Monthly Archives: March 2011

Gender and Sexuality, Memories

The Path Left Behind

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I came out to myself and my best friend at the time on Monday, 1 April 1996.  Today, 1 April 2011 marks the fifteenth anniversary of that event.  In honor of that, I’ve decided to do a series of posts on the topic.  This is the second one.


As I said in my previous post, the night I came out to Merion in that little alcove was the beginning of a new journey to self-acceptance and personal discovery.  However, the start of that journey meant the end of a different, darker journey.  The journey that ended that night, the journey towards “freedom from unwanted same-sex attractions,” was a painful and self-destructive one and one I’m glad I left behind.  And yet, this anniversary would not be complete without talking about it at least a little.
Truth be told, I can’t cover that journey — which lasted for roughly eight years — in a single blog post.  I hope to restart A Journey to Queerdom soon, and I will explore it more fully there.  For this post, I hope to tell just enough to capture a glimpse of the emotional chaos that overshadowed me as I came to that fateful April Fool’s Day night.
At the end of my sophomore year in college, I had finally admitted that my feelings for other guys was more than “just a phase.”  It was a very real part of my psychological makeup and it was there to stay unless I took some drastic measures.  So I started trying to turn myself straight.  Granted, I didn’t go to any sort of therapy or ex-gay ministry — fortunately, I wouldn’t have known where to find such help in Selinsgrove of the surrounding area.  So instead, I simply tried to go through the process of praying for healing on my own and asking friends I could trust to also pray for me.*
Asking for friends’ help actually created a cycle of increasing frustration.  I would admit my “struggle” to each of them separately — a frightening prospect in itself each time, as I was never sure how they might react to the experience and there’s a lot of shame in admitting you like members of your own sex in evangelical and fundamentalist circles, even if you make it clear that you don’t want them.  They’d pray with me and for me, and I’d feel better.  I’d get an emotional boost and would feel like I could take on the world.
But the emotional high would eventually wear off while the feelings of attraction would persist.  My frustrations and sense of shame over feeling the way I felt would return, often magnified by the sense of added failure that somehow I had lost forfeited the “spiritual help” I had gotten and failed yet again.  So I’d decide that I needed more help, and that meant telling another friend and seeking further support and help.  And there, the cycle would begin all over.
The thing is, dealing with one’s feelings is ultimately something one has to do alone.  No one can feel those feelings for you.  No one can take them away from you.  No one can do anything other than support you through it all, and no one can give that support 24/7.  I found that late at night, laying in my bed, I was left all alone to either face my desire for love and intimacy with another man alone or repress it alone.  It was my burden to carry, and the more I fought it, the heavier that burden got.
One of the things that drove me to the breaking point on Saturday night, 30 March 1996** was the fact that my loneliness was driven home when my closest friends and my biggest supporters all ended up spending that night with their respective female love interests.  I realized that night that this really was my burden to carry, because when push comes to shove, they got to go to their God- and church-approved girlfriends (or potential girlfriends) and find some degree of intimacy and the promise of full intimacy sometime down the road.  That realization, and their unintentional acts of rubbing it in my face, pushed me into a full tailspin that night.  I spent over half an hour considering and even planning to end my own life.
I’m not going to describe that night.  I think I’ve described it well enough elsewhere.  But what I will say is that in that night, I wanted to die because I realized that I could never “beat” my sexual feelings and romantic desires.  There was no going straight for me.  I had tried and failed.  If I continued down that path, the only thing waiting for me was depression, loneliness, and shame.  And I couldn’t face that path.  If that path was my only choice, I knew it would be better to end my life.  So I seriously contemplated it.
And at some point, that realization horrified me.  So two nights later, I chose to walk another path.
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* Given the number of ex-gays who talk about going to therapy, support groups, or even residency programs, I felt out of place at first.  I was quite relieved when I discovered that the bXg community had an entire group for people who went through self-guided attempts at becoming ex-gay.
** I’ve searched every aspect of my memory, and everything convinces me that the truly terrifying dark night was two nights before I came out on April Fool’s Day.  Curiously, this means I surived in some sort of in-between state for a full day on Sunday.  I have no idea what that day was like or how I managed to survive and not find myself with the same dark thoughts that night as I had entertained the night before.

