u/Inspo_From_Insanity

I’m honestly still so confused about everything happening right now, but before I get into that, I need to supply some context.

Bear with me, this is a lot.

I (17F) am gay. I have a conservative Christian immediate family, and pretty much everyone I know hold the same views as they do, including my three closest friends. They all vary in degrees of how conservative they are though.
As of a few weeks ago, I have come out to all of the closest people in my life (Mom, stepdad, brother, dad, three best friends) after keeping it secret for about 4 years now. Everyone in my “inner circle” has known for at least 5 months except two of my three closest friends.

For privacy reasons, I’ll call my friends Jane (F17), Everly, and Grace (both F16).
Jane has known the longest of my friends. Shes also the most accepting of me being a lesbian. I can actually talk to her about it, about what it’s like, about cute girls I see. It’s great. I adore the friendship I have with her.
Everly has known for about two months. It took her a bit to process it when I told her (I admit I didn’t exactly tell her in the best way I could’ve lol) and she most definitely doesn’t support it, but she hasn’t cut me out of her life…so that’s good.
I think my friendship with Grace is in jeopardy. I may not have said that about 10 minutes ago, but things got worse mid-writing this post.
I came out to her about two and a half weeks ago. I didn’t WANT to. At all. But earlier that week, my mom sat me down and said “you have to tell her you’re not spiritually aligned with her anymore, because I need to talk to her mom about it.” My mom and Grace’s mom are close friends. Grace’s parents are very very very conservative Christian. My mom claims she had to tell Grace’s mom because she “needed to seek biblical counsel to know what to do” (about…y’know. Me being gay and not a Christian)
So I then had less than a week to figure out how to tell Grace without freaking her out entirely. Which…was a challenge.

To keep it short, Grace reacted just about how I expected. Calmly, sweetly, and VERY concerned. She’s concerned I’m “going down the wrong path” (the path of the gays). Which was essentially the reaction my mom had. Again, I expected this, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt when Grace then didn’t text me for three days.

Her and my friendship has been rocky since then. And honestly it was before too. I used to consider her my best friend, my sister even. I used to think she was sunshine itself. I wrote a whole speech for school about how wonderful of a friend she is, how she’s basically the embodiment of the “sunshine character”.
From the way I’m typing you might think I like her—I don’t. Not like that. If I did that would make everything way worse, because Grace is my brother’s girlfriend of now 9 months. They’re incredibly happy together, genuinely the cutest couple ever, and they’re probably going to get married when they’re adults. Which also happens to mean I’ll be Grace’s sister in law. Assuming Grace and my brother don’t cut all ties with me, that is.

I’m getting off track.

On Thursday I was scrolling Reddit, as one does, and I came across the post of someone who was most definitely queer. I looked in the comments and there I found this one person bullying the op for it and everyone defending op in the replies. Typical Reddit things, I know. I was irritated by it and almost just closed the app entirely, until I saw the bully was denying the existence of asexuality. So that’s when I get involved.
Jane is ace. She’s talked to me about it quite a bit ever since I told her I’m gay. Ever since then I’ve been fiercely defending those who deny asexuality.

I replied to the Reddit gal, then she replied, and that happened a few more times because she admitted she was rage baiting.
Great. I was successfully rage baited. Not an atypical thing for me though.
At the time, I was texting with Grace. I thought things were better in our friendship—and they were, honestly! But then she asked what I was up to, I told her, she asked for the Reddit reply thread screenshots, and in a moment of idiocy I sent them. Looking back I 100% should’ve given her a heads up to the content of the screenshots. I should’ve just NOT sent them. She’s incredibly sheltered and doesn’t know the ways of the internet, so she was upset with how I was replying “passive aggressively” to the rage baiter.
It is now that I should include the topics the rage baiter and I went through.
Three things.
\-rage baiter said asexuality isn’t a thing. I argued otherwise.
\-rage baiter said nonbinary/trans people aren’t a thing (or something like that). I argued otherwise
\-rage baiter said WOMEN HAVE TO BE MOTHERS/have kids. I said NO they do NOT.

I knew Grace wouldn’t agree with my second take. I hoped to maybe teach her about asexuality. But I thought SURELY she would agree with my last take.
Y’know what she said? “I love you (my name) but I don’t agree with anything you said.”
She then didn’t respond to me when I asked for clarification. I later discovered she was at work and was almost at work when I texted her in the first place (she wasn’t texting and driving, she just doesn’t drive yet)

So in my confusion and honestly CONCERN at this point, I read back through everything I said to make sure what I said about women not having to have kids wasn’t phrased in a way that could be taken in a way that she would assume I was referring to abortion (I’m sure you can guess her views on it. I don’t like talking to her about that topic), and I didn’t think it was.
By this time, I knew Jane was off work and I could text her about it to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. Sent her the screenshots, told her what Grace said. Jane agreed with me mostly and definitely agreed that Grace saying she didn’t agree with anything I said was…uh…concerning.
After talking with Jane for a while, I decided I wanted Everly’s take on things too. So, sent her the screenshots, gave her a brief rundown of what Grace said. Everly responded similarly to Grace, but with more explanation, and in a way that made more sense. Everly then asked if she could take to Grace about it, I said that was fine. That was the last I heard of that aspect of things.
Later that evening, Grace got back from work and we talked about the topics more. She still didn’t agree with anything I was saying, but at least we were actually talking about it this time.

