Today’s Video Story was collected on the 50-state Story Tour. Check out the blog where you can read about the adventure we had and some of the stories we collected. If you haven’t submitted a story yet to IFD, or if you want to submit another one, I’d love to read and publish it. Write one up and send it in.
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I am Jason Dinant, originally from Syracuse, New York, live here in Las Vegas. I go by the nickname “J.Son”, I’m the Naked Boy on Nakedboynews.com and I also am the Editor and Community Relations Director for QVegas Magazine. I didn’t come out until the year after high school, but in high school in 11th grade, a student, I wouldn’t call him my friend but somebody that I knew from high school that was in my math class, his brother was disabled and got picked on not because he was gay, but because he was disabled. His brother ended up committing suicide because he could not accept that his own brother was getting bullied and I feel like everybody is human down to the core and suicide should never be the solution to a temporary problem. Probably like 8th or 9th grade, I started getting called gay or other words that I choose not to say and I really just thought that I was never going to be accepted, because at that time, when you’re in middle school, high school, that is your whole life so you don’t see things outside of your normal life. It really was a dark time for me because I wanted to come out but then I also knew that, I would be, I assumed, that I would be ridiculed and even worse bullied. I remember contemplating suicide a lot, I could just end this all, I don’t have to be bullied anymore. One day in the ninth grade, my mom and dad went out of town and my sister wasn’t at the house. Those lanyard key chains were popular that you would wear around your neck and I had one and I had it on my neck and I was just about to like put it up to the door, like the dresser, and kill myself. And I started thinking about my parents and my sister and I knew that them coming in and finding me, that pain was going to be a lot worse than the pain I was feeling because of being bullied or even the pain of me admitting that I was gay. At that point, it was a realization that this shouldn’t be painful; this is who I am, and the suicide, that’s what would be painful to people. I just said no, I’m gonna live, so if you’re in the darkest part of your life just realize that it can only go up from there so don’t end it, and just stay positive find those people that do want to be positive around you and just let the negative people go away—don’t even pay them any attention.