Abyss of Misery (LGBT related)

I am floating, or at least that's what it feels like right now. My mind is in pitch black. It's like a nightmare where you run in water, and can't seem to move. I feel restricted by something I can't quite picture. It's suffocating to the point where it causes bile in my throat, and a tightness in my chest.

For about ten hours of the day, if not more, I put on this facade of laughter. I make jokes, I smile. At the point of sheer exhaustion, the show and tell starts to crack apart. Most nights, I am crying myself to sleep. I am not only drained from pretending to be some idealistic version of myself, but I am also completely tired of feeling this way.

I feel incomplete. I look in the mirror, and I resent what I see. Logic tells me that regardless of how often I starve myself, or how often I overwork myself, I'm still never going to like what I see. To the external person - I'm this confident, preppy person who flaunts herself to the internet. This is merely a mask, I'm actually so insecure it destroys me. I don't feel beautiful. I can be in a room surrounded by people and still feel lonely. Isolated, I guess.

I'm quick to give people advice when they're feeling low, I'm quick to offer that empathetic hug. Yet here I am, with all of this noise in my head. It's pathetic, I am much stronger than this, I know. It's taken me 24 years to feel comfortable enough to tell people I'm a lesbian. I've wasted so much time due to fear, but now I'm constantly reminded exactly why that fear was relevant. I still have digs made at me, I still get those slurs. I still have those men that don't quite know how to keep their hands to themselves. The self loathing, the self esteem just intensifies whenever a bad word is thrown my way. Am I unnatural? Am I a pervert? Am I broken? Can this be fixed? 

I'm constantly at battle with myself. What I'd tell my friends- no, you are not broken, you don't chose your sexuality. What I tell myself- you're an abomination. Yet, another part of myself yells at that part of myself, because, and I will repeat it again, I am SO much stronger than this. I have so much about me that should be endeared. I thrive to make a difference in the world, I'm charitable, I'm creative, I'm intellectual, I'm considerate, I'm caring. I'm a person with interests, I'm not just a mould.

I have felt this low before, it passed then, and I know it will pass again. It's just painful, because how much more time is being wasted floating in this abyss of misery?