Hi everyone,
My name is Scott, I am 18. I attended a Freedom to b[e] meeting for the first time last night. Anthony suggested that I post a bit of my story here. So here goes….
I was born and raised in a family that came from the high-church Anglican tradition. My family had a falling out with the Anglican church when I was little, which made my Dad leave the Church altogether, whilst my Mum swapped across to the Uniting Church. Although I attended Church, we never talked about God, and I had no interest in Sunday School- I was the clown that always got kicked out hehe.
During my later primary school years, one of the people in charge of me… abused their position.
When I hit high school, I made friends with all of the Christian kids. Of my group of friends, I became very close with one boy. We started a physical ‘relationship’, which lasted close to 5 years on and off. I broke off our agreement halfway through year 12, he had several girlfriends in that time and it became obvious I was never going to be anything more than a good time (excuse my lewdness).
At any rate, as a 13 year old I was not mentally prepared for that kind of relationship. I developed severe depression in mid- 2005 and had strong body image problems. I began self-harming, and began also to binge eat, only to stick my fingers down my throat a short while later to bring all of it up again. It was at this point on Remembrance Day in 2005 that my friends took me along to Hillsong Church, which was more relevant and allowed me to connect to God like never before. It was in that first service, that I put up my hand to receive Christ into my life.
As 2005 came to an end, I was slipping further and further into a deep, and at this point undiagnosed, depression. I became suicidal and these thoughts ruled much of what I did. I decided to talk to someone about it, one of my friends in school. It is a extremely lucky that he decided to tell my bible study leader, as the day he confronted me about it was the day I had planned to be my last. I was then given help. I was also given the opportunity to talk through some of my issues with a therapist over the next few months. I never mentioned the harmful relationship as I didn’t see a connection at the time
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Up until this point, I had never thought about sexual orientation or attraction. I had enough on my plate as it was. However as 2006 went on, I began to realise that I was gay, and made the decision to tell my bible study leader. He was the first person I told, because of how he had handled everything else with my depression and everything, it wasn’t until later that I learnt he had had several friends of his kicked out of the Church because of their sexual orientation. As a result of seeing their pain, he treated it extremely tenderly, but suggested I talk to a pastor about it in mid-2007. I told him about the primary school experiences and about the relationship (he was utterly disgusted with me).
It was amazing timing, because the youth dept of my Church had employed a counselor to whom I was referred (the “Wildlife Mum”- if you are reading this I still have a CD you leant me and I had/still have every intention of giving it back, sorry!). She was AMAZING, telling me that homosexuality was normal. If it had been any other counselor, I would probably gone through the ex-gay programs and whatever else… God only knows where I would be now except for her. From reading other people’s stories, I cannot imagine it could have been a very healthy place.
Fast forward to now, and I have just come out to my parents, and come out more fully in the Church. I love God, and I love who I am.
And my journey continues…
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