Coming out is a big deal. People come out as queer or kinky or nudist or whatever, and it both grants them freedoms and brings a lot of risks. Coming out as gay, for instance, finally opens you up to the gay community, it gives you the opportunity to date whom you please in an honest way. Unfortunately it all to often also comes along with familial, social, and even occupational consequences. Most people, though, say that coming out has more benefits than drawbacks for most financially independent adults.* Coming out can put you in touch with resources that you didn't know about before. It can give you the relief of being able to live an honest life. It is generally a good thing for one's life as a whole to come out even if not for individual portions of it.
I think what we sometimes fail to realize, though, is that people come out in ways beyond their sexual lives, and these versions of coming out have different effects. One's sexual practices may make have stigma in the form of how others perceive of one's morals. For example, because I am bisexual, certain people probably perceive of me as a godless heathen. Because I am somewhat of a masochist, certain people may suppose that I had an unhealthy childhood. Neither of those prejudices, by the way, are true. The thing is, though, our sexual identities rarely make a comment on our competence or intelligence. While my various sexual comings out have caused people to ever so kindly inform me that I am headed straight for the fires of hell, it has never caused them to tell me that I would not be headed there via a top university and a lucrative career.
I've come out quite a bit sexually, but there's a portion of my life that I am not very out about. It becomes painfully salient in the workplace, but it also is something that I rarely know how to broach with new friends or lovers. It's one of those comings out that does reflect upon my competence, that has caused people to question my capabilities. I have Bipolar Disorder. That is, I get depressed much like any twenty-something in America, but I also sometimes have these wonderful little upshoots when I feel really good. It's not running around thinking that I'm talking to Jesus good, but it is better than average. I don't need as much sleep. I can talk at a breakneck speed. Sometimes my thoughts jump so quickly from topic to topic that people can't quite follow where I'm going. Oh yeah, and sex feels AWESOME. Like more awesome than usual. Like dark chocolate salted caramels mixed with some fine opiates style awesome. The technical term for this experience is hypomania, and generally it rocks. Except when it doesn't.
You see, one of the downsides of hypomania is that when you're in it, your judgment isn't always all there. That translates for some people into thousands of dollars of credit card debt. For me, it translated into a rather long list of sexual partners (remember what I was saying about the awesomeness that is hypomanic sex?) I am not ashamed of my sexual history (anymore), but I do acknowledge that I have hurt some people and myself. I also acknowledge that I am very, very lucky because poor judgment plus sex that feels like candy coated heroin does not always lead to the safest of sexual practices. I (thankfully) have been on hormonal birth control since I was fifteen and never contracted anything, but again, I am VERY lucky.
Another downside of hypomania is that, for me at least, it is inevitably accompanied by crippling "can't get out of bed" depression. There was a period during Sophomore year when I gained twenty pounds, didn't sleep, and barely got out of bed for more than two hours at a time. How I passed my classes, I will never know. I think it was the help of some professors who get that life is hard sometimes. Needless to say, I was not getting laid during that period. Though the nice dopamine rush probably would have helped...
You see, though, I still graduated from a top tier university. I am gainfully employed. I'm going to go to medical school. Yes, sometimes I have made some choices that, in retrospect, I probably wouldn't make again. Yes, I have a disease that can be disabling if not incapacitating at times. Yet I have been terrified to tell people that I have Bipolar Disorder because that is one of those "crazy person" mental illnesses. We can deal with depression. Phobias are almost fashionable these days. When we hear "bipolar," though, our minds leap to that person in the street screaming about the end of days or the crazy cat lady living up the street. I promise you, we aren't all like that. Some of us just have a lot of sex to make up for how little sleep we're getting.
...but, on a sidenote, I really want to be a crazy cat lady when I grow up.
*Please note that I would NEVER recommend that a kid who is dependent on his/her parents for support to come out if it meant sacrificing home, education, livelihood, etc.
