionally love. I’m sick of my parents trying to force me into their religion and my mom trying to make me “pray” any remnants of “the gay away” This may sound silly to some people (probably to some straight people or some LGBTQ people with accepting parents), but my happiness is really spiraling downward. I have spent my whole life hiding from the world (my friends, family, everyone..) and living with my controlling, mistrustful parents and I am constantly anxious. I feel depressed from time to time (maybe once or twice a week MAX for the past few years depending on what’s going on in my life), but I know it’s probably not clinical depression because I have been able to function at school and work and make friends. I feel like I have some type of “walking depression” mixed with chronic anxiety/stress and I cannot be happy living like this.

I am in the process of applying to graduate schools and have applied to many schools that are at least a couple of hours away from my parents’ house (both in-state and out). I am really hoping to get accepted to a school far enough away from my parents so that I can move out. But then when I DO finally move out, what do I do from there? Do I slowly cut off contact with my family (even though I think it would be pretty much impossible given their persistence)? Do I come out and hope they don’t come find me and kill me? I know that when I come out to them, something really bad is going to happen and I feel like coming out is only going to make my paranoia and anxiety/stress/depression worse because I know they’re going to try to kill me.

I just don’t know what to do with my life and I, too often think about dying ( not self-inflicted, but an accident or something like that). I just wish I had open-minded, accepting parents and that’s something I cannot change in my life and I cannot live with. I might need professional help, but, again, how can I do it without my parents knowing what I’m getting help for?