It Gets Better: Apple Employees

I knew from my earliest memories that I was gay. I was, you know, kind of a loner growing up. I was very uncomfortable. He called every name in the book. They would say faggot or... Nerd, intellectual... You know, lesbian this, lesbian that... You know, people passing by and calling me a waste. Yes, the mainstream didn't like us. And high school kind of sucks. I mean, it's like... Just not allowing someone to be different. There were definitely nights, in those years, where I would go to sleep and think, I don't want to deal with this, I don't want to wake up in the morning.

I just wanted to curl up in some dark corner and wait for it all to go away. I felt tired. Really tired. When I was about eight years old, I told my pediatrician that I wanted to be a girl. She made me feel, ah, even more determined to hide that part of me, because the message I was getting is, you know, that's disgusting. You have all these, ah, feelings that you can't necessarily talk to someone about. You know, you're looking for that acceptance and you don't always get it. As much as my parents loved me, there was always the chance that... that the two people who mattered most in my life... wouldn't accept me for who I am.

And I had this kind of story in my mind that everyone was going to lash out at me and get angry and say, oh, you're going to hell. And when I thought about that, I became very depressed and had actually thought about committing suicide. Because I'm so? I wish it wasn't. I found a bottle of sleeping pills in my parents' medicine cabinet and took them. All of them. Just moments before I passed out, I had a fleeting moment where I thought: If it

gets

better

and I leave, then I've really screwed up. It's worth waking up every day.

You never know what's going to happen. Life changes a lot. When I finally came out, oh, and started transitioning, I realized that I had been hiding a big part of myself. And it just came out. I said, I'm gay! It feels like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. And that was incredibly liberating. Finally I am! There is no way I wouldn't want to be who I am, because my uniqueness is my strength, it's what sets me apart from other people. Finally being open and honest with who I am and what I want out of life.

And to my surprise, it was probably one of the best things I had ever done in my life. You feel every sense of freedom and, um, every sense of, that's what life is about. Summer days in the park where all your friends are. Going for a run when there is no one else on the street. The excitement of discovering what your career is. Or even just be here to watch the sun set or rise. I have people that I really enjoy talking to, being with and doing things with. Enjoying the riches of life. That's what people shouldn't miss.

Falling in love and having a partner for almost 14 years. We both play the piano, um, he plays the viola. And someone to whom every night you want to say: "I love you and I hope you sleep well." That feeling of connecting with someone so deeply. And sometimes I still shake my head, I think I'm, it's, I'm dreaming. Because it's gotten so much

better

than I ever thought possible. There's just no way anyone can really explain it to you until you really feel it. But if you're not around, you won't be. Don't try to do everything yourself.

Find people who can help you if you can. As difficult as it may seem, open up to someone and tell them what you feel. You have to be open to people who even seem to be your friends. They are friends, you are not alone! You're not alone. Bullies seem like powerful, successful people, and the secret of the real world is that they are at the peak of their power at 15 and 16 years old. And there will come a time when the bullies will not be successful and the people they are bullied. And you just have to survive them.

They don't know you. They don't know who you are, or what you love, or anything about you. Know that nothing bad happens and that there are people like you. Please consider that time, sometimes just a little bit of time, changes an entire perspective. No matter who you are, where you live, or what's around you, that space you're in, that time, is very much in the course of a lifetime. And as we go through our lives, we're going to have friends, we're going to have family, but they're not always there. And in that hardest, darkest moment, if we can trust ourselves, that is more than we will need to face the world.