I thought that was the end of that. Surely a DISCUSSION I was having with my friends wasn’t going to escalate to a ridiculous level…right?
Wrong.
Friday night my mom comes into my room to talk to me. I know this isn’t going to be good.
She said a lot of things—being concerned about the “path I’m going down” mainly. It kinda sucks that this is my new dynamic with her. I love my mom dearly, she’s always been there for me in my worst times. All the years leading up to me moving out of my dad’s house at 16 and through the process too (split parenting plan situation since I was 9. My relationship with my dad has been complicated).
But the worst part of our whole talk was when my mom told me that apparently she knew that I had made someone “go to bat for me” and someone had called me emotionally abusive.
And look, okay, I’m no angel. I know that. I do have a tendency to be emotionally manipulative, but I’m working on it. I really am. I should go to therapy.
But that’s beside the point.
I was confused mainly by what my mom said because no matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t think of any time recently I’d had someone resolve a conflict for me. I’m VERY against that. I like resolving things myself and not having anyone in the middle.
But this was before I knew Everly had actually talked to Grace about the Reddit screenshot topics.
Apparently Grace thought I had asked Everly to talk to her for me. Everly had to clarify MULTIPLE TIMES that that wasn’t the case. Grace still didn’t believe that, I guess.
Not only that, but Grace has TALKED TO MY MOTHER about all of this. My mother, who works with Grace. My mother, Grace’s probably-future-mother-in-law.

I only learned about Grace and Everly talking, and Grace and my mom talking TODAY. I got clarification from my brother after I straight up asked him “am I emotionally abusive?”
So then I was concerned that Grace thought I was smear campaigning her or something. I did that when I was younger, it was stupid and mean, I learned my lesson.

So I texted Grace, who I hadn’t talked to in a few days and haven’t seen in a week at this point (we usually see each other at least once a week.
My text was long, which I’ve now learned she is annoyed by. I have a habit of over explaining EVERYTHING as I’m sure you can tell just by my post. I like making sure how I feel and how I see things is clear as day.
So I asked her for clarification on her talking to Everly and my mom, as well as apologized for being emotionally manipulative/emotionally abusive in the past, as well as asking her if she was the one who said that about me. I also clarified that my intention was never to smear campaign her and I did NOT ask Everly to talk to her for me.

Her reply, about an hour ago now, was essentially that she doesn’t know how to biblically handle the fact that I’m a lesbian. She said she’s tried to seek “wise counsel” (her mom, my mom, my brother) about it.
She said she’s incredibly upset, and has for the past year seen signs of me dressing immodestly (which I don’t do, by the way. I wear jeans daily. Maybe sometimes a shirt cut a little bit low or a tiny bit cropped), she’s noticed I gossip to Jane and Everly about her (I can kinda admit to that. Though I’d say it’s ranting. She and my brother are good at making me feel left out somewhat often).
Apparently her mom would even tell her that our friendship was unhealthy, and she couldn’t let Grace cry spontaneously throughout the day because I was sending her mile-long accusations (which usually aren’t even accusations??) but Grace assured her mom is was okay because she loved me (sisterly).
I don’t even know what to do with that information. She has NEVER told me that. Ever. If I knew anytime before now I would’ve apologized. PROFUSELY. But now I don’t know what to do.

She ended her text with this:

“Until you're ready to have a real conversation about the choices you're making and make some different decisions, I need to ”pause” our communication, in person and over text. I love you, but this isn't right.”

I don’t know what to do. I’m freaking out. I’m so upset with her right now but I’m also scared and confused. Our friendship can’t end. It just can’t. I couldn’t cut her out of my life even if I wanted to anyway—not until I’m an adult. This is also probably going to make my brother mad at me.
The only people who I feel like are on “my side” right now are Jane and my dad, and they don’t even know the full extent of this. Jane is about to. But my dad knows nothing about this part of things.

I feel ridiculous for having to go to Reddit with this but I don’t know what else to do right now. Any advice would be appreciated. I’ll also try to answer any questions as well.

One more week of summer vacay!
This may be the lightest year I’ve had which is very exciting. I took soooo many classes in early hs.

-American Gov
-Consumer Math (ugh)
-Personal Finance (slightly less ugh)
-Drama (yay)

Anddd my 18ish hour a week job

Not too bad for a senior year I’d say! But I don’t know, American Gov might end up driving me crazy. Math too. Idk, we shall see.

Fellow seniors, what classes do you have? :)