The Moment I Said It Out Loud

“The hardest part wasn’t saying I was gay out loud, it was believing I was still worthy of love once I did.”

I think I was about seven when I first realised something about me was different. I remember noticing a boy at school who I liked and feeling that typical mix of excitement and nervousness whenever he spoke to me. At the time, I didn’t understand what it meant. I didn’t label it or question it. I just knew I really liked him. In my head, I probably thought I was in love with him.

Back then, I was just being myself, fully and unapologetically. But around me, things started to shift. I remember other boys at school making fun of “girly” boys, and I was quite shy. Looking back, I think that’s when something clicked for me. Not consciously, but enough to start noticing that being different wasn’t something you showed or talked about and that was probably the beginning of me learning to hide.

Growing up, the messages were there, both spoken and unspoken. That being gay wasn’t accepted, that it was unnatural, a sin, something to be ashamed of. I remember sitting in church at my Catholic school and hearing the minister say, “to lie with another man is sinful and against God’s will.” At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but looking back, it landed somewhere in me. It taught me, without me realising, that this part of me needed to be hidden.

So, I did what a lot of us do I the community. I masked.

I played the “straight guy,” although as most of my friends would say now, I didn’t play that role very well (lol). I became loud, outgoing and the life of the party. I was always out, always social, always doing something. Looking back, I think a lot of that was me avoiding it. If I stayed busy enough and kept things surface level, I wouldn’t have to face what I was feeling or what it meant.

I remember going to a strip club with my older brother and feeling completely out of place. He offered to pay for a lap dance and I said no straight away because the thought of it made me anxious. It felt foreign to me. I remember sitting there thinking, this isn’t me. But I kept going along with it anyway, because not facing it felt easier than facing it.

As I got older, especially into my teenage years, the thoughts started to become clearer. Underneath everything, there was this belief forming that I wasn’t enough, that I wasn’t loveable or wanted. Underneath that was fear. Fear of being exposed, fear of losing my friends, fear of losing my family.

I remember being about 16 and thinking about coming out, but it didn’t feel like it would just affect me. It felt like it would affect everyone around me. My dad was a police officer and I wondered if it would impact him at work. My mum, whether it would affect her relationships. My siblings, whether it would change how people saw them. We were a basketball family and well known in that world, and I worried about whether it would affect them being selected for teams or how their friends would see them. There were so many what ifs, and I think at the core of it all was a fear that I would end up alone.

I had heard stories of boys being kicked out of home for coming out, some as young as 14. So even though I knew deep down my family would accept me (very loving household), keeping it in still felt safer. So I did, for years.

Until I was about 20.

I was at work one day, sitting in the office, just being my usual outgoing self, when one of my colleagues turned to me and asked, completely out of nowhere, “Brad, are you gay?”

I remember pausing. My heart was racing like it was going to jump out of my chest. It felt hard to swallow my water and I started to feel shaky. My mind went straight into panic, thinking, “oh my god, she sees me, she knows”. But then suddenly, everything went quiet. For the first time, there were no thoughts. It was just silence. It wasn’t the first time someone had asked me and at the time I didn’t notice that this time felt different because I felt safe enough and accepted by them all.

And I said, “Yes, I am gay.”

Just like that.

The response in the room was, “pfft, we already knew” and “tell us something we don’t know,” and everyone laughed. But for me, it wasn’t small. I remember saying to her, “I’ve never told anyone that before, not even my family,” and the room went quiet. She gave me a hug and asked how it felt to say it out loud. I told her it felt like relief, but also anxiety, because now I had to tell my family.

Not long after that, I reached a point where I couldn’t keep it in anymore. It felt like I was going to explode. Like my mind had reached its limit. I was exhausted from hiding who I was.

I remember my mum saying to me one day, “Darling, what’s wrong? You’ve been really quiet for a while now.” And I told her there was something I needed to say, something I had been going through for the last four years. She called my dad in straight away, thinking it was serious. I remember saying, “I’ve had this since I was 16…” and she cut in and said, “oh my god, do you have cancer?” And I said, “no, I don’t… I’m gay.”

Her response was, “oh, is that it? That’s okay sweetheart, I have lots of gay friends.” (It made me laugh which helped me relax. My mum is good at breaking the tension like that.)

And I just remember feeling this wave of relief.

For so long, I had built that moment up in my head as something that could change everything. But it didn’t. I didn’t lose anyone. My family didn’t treat me differently. My friends didn’t leave. Even my grandfather, who I was worried about because of the time he grew up in, never once treated me differently. That meant a lot to me.

But even with that acceptance, there was still grief. Grief for the version of me that had protected me for so long. Grief for the years I spent hiding. Grief for believing I wasn’t enough.

Coming out didn’t solve everything, but it made things easier. It gave me the space to start figuring out who I actually was, not just who I thought I had to be.

That has been a journey in itself. Through study, through life experience, and through being more involved in the community, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I left school at 16 thinking I wasn’t capable academically as I always struggled and needed additional help, and yet I went on to complete a Masters of Counselling with a GPA of 6.0 (this is HUGE for me). I’ve built a career, started my own practice, and now sit with people in their most vulnerable moments.

I’m not perfect by any means, and I still don’t have it all figured out. But I’m learning, and that feels enough.

Looking back now, I don’t judge the people who made me feel like I had to hide. We are all products of our time, shaped by what we were taught and what we didn’t question. That doesn’t excuse the impact, but it helps me understand it. I wouldn’t turn back time to erase the past, because it has shaped who I am today.

If you’re reading this and you’re somewhere in that space I once was, take your time. You don’t have to rush this part of your life. Be curious about yourself when you can, and when it feels safe, lean into the uncomfortable parts. Without leaning in, we can’t get to acceptance.

But don’t stay there forever. Life is short, and there is a lot of life to live.

And if it feels like you are alone in this, you’re not.

And maybe that’s the part I’ve come to understand the most, not just through my own experience but through sitting with others in theirs. We don’t just hide who we are because we’re unsure. We hide because somewhere along the way we learned it wasn’t safe to be seen. Unlearning that takes time. It happens slowly, in moments of honesty, in spaces where we feel safe enough to tell the truth.

Whatever your story looks like, you deserve that space. To understand yourself, to feel seen, and to move toward a version of you that doesn’t have to be hidden.