A Letter of Encouragement to My LGBTQ+ Younger Self
The words that might have saved me years of hiding. And a message of hope for every LGBTQ+ person who's ever felt alone.
Dear Little G,
I found that polaroid of you yesterday—tucked in an old journal, fading at the edges. Fourteen years old, eyes darting away from the camera, wearing three layers in the summer heat because you thought it would hide the parts of yourself you were terrified others could see.
God, I want to crawl through time and hold you.
You don't know it yet, but that constant ache in your chest isn't something broken that needs fixing. It's your truth trying desperately to breathe in a room where everyone told you to hold your breath.
Remember that night after your cousin's aniversário? When Tío Miguel drunkenly asked why you danced "like that" and everyone laughed? How you locked yourself in the bathroom and practiced standing differently, speaking deeper, moving less? I spent fifteen minutes trying to become someone else while my mother knocked, asking if I was sick.
I was sick—sick with the weight of performing, sick with fear, sick with the exhaustion of editing every word, movement, and desire.
There are things I wish someone had told us then, truths I learned the hard way:
That survival isn't the same as living. That all those nights you spent praying to wake up "normal" weren't wasted—they were teaching you compassion for others who whisper similar desperate prayers into their pillows.
The loneliness feels like it will swallow you whole. It won't. I promise.
When Mónica finds that journal and doesn't speak to you for weeks, it will feel like the end of everything. It isn't. Years later, she'll squeeze your boyfriend's hand at Christmas dinner and ask him about his family with genuine interest. People can surprise you—sometimes, the very ones who hurt you most become your fiercest defenders.
Your body—the one you're starving, hiding, punishing—will someday be a source of joy. Not perfect joy, not constant joy, but moments when you forget to hate it, where you dance without self-consciousness, where you let someone touch you without flinching, without apologizing.
And you're not as alone as you think. That teacher who slips you James Baldwin when no one's looking? She sees you. The librarian who never questions why you're checking out books on queer history? She's creating space for you to find yourself. These aren't just small mercies—they're breadcrumbs leading you toward your community. Follow them.
That first boyfriend will devastate you. Let him. Heartbreak is not something to avoid at all costs—it's evidence you had the courage to love despite everything telling you that your love was dangerous.
The shame you carry isn't yours. Give it back. It belongs to a world too small to hold your complexity, too frightened to embrace difference, too insecure to celebrate the beautiful spectrum of human experience.
When that boy in history class calls you a faggot loud enough for everyone to hear, and the teacher pretends not to notice—this moment will revisit you for years. But one day, it will lose its power. One day, you'll say the word yourself and feel nothing but the liberation of reclaiming language meant to destroy you.
I wish you knew how many people will one day trust you with their stories precisely because you've lived this struggle. How the tenderness born from your pain becomes the foundation of your work. How the empathy forged in isolation becomes your greatest gift to others.
Sometimes in therapy sessions, I hear echoes of your fears in my clients' voices. When they say they're unlovable, I recognize the lie because I told it to myself first. When they believe they'll always be alone, I remember believing the same thing. I can guide them toward self-acceptance because I had to blaze that trail for myself—stumbling, falling, getting back up.
Here's what I need you to know on the hardest nights:
This pain is not meaningless. This struggle is not punishment. This difference is not defect.
Your queerness isn't something that happened to you—it's intrinsic to who you are, woven into every beautiful, complicated part of you. The very thing they mock will become your strength. The sensitivity they call weakness will become your superpower.
You won't just survive this. You'll transform it into purpose.
With the love you've always deserved,
Me
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