Hi, my name's Robert. I'm a young Aboriginal man, 25 years old, I'm also bisexual. Love
my family, my friends. I live in the city. I work as a Physical Wellbeing worker. I'm
a songwriter, up and coming actor, dancer. I also sing, but not in front of everybody,
because I'm shy (whispering). (Laughs). And that's it. That's me.
Yeah, I'd love to see, like first of all like the biggest one is no more racism, I
think that's the biggest discriminating thing that could ever be in the world. And
secondly that everyone should be on the same equilibrium, you know keep everyone equal,
no matter what sex, gender, race, how they were brought up, whether they have a mother
and a father, two mothers, or two fathers, who their brothers and sisters are, whether
they're wealthy or poor. So when I came out I felt like the biggest
weight has been... was let off my shoulders. It does take time.
I knew who I was at about 17 -- 17, 18 -- but it took me til I was I think 22 maybe, it
took a long time. Because of those little voices in your head, those self-doubt voices,
it's hard, especially when you're so close with everyone in a community environment,
even though it's accepted within our community, it is real... still really hard, because there's
that fear factor of will they still accept me and things like that.
I had... went to a function, it was my first function after I came out, and it was a community
one, and all the boys were there, and one of my cousins come up to me and he's just
like, "I don't care who you are, who you sleep with, to us you're still Rob, and
you're still our boy," and like that just means the world when you hear that, because
you know that they're there for you no matter what, but to actually hear it is really something
else. So I had it pretty easy, and then like when... went into work, I was walking around,
like I was glowing and everything, so you just... it's amazing just to finally actually
do it. So the support of my family has always been
there. We have a pretty big family. When I say family, I don't just mean the immediate
family, my mum's sisters, it's also the cousins, and aunties, and the uncles, so it's
like really... a really big family, that's how we call ourselves family. Because what
I had when I came out was tremendous, I had the most amount of support, and especially
from my straight friends, my brother boys, they were so supportive and so was everyone
else, but there was that little question mark above people's heads when I came out, because
I came out as bisexual, and a lot of people thought that I was gay. So they didn't really
believe it, if you may, when I came out as bisexual, they were waiting for me to come
like out of the closet the rest of the way, the full way, and I told them, "No, this
is me, and you can have your opinion or whatever, but this is me, I want to live my life no
holding back now." Going through depression, seeking help is
like you realise when you actually get the help how important it is. It took me a while.
Unless you really take a look inside yourself, and it does take time, and it's just like
with everything, just noticing the signs of everything, if you're active and you just
stop just playing sports or whatever is a sign that you're depressed, or if you're
having trouble sleeping or eating, if you're angry all the time, there's so many different
signs and symptoms. So when I went to go see a counsellor it was
actually really refreshing. I walked out of it feeling a little bit better, because it
was someone who didn't know me, who didn't know anything about my past, and had a completely
different aspect of everything, which I would never have even thought about, and the best
advice that she gave me while I was down was to keep going to counselling. Like I thought
it was so ridiculous about keep going, it's like why do you want to keep going when you're
happy, but the thing is if you keep going while you're happy the minute that you start
to feel a little bit down and you've had a bad day you can catch it at the start, you
don't have to go back to square one and start all over again.
As soon as you notice one of these signs or symptoms go see a Doctor, attack it head on.
I wish I had of, but I'm at a place right now where I'm happy with who I am, I'm
finally chasing my dreams, because I've been treating myself, and I'm not letting
anyone hold me back, and neither should you.
Annaliese