Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

by Jonathan Van Ness

Joy can live beside sorrow.

Being LGBTQ+ doesn’t mean a life of certain pain and suffering—actually, yes it does because that’s what life is for everyone—but I want more queer stories that are light and not full of pain and abuse. But that’s not really possible. Joy and pain often occur all together.

Comparison is that stop we can just ride on past because it smells bad and is relentlessly draining.

If my passion for life was a flame, so many people were trying to figure out how to douse water on it—but I kept it burning within myself.

And Haterade does not taste better cold, or room temperature. It’s very bitter, and hurtful.

Being able to entertain yourself is a valuable skill,

My mom accepted me completely when so many others couldn’t.

After all, I had never been a fan of men in positions of authority.

I’ve never heard one of them speak ill of the other. Their main goal was protecting their relationship in public and in private.

All I had to lose was the moment, and a moment is something that we should never let go to waste.

How can we feel one without the other? Joyful accomplishments exist next to painful memories. I found a lot of my healing when I realized that my suffering didn’t undo my joy.

Pervasive abuse continues to happen because there is a feeling that you can’t talk about it because it is hard and uncomfortable to do so.

I hope culturally we can continue to normalize the idea that being a survivor is so much more common than anyone realizes and we all deserve to be heard, but more importantly are deserving of a recovery full of love, laughter, and light.

It’s such a precarious thing to grow up and learn about your sexuality.

How desperately I needed to attach myself to him and how much I needed him to be something he wasn’t. It wasn’t because he had it out for me—but I couldn’t know that at the time. I allowed myself to be hurt in that relationship as much as he hurt me.

The power we assign to people is the power we give them—it wasn’t organic to the relationship.

Becoming a secure and functioning adult? That was the farthest thing from my mind.

My mom still accepted me completely and loved me all the way. Yet in the way that sometimes love just isn’t enough, she couldn’t teach me how to fully love and nurture and accept myself.

Not to mention that the concepts around masculinity are as tired as the day is long.

the reality is that LGBTQ+ people face challenges at disproportionately higher rates than their straight counterparts—drug use, sex work, and financial instability can be an unfortunate result.

So often for gay people, sex and attraction is kept behind closed doors.

As all my epic, face-plant run-me-over-with-your-car moments always have, it started this way: It’s going to be fine. I won’t tell anyone. Nothing bad is going to happen.

I wanted to be in love, but I wanted to be out of pain more.

you’re only as happy as your most miserable child.

Cancer will always be a thief, a greedy bitch who steals the dignity from the people closest to you.

Just because we mess up doesn’t mean all the lessons we learned are undone. Healing can be imperfect.

I don’t believe once an addict, always an addict. I don’t believe addiction is a disease that warrants a life sentence.

There are a million ways to reach recovery. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t find a way that works for you.

I was sure that the problem absolutely, positively had to be Los Angeles. I was surrounded by temptations and triggers.

The hardest thing about losing a loved one to cancer is when the tide starts to turn and you know that you’re getting beat and you know how serious each minute has become.

I was hurting myself in such an extreme way that I had effectively put my soul through a food processor.

It said that as of this date of that year, if you had sex with someone and don’t inform them of your HIV status, you’re considered a bioterrorist, and it’s a felony.

There are too many outdated laws and regulations that negatively impact and further stigmatize people living with HIV. We need to see policy that reflects the modern medical understanding of what living with HIV/AIDS is. HIV is a health issue—not a criminal one, and not a moral one. Anyone can get it.

Life is so much a daily exercise in learning to love yourself and forgive yourself, over and over.

Being normal is being completely unique, because nobody’s the same.

Sometimes our insecurity and fear about being alone or independent in the world can be our Achilles’ heel.

At the end of the day, the people we let in our space affect our ability to get to where we want to go, so if they’re in the way of realizing your potential, it’s okay to disconnect because you must choose yourself. I used to think that was selfish but really it’s just healthy.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that acceptance is the key to so much, and we find so much freedom in feeling fierce about what we’re accepting.

But the five of us really do love one another as much as it looks on the show.

Bobby runs really hot. Karamo runs really cold. Like literally with temperature. I’m twelve minutes late everywhere I go and have zero personal boundaries. Tan is very boundaried and only five minutes late everywhere he goes. Antoni is the easiest, most laid-back guy.

If our friendship can survive a ripped-off toenail, our friendship can survive anything.

If you’re on a team that’s not as passionate about your path as you are, then, queen, no harm no foul but you gotta go.

Have you ever heard the adage that fame doesn’t change you—it just makes you more of who you are?

My default is to be really critical of myself, but the world will do that for me, so I gotta make sure I always know I have my back.

All I’m trying to explain is that every person you look up to, in whatever field they’re in, is still just a person, with their own insecurities, worries, selfishness, and endless well of love and forgiveness. Famous or not, people are all onions with many layers.

being an adult wasn’t about being “normal,” or having a life that seems enviable to people from the outside. Being a fulfilled and successful adult has required accepting that I do have an inner child who was hurt and traumatized. It’s my job as an adult to nurture him, alongside all the other parts of me that make me who I am.

Learning to be the dream parent cheerleader to yourself. It’s been in you the whole time. And no matter how down you get, you can always make a gorgeous recovery.