The third one of those factors is the school atmosphere; gay teens are an easy target for bullying. It may make them feel ashamed and afraid of their sexuality, witnessing what happens to gay teens that come out, making them forfeit the idea of coming out or accepting their gay sexuality in the first place.
If this collage of deeply influential people doesn't accept this new sexuality, it will have a devastating effect on the teen's life, leaving deep wounds that will never heal. Those wounds usually last for a life time, and they vary on both physical and psychological aspects. When it comes to the physical type of wounds, it might lead to growing a habit of drug/alcohol abuse, an obsession for cutting or the urge to just feel physical pain, which ultimately leads to several and constant suicide attempts. On the psychological aspect, they're much deeper and less likely to go away; rejected homosexual teens tend to be more isolated, hostile and often silent, this irreconcilable damage will never wear off, leaving them devastated and desiring to just breakaway. Gay teens often look for a romantic start, a serious relationship, so they often weigh in on the statement "I sometimes worry that I'll never be able to find the kind of romantic partner I want". They worry about this more than straight teens because their best friends are usually the same sex, gays are quite unique in agonizing over whether to turn friendships into romances, often fearing they'll lose this friend, worry about finding a partner was strongly linked to anxiety and depression as mentioned above. Another reason why it's so complicated for gay teens to be homosexual is the fact that they're quite conventional, they want long term relationships and they want children.
Some researchers made an attempt to figure out this eruption of emotions when it comes to gay teens, when it comes to studies about gay teens studies on gay boys predominate, so young lesbians are more of a mystery. Pioneering findings suggest that lesbian teens may be different from gay boys in key ways. There's more variability in the age when they realize they're not straight, and moreover, the way lesbian teens look at key issue to gay life (such as gay marriage, gay rights and commitment) is different from the gay boys' perspective.
Although gay teens tend to be more anxious and worried about every minor detail of their current and their future life, they pretty much have a normal life on the surface, just like Kate Haigh, 18, a high school senior, she recalls attending her first meeting at the school's Gay-Straight Alliance club when she was in the ninth grade. "I said, 'My name is Kate, and I'm a lesbian.' It was so liberating. I felt like something huge had been lifted off my shoulders, and finally I had people to talk to."
Eventually, this critical phase of a person's life should not be underestimated; it's the portal in which a person has to go through in order to reach whatever awaits afterwards, it all comes down to little fact that there's light at the end of the tunnel, there's always light at the end of the tunnel.
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