"Someone once asked, 'If you could take it all back, would you?' At the time I didn't know. Now I do. I wouldn't take that terrible experience back for anything in the world. Too much light has come out of my darkness."
Madness string 81902
I lost a cousin like this, was a gay teen in Texas. His mom isolated him from the rest of us to the point that, when he slipped away from us entirely, it hardly made a ripple. Nobody in the entire extended family ever talks about him. His mom turned all over demands for perfection on her younger children and acts like he never existed. I met him once, but nobody has said his name in years and now I can't remember it anymore.