Breaking The Chains: A Gay Man's Story From Faith to Freedom

[Casualfanboy16]

Hello!! I've decided to make an autobiographical account of my overall experience growing up as a closeted gay guy within the rigid confines of Christianity and my rather Conservative-leaning rural area. I wanted to go into detail about my thoughts, feelings and experiences about all this. Hopefully my story resonates with some people. For those that can't exactly relate, however, I hope it's still effective at getting the struggles and emotions across. Some of this might be a rehashing of my previous posts, but this will go into detail about pretty much everything. Anyways, enjoy (or don't because it's not exactly enjoyable at all). This is very personal for me to write and it will be quite long; so here goes nothing...

 

Content Warning: Internalized Homophobia, suicidal ideation, religious-imposed sexual guilt, overall themes of sexuality struggles within a religious environment, etc. DO NOT CONTINUE IF THESE SUBJECTS ARE POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING FOR YOU! Just wanted to warn y'all. Just concerned for the well-being of everyone here, is all!

 

From the moment I was born, I had been raised up in the Christian faith.  I went to a Christian school, attended church on Sunday, sung songs and read Bible verses. I was on fire for God. I wholeheartedly believed every word of it without question. However, once middle school rolled around, my faith in God began to dwindle. I put the Bible and God aside in favor of getting my homework done and studying for tests as the workload increased; along with the ever-increasing anxiety that piled up as I was adjusting to this new phase of my  life. The overall discontent caused by the various changes was taking its toll; but nothing was comparable to what I was about to experience. This upcoming chain of events would be the straw that broke the camel's back and changed the course of my life forever.

 

Besides the increasing workload and added stressors-- middle school was also a time of self-actualization, discovering oneself, and of course, the budding feelings of love as some people began developing crushes and coupling up. When it came to matters concerning love and romance, one could argue that in my elementary school days that I was somewhat of a "ladies man". I would compliment them, call them "cute" and "beautiful" and such; however, I don't really count that because I had a rather juvenile understanding of the concept of love. I thought being in love with someone just meant going up to them and complimenting them, not taking into account other factors like having some actual kind of connection and romantic feeling towards them and whatnot. So, I don't really count them as crushes or even me being in love with them in any way. When it came to crushes in middle school though, I knew I was different, but couldn't exactly put into words what I was experiencing.

 

Everyone else around me was getting into relationships and going about their days going through all the various middle school relationship highs and lows; meanwhile, I was still single and feeling rather left out. I thought I was abnormal because I didn't find girls all that appealing. I didn't quite get why guys fell head-over-heels for them. Initially, I just thought I was maybe just a late bloomer. It was only a matter of time before a girl came along that caught my interest, right? Well, turns out that was not the case. I actually found myself taking an interest in guys instead. You'd think this is where I would have some "aha" moment; but denial is one hell of a drug that I was heavily overdosing on.

 

Around that time too, I began to dabble in watching porn, just as most guys my age have done. However, instead of straight porn, I gravitated exclusively to gay porn right off the bat. Not once did I view (or even care to view) naked women. At that point, the denial had completely worn off and the harsh reality of what this could mean for me was beginning to set in. Still, I kept consuming more and more porn in order to cope with the budding stress; and the guilt and shame started to accumulate. The more I consumed, the more guilty I felt. I still kept my viewing habits hidden though. No teenager on earth would ever want their parents to walk in on them watching porn; nor would a closeted gay teen ever want their Conservative Christian parents to walk in on them watching gay porn. I managed to keep it hidden for a year or so after I first started, but an unexpected event put an end to it all-- my computer got a virus (lol). At that moment, all the guilt and shame I had pushed down over years and years had finally begun coming back up. I wasn't able to eat all that much for about two days before I finally caved into the guilt and told my parents at dinner one night. There was a lot of emotional goings-on that I don't fully remember, but one thing that did stick with me was my Mom leaving to go cry and pray alone in her bedroom. However, this wasn't the end of it. This was only the beginning.

 

A few days after the incident occurred, I was informed by my Mom that I had to go to a Christian counselor to deal with my porn addiction. Of course, I was no happy camper about this. I remember protesting and begging back then for them not to make me go, but I guess I didn't have a say in anything, because I was forced to go anyway. Fortunately, the therapy itself wasn't so much conversion therapy as it was just more focused on trying to rid me of my porn addiction. Unfortunately, the therapist himself wasn't all that great and some of the things he had me do to get rid of it were completely useless at best and traumatic at worst. I remember he wanted me to study Bible verses and do these worksheets on people in the Bible and how I can use their stories to apply to my present struggles. I didn't exactly keep up with them because I already had Bible class in school and wanted nothing to do with it. There was also the journaling, which wouldn't have been as bad if he didn't get irritated with me since apparently I 'wasn't doing it correctly'. He even made me read my journal entries to him, which I didn't particularly feel comfortable with doing because I felt that was supposed to be more private.

