an old reddit post from junior year of college

For years, I allowed myself to be suppressed. When I was twelve, I wanted to wear athletic shorts and a T-shirt to school every day. I wanted to hang with the guys and flirt with the girls. And then, one day, my mom told me that I couldn't wear shorts to school anymore. She took me shopping and bought me a slew of feminine clothes so that I could "be more girly" just in time for hormones to kick in.

In hindsight, I see why things developed the way they did. I became unsatisfied with my daily life, I started to act like the center of the party at school. Flashing my friends because I could, sitting on people because it was funny, ignoring homework to socialize because I thought it would get people to like me. But really, I only left the house for school and sports events.

Though I had tons of friends at school and could name all the kids from kindergarten through 8th grade, I would come home to parents "too old to play games" and, being an only child, I got tired of doing the same puzzle over and over again. I found the internet.

The internet was interesting at first: I found out about things I'd never even dreamed of and it was there that I had my first real conversation about sex. Being six foot and black in a predominantly white private school, my crushes on those Christian boys around me never amounted to more than "we should be friends" or "I don't think it would work out." After crying over the latest friend zone, my mother told me that no white boy would ever want to bring me home: all white boys want is sex.

That's when I realized my mother was full of shit.

The internet didn't care what I looked like. Or so I thought. I started posting provocative pictures on dating websites, claiming to be nineteen to talk to single men in my area. They were fascinated with me! I received so much attention with, for lack of better phrasing, my huge black boobs. I started relationships with these men and, under my parents' noses, began to meet up with them in secret and explore my sexuality.

There was something taboo about it. Sure, my mom had given me the sex talk when I was in fifth grade, but she treated it as something I wouldn't have to worry about until way later down the road. She mentioned masturbating in passing and played it off as something weird people do. I met up with these guys looking for answers, looking for a feeling that would tell me that everything would be okay.

I couldn't get pleasure. No matter how many guys I told I had never orgasmed, no one could do it. Shit, I couldn't even do it. I became disgusted with my vagina. I could arouse myself with my mind but if I touched myself, all those feelings went away. It was like I was cockblocking myself.

As I grew, I found myself becoming more numb. High school was one of the best things to happen to me and I found myself happiest when I was sneaking around in the dark woods, smoking cigarettes in clandestine meetings and getting high with my friends.

It didn't last. Again, I was friendly enough to know everyone in the school but I only formed one or two close relationships with my peers. This made it hard to stay in touch with reality because, as soon as school let out, they went home and so did I. I began experimenting with the internet again.

By that time, I had realized that I didn't like meeting up with strange men. Too much could go wrong and you never left fully satisfied. I got a webcam to keep things strictly virtual. It didn't mean much, but I left those chatrooms with the satisfaction that someone had reached an orgasm because of me. I started looking around forums and then I realized: people treat you differently on the internet if you're male.

So Boris was created. I talked to girls, seduced them with my poetry, chatted with dudes about writing, and I made YouTube videos where I substituted lyrics from Disney songs with my own verses in tribute to the girls I was talking to. I became happier; I talked to girls about their problems from all over the world and they responded with affection.

Then I got to college. I, basically, got a full ride for being a smart black kid. My parents didn't have the money to send me to the liberal arts school in California that I wanted to go to and my dream school didn't offer enough scholarship money. In the end, I had to stay in state if I wanted to get an education.

I hated it.

I told everyone I could of my predicament and found a lot more of the exact same story. I bonded with these people and tried to spend my time with them. But I was bored. I'd conditioned myself to want to break the rules and do things that could make my parents angry if they ever found out. They never did. Sure there were close calls (my mom finding a discarded cellophane packaging from a pack of cigarettes, phone calls on my phone bills to and from places she didn't know, and once a pair of dirty underwear I tried mailing to a lover!) but I never had the hammer dropped on me.

Eventually they started to trust me. My dad stopped calling me every time he didn't recognize a payment on my card. My moms phone calls went from "daily missed" to leaving voice messages telling me to call her when I got the chance. School was a bore. My honors classes were the only ones that challenged me to think outside the box and my English classes encouraged me to develop thoughts and ideas to display concisely on paper.

I started therapy about a week into college. My counselor helped a lot but we couldn't figure out why I was so miserable. We searched for solutions, ways to get involved around campus but it still wasn't enough.

Then I met him.

He was interesting and frustrating and eccentric and intelligent. We met on the internet when I was going by Kevlar. After a five minute conversation I was IN LOVE. He was edgy and interesting and asked thought provoking questions that made other people uncomfortable. I wanted to love him.

