You Do You

by Sarah Mirk

  Abuse happens in all types of relationships, including LGBTQ relationships. While women are more likely to be the victims of abuse, men and nonbinary people also can be victimized. Being in an abusive relationship does not mean there is anything wrong with you or that you failed in any way.

  What If My Friend Is in a Bad Relationship?

  Supporting friends who are in unhealthy relationships is tough. They have to make the choice to stay or to go. You can be a good friend by helping them feel confident and loved. Make it clear that they deserve to be treated with respect.

  Listen to your friend, and ask how they’re feeling. People in bad relationships often clam up and say everything is fine. Make space for honesty.

  Tell your friend that abuse is not their fault. Abuse hurts people’s self-esteem, and many people feel stupid for being treated poorly. Make it clear that you are not judging them and are there to support them.

  Don’t try to force a solution or confrontation. Follow your friend’s lead. Don’t push them into calling someone out or making the abuse public if they’re not ready for it. This is their story to tell, not yours.

  Be careful what you post online. Your friend’s abuser might be monitoring their social media and see your photos or posts. If you’re unsure of what’s okay to share, run it past your friend first.

  Breaking Up Isn’t a Failure

  The hardest part of being in a relationship is knowing when it needs to end. Breaking up isn’t a failure. It’s actually really brave. Breaking up requires looking critically at your relationships and thinking through what’s working and what’s not. That’s powerful. A breakup is not always an end. It’s an evolution. Many people stay in each other’s lives in a special and significant way even after they break up.

  It can take a long time to decide whether to break up. Listen to yourself and trust your feelings. It helps to talk through your feelings with friends or family or a counselor. It also often helps to write out your thoughts.

  Talk to your partner about the thoughts you’re having. Bring up the problems you’re noticing and how they’re making you feel. You may be able to talk through them together and come to a positive solution. In long-term relationships, people talk through all kinds of problems over the years. The strength of a relationship isn’t just in the good times. It’s in the hard times too.

  In the end, it comes down to one deceptively simple question: Do you want to stay in the relationship or not? If not, it’s time to leave. No matter how tenderly you approach this, it will probably hurt. You’ll probably both miss each other and feel sad, angry, and generally very upset. That’s normal. But don’t stay to avoid hurting the other person. It’s not fair to them or to you.

  Here are some tips for developing a breakup action plan:

  Get support by talking to your friends and family about how you’re feeling. Let them know what’s going on. Counselors can help too.

  Breaking up in person is the most respectful way to go about it, even though it’s hard. If you’re worried their reaction will be too dramatic, choose a public place to meet. That’s often a way to make sure emotions don’t get out of hand. If you don’t feel safe meeting in person, you can send a breakup text or an email spelling out your decision.

  Tell your partner what you’re unhappy about and why you need to leave. You don’t have to justify every feeling. Don’t feel bad if you can’t always explain what you feel. But you do owe your partner some explanation. It’s unkind and disrespectful not to.

  If you feel like sending your ex regretful or sentimental messages after the breakup, don’t. Save those notes in a drafts folder or journal instead.

  If the breakup isn’t mutual and you’re the one who feels dumped, here’s a guide to dealing with the loss of a relationship you loved:

  Seek support from friends, family, or a counselor.

  Accept your partner’s decision, and don’t fight it. You may think that the person breaking up with you is totally wrong or misguided, but it’s their decision to make the life they want.

  Take space for yourself to process your sadness. Can you be friends with exes? Of course! You get to do whatever feels good to you. But many people immediately want to be friends after a breakup. Try taking some time apart first to see how you feel on your own.

  Find positive ways to grieve. Many people cope with sad feelings in destructive ways—with drugs and alcohol or by immediately starting up new relationships on the rebound. Find positive ways to deal with the sadness instead. Use that fuel of sadness to create art, power your athletics, or express compassion to others.

  Get enough sleep, eat three meals a day even if you don’t feel like eating, and leave the house even if you don’t feel like leaving the house. It’s totally okay to wallow in sad songs and dark feelings, but go about the business of continuing your life while you’re hurting.

  Keep a journal of your feelings. It’s a great way to release grief and to process what you are going through.

  Breakups often hurt for a long time. It doesn’t matter whether the relationship was one month or one year. There’s no equation to determine how long you’ll feel heartsick. Over time, the pain starts to be less ferocious and eventually fades so it’s easier to live with.

  The most important thing after a breakup is to take care of yourself! Build new routines that will be a scaffold for your changed life. Immerse yourself in an activity you love, take pleasure in your family and friends, foster new friendships, and keep yourself healthy. Use the breakup to reflect on your own relationship patterns. Think about what you did really well and what you could have done better in the relationship. Ask yourself what lessons you want to bring to the next one. Use what you’ve learned to continue to write the script for the relationships you want for yourself in your life. You are in charge!

