Black Sheep Brainchild

Some my own experiences, some about his, some merged with commonalities…

The fear of hell…that your family will be taken and you will be left. That you will find them, or worse, not find them – only evidence someone had been there like a pot on the stove boiling water, or a running car in the driveway, maybe even their clothes empty, human-shaped where they lay, deflated. If I couldn’t reach someone or they were running late or it was too quiet – did the rapture happen? Am I alone? Am I left here?

Fear of death. Where will I go? Do I believe enough? Am I really saved? What if I didn’t do it right and I go to hell? What if it was all for show and I didn’t really mean it? How are people so sure? How do they know the time and day and place. I don’t. Does that mean that I am not? Even doing it now, is it not right yet? If I reaffirm does it count if I didn’t actually do it in the first place? How do you know if you did it right? How do you feel so sure and solid? When someone dies how do you always say they are in Heaven – do you actually know or are you just trying to get more people on your list, check off more names on your tally of “how many can I save”. Do you know that they were saved or do you just hope? If someone “backpeddles” you decree that they were never really saved. Well how do you know the person sitting next to you actually is or not then? How can you say that when you don’t actually know what is in their mind and heart? Why do you get to decide that? Isn’t it not for you to judge? Why is this one sin – not per Bible but what you deemed sin – worse than gluttony or pride which is displayed in excess here – especially when the Bible says one is not worse than another, they are all equal. How? Why?

Constantly repromising, reconfessing, rededicating my life – never sure, always terrified of hell and shame – driven by fear and not love. Praying so hard, again and again and again, to be different. To not be me. To be like the others who so easily fit the mold required of me.

The constant questions, pressure of spiritual focus and answers. What are you going to do as you get older. Step into your grandma’s footsteps, take up the mantle of church leadership…seen, not heard, not questioning, following, get married, have kids…why don’ you have a boyfriend yet? Who do you have a crush on? You should go talk to him. When are you two gonna have kids? Going to college? Gotta get that MRS degree…

Smart, but not too smart, independent, but not too independent, secondary, everyone else is to be put before you even when you have nothing left…

Depression – selfish. Focus on others. Pray harder. God won’t give you more than you can handle. 

Something you did caused this, some unconfessed sin.

How am I both beautifully and wonderfully made – but also a horrible sinner who will never be good enough? 

Doubt – bad. Questioning – bad. Only trust what this one man says and interprets. Only take what they are telling you as gospel. If the BIble is preserved how are “other” versions bad and only the KJV right. It was touched by men. It was interpreted and made to please the king – it wasn’t necessarily correct. Why do you ignore this? Why don’t you see that you are double-speaking. If the Bible is the preserved word of God – how aren’t all the versions that? Context, time, author voice, type of prose … All of these affect the meaning and interpretation. How can you take the words out of those factors and put your own meaning, again – man’s meaning – and tell me that I just have to sit and take that as the one and only meaning and way? Why would we not delve deeper, look at the original language, research, learn what it meant then, learn what was going on then, learn WHY it was written and why in that manner? Why why why why why….

Why is one denomination better? You split over music, over style of worship (whooping, instruments or no, interpretations of verses..) Shouldn’t they be united in love for god and fellow human? Isn’t there really just one “goal” – love God and love your neighbor? How did it get so wrong?

Learning is bad. Questioning is bad. The more you learn and explore, the more liberal you become and get twisted into the worlds view instead of God’s view. That’s what they tell you. But is that really the case? Is it really that or is it more that you become your own person, you know the value in questions and research and can think  on your own and not be under their thumb, no longer controlled by them because you were kept in their sheltered cage.

How can you cherry-pick – take this part and ignore the rest of it – “Oh God didn’t mean that to still apply.” per who? The man who is trying to make God into HIS image instead of the other way around? You can’t tell me it is ALL true and to be literal and then do that. It isn’t logical. You are contradicting yourself.

The story of Sodom and Gamorrah wasn’t because the city was gay – the men wanted to rape the angels-in-disguise as it is a power move. It has nothing to do with how someone is dressed or who they are – it is all about control and power. Lot even offered his own daughters up instead – how is that righteous? And this, if a literal event, was punishing for rape – not for homosexuality. Not for a beautiful loving relationship.

I didn’t know then that I was different. I didn’t know the words. I had only heard gay referred to as boys with earrings, flamboyant hand gestures obviously poking fun…to be different was to be bad. But I was different. So different. I knew that even then – I just didn’t know /how/. 

