“I don’t have a disease!” (part 1)
Content warning: mention of suicide
I was in a long-distance relationship then, with a fella from Sài Gòn, and I have to say we met some horrible challenges at the beginning. One time I spent the night at his place in Đồng Nai, then the next day we went back to Sài Gòn and received a call from his parents asking us why there’s a condom in the room. I freaked out, he was a little more composed, he was sure that his parents are open-minded, he could come out right then and it would be alright.
A few weeks later, he called me and said he wanted to take his own life. I was on my scooter on the bridge to District 7, and I was in shock. I was shaking so badly I didn’t dare to keep driving. He cried and told me he had no other way, his parents knew and forbade him from seeing me. He said that losing me was losing everything. He wanted to die.
At the moment, I didn’t think much, I drove straight to Đồng Nai. On my way there, I called him but he wouldn’t pick up. When I arrived, no one knew where he was, I stepped into the house and saw that his parents were worried sick. I decided to stay and spoke to them. They kept telling me “What you’re doing is wrong, you’re harming your families. What you’re doing is a trend, it’s sickening!” I rebutted, “T and I are grown, although we just moved to Sài Gòn to start our lives, our finances aren’t stable, but we know for certain that this isn’t a disease. This isn’t our choice, but something we’re born into. Maybe you’re not going to listen to me now, but T is alone out there, so excuse me, I have to go find T!” I stood up right then and ran outside.
I was running and panicking, because I didn’t know where to look, and the rain was getting heavier. Then I saw him, in the middle of the road, his face lifted up at the sky, I can only think about how badly he wanted to kill himself. I held him tightly. He held me back. He told me that he needed to hideaway. We started crying again, so much that we wanted to pass out. I truly didn’t understand why we had to face so many hardships, we didn’t have any money, our careers weren’t going anywhere, and our families were against us (to be continued).
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Rồi Sẽ Ổn Thôi (“Gonna Be Alright”) is a project that collects coming out stories from the LGBTIQ+ community and their loved ones in Việt Nam. To find out more details or to read more stories from the project, please visit our official social media site on Instagram at ComingOutVN.
