For me, finding a community has been the #1 thing which helped me find my authentic self, and in turn, helped me to start my recovery.
When I was younger and lived rurally, this community was purely online but I’ll talk now a bit about what my IRL community has been like.
I think what finding a (small) community helped me with was feeling comfortable in myself and feeling less alone. And these people started off as just incidental friends really. People I met at work or uni and we bonded over the queer books we’d read or films we’d watched. These people became friends who’d go to queer events. For me, I had a lot of people in my life who weren’t LGBTQIA+ but never made assumptions about me and celebrated the real me.
And making new friends or finding a community can be really difficult. BUT community can look different to all of us. Some things which I did (and might help others) were
- Finding a local LGBTQIA+ bookshop and café (they held events)
- Join facebook groups or forums which were LGBTQIA+ AND intersected with another interest (like books!)
- Wearing a discreet pride badge to signal to others that I’m LGBTQIA+
- Trying to find a regular event in my area and just going over and over again. People slowly became acquaintances and then friends. It took a while, but it was great! I Also brought an existing friend with me to these spaces
- Doing all the things I already liked (like knitting and music) and searching for X + LGBT group
And it can be daunting to introduce ourselves to new people, and we all have our own coping strategies for dealing with that nervousness. But if there are barriers, jump into the forums and we can talk about them!
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