Having lived her life as a heterosexual, in 2000 Jackie O'leary finally bowed to her true nature and left her husband for another woman. Six years on, and now at peace with her sexuality, she's helping other women in turnoil. She talks to Women's Editor Sarah Foster.

WHEN Jackie O'Leary walked down the aisle, her gaze focused on the man she loved, she thought her future was clear. She'd known Alan since she was six, when he became her neighbour, and she'd never met a nicer man. The pair settled in Milton Keynes, where Jackie worked in a local factory. They shared a warm and loving marriage, with Jackie's family adoring Alan almost as much as she did. Only deep in Jackie's heart was there a problem.

Looking back on her life, she now sees that she was covering up the truth. "At school I had the usual teenage crushes on (female) teachers but basically, I fought against them because I wanted to be normal, especially for my parents," she says. "The way I saw it was that they would be ashamed of me. It's like a lot of things - you push them down inside you until they get locked away."

What made this especially hard was Jackie's love of women's football, which exposed her to the gay scene. "I always had gay friends and I would go to gay clubs but to me, if you're married, you're married - you don't cheat," she says. "Obviously, the feelings were still there but it was a matter of suppressing them. I suppose I thought I must be bisexual. I thought a lot of women must be the same but I thought, 'that's OK. I just won't act on those feelings'."

Having learned the hard way, the 42-year-old Jackie of today knows such denial is untenable. Relating her story in the Newcastle office where she works as a counsellor, she's frank and open, fully at ease with her sexuality. But it's been a long and difficult road. Had it not been for a mid-life crisis, she might never have faced up to being gay.

"I lost seven members of my family in three years," she explains. "My mum was only 53 when she had a triple heart bypass operation and died. My dad had a heart attack and died, then I had aunts dying of cancer and my uncle tripped over in the street and banged his head and just died. I even lost my dog. You get to the point where you think, 'how many more people can I lose?' I think it made me look at my life and reassess whether I was being true to myself and the person I wanted to be."

Suspecting that she was gay, but not having the courage to speak to anyone she knew, Jackie turned to the Internet. In the anonymity of a chatroom, she began expressing her hidden feelings - and found a kindred spirit. "I wanted to talk to somebody who felt the same way I did," she says. "I suspect I was just trying to make sense of it all. I met somebody who had felt the same way as I did all her life."

Jackie's new friend Helen was also in a straight relationship but as the two women's bond grew stronger, it became clear to both that they wanted to be together. The hard part for Jackie was having to tell Alan, knowing it would break his heart.

"In late 1999, we started sitting and discussing things and I let him know that I wasn't happy - he knew that I wasn't happy," she says. "He said I had to do what I had to do to make myself happy. He said he always had an idea that I might be bisexual."

Alan's magnanimity made leaving him no less difficult, and it took a lot of soul-searching for Jackie to go through with it. As she explains, living a double life was not an option. "I wasn't prepared to live a lie, so I just left everything, basically," she says. "All my friends, my family, my home - everything. I didn't think I would be strong enough to do it because I was a very shy person. For me, just getting a new job was absolutely terrifying."

It was with a heavy heart that Jackie drove up to Newcastle to live with Helen. Despite believing that she'd made the right choice, she admits she still had doubts. "I cried all the way from Milton Keynes, thinking of what I'd done, how bad I'd been," she says. "I found it hard because I'd lost all but one of my friends. I was the evil woman who'd destroyed Ally's life. I could understand that totally."

Yet Jackie's instinct proved right, and at last with Helen, she felt fulfilled. But her happiness was incomplete. "I didn't want people to know that I was a lesbian because I had a real problem with it myself," she says. "My partner was fine - she had no problem with it - but I couldn't stand people judging me on my sexuality before they knew me."

A turning point came when Helen told Jackie's workmates at mobile phone company Orange that they were a couple. When she saw their reaction, Jackie's horror turned to relief. "They were absolutely brilliant and totally accepted us, which to me was a shock after all those years of thinking I would suffer homophobic abuse," she says. "It was just great. For me it was liberating."

Wanting to explore the new world they had come to inhabit, Jackie and Helen started volunteering for the Newcastle Lesbian Line. It wasn't long before they realised they were not alone, that there were many other women with conflicts surrounding their sexuality.

Keen to do more for such women, and by this point unemployed due to ill health, Jackie undertook a counselling course at college. Six years on, and now almost fully qualified, she's set up the Newcastle Lesbian Line Counselling Service and Reflection, a wider counselling agency.

With outside bodies referring clients, the lesbian line service has really taken off. "We're getting people referred to us by people like social workers at the RVI and doctors' surgeries," says Jackie. "We've got people coming from far and wide. We're getting an average of two new clients a week at the moment."

Uniquely in the region, the service is free and offers next-week appointments. It also plugs the gap in provision for lesbians, who, being at low risk from HIV, are often simply ignored. Being gay herself, and having gone through what she has, Jackie knows exactly how clients feel.

"I talk to people who are exactly the same as I was and it's like looking in the mirror," she says. "It's a service I could have used when I was 19 or 20. I actually tried going to a counsellor but I went in the pretence that I was suffering from bereavement. What I actually wanted to say was, 'help me. I think I'm gay', but the last thing I wanted was for her to judge me."

No matter how far society has come, according to Jackie, being homosexual still carries a stigma - which is why her help is so desperately needed. "I think I've been very lucky - I've never suffered any homophobic abuse, but I know a lot of people who have," she says.

"You're trying to be what society expects you to be and if you don't fit into a stereotypical norm, it's a very frightening place to be."

* The Newcastle Lesbian Line Counselling Service can be contacted on 07968 605429, 0191-261 2277, or by visiting www.newcastlelesbianline.co.uk. Donations are welcome.

* Wider counselling is available from Reflection on 07968 605429.