I don’t know where to begin, I suppose I could start merely by telling you the story of how my life has progressed, then finish things off by explaining my dreadful situation.
Please read it all.
From as far back as I can remember, I was curious towards guys. But this curiosity began when I was so young, I never really bothered whether to consider if it was normal or not. I never pondered the subject, I just enjoyed the presence of males and them expressing interest in me.
Things progressed in this manner throughout elementary school. I was raised in a christian household, and I was taught what was the norm and what was wrong. Things were presented to me in a black and white fashion. I believed it. Things would be easy, I would marry a woman, I would have a family. This is what I desired, it is what I would strive for. I felt this way up until grade 6.
Grade 7, my curiosity towards guys began to strengthen. It was not durastic, and I still had not labelled myself. As far as I was concerned, this was normal.
Grade 8 is where the sad story begins. The curiosity evolved into a sexual attraction. I put two and two together by now, I was gay. I did not care too much, however, for it had not yet grown strong. I believed I was some sort of bisexual, I merely felt a physical attraction towards men, but fell in love with women. I had not fallen in love with a woman, but this is what I believed.
The sexual attraction continued to grow as I made my way into highschool. It had reached the point where I had come to terms that no, I could not marry a woman. It would be impossible for me to make love to her to make either of us happy. I felt no sexual attraction towards women. But I was not yet hopeless, my mindset changed to “who needs a partner, anyways?” I would merely attempt to fill the hole in my heart in other ways.
Grade 11 semester one came around, and the attraction was even stronger. I was incredibly distressed that I would have to fight the temptation my whole life (as this is what I was taught people like me had to do), but I continued to tell myself I could do it, I would satisfy my self with other means, distract myself with life’s other things. I knew I was a homosexual, but I did not see myself like the others. I was alright with gay marriage being illegal in some places, I stood conservative, for I didn’t want to get married in the first place. Even occasionally, I would scream to God to make me hetereosexual.
Grade 11 semester two changed everything, for my heart introduced me to something it had never presented to me before. Love.
I was tormented. The sight of their face filled me with butterflies, the sound of their voice and the things they had to say made me want to get to know them more. I would imagine things like them asking me out, despite I knew they were straight. But it was an odd time in my life, for about 2 weeks I felt a physical sting in my heart (feeling such love and attraction for the first time) and a wrench in my gut (this was it, I was 100% homosexual, my life would not be nearly as easy as I had previously expected).
The semester ended, and I disconnected from them. I had beaten my heart down, screaming to it that the love it felt was wrong, a perversion, to the point it believed me and fell silent. I was sick and miserable, I hated my life, no one should ever have to hurt themselves for desiring love… Everything changed from here. I was now capable of having loving feelings for a male, and I encountered minor crushes from time to time. This filled me with distress.
No more could I expect to satisfy and fulfill my life alone, my heart desired a partner to love and recieve love from, it had become all I wanted.
I was desperate to tell someone, but I was so scared to face the reactions of other people. So I fled to the internet, and created a gay identity for myself. I would go onto christian sites and scream at them, begging to know why I was “wrong” and how they found it so easy to condemn people like me. I hated them.
About a month later, on the eve of September 4th, with trembles of terror and tears streaming down my face, I came out to my best friend, Jen. She embraced me and took it so well. She told me I was not perverted, I was normal, and that she loved me. We went for a walk the next day, and she pulled me out of my shell by asking me questions about my past, what kind of guys I liked, and my plans for the future.
She helped me become comfortable with myself, and in a short while I had fully embraced the fact that I was gay. I planned to get married in my future, to love a man. I was finally happy, I hadn’t been truly happy for so long. But I continued to feel as though the Christian chuch turned me away (as it does in its majority), and as I result I backed out of it. My parents were mortified and tried to make me holy again, but I continued to step away. Before long, after much research into christian beliefs towards homosexuality and even reading some very degratory websites, I hated them. I truly, truly hated them.
But I began to fear Hell. But I had thoughts such as “I hate a God who is okay with sending his children to Hell. If the God above shall condemn a man for merely seeking true love, then I would rather go to Hell then spend an eternity with such a wicked, wicked God.” I continue to have such thoughts.
But I do not want to turn away, deep down. I feel connected to God somehow, I feel like he has something he wants me to do. I am constantly remembering a time, back when I was much younger, a pastor came to my house with a message for my parents: that God had revealed to him that there was something special in me, and that God wanted me to be annointed. And so I was.
It is for this reason that my relationship with God is love/hate. I just want the truth.
That is my story. I shall now conclude with my coming out situation.
I want to tell my family, to get it off my chest. But I fear the burden will be replaced with a stab at my heart, rejection. My parents spit upon the feet of homosexuals, they gag at the idea. My sister, she is 2 years older than I but has remained so shielded from the world that I daresay she almost has the mind of a 11 year old. Everything is strictly black and white to her. She does not fully understand sex itself, she does not understand love. To her, heterosexual sex is digusting enough, homosexual sex (if she knows how it works) is even worse, satanic. I believe she is asexual, feeling no sexual attraction to either gender whatsoever. As a result of this, I feel I cannot tell her who I am, for she will not understand. She will believe that homosexuality was a choice on my behalf, she will grow angered and disgusted.
I would normally not care of her lack of the knowledge of love and sex, other than that it will durastically change how she accepts me when I come out. In short, she will not accept me, for she will not understand.
And my parents in turn will be mortified, they shall beg me to keep it a secret and not act upon it. But this is too much to ask of me, all I want it love, and I shall seek after it. They do not understand, everything is black and white to them. I have so much I want to tell them, so much knowledge on the topic of homosexuality I want to tell them to defend myself. But I know they will not listen. For even once they have stated to me that homosexuality has nothing to do with love, it is merely a perverted sexual attraction. But this is not true!
Please help me, before I lose the last of my hope.
You’re lost brother,
Hyde
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