“People with colored hair just want attention.” I add a splash for fun. “Oh that is so fun! It looks great!” But you just said…

Serve, serve, serve. Never soak, never take the time to rest. Keep going. Keep doing more. The more generous you are, the more you are praised, like your mother, like Jesus…

Division or song lyrics – simple “la, la, la” had people enraged and leaving, yelling and spitting. How is this the important matter? 

Missionaries to spread the word so more could be saved, go to heaven…but what of those who never had a chance? Would they really be going to hell? No one could ever tell them so they were just doomed because I didn’t force myself to travel to their remote forest tribe? Then I heard the end of the Narnia series…could it really be that it was simply serving who you perceived as god? Your service was really to him so you were also safe? Why do we intrude and whitewash? Why do we kill when they say no – doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

Why is loving another human peacefully, respectfully, so much worse than having an affair or abuse? Why must you sit in silence and just pray for the other to change when they are literally putting your life in danger? Does God really want a 12 year old to carry a baby to term when she was raped? If he makes no mistakes, then why am I different and that not embraced? Why is me being different bad? If no mistakes, then am I not made for who I should be? How is shunning someone loving them? How is only pushing for a baby to be born but then not giving a shit about them after pro-life? How is denying food and shelter and love pro-life? How is so much concern for an orphan in India better than assisting your neighbor who can’t afford food this week?

Garrard Conley writes, “If I didn’t say too much, if people didn’t notice me, then I might also escape God’s roving Sauron eye.”  Wow, that feels so accurate.

The focus on his homosexuality instead of the fact he was raped? The rapist outing him, banking on that, winning…

The doctor – supportive – wow that is…that is awesome. It actually gave me goosebumps.

And his mom doing her best…trying, and them healing after…

I often wonder what my mom would have been out were she alive when I came out.

“LIA was telling me on a daily basis that a loss of self meant a gain in virtue, and a gain in virtue meant I was drawing closer to God and therefore closer to my true heavenly self. But the means to that end – self loathing, suicidal ideation, years of false starts – could make you feel lonelier and less like yourself than you’d ever felt in your life. In the process of purification you risked erasing every minor detail you’d ever cared about. You became all-telling with no-showing – not the extraordinary extra, but the stock player in a harp-and-halo bid. I came to therapy thinking that my sexuality didn’t matter, but it turned out that every part of my personality was intimately connected. Cutting one piece damaged the rest.”

“I counted and I didn’t count…”

The despise for the “love yourself” “do what makes you happy” things…ugh

“Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between blasphemy and fun.” – his mom

The insistence that the “deviant” behavior and feelings were a result of abuse. That the family tree held so much sin that it couldn’t help but result in someone being homosexual. It still prevails today. My own family asked me as trying to understand when I came out if I had been abused…

His strength to leave. To stand up and walk out. He hadn’t been fully beaten into their ways. He had enough pull and support, albeit small, to value himself and run.

As it unravels and they see the entire messed up nature of it all. The lack of true therapeutic care and empathy. The absurdity and cruelty…

Wednesday, June 16, 2004 was the day he began to live. December 1, 2018 was mine…

“She heard yes, but I had already been given a gift that no one could ever take from me – I was alive. And now I had the benefit of knowing it. I was alive and this was all I needed.”

“On some days it’s hard to believe that I ever lived in a world that operated on such extreme notions of self-annihilation. But then I turn on the news, read a few articles, and realize what I have experienced may have been unique, but in no way was it disconnected from history. Minorities continue to be abused and manipulated by both nefarious and well-intentioned groups of people. And harmful ideas continue to develop new political strains all over the world.” 

“What I can’t quite understand, and what I may never be capable of understanding, is how we all came to be mixed up in the ex-gay movement – what drew each of us to Love In Action’s double doors. There are no pictures to help me search for clues, so I develop them myself.”

The repercussions that last to this day and beyond. The damage done to individuals, families, communities…

Even as he embraces himself, heals, learns that he is good as he is, it all creeps back. Doubt persists, always wondering if maybe you are wrong. Maybe you are better off dead. Maybe you really are going to hell. Maybe none of this is real. PTSD. Unable to maintain relationships. Unable to understand who you really are. Fighting every day to live and be and become. Self-loathing. Life stolen. Even if you are alive, you aren’t living. Ever searching. Ever struggling with the fear and guilt and doubt.

Most are closed now but some still exist. And now that they are exposed here they have made their way to other countries where they can prey on fear, continuing their evil and persisting in irreparable harm.