I learned the other day that someone I knew drank themselves to death. Slowly, steadily, over a period of years, consumed so much alcohol that they destroyed their own body from the inside out.
And I am angry. Because I blame their parents.
This person was queer, and their parents did not accept them. They did not cut their child out of their life, but they did something that is arguably worse. They poisoned their child’s own mind against themselves.
Their constant disappointment and disapproval, their withholding of unconditional love for their child, crippled that child emotionally. That child never stopped hoping, never stopped trying, to reach those cold and distant parents. But that child could not be straight and didn’t try to be.
I hope it gave this person comfort that their family was with them at the end.
But I hope it gave the family no comfort.
Because they are responsible.
There are days when I wonder if I really need to keep writing queer stories, if we still need to hear them. And then I get news of bullsh*t like this.
You know when I’m going to feel like I can stop writing queer stories?
When parents stop killing their children.
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