I always dreamed that there would be peace on the other side of the rainbow.  I thought that once I was fully out to my family, there would be no more secrets, and everything would be good.  I had always been so terrified and fixated on coming out to my family, that I never really looked beyond that point.  The years that followed were some of the loneliest of my life Coming out of the closet with my family simply meant that I was no longer hiding one aspect of my life.  People talk about having a huge weight lifted from their shoulders after coming out, for me, my anxiety and depression increased What have you observed in your life?  When you’ve come out of the closet and shared something big in your life, did you feel like a giant weight was lifted?  Or did you continue to experience uncomfortable shifts and changes like I did? What I’m learning and experiencing is that ‘coming out’ is not a one-time event only for LGBTQ2S+ humans.  Coming out is an ongoing lifetime process for every single one of us. James http://www.thislittlelightofmine.ca