When I started this group, I was honestly thinking “oh, a group to discuss an author’s books that I really enjoy. Books that I now know gave, not only myself, but literally hundreds of others a sense of belonging, a sense of hope, a sense of normalcy. That’s really important; people want to fit in, to be accepted, to know they aren’t wrong or bad or anything else they may have been told. They want to know that they are wonderful, unique, beautiful, and that they deserve the right to live Every Day as exactly who they want to be.

I never, ever, ever wanted to be a role model. That is NOT who I am. There are people from my past who would die if they knew anybody looked up to me. From the sheer mass of messages I’ve gotten from you all since this group opened, I know that there are so many of you living in fear, in isolation, who are scared to be who you truly are because we still live in a society that doesn’t accept us.

I am always here if you want to talk. I’m no substitute for a counselor. Nobody here is. But we are open, we are honest, and we know what you are going through. You can find a dozen perspectives on anything, and I hope you will recognize that and utilize this group both before you are able to be out and live your life as you like, and afterwards to pass on what knowledge you’ve learned to others; those who are still hiding.

I want to share something with you that the amazing, beautiful, and brilliant Cathy DeBuono
said in her vlog on After Ellen
:

I don’t mean to simplify the situation as though it’s easy to embrace our individuality when there are so many people in our lives that can, and will, use it against us. They will judge, they will berate, and they may even abandon us. And it’s even harder when they have further control; when they’re the people who pay our bills, or they may even pose a danger to us if we DARE to be someone they don’t want us to be. We have to be smart, we have to be brave, and we have to be, FIRST, free inside of ourselves. Through reading your letters it sounds as if many of you’ve locked your true selves away, and when that true self tries to emerge, the forces of your external world start to converge on you and to survive that, you push back down and that makes you sick, and that makes you depressed, and you start to actually die inside which makes you feel like you want to die for real. You have to find your freedom, and it starts with yourself. You have to find your freedom from your own oppression. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way, don’t parade yourself in dangerous places, but you must, you absolutely MUST start by befriending yourself first. You are your own unique self in all of your own, individual weirdness. You have to embrace it. You have to make a plan to get somewhere where you can share exactly who you are, with those of us who are just as weird as you. And you came to the right place.
So go out there and live it! You’re worth it.

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The JAP mafia is for fans of Julie Anne Peters' books. More about Julie can be found at her website.