<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" As the It Gets Better Project continues its outreach, drawing inspiration and support from multiple industries, and handful of ELLE editors were thrilled to film their own PSAs to try and spread a message of hope. In light of the recent tragedy with Jamey Rodemeyer, the 14-year-old Buffalo, NY teen who took his own life after being bullied in school, I was honored and humbled to be able to lend my voice to their cause. The initiative, started by Dan Savage and his partner, Terry Miller, as a response to the rapid rise in bullying and bullying-related suicides among LGBT youth, has done wonderful things, enlisting celebrities, athletes and everyday people like me to share their stories via YouTube so that LGBT youth can realize the potential for a great life, out of the closet. As I mention in my video, my life as a closeted gay man wasn&amp;#039;t as hard a road as it is for so many young people out there, but I think every story can help a kid (or an adult) looking for direction during what can be a pretty confusing process. I may have grown up in conservative Arkansas where one may expect homophobia, bullying and speculative harassment, but my friends and family were largely open and accepting people; I never experienced that behavior. That alone could have been enough to keep my gay life behind closed doors, something I just had to grit and bear internally, but I knew that even if I wasn&amp;#039;t facing hardship, not being openly gay would ultimately leave me in a lonely place.       I say lonely because a year or so before coming out I had fallen pretty hard for a guy, and as anyone who has been, is, or very close to being in love knows, when you find something like that all you want to do is tell people. But because I wasn&amp;#039;t out I couldn&amp;#039;t do that, and all I could think about was how those closest to me\u2014friends, my brothers and sisters, my mother and stepfather\u2014had no idea of how happy I was. They couldn&amp;#039;t celebrate that someone they loved was experiencing something so wonderful. So a year after graduating college I came out. Thankfully, everyone was as supportive and loving as I could have hoped, one more confirmation that I&amp;#039;d done the right thing. From then on I was able to love freely, openly, and ecstatically. Being able to share that made life so much better, and I hope being able to share my story through the IGBP will inspire a little bit of better in someone else&amp;#039;s life.       Click here to enter ELLE&amp;#039;s It Gets Better Sweepstakes! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/life-love/news/a7477/it-gets-better-elle-edition-30295/>