I'm afraid of being gay and I don't want to happen. Help me!

Email sent to us by Enzo, replies Michela Pascali of Open polis - LGBT association for belonging to the armed forces and law enforcement agencies

My name is Enzo and I do the carabiniere. I doubt that I am homosexual, but this thing scares me because I absolutely don't want to happen. Help me. Please.

Enzo

The answer…

Hi Enzo, I present myself, my name is Michela, I am 46 years old and I have been working in the state police for quite a while now. Reading your message made me relive still strong and important sensations. I'll tell you a little about me.

I was born in Lecce, the work brought me first to Milan and then to Florence. I got married to a man I know I loved, from whom I had a daughter and a son, today teenagers. At a certain point my marriage ended, for many reasons, and it was probably the only thing that could happen for the good of all of us.

In a moment of total solitude and great fear I discover that I am in love with Benedetta, a friend who also shared the workplace with me.

I remember the fear of hurting my children; to hurt her, whose relationships were always aimed at internosexuality; to disappoint my parents, already worried about the end of my wedding!

I remember the tears and the spasmodic research of a justification for what was happening to me and that acquitted me from an alleged homosexuality.

I remember the looks of colleagues, normal actually, I was convinced that everyone had noticed something that I myself did not know how to give shape.

I remember my sofa, as the only refuge on which to flatten myself covered until they disappear, so that no one could notice my tears.

I think I can understand your suffering, I have full awareness of how much you feel lost and alone and that is why your message is important for me. You are important!

I don't want to tell you that everything will go well, even if I know it will be. I don't want to do it because I remember how little I cared some reassuring messages: in that period I told you before, it seemed everyone had the answers in the pocket and only I lived in total chaos.

I would like to find the most effective way to help you listen to that fear, to know it. It is part of you and probably makes sense that there is.

Around everything tells us of a heterosexual life with very precise rules: we must grow, study (more or less), then find a job, get married, perhaps have children and I could continue again. How do you not be afraid when we feel we do not follow the 'right path', that something in us does not go as it should? But I would like you try to ask you what the right way to you really is.

Because often the path along which we walk is not ours, but it is that of a mother for whose affection we are willing to do everything, or that of friends, whose judgment is important for us and we prefer to conform to others rather than risking to lose them.

I would like you to feel how true and unique and how much you are good for anything you do or feel. You go well whether you are attracted to men or that it is from women, or that you don't care about sex.

I remember how many haste I had to get to a point that would move that uncertainty from my head, because what in my case most destabilized me was what you called "doubt" ': at a certain point I said to myself "whatever I am happening to me that it happens quickly".

You are not alone. And your writing shows how aware you are aware of this. Talking about ourselves is one of the most difficult things and you have shown how much courage and desire to find yourself alive in you.

Take time to let yourself go to your emotions without judging yourself.

I was struck by the fact that you wrote "I absolutely don't want this to happen"

Today when they ask me about me I reply with joy and serenity to be Michela, to have a partner that I would not replace in the world at all and that makes me feel the person more beautiful and important, blessed: to have two children and to be a free person.

I know that the working environment does not help you, unfortunately I know what it means to deal with the jokes and malignant smiles of those who imply and despise and it is why I want to talk to you about Polis open, the LGBT association of the police and armed forces, which I am part of.

For me it was important to share my fears and be able to ask for advice from colleagues and colleagues who like me were and are experiencing their status as homosexual people within the world of barracks.

We are operators and operators of the State Police, of the local and municipal police scattered for Italy, the carabinieri, the Guardia di Finanza, the Areonautics, the Army and the Fire Brigade.

A strong hug

Michela Pascali of Polis Open