“By the time I came out, my body had already absorbed years of vigilance”
BY RAGA D’SILVA, IMAGE BY FREESTOCKS.ORG/PEXELS
I still remember sitting in a GP’s waiting room in my late 40s, the sterile smell of disinfectant mixing with old magazines. The hum of fluorescent lights above me, and a tight knot in my chest that would not go away. On paper, my life looked stable. I had a career, a home and respect. Yet I carried a quiet anxiety I had normalised for years. It took time to understand that this was the cost of living a life that was not fully my own.
I came out publicly at 50. For decades, I measured every word, every gesture, every breath against what was expected of me. As an Indian immigrant woman in Britain, I became the dutiful daughter, the compliant wife, the competent professional. Responsible. Restrained. Respectable. None of it protected my health.
Wellness is often discussed in terms of diet, exercise and access to healthcare. But for lesbians, especially those who come out later in life, well-being is also shaped by what is unseen. The emotional and physical toll of living out of alignment with yourself is significant. Years of silence and constant vigilance leave their mark. Anxiety, sleeplessness, hypervigilance and loneliness are not abstract experiences. They affect both mind and body.
Coming out in midlife is not a single moment. It is an unravelling. It is realising that the exhaustion you carry is not simply stress or ageing, but the accumulated weight of decades spent negotiating your existence. Silence becomes a survival strategy. Fitting in comes at the cost of belonging. Safety requires constant attention.
For women who are immigrants and people of colour, the stakes are even higher. Race, religion, colour, accent and age intersect to shape how we are seen and treated. Coming out is not only about sexuality. It is about challenging systems of patriarchy, cultural expectations, racism and ageism at the same time.
By the time I came out, my body had already absorbed years of vigilance. I had learned to soften my voice, to enter rooms carefully, to anticipate discomfort before it was spoken. This constant self-monitoring leaves a mark on both mental and physical health.
Exclusion is not simply about hurt feelings. It is a health issue. When you are made to feel too different, too visible, or not enough, the message is absorbed by the body. Over time, it erodes confidence, increases stress and reduces the likelihood of seeking support. Many older lesbians face isolation in later life, and some return to the closet because invisibility feels safer than exposure.
Listening to older LGBTQIA+ voices, the patterns became clear. Fear of discrimination in healthcare. Anxiety about housing. The exhaustion of having to explain one’s history repeatedly. Many of us lived through criminalisation, Section 28 and the AIDS crisis, only to face ageing in spaces that still do not understand us. Our stories have too often been erased or rewritten.
This understanding led me to create Older Queer Voices, a platform focused on capturing stories that have been ignored, misrepresented, or forgotten. It is also about health and well-being across the life course, and about recognising that being seen and being heard is essential to living well.
Health and wellness in our communities cannot exist without intentional support. We need spaces where late bloomers are not treated as curiosities, where immigrant stories are central, where faith and sexuality are not seen as opposites and where ageing is valued as experience, not decline.
Unity does not mean erasing difference. It means refusing to turn difference into division.
As I move into what I think of as the final chapter of my life, this work feels urgent. Not because I have all the answers, but because I understand what silence costs. Those of us who come out later in life know this truth deeply.
Raga D’silva is the host of Older Queer Voices, which you can watch here.
You can also listen to it on Spotify/Apple : @theviewsroom/olderqueervoices
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