Cheval319,Mother Hen, Ann Maree, Michelle, Joy, and azza81 – Thank you for your welcome and encouraging input. I have taken the time to read some of the other stories and I am overwhelmed by the struggle that we all seem to have had.
I think for me it has always been that sense of self-rejection that has led to continual feelings of suicide especially in my early years when I realised I was different – I may not have be acceptable to 'society' – but I was not acceptable to myself either. How many of us have felt that! I didn't know what to do with myself so in the end I hid myself away – an easy escape – I was a very shy person naturally and so in my confusion and fear and with past childhood molestation issues locked within me and the fact that I seemed to attract the attention of predatory men instead of nice kind genuine fellows which was probably the result of my inner fear and naivety – I thus basically isolated myself from community and wore a continual frown and was surly to keep people away from me. I felt the label 'victim' must be written across my forehead. In my book I wrote of an example:
…….Years ago, my faithful friend from my high school days, and I used to often go to dances to ‘find a boyfriend’. Well, I went along as I enjoyed her company and it gave us something to do. She was always very successful at it (getting boyfriends that is) – me never. I never knew, and she never told me, how she ended up with the nicest guy in the place – and me, usually accosted by the most undesirable. Now, when I think about it, she flirted with her eyes – I understood nothing of ‘flirting’ then and I certainly have never done it myself consciously ever – she must have scanned the room as she idly chatted with me, and probably eyed some choice guy until she caught his attention and interest. Now me on the other hand, being rather naïve and unworldly but at the same time suspicious, would never cast my eyes wantonly around – I would look at the ceiling, look at the table, even look at the floor, anywhere but at people and certainly not at some guy. Eventually some guy may have thought, ‘here’s a right one here’ and venture over in my direction much to my discomfort. One time, to my horror, this fellow approached me – the smell of stale unwashed body odour preceded him from three metres away and I swear he was wearing a trench coat – I did not even want to think what he was or was not wearing under it! O God – why me!…..
By the time I was twenty-five I was incredibly lonely and miserable in myself even though I had great family relations – I was ok around them. At the point of crisis when I prayed I was ready to give up the fight – the fight for life or the fight within myself in accepting my attraction to women.The truly amazing thing was when God brought my partner and I together – a true miracle – she broke through every defence mechanism I had constructed and pierced my heart so profoundly – she loved me – wow – I thought I must be one of the unlovable ones – incredibly she loved me as I was – hairy legs and all at the time! Those years together with her were for me like floating on a cloud in a beautiful blue sky. A utopia of peace reigned for me for the first time in my life.
But unknown to both of us I suffered with undiagnosed Coeliac Disease (gluten poisoning) and when the pressure went up in my life due to my pregnancy and our son's birth and that first year of motherhood – I was drained of vital nutrients and I went down quickly making me seem distant and unresponsive – my lovely partner in her distress found comfort in a workmate just waiting in the side-lines. – I was oblivious. I think we both had a nervous breakdown unbeknown to each other (as we were apart by then) I think we were so choked with emotion we couldn't talk about things and we lost each other even though we kept in contact for many years. Most of my life I have been disabled by this chronic autoimmune disease – I knew something wasn't quite right with me but I had no idea what. Even when I finally got diagnosed twelve years ago, at the age of 44 years, going on the 'gluten-free diet' was not helpful – I got worse on it. Mostly it was due to lack of knowledge on the part of doctors for those who have been undiagnosed long term. I found having a little bit of gluten helped but then even that finally caught up with me big time.
Two years ago when God broached the subject of my long lost love and working through the issues of the breakup to bring reconciliation to them the stress and trauma I felt majorly affected my health once again. It was a key to understanding what happened all those years ago. I became so incapacitated to the point of not being able to hardly walk or function (serious nutrient drain again) that I seriously started 'praying for help – what is wrong with me – what do I need to do!' and through a whole series of revelations God showed me I needed to go on a very high dose of multi-vitamins, probiotics and enzymes even to transition to the 'gluten-free diet' – doctors, dieticians, and the social services(I needed financial help for this) didn't support this at first but God finally won through – it has been a mighty battle – and now through this last year I transitioned successfully onto the GF diet and have been able to expand my food range that I can now digest, and for the first time for many years I feel I have some energy and life is worth living again – but I have so missed my partner. I have moved about but she has moved on and has so far she has been totally unresponsive to my reconciliation efforts. I feel so sad that I was the probable initial cause of our breakup – I would never have willingly wanted ever to hurt her. These last two years have been extremely hard but I have to get back in the saddle and 'get a life'. For those of you who are willing – Please pray for my ex-partner 'K' that she would reconcile the issues of her heart and have peace with regard to me – her first love – I wish her all the best.
Being gay, coeliac, and christian has been very isolating but praise God – we are not finished yet! God is good!
I'll share about church next time – O what fun!
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