I feel like my life is nothing but secret piled on top of secret.  My being transgendered is a closely guarded secret, I've never told my parents that I'm an athiest, never told my parents that I have no aversion to doing drugs, and when something's going wrong in my life I never tell anybody.  Keeping it all inside makes me so stressed out all the time, but thinking about telling my family these things causes insufferable anxiety.  I hate secrets, and I hate keeping them.

I've gone through life not being able to tell anybody everything about me. Everyone has secrets. Everyone.

I do understand the difficulty of holding onto such big things though. Just feeling like your in the wrong gender is so insurmountably difficult, that also having to keep it a secret does indeed make life even more difficult than it should be.

Drugs? I don't recommend them, from experience tbh, but you don't really need to tell your parents that you don't have anything against them. It's your business. But I strongly recommend you avoid.

Atheism? That's no big deal. Believe what you want to believe and don't let anyone shove their beliefs down your throat. I'm a humanist myself, I believe we can improve the world by helping each other.

The other day, when I had my first appointment with my gender therapist, was the first time I had actually told anyone in real life exactly who I am. For the first time ever, I felt complete. I hope you can find someone like that who you can completly open up to.

Sarah.x