Dear Tracy, First, thank you for writing this moving and powerful description of your experience. I'm glad I didn't fill up my home page with posts so that the Sexuality chapter excerpt got buried. :) You, and perhaps others, needed some time to rally your courage to the challenges it holds for you. So much pain. Please remember, secrets are dangerous. It doesn't matter what the secret is. Having a secret means creating a place in your psyche to hold that secret. Once that place is established, anything else that your psyche doesn't want to deal with (usually because it's painful or embarrassing or humiliating or frightening), gets drawn into your holding place for secrets. It's as if a tractor beam emanates from that place in your psyche and draws in what you'd rather not know or discuss or deal with. In time, that place in you gets so loaded or overloaded that you are terribly burdened and need to use much and too much of your energy to keep all those experiences, memories and associations contained in your holding place for secrets. Yes, the issues seem to be strong and foundational to your whole being. Yes, they would make you feel worse about yourself. I'm sooooooo very sorry to learn that they led you to suicide attempts. Other ways exist to care for yourself and reduce that burden. Your post lists many fears, doubts and hurts you carry. You are opening up that holding place for secrets and letting some poison drain out. :) You could use your post as a healing tool. Gradually....not all at once, please.... take one point on your list. Then search out in your life, your memory, from novels, films, stories, a person (real or fictitious) who can be your helper and guide in some way through that experience. Note: This is why children love to dress up as Superheroes. They draw on the resources of the symbol that is more powerful than they and get to feel their own developing self confidence and capabilities. You've made a terrific beginning. Now, instead of dwelling on the pain, cast your imagination out and about to find the people - in life, history or fiction - that could companion you and guide you in a different way of living. I hope you will make this part of your journal writing and share some of it with us. with much respect, Joanna