“Get out of our school, you dyke!” yelled a large and intimidating group of upperclassmen at senior Nora McCaffrey two months into her freshman year of high school. They proceeded to corner her into an empty classroom and slam her into a radiator, cracking a rib and bruising her entire back.

But that wasn’t even the worst part for McCaffrey. The worst was that she couldn’t seek comfort from her parents.

“I hadn’t come out to my parents yet,” she said. “I was terrified and unsure. I was scared they weren’t going to accept me ever again.”

McCaffrey said she was afraid she was going to break her parents’ hearts with the news that she was gay.

“It’s very unhealthy to have a secret,” said McCaffrey, who never reported the incident. “It eats away at you until you embrace it. I had such an unhappy life. I just couldn’t be happy about anything.”

Coming out is the process in which Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people inform other people about their sexual orientation. There are many aspects to coming out that can be difficult, but most agree that the hardest moment is telling their parents.

Individuals confide in the first person at an average age of 16. However, a majority of those 25 years old and under surveyed said college is the best time, according to a recent study by OutProud!, a national coalition for LGBT youth. Only 7 percent of the 6,872 individuals surveyed told their parents first. Those who haven’t yet come out list the most common reason as fear of parents’ reactions.

Lisa Maurer, coordinator of the Center for LGBT Education, Outreach and Services, said she helps students on a weekly basis who are coming out to their parents.

“Coming to college, students obtain a sense of wanting to be authentic and themselves,” Maurer said. “A secret will very often wear and tear on their soul until it is released.”

In the summer before she left for Ithaca College, McCaffrey finally sat her parents down and told them that she was lesbian. She said her mom cried and was upset because she thought everything she expected for her daughter in life was over. Her dad told McCaffrey that he didn’t like labels.

After some time passed, McCaffrey and her parents established a good relationship, and last year she comfortably brought home a serious girlfriend.

“They realized that if I was strong enough to take what I did in high school all alone, I could deal with hardships that may come later in life,” she said. “It is my battle, and it’s very apparent that I can take it.”

According to the American Psychological Association, the coming- out process usually follows a general pattern. First, individuals will tell other gay friends, then straight friends, then close family members and then finally their parents.

When Kathy Ballard’s son, Adrian ’99, came out to her, she didn’t have a clue that he was gay.

“I started crying and then so did he,” said Kathy Ballard, member of the nonprofit organization Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. “My husband just sat there, shocked.”

She said the hardest parts were knowing that her child was going to deal with more issues than other children and all her preconceived notions of his life may not come true.

“He told us that we could ask him any questions about homosexuality,” Ballard said. “But I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted it to go away.”

Adrian Ballard said he forced the topic on his parents, even when they were uncomfortable.

“If you don’t talk about it, you’ll never come to terms with it,” Adrian Ballard said. “It needs exposure.”

Kathy Ballard said after a couple of weeks of tears, she realized they were all going to be OK and researched all she could on the topic of homosexuality.

“There was no way I wasn’t going to love my child,” she said.

Adrian Ballard said when coming out, students should prepare for the worst, but not expect the worst.

“Chances are that this thing about you won’t change their love,” he said.

Some students, like freshman Heather Fields, who considers herself “open but leaning lesbian,” have a hard time waiting for their parents to accept their sexual orientation. Fields’ parents originally didn’t tolerate the idea, and she said her home life was hard and she considered moving out.

“At first I didn’t want to talk to my mom at all,” Fields said. “I decided I didn’t like the person she was. I decided I didn’t have to love her just because she was my mom.”

For many gay youth, the first signs that their emerging sexual identity is unacceptable come from their own home, according to the American Psychological Association. Kathy Ballard said she is now amazed that her son had the courage to come out to her and her husband. They attended a Baptist church that preached against homosexuality, and her husband often told condescending gay jokes at the dinner table.

“We realized that it was an extremely difficult thing to come out to us, so he must have had no other choice,” she said. “He couldn’t have done it to hurt us.”

Though most families work through the hardships of coming out, some individuals aren’t as lucky. Sometimes LGBT students who come out to their parents are kicked out of the house, cut off financially or sent to counseling or camps to get “cured” of their homosexuality.

Junior Aaron Escobedo came out as gay to his mother, but will not tell his father, who Escobedo said has not played a big role in his life, until he is financially secure.

“It’s a possibility that he would not be OK with me,” Escobedo said. “At first, I thought, ‘Am I wrong to use my father for his money? Or is it wrong of him to withhold my education just because I’m gay?’”

More than 100 scholarships have been established for gay students nationally to help with financial troubles that may be a consequence of coming out, according to The Point Foundation, one scholarship resource for LGBT students. The Astarea Foundation has previously distributed grants to Ithaca College students. Escobedo has received grants for three years from The Alexander Foundation, a Colorado organization.

Many universities also offer individual awards to LGBT students. George Washington University offers a $3,000 scholarship to a gay student studying politics for a semester. Currently, Ithaca College has no such scholarship, but Escobedo said alumni have contacted the school willing to donate to such a fund. He said he hopes to get organized soon and get the ball rolling.

“There’s no one saying, ‘Hey, we want you on our campus’ to LGBT students right now,” Escobedo said. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t start.”

Love in Action International is one of the most popular organizations with programs designed to “address sexual brokenness,” according to LIA’s Web site. The Rev. John Smid, the executive director of Love in Action, said he used to practice homosexual actions when he was young and then was “freed from the myth” when he began studying the Bible, according to the Web site.

In September, the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities required the Memphis-based organization to obtain a license for treating mentally ill clients. LIA is suing the state, claiming it is violating its religious freedom, according to the Associated Press.

“Parents who kick out their children need to educate themselves,” Kathy Ballard said. “Your child is not doing it to be cool or different. It’s not a choice. People need to understand that.”

To avoid hardships as a result of coming out, Maurer suggested two general guidelines.

“I suggest that you make sure the timing is good — try not to do it during a big family holiday, don’t do it in the heat of anger to get back at your parents and be sensitive of other issues in their lives presently,” Maurer said. “It is also very important to establish a support system beforehand, both financially and with friends.”

Currently, there are more than 3,000 Gay Straight Alliance chapters in all 50 states, according to The Advocate, a LGBT news magazine. On campus, Ithaca College has prism, the educational and social group which meets on Mondays, and Created Equal, which implements projects to address problems facing LGBT people on campus and nationally.