Gender and Sexuality

In a Small Alcove at Susquehanna University

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Rainbow flag flapping in the wind with blue sk...

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I came out to myself and my best friend at the time on Monday, 1 April 1996.  Tomorrow, 1 April 2011 marks the fifteenth anniversary of that event.  In honor of that, I’ve decided to do a series of posts on the topic.  This is the first one.

My mind floats back fifteen years ago — almost to the day — and a few hundred miles away.  I can still remember what it was like that night, sitting in the cloth-covered chair with wooden arm rests that sat in the tiny alcove of the first floor of Seibert Hall.  I never knew which professors had their offices there, but the place was familiar.  I chose that place to meet Merion because not only was it relatively secluded from the bustle of campus nightlife (or what passed for campus nightlife on a Monday night), but it was a place both of us knew well.  It was the same tiny alcove that the Bible study we both attended — and I eventually became coleader of — met once a week the year before.

I needed that familiarity to help calm my nerves.  It didn’t work, because I was a complete wreck.  I think it took me over five minutes to build up the courage — that is, to grit my teeth hard enough — to utter those two words:  “I’m gay.”

I hadn’t said those words prior to that moment, and that was a big thing.  Oh sure, I had admitted that I was attracted to guys.  I had even told a number of people.  But I had mostly said “I’m struggling with homosexuality” or something like that.  Up to this point, I had made it clear that I didn’t want to feel this way.  The closest I had come to those two words were a few weeks earlier when I told my friend, Joyce, “I think I might be gay.”*  Even then, I had left myself the escape hatch.  I may have started to realize I was losing the “ex-gay struggle,” but I hadn’t “conceded defeat” yet.

That night, sitting in that chair and facing Merion in the the chairs twin to my right, I made that concession.  And it was hard to do, because I knew exactly what I was doing.  It was terrifying to do it, even though I knew that Merion would be completely supportive, as she had already came out to me as bisexual** about a year earlier.

I think by the time I said it and for the first several minutes after I made my confession, I was actually shaking.  I was that worked up.  Merion was wonderful though.  She was encouraging.  She was supportive.  She was incredible.  I don’t really remember much of what she said to me, other than the fact that she told me how honored she was that I chose to tell her.  The rest of the details, however, blur into the emotional chaos I was going through at the time.

But that also marked the beginning of the end of the emotional chaos.  I escaped the prison of fear and shame that day.  I ran out screaming — almost literally.  And while things didn’t get instantly better, the process of improvement began.  It’s taken me years to clean up the mess I was left with, and in some ways, I’m still cleaning it up.  (I’ll talk about that more tomorrow.)  But that moment moved me into a place in my journey where I could face that task, no matter how daunting it seemed at times.

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* And Joyce, in her well-meaning but less-than-helpful way, glibly responded by saying, “It’s about time you figured it out.”  Seriously folks, I know sometimes you can tell that a loved one is gay before they’re able or willing to admit it to even themselves.  But this is not the way to respond when they finally confide in you.  If you must tell them you already figured it out, do so in the gentlest way possible.  Otherwise, it can come across as you dishonoring their choice to be completely open and vulnerable to you in a way which was probably took a lot of courage on their part.

** That night, Merion clarified that she was a lesbian.  She was one of those people who originally came out as bisexual because it was easier to take that as a step towards coming out as strictly gay.  And no, that does not mean that everyone who says they’re bi is doing so.  There are authentically bisexual people out there, too.  The fact that there are some people in the gay community who refuse to accept that is a personal pet peev of mine.

Memories

Memories of Guilt

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Back when I was a kid, I thought I had to ask for forgiveness of every little sin in order to be forgiven and get into heaven.  I’m not really sure where I got this idea.  I know when I was a teenager, Harry did introduce me to the idea and explained the theology behind it.  He taught it to his junior high Sunday school class (which I took over for him when he left our church to join New Covenant).

