Identity-based harm

Being harmed or targeted because of your sexual orientation

Being targeted, excluded, harassed, or harmed because of who you are attracted to. Slurs, violence, family rejection, community rejection, conversion attempts. The harm of being made to feel that who you love makes you wrong, broken, or unwelcome.

If some version of this is part of your story, you already know that the hardest part is rarely the memory itself. It is carrying it in a world that mostly does not want to hear about it. This fellowship exists so you do not have to carry it alone, and so you never have to explain it to someone who has no idea what it means.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

Complex or ongoing trauma and its effects When trauma happened repeatedly, over a long time, or at the hands of people who were supposed to care for you, the effects go deeper than a single event. Trouble letting people in emotionally The wall that goes up when someone tries to get close. Thoughts about not wanting to be here Thoughts about not existing anymore. Fear of being abandoned Not just not wanting people to leave. Struggling to make sense of what happened to you The questions that will not resolve. Loss of faith or not knowing what to believe anymore Something happened and the belief system that held your world together stopped holding. Intergenerational trauma Some wounds predate your own life. Hypervigilance or always waiting for something bad The nervous system that learned to scan for danger all the time.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

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