Lilly Singh, whose late-night NBC show premieres later this month, opened up about her own coming out journey on Instagram.
In the caption of the post, she marked the first anniversary of coming out as bisexual to her closest friends. Singh talked about some of the reflecting she’s done since, candidly admitting that “coming out was one of the scariest experiences of my life.”
“I’ve learned that there is NOTHING more important than living your truth. It’s scary, it’s nerve wrecking and often times it’s painful but ultimately it is worth it. Period. But this post isn’t just about the bright side, it’s about raw truth,” she wrote.
Singh explained that not everyone was supportive of her identity, but that wasn’t the only challenge she was up against.
“Even if I ignore the actions of others and focus on myself, admittedly dealing with the warfare in my mind has been hard,” she wrote. “Coming out lifted a weight off my shoulders but at the same time it placed the weight of judgement on my chest. Maybe that’s the culture I was raised in or maybe it’s all in my head but either way for me it’s real.”
Singh, who rose to fame for her wildly popular YouTube channel, wrote that she isn’t “oblivious” to the fact that some find her sexuality disappointing and said that those reactions have made her “feel insecure more than once in the past year.”
“Why am I sharing all of this? ... Every friend and family member that reached out to me with words of encouragement, you don’t realize how much that meant to me during an uncertain time,” she wrote. “TL;DR life is tough enough for the LGBTQ+ community and various other communities. Kindness, compassion and humanity can go a really long way. Add light, not darkness.”
In February, Singh came out to the public in a short post on Twitter in which she used emojis to check off the traits “female,” “colored” and “bisexual,” saying that though those elements have “proven to be obstacles from time to time,” she is now “fully embracing them as superpowers.”
Many South Asians expressed how important the revelation was for their community. Writer Afshan D’souza-Lodhi explained to BBC Newsbeat that “in the South Asian community, there’s a hesitancy for women to take ownership of their sexuality in the way Lilly has done.”
“My parents have seen [her] videos,” D’souza-Lodhi said. “They’ve laughed and found it really funny. The videos get shared on Facebook so they have access to that, so for her to come out and to normalize bisexuality in the way she has, allows our parents to have that discussion.”
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