  Questions to Think About

  My girlfriend and I broke up a year ago, and I still feel really sad about it. All my friends say I need to just get over her, but I miss her a lot sometimes. Is it normal to still feel sad a year after a breakup?

  Does every sad song on the radio sound as if it’s playing just for you? That’s normal. There’s no time limit on how long it takes to grieve a relationship. It sounds as if this was a significant relationship for you, so you’ll probably be thinking about it for the rest of your life. But to move on, don’t let it define your life. Seek out activities you’re into and surround yourself with friends who get you. This relationship was one part of who you are. Foster the rest of you.

  Last year, I was in a bad relationship with a boyfriend and I got pregnant. I decided to get an abortion, which was a really tough decision. Now, I’m in a new relationship with a great guy. Do I need to tell him about my abortion? And when?

  You’re under no obligation to tell anyone about your personal decisions if you don’t want to. If you feel safe, comfortable, and supported in this relationship, there probably will be a time when you feel good about opening up about this history. But that decision needs to come from you. Not telling him doesn’t mean you’re lying. It means you’re still processing what this experience means to you and how to talk about it.

  Glossary

  ableism: discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities. This can be pervasive in all parts of culture, from media (portraying disabled people as villains), to social interactions (making jokes about someone who is developmentally disabled), to policy (not requiring public schools to be accessible to people who use wheelchairs).

  abortion: the deliberate ending of a pregnancy

  asexuality: also called ace; a sexual orientation used to describe people who do not experience sexual attraction. Asexuality is a spectrum, so it describes a range of identities, from people who are sexually attracted only to a very small number of people over their lives to those who never experience sexual attraction.

  birth control: the practice of preventing unwanted pregnancies, especially with contraception, such as condoms, pills, and i
mplants containing hormones

  birth control pill: also called the Pill; a daily hormonal pill that prevents pregnancy. The pill can be progestin or both progestin and estrogen. Birth control pills stop ovulation so that the female body does not release an egg.

  bisexual: also called bi; people who experience enduring physical and sexual attractions to people of their same gender and other genders (regardless of whether they’ve ever acted on those attractions)

  body positive: the belief that all human beings should be able to celebrate and appreciate their own bodies and the bodies of others, regardless of weight, height, size, and other physical features

  cisgender: also called cis; someone who identities with the gender their family and doctors assigned them at birth based on an assessment of biological anatomy. Cis is a Latin prefix meaning “on the same side.”

  clitoris: this organ, which is both inside and outside the body, is the highly sensitive pleasure center of the vulva

  come: a slang term for orgasm or ejaculation. It is often spelled cum.

  consent: an agreement to do something or to give permission for something to happen. All sexual activity—kissing, touching, and intercourse—requires the enthusiastic consent of each person involved. Consent is a verbal exchange that happens when someone is sober, awake, conscious, and able to make a reasoned decision.

  ejaculation: a quick discharge of genital fluid, like semen or vaginal fluid. It often, but not always, occurs with an orgasm.

  gender expression: external or verbal cues to someone’s gender that are shown by their clothes, makeup, hairstyle, name, pronouns, and the many other physical characteristics that shape how we present ourselves to and are perceived by others

  gender fluid: also called genderqueer; a form of gender identity where someone does not identify with a single gender, moving naturally among genders

  gender identity: a person’s internal, deeply held sense of their gender, regardless of anatomical features

  gender transition: moving from one gender to another. Depending on the person’s individual identity and goals, gender transition can occur through changes to gender expression with no medical intervention at all, by taking the hormones estrogen or testosterone, through gender confirmation surgeries, or through some combination of various options. Hormonal and surgical procedures take place with the guidance of a doctor.

  genitalia: human reproductive and sexual organs. Genitalia varies significantly in size, shape, and sensitivity.

  harassment: being treated in an unwanted way because of your identity. Unwanted remarks about your body, clothes, or sexual activity, for example, are a form of sexual harassment.

  heterosexism: discrimination in culture and the law based on the belief that heterosexuality is the only normal and acceptable sexual orientation

  heterosexual: usually referred to as straight, heterosexual people feel physically and emotionally attracted to people of a gender other than their own. This includes a woman who is attracted exclusively to men or men who are exclusively attracted to women.

  homophobia: dislike of or prejudice against people who do not identify as heterosexual

  homosexual: a person who feels physically and emotionally attracted to people of their same gender

  intersex: an umbrella term describing people born with reproductive and sexual anatomy, a chromosome pattern that doesn’t seem to fit the clinical, medical definitions of male, female, or both

  labia: part of the vulva, these flaps of sensitive skin have lots of nerve endings and surround the vaginal opening

  LGBTQ: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning. People sometimes add A (for asexual, allies, or both) and I (for intersex).

