100% this.
“Me and most of my friends might be dead if we had to grow up under this kind of constant parental surveillance“ is a fucking dramatic statement, and yet it's the plain truth. A truth with cascading causes and effects.
I don’t know how to make “me and a third of my friends might be dead” sound less melodramatic, because I know there are people who already roll their eyes at that. As a kid, I wasn’t even looking for queer communities. Being in spaces that didn’t revolve around Catholic shame was enough. I was so paranoid I stopped writing in a physical diary. I probably wouldn’t have ever visited MacStories because OH NO, COMPUTERS??? THAT WAS A BOY THING.