Sometimes I wonder what it would be like not to be in the minority for once. It’s so difficult to imagine for me, seeing as I’m in multiple minority positions. There is the gay issue, the fact that I’m an atheist, the struggles I’ve had with being perceived as “foreign” because of my mixed ethnicity¹, the whole socially independent attitude, and of course the whole depression and agoraphobia thing. It makes it really hard for me to deeply relate to anyone — and though I wouldn’t trade my two best friends against anyone else, having more people around to fall back on would be nice.

Then a little voice inside of me — a fictional one, I don’t also suffer from multiple-personality disorder (I hope) — tells me that it doesn’t matter, and that every minority position makes me an even more special and unique person. It soothes me and tells me that I get to conquer situations that someone in the majority never will encounter, and that those “trials” make me strong and better equipped to handle the real world.

Yes, but as I counterattack, I tell that little voice to get lost, because I would rather live a normal, more carefree life than this one — even if it makes me strong, unique and better equipped. Two weeks ago, in the evening, I was in a grocery store near here buying some last minute things we had forgotten. Because I had rushed out of the house, I had picked up the wrong debit card. Then when I was at the checkout, I saw I had and freaked out a bit. I had no cash with me and no other card. The cashier didn’t believe me and I was almost forcefully thrown out by the security guard. Only after explaining it in full was I let go to call home and ask for the specific PIN number (it wasn’t my card).

Now, you could say that it had nothing to do with discrimination, but I know better. If I had been white, they wouldn’t have made such a big deal of it. But I’ve actually come to “accept” that part of my life by now (regardless of how sad that sounds). Prejudice will always exist, nothing I can do about it. No, what bothered me was that they couldn’t care less that I was agoraphobic. I can’t handle situations where everybody is staring at you, blaming you, screaming at you. I lose all focus and can’t concentrate.

Did I tell them that? Yes, I did. Did they care? No, they didn’t. If I hadn’t been pushed around so much, I could’ve easily explained it all in a calm manner, but because I had been, everything that came out of my mouth sounded like a lie and a quick fabrication. Maybe they just didn’t know better? But that’s exactly my point! Yet again am I forced into a situation in which I’m the unwilling minority — misunderstood and blamed.

Another situation deals with my atheism. I haven’t made it a secret here that I do not like religion — at all. I won’t go into the details because I already have many times, but in short my stance is that every religion, benign or not, is a bomb waiting to explode (literally in some cases). Yet in conversation with Christians I tend to keep it all inside. There is really no other choice for me, since theists can get really defensive and angry about the whole issue. Disputing their God is enough to get you killed — or better put, brutally murdered — in some circles. I have to respect their believes, even though they do not respect my “believes” or freedom of speech.

And it’s a small transition from religion to gay bashing. To many Abrahamic² theists I do not have a right to exist in this world, and I should either be murdered, exiled, sent to a reform camp, or locked up in prison (for life, favourably). A friend of mine told me Mormons were a bit more open to homosexuality, to which I remained silent — anyone who really knows the Latter Day Saint movement, knows that they only accept gays who do not conduct in gay activity. How can that even be an option? So it’s okay to have feelings for the same sex, but not okay to fall in love with the same sex, have sex with or even kiss him or her, and in hell that you would be allowed to marry!

Even if that all would be resolved — and it never will be — and I would look and act like everybody else, I would still feel shitty like always. I truly hate it when people say they feel depressed when they’re a little bit down. The slightest feeling of emotional pain or energy drain and they’re depressed!

Well, newsflash, but you don’t know how it is to be really depressed. How it is to look at a happy couple and see nothing but pain; how it feels to plan your own suicide, alone and angry at yourself for even attempting; how it hurts deep inside to look in the mirror and to see a shadow of what you used to be, happy and untroubled. Sure, there are the good moments, the periods in which you feel free and gay (for me personally, pun intended) — but those come and go with irregularity. And even then, how can you really be totally happy when you have the knowledge that there will come another day in which you could be responsible for your own death?

Yes, it’s difficult to live in the minority, and even more difficult to live in multiple minorities. When you finally accept that you’ll always be a part of one minority, the other ones kick you on your head. When you intend to fight the bigotry against one of the minorities, another one drags you right back into the prejudice after the fight has been won. There is no way out and there is no other option than to just accept that you are you, and that those who don’t accept that do not deserve your consideration. Now, can somebody please download that to my neurological harddrive? Much appreciated.