But I know that my belief in this idea predated Harry’s teaching.  I remember being a little kid (I’d say eight or nine) lying in bed, worried that I’d forgotten to tell Jesus I was sorry about something.  I’d be trying to fall asleep and a pattern would emerge.  I’d ask Jesus to forgive me for something sin I thought I had committed.  Then I’d suddenly have a thought and realize that the thought I just had was probably sinful too (and it was usually some silly little thought, though I can’t think of any examples).  So I’d quickly whisper a quick “please forgive me, Jesus” to cover the new thought.  And the cycle would continue.

I think that carried with me right through to the day that I finally decided to make a break from Christianity.  I think it’s one of the reasons I made that break.  It was just too much pressure for me, a pressure that convinced me that I was constantly in a state of sin, constantly rotten, and even constantly worthless.  This idea that you have constantly monitor everything and ask for forgiveness is hell on one’s self esteem and sense of worth.

In some ways, I think it contributed to the codependency I’m currently seeking help for.  My codependency was a way to show myself that I wasn’t that bad and there was good in me.  I was redeemable.  Of course, I told myself when I left Christianity that those days were over.  I no longer had to prove myself or be “good enough.”

But I think some part of my unconscious didn’t get that memo back then.  Because I still set out to be the best person I can be.  Don’t get me wrong, being the best person you can be is a good thing.  But putting yourself under all the pressure because you have to be the best person you can be in order to be “good enough” or “worth something” is self-destructive.

So as I think about this, I feel like I’m coming back and relearning that lesson now.  I have value.  It’s good to do good and care about and for others, but it’s not something I have to do to be worthy of love, respect, or human dignity.  It’s as if that lesson is taking deeper root, that I’m learning it on a whole different level, and that feels great.

Gender and Sexuality

Going beyond my experience

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After a long silence, I’ve decided that it’s time to start blogging again.  I’m actually excited about an upcoming post I’m planning to publish, as it involves doing something a bit new for me.  I’m not exactly sure when I’ll be posting it, as I’m waiting for it to finish undergoing editorial review.

Normally, I don’t submit my blog posts to anyone for editorial review.  Most of the time, I don’t review them myself.  I just put something together, do a few last minutes tweaks, and then hit the button to publish the darn thing.  The process of asking others to review my writing before sharing it with the world is entirely new to me.  But then, this kind of post is entirely new to me, and therefore demands to be treated differently.

The post I’m referring to is a review of a panel discussion on transgender issues that I attended yesterday evening.  The discussion was delightful and interesting, and I decided that I wanted to find a way to share it on my blog.

The thing is, I’m relatively uneducated and clueless when it comes to transgender issues, which means that posting on the topic is a bit troubling and tricky to me.  As such, I have asked the organizers and speakers from last night’s event to review and offer feedback on my post.  I wish to do my best job to accurately represent their words, their experiences, and their concerns as accurately as possible, and that means inviting them to check my work.

To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand transgender issues.  Not being transgendered, I think that it’s simply something that is beyond my experience in ways that prevent me from fully understanding.  There are a lot of things out there that are like that.  (I often feel the same way when trying to understand my friends who have or had multiple personalities.)  I think everyone comes into contact with things that are beyond their experience and therefore difficult and even possibly to truly understand.

The question becomes one of what we do when we are faced with something beyond our own experience.  Do we try to force that new information, those foreign ideas, or the experiences of others to fit into our own mold?  Do we try to dismiss these things, insisting that our own experience can’t possibly be incomplete and that our inability to fully understand can only mean that something must be wrong with whatever we don’t understand?

Or do we simply acknowledge that our own experiences are limited and our own understanding incomplete is at best as a result?  Do we set aside our own preconceived notions and try our best to listen and understand, even if incompletely?  Do we try to connect and attain partial understanding by finding analogous experiences in our own life, taking care to remember that such analogues are imperfect and still only provide us partial understanding?  Do we accept that even in our imperfect understanding, there can be perfect acceptance?

It is with these latter goals in mind that I went to last night’s discussion and wrote my soon-to-be-published blog post.  It is with those goals in mind that I asked others to review my work and dialogue with me to help me understand and further share those things that are beyond my own experience.  I think there is nothing nobler than a desire to offer perfect acceptance while gaining imperfect (though improving) understanding.