Category: homosexuality

Year ’17: The Worst Year of My Life Pt.4

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that you can’t vent to everyone. Sometimes not even your best friends.

Maybe a month had passed, I still hadn’t gone back to the church as the pastor wanted me to. It was a fucked up system and I knew going back would drive me to kill myself even more. I could picture the sin being the center of my church existence as a guilt that people would always see looming over my head. What else occured in my life would be of lesser significance, it only matters if I’ve gotten rid of this thing inside of me. Above all else I was embarrassed, a feeling I rarely ever feel as an extrovert. But I felt it. Humiliated. Ashamed. I felt it.

But I hated being the outsider, feeling shunned out from the community. The pastor’s wife had been my friend and mentor, she knew about my same sex struggles before this had happened, and after this all came out she never spoke another word to me.

It was lonely but more than anything I was angry. There was a part of me that wanted everyone to feel pain, physical pain. I hated them. I had a dream once that I had beat some of them nearly to death and when I woke up I was sad it wasn’t true. It’s like I was going through the stages of grief and this was anger. Rage even. I expressed this to my best friend, I told her how I would imagine myself walking into the church with a gun, that I now understood how an ordinary person could snap. I told her everything I felt including how at the same time I felt all this anger, there was a deep desire to disappear. I just wanted to die, each day was becoming unbearable and all I could think of was killing myself.

About three days later she called to say she didn’t want me to come around her, her husband or his daughter whom I adored. She said until I could get my thoughts of suicide in order it was only necessary for us to talk over the phone. She had to protect them from what I could do to myself. I wondered if it had more to do with my anger, but she assured me that it wasn’t, she just couldn’t put up with how sad I was all the time. Usually I bounced back from hardships and this time I wasn’t getting better and she couldn’t be there for me anymore.

I blamed myself again. It wasn’t enough that my mistakes were keeping people at bay, now it was my grief too. Later I realized how messed up that was. My best friend abandoned me when I needed her most. Although she assured me that once I got myself together things would be fine between us, we never saw each other again.

I ended up sending an email to the pastor, his wife, and my ex’s parents. I don’t remember much of it but I told them they were careless and malicious people. Then there were parts that I do remember and looking back it was a clear picture I was losing it. Losing my mind. Some words were just nonsense. On one hand I’m proud that I wasn’t afraid to call them out on their shit, but saddened that I let them see how much it all affected me. Let them see me broken.

There was a night I became so desperate I called the girl even though I knew I should stay away. I had convinced myself that she must be in despair and we both needed closure, or to talk and find a way to escape it all. My cousin had warned me a few days prior against reaching out to the girl. She said “If someone truly loves you or even cares for you, they will stop at nothing to contact you. If she cares about you anymore she would have tried to reach you by now and she hasn’t”.

But I reached out anyway. And unfortunately my cousin was right. She sent back a text message that ended with “FUCK OFF!”, she said I had done nothing but bash her parents even though they prayed for me, and I was clearly the only one hurt by it all. She regretted everything between us and told me never to reach out to her again ending it all with “FUCK OFF.” Then her father texted me and told me to stay away for good, he said the email was bizarre and I had no right to come to their house before. And my best friend had made the church aware of ‘my plans’ to kill their family and the pastor.

That’s still the most devastating part. The way she twisted my words behind my back. It’s one thing for people to know you’re gay, but for your best friend to convince them you were a homicidal maniac is even worse. In their minds they now justify any wrong they’ve ever done to you, and are probably glad they got you out before you could do any harm. She was the church favorite, she was perfect, so of course everyone believed her. And that’s when I knew I would never win, it would only get worse. So I gave up.

And I left the next day. I didn’t say anything back, didn’t tell them it was a lie. Nothing. I quit my job and made the 8 hour drive home, but not before picking up a dog from the shelter to keep me company. I had read somewhere that they help with depression.

When I got home I explained to my parents why I had come back. And that was my coming out story. That’s how I told them I was gay. And in a way it was a blessing. My parents are Christians but seeing how hurt I was they told me they loved me no matter what. I had known I was gay since I was 7 and at 21, the moment I feared most, telling my parents, turned out to be the most comforting experience thus far.

I had never told my bestfriend that I left or that I knew what she did. She called a few days later and I was sure would try to explain herself because no doubt the family would make sure to let the church know I had contacted their daughter. But she didn’t know. I was actually quite shocked by her words:

“Happy Birthday”.

July 11th. I had completely forgotten.

But I didn’t say thank you. I asked her if she had actually spread that rumor which took her by surprise. She asked me how I knew and that question was all the answer I needed. I cut the friendship off, she sent an email later saying everything that I was feeling and experiencing was my own fault. I sent a kind email back, but later sent one that expressed how I really felt which I’m unsure she ever read. And 2017 continued to drag me along full of misery and depression. I’m not even sure if what I experienced can be called depression. I still look back and think it would have been better to have died than to experience the loneliness and sadness I felt.

Maybe I’ll speak more intimately about that later.

How do I feel about it all? I’ll say something brief but it would take more to dissect and describe my assessment of this part of my life.

But in short, as I write these I’m realizing how unfortunate these near last two years have been, so many memories I haven’t stirred up in a while. I had a 12 hour panic attack after finishing this piece and I’m well aware there will be much time and patience needed before I repair the damage done. No, I haven’t forgiven them. Forgiveness is a discipline in many ways. Because we never forget, no matter how much you would like to forgive and forget as they say, it is impossible. So we must teach ourselves to forgive every time we remember, a skill I haven’t mastered as yet. If there’s anything I want is my name to be cleared. I’m gay they’re right about that, but I’m no murderer. Maybe you can find a way to justify everything else, but I didn’t deserve that.