 

The most traumatic part, however was Covenant Eyes. It's basically an accountability app that took screenshots of your phone and sent them to both the accountability partner (my therapist) and my parents. The main reason it was so traumatic for me was the fact that, now, my privacy was being invaded and my parents were getting screenshots of what I was viewing. I actually did sneak a peak once at my Mom's phone. The screenshots are blurred for privacy of the person, but it somehow detected the screenshots for NSFW content. I didn't understand how it did that; still didn't hate it any less. I developed severe issues with privacy because of this, and the fact that he made me read my journal entries out loud to him just amplified the issue. To this day, I still feel the need to hide my phone out of view from my parents even though I don't really watch porn all that regularly anymore. Even after I was done with him, I didn't fully get over it.

 

After that all went down, I began to get back into reading Scripture; not because I wanted to get connected to God, but because I was overwhelmed by intense feelings of shame and guilt to the point I returned to the very religion that caused me to spiral into anxious thoughts and intense self-hatred in the first place. I obsessively read Bible verses over and over, trying to get any shred of validation from the god of the Bible that if I were to die today I could make it into the Pearly Gates. I even prayed and begged on my knees for him to kill me before I became an adult because I still wanted to remain his child in his eyes and not go to Hell.

 

Fast forward to the beginning of this year, which was the most mentally and emotionally intense last few months of my life, and it's what led to joining this site in the first place. This all went down around the end of January. I made a personal decision to finally come out to my parents (they seemed to have forgotten it was gay porn I went to counseling for lmao). Luckily, at that point I had a better therapist and was-- and still am-- on anxiety medication.

 

When I finally got the chance to come out to them, it went about as well as you'd expect. I already kept the bar low, but somehow it still managed to get lower. I was lucky enough to not get kicked out, but they really took it hard. For two whole months, they went through the stages of grief as if I was dead and gone. They couldn't eat or sleep properly, they said some rather hurtful things to me and placed stereotypes and such onto me and in general just acted completely out of wack for a while. They also made me go to my pastor a few times to talk about these issues, not until I put my foot down recently and it seems that I don't, and hopefully never will, have to go anymore. I have @Weezer to thank for helping me get my crap together in that regard with the whole pastor situation. So if you're reading this, thanks man! You're a real one!

 

This leads me to where I am today. Twenty years old and a bit mentally and emotionally put through the wringer and a frequent user of this site trying to deconstruct my beliefs and get further along the path to improving my life and learning more science things that I missed out on, like evolution and stuff. Also just trying to learn how to accept my sexuality, improve my shattered self-esteem, and in general trying to repair the broken pieces that Christianity has left me to pick up after years worth of traumatic experiences.

 

Again, I would like to thank Ex-C and its users for continuing to help me out through all this. Thank you all for offering me encouragement, giving me helpful advice and resources, and in general being amazing people. I know I'll be saying it many times, but I really can't thank y'all enough.

 

Best Regards,

Casual

[◊ Weezer ◊]

I am hoping the first "counselor" you went to was a church counselor.   Not a licensed  professional.

 

Addendum:  For anyone reading this, if you ever go to a counselor or therapist of any kind, I highly recommend they be licensed by the state, or be in training through an accredited college or university.  In some states anyone can call themselves a counselor without being licensed.  A professionally trained and licensed therapist/counselor should NOT push any religion or ideology on you.  They may give you suggestions for consideration, but their job is to help you make your own decisions through critical thinking.

 

There is a new "profession" called "Coaching."  Some are calling themselves "life Coaches".  There is no certifiction or licensing required.  So, buyer beware.

[Casualfanboy16]

1 minute ago, Weezer said:

I am hoping the first "counselor" you went to was a church counselor.   Not a licensed  professional.

 

He was some random Christian counselor my Mom found and sent me to. Pretty sure he had a lisence, but he definitely wasn't a professional lmfao. The Covenant Eyes part messed me up more than anything else. As soon as I was free of that I immediately relapsed into my old habits. I basically faked recovery until I got away from it and I was so messed up from it. I felt guilty constantly and read Bible passages over and over to try and cure myself of my homosexuality after I just tried to look for any shred of validation from a god I didn't really care about.

 

I traumatized myself even harder whenever I thought about the rapture and being left behind to fend for myself in the apocalypse. This was thanks to my interest in Revelation in middle school. Sometimes my parents talked about it, especially with recent events like the Canada wildfires saying that this is a sign of the end times. Also my Mom's viewing of TV preachers like Charles Stanley and Dr. Jeremiah. I don't know which one it was that talked about China and Russia coming together in the end times and one world currencies and shit, but I used to be so paranoid because of that. I was worried that I would wake up and my family would be gone, or that China and Russia would band together and take over the world and all that shit with the antichrist would come true. I still fear it slightly. I remember one time my family wasn't around when I woke up, and for a moment I thought I was left behind. Turns out they were just hanging out on the porch, but I was filled with so much irrational fear that I couldn't think clearly. I still can't shake everything, even to this day. Even when reading the posts here about it and the stuff behind it, I still can't shake the thought of it happening. This is one of the reasons I still can't pick up a Bible to dissect the bullshit. It's too much lol.

[Casualfanboy16]

7 hours ago, Weezer said:

  A professionally trained and licensed therapist/counselor should NOT push any religion or ideology on you. 

He was specifically branded as a Christian counselor though. I mean, doesn't make up for some of the shit I went through, but yeah. Still, I don't think pushing religious ideology is a good idea no matter the person.