It gets better
This article linked below is exactly what many people need to read. I encourage you to check it out. I'd also like to share why it resonates so much with me.
I knew I was gay when I was a teenager, but my Christian beliefs told me it was a sin. I did what I thought was right - I tried to resist the temptation to be gay. I tried to date girls. I prayed for God to change me, to make me normal, so that I could somehow find a way to be happy. Yet I was never able to feel romantic love for a woman. I never changed.
The only answer seemed to be a life of celibacy. I spent my entire teen years, and the entire decade of my 20s, celibate and alone. I don't know if you can imagine never having your first real kiss. Your first date. Never allowing yourself to love anyone. Shutting off that loving part of myself made me a very lonely, bitter, and unhappy person.
I hated myself. I hated other people who had love I wasn't allowed to experience. I would find excuses not to attend the weddings of my friends because sitting through them made me want to die inside. I was unable to contribute anything positive to the world, to give any love or happiness or kindness, because my entire life was focused on killing feelings of love within myself. And when I couldn't do that, the next step was to think about killing myself altogether.
When I thought about the impact my suicide would have on my friends and family, I couldn't go through with it. I thought about how they would probably much rather have me alive, and deal with the fact that I was gay, than to lose me altogether. And then I thought, if my friends and family loved me enough to accept me... and if God truly loved me more than anyone... couldn't God extend me that same love and understanding? That is what saved my life. It's why I'm here today.
Once I accepted who I was - when I decided it was OK to love myself as God loved me, faults and all - I could finally allow myself to love others. I started dating. I had the normal ups and downs that go with it. And eventually I met Ryan, who is my perfect counterpart in so many ways. When we joined our lives together it made me a better person.
Somewhere along the way I stopped believing in God, but I still believe in the same ideals. And now that I love myself fully, I am finally able to love others the way Christianity teaches. I am able to help make the lives of other people better. I am able to be happy. I am able to live what is very much like a Christian ideal of life.
In the bible Jesus condemned divorce and said further relationships were sinful, but I have never heard of a modern church pressuring divorced people to remain celibate. In much the same way Christians have dealt with the reality of divorce through acceptance, they should consider accepting a similar reality for gay people. If they were to do that, and stop telling gay people to kill the loving part of themselves, they would save countless lives of people like myself who never made it out of the crisis like I have.
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The article I referenced, How Is Being Gay Like Gluing Wings on a Pig, can be found at http://johnshore.com/2010/10/01/how-is-being-gay-like-gluing-wings-on-a-pig/
I knew I was gay when I was a teenager, but my Christian beliefs told me it was a sin. I did what I thought was right - I tried to resist the temptation to be gay. I tried to date girls. I prayed for God to change me, to make me normal, so that I could somehow find a way to be happy. Yet I was never able to feel romantic love for a woman. I never changed.
The only answer seemed to be a life of celibacy. I spent my entire teen years, and the entire decade of my 20s, celibate and alone. I don't know if you can imagine never having your first real kiss. Your first date. Never allowing yourself to love anyone. Shutting off that loving part of myself made me a very lonely, bitter, and unhappy person.
I hated myself. I hated other people who had love I wasn't allowed to experience. I would find excuses not to attend the weddings of my friends because sitting through them made me want to die inside. I was unable to contribute anything positive to the world, to give any love or happiness or kindness, because my entire life was focused on killing feelings of love within myself. And when I couldn't do that, the next step was to think about killing myself altogether.
When I thought about the impact my suicide would have on my friends and family, I couldn't go through with it. I thought about how they would probably much rather have me alive, and deal with the fact that I was gay, than to lose me altogether. And then I thought, if my friends and family loved me enough to accept me... and if God truly loved me more than anyone... couldn't God extend me that same love and understanding? That is what saved my life. It's why I'm here today.
Once I accepted who I was - when I decided it was OK to love myself as God loved me, faults and all - I could finally allow myself to love others. I started dating. I had the normal ups and downs that go with it. And eventually I met Ryan, who is my perfect counterpart in so many ways. When we joined our lives together it made me a better person.
Somewhere along the way I stopped believing in God, but I still believe in the same ideals. And now that I love myself fully, I am finally able to love others the way Christianity teaches. I am able to help make the lives of other people better. I am able to be happy. I am able to live what is very much like a Christian ideal of life.
In the bible Jesus condemned divorce and said further relationships were sinful, but I have never heard of a modern church pressuring divorced people to remain celibate. In much the same way Christians have dealt with the reality of divorce through acceptance, they should consider accepting a similar reality for gay people. If they were to do that, and stop telling gay people to kill the loving part of themselves, they would save countless lives of people like myself who never made it out of the crisis like I have.
----
The article I referenced, How Is Being Gay Like Gluing Wings on a Pig, can be found at http://johnshore.com/2010/10/01/how-is-being-gay-like-gluing-wings-on-a-pig/