But in time I’ll show you how I grew from it.

You see, there will be many times in life where we’ll feel like this. That we’ve been buried, like a body left to rot. But really, we’ve been planted, like a seed meant to grow.

But now you’re up to speed. And now I can continue with the ass kicking of 2018 before 2019 comes around.

But that’s all for now as they say. Until next time please do me this one favor today:

Love Yourself.

Sincerely,

ASF

Year ’17: The Worst Year of My Life Pt.3

The last time she called me, when she hung up I knew for sure nothing would ever be the same.

“My parents are asking questions about us.”

At those very words I knew it was over. She was reluctant to tell them everything but I encouraged her that it would be for the best. Based on the questions they were asking, I could tell they weren’t asking because they didn’t know, but because they wanted her to tell them.

She hung up the phone and I didn’t hear from her afterward. A day or so passed and I messaged her to ask some vague question about prom just to see if she would answer. She read the message but said nothing. And something told me to check my email.

I have these moments in life that I would describe as brief dissociation or such a misunderstanding of reality that I come up with nonsense solutions to traumatic problems. Such as when my 3 year old cousin was killed in a car accident, when I heard about it I asked myself “Why don’t they just put her seatbelt on now?” As if it were possible to go back and prevent the unthinkable.

Reading the email in my inbox brought on a moment like this. I remember saying, “Maybe if I hadn’t read it, none of this would be happening right now.”

Her parents sent a long email expressing their anger and disappoint. The fault was put on me, and they accused me of taking advantage as a mentor. Although I never claimed to be that to her and neither did she. They said I was no longer invited to attend her graduation (ruining the surprise) asked me to cut off all contact until we spoke about it with the pastor.

It hurt reading that email, but it hurt more when I saw how many people they had CC’d the email to. The church secretary, my best friend and her husband, the youth pastor, some more people I can’t remember and later I found out they sent it out a few more times to different people in the congregation until as I’m sure, the whole church received the email.

The next day the pastor emailed me. He said he was disappointed that I would bring her into this lifestyle with me. I had brought nothing but chaos to their family and he wouldn’t allow my spirit to infiltrate his youth/church. I was to undergo counseling under his direction, apologize to him and then make a public apology to the church. Step down from any position in the church and of course have no contact to the family, not even as we attended the same church.

And this is me sugar coating his words. It was nothing but hate.

I responded to them, let them know how ungodly the whole situation was. The fact they felt the need to publicly humiliate me while I was oceans away. The fact that none of what they were saying and doing was biblical and above all point out that there was no reason for the blame to be on me alone. Then again, I have no clue what she said. Being gay is the worst thing to be in a church. Who knows what she said to separate herself from me. All I know is that in one day everyone I had know for four years, who had loved me, we had shared each others company, prayed and worshipped God together, suddenly all these people hated me. They were saints and I the sinner to be cleansed underneath their tainted views of Christianity.

Yet even as I defended myself I apologized. At the end of the day they were right about one thing. I had committed a homosexual sin and for that I had to repent. As much as I could point out every wrong they had done it felt as though it all pointed back to me. I was the reason this was all happening. To admit same sex desires is one thing but to act on them is another, so it was my fault. The shame I felt was justified and I deserved to feel that way. I deserved to feel ashamed of myself.

And with that shame I fell apart immediately. Stopped eating and slept as much as possible. Tried to kill myself a few times. Stayed in the darkness, showered when I remembered, stopped going to class. I wasted away physically and mentally. Everytime I closed my eyes I could hear their words playing over in my head like a broken record. Then there was the perpetual sense of being alone. In Christianity there’s this phrase that though we may sometimes feel lonely, with God we are never alone. But this was the first time I couldn’t find truth in that statement. It was the first time I felt truly alone. Deep down I felt that if these people loved God, lived a wholesome Christian and were disgusted by me, didn’t want contact with me and those who did suddenly wanted to control every aspect of my churchlife, then God must feel the same. God didn’t love me anymore.

I kept most of this to myself. It would be months before I told anyone outside of it what was going on. Even the two close friends I had made in Hong Kong didn’t know until a long while after.

My best friend, would call to see how I was doing. I could tell she was caught in the middle as a worship leader. She wanted to remain my friend and supporter but at the same time hold true to her Christian values. I wonder if she’s ever learned that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. They never were.

I could tell she was changing her opinion when one day I called to talk about it and she asked me when I would finally get over it. Everyone else had moved on from it but I hadn’t. But it had only been seven days. Even so those words struck me, after that I kept it to myself more than ever and started to believe I was overreacting. That it wasn’t traumatic and I needed to get over it and the fact that I wasn’t was because I hadn’t fully repented or something like that. Everyone else had moved on because they were prayerful, kind people, and I was stuck because I couldn’t see past their insignificant actions. It was my actions that were far worse than theirs, and maybe that’s why I was suffering so much.

But it was traumatic, so much so that I left Hong Kong early and moved back to the city against my judgement to stay away. I just wanted the haunting thoughts to go away. I wanted people to see me the way they did before. I wanted to be forgiven.

So I went back to apologize to her family in person. But upon opening the door they let me know I was no longer welcome and they wanted me to leave. I’ll never forget the look on her mother’s face, like I was the most disgusting thing she’d ever laid her eyes on. It was my ex who had opened the door, she barely looked at me, just kept her eyes low as her mother spoke. But I showed little emotion, I just left. When I got home I put my roommates gun to my head and prayed I’d find the courage to pull the trigger.

I didn’t. And it only got worse from there.

But that’s all for now as they say. Until next time please do me this one favor today:

Love Yourself.

Sincerely,

ASF