We talked in private and I revealed that I was biologically female and he was distraught. Still, we kept talking. And the more we talked and the more I told him about my life, I fell out of love with him. He was a companion, someone I could share my deepest darkest secrets with. There was still a secret desire that """"one day"""" he would love me but it became much less prevalent as we chatted.

One day, he asked me: "have you ever thought of being a dude in real life?"

I know that it sounds cliche, but my life literally changed before my very eyes.

He helped me come to terms with my identity and I realized that I really liked being called Kev on the internet (short for Kevlar). It them became Kevin, the name which I would begin shaping my entire life around.

It was like a fucking movie, y'all. Though I didn't have the courage to talk to anyone in real life about this development besides my counselor, I started doing better in school. I joined an honor fraternity. I played intramurals and decimated my cisgender female opponents.

I had a confidence boost that I knew who I was and I knew what I would do after I graduated: change my name, surgery, and move somewhere far away and would never have to tell my parents. It became a goal to work toward and I thrived.

But the more and more I kept meeting people and giving them my birth name, the less happy I was. I felt like a lie. After a year of talking with my therapist, I wanted to make Kevin a reality, not just a presence on the internet. I, very slowly, came out to some of my friends. I didn't receive any backlash which felt like a good sign.

I grew more bold. I used the name Kevin whenever I could, though my student ID couldn't be officially changed until I legally changed my name. The GSA at my school worked with our college to get the system to show our "preferred name" if it was different from the actual roster. My junior year, now, I utilized this service and for this semester I've been Kevin in all my classes.

I got a job in the fall to support my excessive pot smoking habit. I wanted to be included on my friends' plans and most of the open minded people I liked smoked so I continued the habit. I knew my job would be temporary as I gave them my birth name instead of my real name. It was fantastic - working with dogs and giving baths and trimming toenails and folding laundry. I'd always liked dogs because of their energy and their compassion without having to say a word. I didn't have to hear my birth name every time a dog walked in.

I worked a lot. Schoolwork suffered as I struggled to explain my passion of work with animals to my parents. I loved working and going to work but I couldn't manage schoolwork on top of it. I called my mom to explain how stressed out I was and how I wanted to drop out of school to work full-time.

She told me of how much money they had spent sending me to private school. She told me of how much they struggled to keep my education, even with the financial aid that my school provided. She said that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I graduated. She said that I owed them that.

So I tried. But school was so fucking hard when I was trying to balance work with it. My work place was twenty minutes away from my dorm and I didn't have a car. My best friend often drove me to work and it started putting a strain on our relationship, which stressed me out even more.

I had an idea to commit suicide on the way to work one day, when my friend let me borrow his car. I was almost there and suddenly the idea hit me: "I could rest if I was dead." My eyes glazed over, my heart slowed to a crawl and I focused my eyes on a tree on the side of the road. As I started crying and the car began to drift to the right, the front tires hit the grass and I swerved back onto the road.

I had responsibilities.

This wasn't my car, I had to close at work, my parents would be distraught, I needed to succeed in school so I could move away and be Kevin. I cried for most of the work day and, when my boss asked me what was wrong and I told her, she said that I had more to live for and then left me by myself to finish the shift.

It felt really shitty. I fell into depression, going to work numb and ignoring my schoolwork. My grades took a toll and I dropped dangerously close to the threshold I need to keep to keep my scholarship. I couldn't function.

I quit my job and started anti-depressants and suddenly everything was looking up. I had more time to hang with friends and I could finally get my work done. Unfortunately, its too little too late and I can't bring my grade up in time for the end of this semester. I'm almost definitely going to lose my scholarship.

So I guess my whole point of writing this is to tell someone of my struggle. I want someone to read this and tell me that I'm not stupid and that everything will be okay. I know I'm going to lose my scholarship but I have another two or three weeks to prepare to return home for the summer.

I want to come out to my parents. It hurts, at this point, to continue concealing from them. I know that it won't go well (my mother started crying hysterically when I told her I might be bisexual) but I think that I can handle it now. I plan to get a job in my home town and move back in with them temporarily. Its going to break my parents' hearts but, after writing this, I really do think that everything will be okay.

That being said, I'm really fucking nervous and I had a dream of what I would say to them which gave me the confidence to come up with this plan. Over the next few days, I want to work on what to say to them and speculate reactions so I can be ready. I'm ready to see the world as Kevin and for the world to see me as I am.

Thank you for reading this and wish me luck.