Everyone lives with a stigma. There is not one human being on the planet who does not possess some illness, trait, belief, etc that will not be seen by some other person or group as wrong or unacceptable. Societies have standards. Even the most open minded people have limits. Within society there are the usual stigmas such as mental illness, handicaps, images, lifestyles and the list goes on. If you are going to function in society, you are going to encounter customs and social norms.

One of the biggest stigmas that has affected my life is that of lifestyle. Most of my friends have always been gay. I obviously have no problem with a the gay lifestyle and in fact, find no difference between that of the gay or straight lifestyles. Obviously society sees things differently. Whether it is a personal or religious belief, many (and depending on where I have lived at the time) if not most of the people around me held the belief that my friends and those living in that lifestyle were wrong. It isn’t easy to watch your friends being treated as second class citizens. It isn’t easy to watch friends being injured and even killed because society deems them unacceptable. To me, my friends are my family because that little group known as family that many societies hold up so high in my case turned out to be very unsupportive and uncaring. My friends were always there for me. So watching such negativity in my friends lives, for me, was the equivalent of seeing my family being mistreated. To me, it just makes no sense.

In order to function it takes a lot of courage, heart and the ability to turn the other cheek. I like to think that people are by nature not full of hate, but sometimes that is hard to believe by their actions. Living with a stigma, such as lifestyle, is not easy. Having supportive friends and family, sticking to your beliefs and maintaining a solid level of self respect as well as respect for those with different beliefs is what gets people through the tough times. No matter how much hatred you are met with and as hard as it is, you can’t give that hate back. People who adhere to societal norms or social values many times do not know any better and are acting out of ignorance. That is key knowledge to survival with a stigma. It is up to those of us dealing with the stigma to teach them and show them that what they believe or think is wrong and based on ignorance. This is not to say that if someone acts out violently they should not be punished, but in day to day living, the average person does not act out violently but instead might make a comment, move where they choose to sit, or just generally mistreat the person they are uncomfortable with. The most important piece of knowledge though, in my life and in dealing with this ignorance, is to know just that. It is ignorance and the more you live your lifestyle and with your stigma, the more they as a society might learn to understand. This sounds way to idyllic but it is not something that happens overnight or sometimes even in our lifetimes but I’ve always been of the belief that living to your fullest is the best form of revenge on those who might not understand or who might seek to harm us.