  masturbation: the act of a person bringing themselves sexual pleasure

  menstruation: also called a period, this is the shedding of the uterine lining that happens roughly every month. The liquid released during menstruation includes blood, mucus, and other fluids.

  misgender: the act of referring to a person using a word, pronoun, or title that does not accurately describe their gender. For example, calling a woman “sir,” or calling someone who uses they/them pronouns “he” or “she.”

  nonbinary: also called NB, or enby; technically meaning “not composed of just two things,” this term describes the gender identity of people who fall outside the categories of male and female. Many nonbinary people use the pronouns they/them.

  oral sex: use of the mouth or tongue for sexual stimulation. Common types of oral sex include cunnilingus (a mouth on the vulva), fellatio (a mouth on the penis), and anilingus (a mouth on the anus).

  orgasm: an intense physical and mental experience of pleasure that is the result of physical stimulation or sexual fantasy. Orgasms typically involve muscle spasms and a delicious feeling of a release of tension.

  ovulation: the day about once a month in the human fertility cycle where the ovary releases an egg. This day and roughly the five days beforehand are when someone is most likely to get pregnant if the egg contacts sperm.

  polyamory: people who are attracted to multiple people at one time and have consensual relationships that involve multiple partners

  pregnancy: when an egg cell (ovum) has been fertilized by sperm, the egg cell divides into multiple cells, and the fertilized egg implants in the lining of the uterus. If the process continues, the cells will continue to divide until they form an embryo.

  premenstrual syndrome (PMS): mood swings, bloating, headaches, and other symptoms that some women experience before the onset of their period

  puberty: the wide range of physical, emotional, and sexual changes that happen as humans’ bodies change from childhood to adulthood. The changes are caused by fluctuating hormones, and the process lasts several years.

  queer: a term people use to describe themselves when their sexual orientation is not exclusively heterosexual

  racism: prejudice or discrimination directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. Racism includes both individual acts and society-wide systems that create inequality.

  rape: when someone does a sexual act to someone else who does not freely consent to the act. Rape can happen to anyone of any age and gender.

  sexism: prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of their sex

  sexual assault: any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. This can include touching, groping, kissing, or any other unwanted activity.

  sexually transmitted infection (STI): diseases that can be spread through sexual contact when one person’s body fluids, like semen, come into contact with another person’s mouth, vulva, or anus

  sexual orientation: a person’s sexual identity in relation to the gender they are attracted to. For example, a woman whose sexual orientation is lesbian is attracted to other women.

  transgender: also called trans; someone whose gender does not match the gender their family and doctor assigned to them at birth

  tubal ligation: a form of permanent birth control where the fallopian tubes are cut, blocked, or tied by a doctor to prevent fertilization

  vasectomy: a form of permanent birth control in which a surgeon cuts the vas deferens tube in the penis to prevent sperm from being in semen

  virginity: the state of never having experienced sexual activity. Virginity is different for each person, since everyone determines what they consider to be sex for themselves.

  Source Notes

  10 “What Is Consent?,” University of Michigan Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, accessed June 29, 2016, https://sapac.umich.edu/article/49.

  13 Emily Nagoski, Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), 32.

  16 Heather Corinna, S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You through Your Teens and Twenties (New York: De Capo, 2016), 28.


  21, 23 Malakai_the_peacock, “Transgender People of Reddit, What Was the First Memory or Sign That You Were Trans?,” Reddit, accessed April 30, 2019, https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6shoxk/serious_transgender_people_of_reddit_what_was_the/.

  22 “Gender Nation Glossary.” Refinery29, June 1, 2018, https://www.refinery29.com/lgbtq-definitions-gender-sexuality-terms.

  24 Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1948), 639, https://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php.

  25 Juno Dawson, “This Book Is Gay,” (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2015), 11.

  26 Queen Mary, University of London, “Homosexual Behavior Largely Shaped by Genetics and Random Environmental Factors,” ScienceDaily, June 30, 2008, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080628205430.htm.

  28 Karin Miller, “Here’s Why One Boob Is Sometimes Bigger Than the Other,” Self, November 2, 2017, https://www.self.com/story/one-boob-bigger-than-the-other/.

  30 “The 3 Scariest Words a Boy Can Hear,” NPR, All Things Considered, July 14, 2014, https://www.npr.org/2014/07/14/330183987/the-3-scariest-words-a-boy-can-hear.

  30 The Mask You Live In, directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom (Los Angeles: Representation Project, 2015), 97 min. http://therepresentationproject.org/film/the-mask-you-live-in-film/.

  33 D. Callander, C.E. Newman, and M. Arch Holt, “Is Sexual Racism Really Racism?,” Sexual Behavior 44 (2015): 1991, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-015-0487-3.