I’ve been doing some thinking about what you’ve been saying and I’ve realised that quite a lot of the depression I’ve experienced has been because of un-requited love, which isn’t necessarily a homosexual problem.
I inevitably fall in love with someone who isn’t gay (or even more common or prevalent – who isn’t out), and the love cannot be reciprocated.
This has created great torment for me, as I do not get a high from gay bars or discos (I don’t drink or smoke) – one of the major places where gay people meet each other.
So I have to play the ‘guessing’ game in my straight-oriented world ‘Is he gay?’ – the one question of course I can’t ask for fear of literally being shot down and losing the friendship as well.
So does it become a lonely torture cabinet (or closet)? I’ve started looking at personals on line, I don’t really get any satisfaction from that either.
Church is my main community, and I still believe (am I correct???) that the Gay Christian life is a celibate calling, in every sense of the word.
Sometimes when I get stressed though, I feel the sexual tension building, and I give in to wanking (and this may be accompanied by gay porn), but in a strange way I also feel that this is asserting my gay identity. I don’t necessarily feel bad about it.
Certainly sleeping over at someone’s place would be a different level of engagement, something I wouldn’t do lightly.
And this has been the one big change in my life since my ‘exorcism’ (some work, some don’t) – I’m not addicted to sexual contact, and I don’t cruise looking for sex, with the same manic desperation that I used to.
That’s all gone from my system.
Today it’s all under control.
The exorcism didn’t change my orientation, and I certainly did not all of a sudden started wanting the opposite sex, but it did take the desperation out of my system.
I was now equilibrated, without the see-saw highs and lows of one addicted to sex, with all it’s manic-like behaviour.
I am now seeing counselling for male sexual abuse as a teenager, a different matter entirely. And whilst I feel I am OK about this chapter in my life now, I feel as if it is still something that has to be pursued.
This is a very malleable time for the formation of one’s sexual identity, and is probably why I have such an ambivalent view towards wanking.
The exorcism got rid of a lot of the confusion and upset surrounding that, but strangely enough I never had the chance to seek counselling for this matter in particular (or any gay-identity issues either), so this is something that, in both sense, I am happy to seek to do.
I shall continue to worship at my Church, seek counselling, and attend this forum, to see what direction the Holy Spirit takes me.
I ask you and thank you for your prayers, knowing that ‘all is possible through Jesus Christ’.
Amen.
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