There is a difference between running for your survival and hiding from your truth. One is instinct. The other is erosion. For a long time, I confused the two. I thought distancing myself from unhealthy relationships, manipulation, emotional confusion, and environments that chipped away at my identity somehow meant I was weak or afraid. But survival is not cowardice. Sometimes running is the first breath of oxygen after years underwater. 🌊
The reality within the LGBTQ+ community is heavier than many people want to admit out loud. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 44% of lesbian women and 61% of bisexual women experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, compared to 35% of heterosexual women. The statistics for men are equally alarming, with 26% of gay men and 37% of bisexual men experiencing intimate partner violence, compared to 29% of heterosexual men. For transgender individuals, studies show that more than half experience some form of intimate partner violence during their lifetime.
But intimate partner violence is only one piece of the storm cloud. Family environments and childhood experiences shape LGBTQ+ mental health long before adulthood arrives. Research highlighted by Vanderbilt University Medical Center found that LGBTQ individuals reported significantly higher rates of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) than straight individuals. The study revealed that 72% of LGBTQ adults experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, compared to 65% of heterosexual adults. More strikingly, 29% of LGBTQ participants reported four or more ACEs, compared to 20% of straight participants. These experiences included emotional neglect, household substance abuse, domestic violence, rejection, and other forms of instability that leave fingerprints on a person long after childhood ends.
The impact of those experiences does not simply disappear with age. The same study found that LGBTQ+ individuals with higher ACE scores experienced significantly worse mental health outcomes in adulthood, including increased rates of depression, anxiety, PTSD symptoms, and emotional distress. The National Institutes of Health further explains how stigma, discrimination, family rejection, and internalized shame create layers of trauma that increase vulnerability to substance abuse, suicidal ideation, homelessness, and unhealthy relationships. When a child grows up feeling unsafe for simply existing as themselves, survival mode becomes second nature. Some people spend their whole adult lives trying to unlearn what fear taught them at home.
That is the dangerous part about unhealthy relationships and toxic environments. They do not always arrive looking like monsters. Sometimes they arrive disguised as protection. Sometimes they sound like family traditions, religious fear, controlling love, or the constant need to “save face.” Sometimes the gaslighting becomes so routine you forget what your own reflection sounds like without someone else narrating it for you. You begin shrinking pieces of yourself to keep the peace until eventually there is barely enough left to recognize in the mirror.
But somewhere along the road, life has a strange way of placing unexpected people in your path. Complete strangers. Individuals who owed you absolutely nothing, yet offered kindness without contracts attached to it. Safety without interrogation. Conversations without judgment. The kind of people who remind you what breathing feels like again. Those safety nets become sacred. Not because they fix every wound overnight, but because they prove humanity still exists outside the chaos. Sometimes healing starts with one person saying, “You don’t have to explain your existence to me.”
I think that has been the hardest lesson of adulthood and identity combined: learning that living in your truth will cost you certain versions of comfort, but hiding from yourself costs far more. There is exhaustion in constantly performing for the expectations of others. There is grief in realizing some people would rather protect appearances than protect people. Yet there is also freedom in finally understanding that authenticity is not rebellion. It is survival with its mask removed.
So no, I am not hiding anymore. I am learning the difference between isolation and peace. Between loyalty and control. Between love and possession. Between surviving and actually living. The road has scars all over it, but at least the footsteps are finally my own.
Resources & References
Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Understanding Intimate Partner Violence in the LGBTQ+ Community.
https://www.hrc.org/resources/understanding-intimate-partner-violence-in-the-lgbtq-community
Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Study Finds LGBQ People Report Higher Rates of Adverse Childhood Experiences Than Straight People, Worse Mental Health as Adults.
https://news.vumc.org/2022/02/24/study-finds-lgbq-people-report-higher-rates-of-adverse-childhood-experiences-than-straight-people-worse-mental-health-as-adults/
National Institutes of Health. Intimate Partner Violence and the LGBTQ+ Community.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6551980/