I (22M, American) was raised by a conservative family and taught traditional gender roles. I was told multiple times that that "gay" men (men who didn't conform to traditional masculine gender expression) were ruining society and literally deserved to die, and that people out in the real world do the dirty work of disposing of them through stochastic violence.
Unfortunately, I turned out almost exactly how I wasn't supposed to. I wanted to embody a cute and delicate masculinity, my true personality was caring, affectionate, and emotional, and I loved cute and pretty things. Ironically, I was so in love with feminine energy that I developed an emotionally intense heterosexual attraction to women, though in a way that was nothing like the typical straight model.
Long story short, I faced an entire childhood of ridicule and isolation and eventually developed an autoimmune disease with disabilities as a souvenir. I wanted to take my own life, but the Internet existed, so I numbed myself with endless slop content instead.
The progressive side of the Internet taught me that there are a lot of ways of being beyond the "conform or fucking die" model I was raised with. I learned that a minority of women actually could be attracted to me despite my utter disregard for the manliness rules, something I was blackpilled on before.
But I am still too scared to leave home. It is hard to motivate myself to do anything because the source of my fulfillment is to make people happy, but I can't meet anyone because I'm frozen in fear. I still feel like everyone will hate me for being too feminine, and that the occasional stray vigilante will try to put a bullet in me. Even if I could defend myself, it feels too risky: I have to win every single time, while they only have to win once. On top of that, I am now visibly disabled, so I have to deal with ableism on top of everything else.
I can't function this way. I'm not motivated to take care of myself or put effort into online college because I see no point to life if I can't be social and authentic IRL. I literally just want to make people smile and feel cared for, but it feels like I'm too alien for people outside of a progressive echo chamber to accept me, and life will be full of constant gender policing, harassment, and threats of violence (especially because this is the U.S. we're talking about). The most productive day of my life happened when I thought for a moment that I had a chance, but I fell back into my old habits once I started having doubts again.
It could be worth noting that I live in central Ohio, somewhat close to the city, so it's not like I live in the middle of a rural hellscape. I also saw a non-binary androgynous person working at a clinic the other day, which seems like a good sign? I went to school in a more rural area, but of all of the people who seemed to like me, most of them were closer to the city.
If you have faced a similar situation, how did you make it through?
At the end of the day death is a guarantee. No matter what you do it will eventually end in death. That means that all time time between here and there is not going to change the end point. The worst is already locked in.
So if the worst outcome is eventually going to happen then you kind of have nothing to lose. You could life the rest of your life afraid of things not working out, afraid to try, afraid to take a risk. You could do that and nobody can stop you.
The question is, do you want that? Do you want a life that is defined by what opportunities you didn't take? Defined by what you avoided?
It seems more likely to be a fun life if you take some healthy risks. Try and meet people. Try to learn new things. Move away from shitty influences. Ditch things that make you unhappy. After all, you literally get one shot at life, you have a finite amount of time left in it, why would you waste it living for people who treat you like shit? Is their opinion of you going to get somehow worse? Could it actually realistically get worse? What impact would that really have?
I left my family at 17. Homeless, cold, and broke. I'm in my 30s now and don't regret a thing. I'm married, have a wondrous cat, have a loving partner who actually cares about me and who I love dearly. No amount of approval from my shitty parents would be worth giving that up.
They already controlled your childhood and made it hell. Don't give them the rest of your life too.