The Ex-Gay Experience (PART ONE)

The realisation that I was gay came to me when I was about 12, early compared to most people. It’s not that I didn’t like girls; it was just that I was not attracted to them physically. This worried and confused me and at age 12 in a society where being gay was considered a sin and a problem, I started my journey of self hate. As soon as I knew who God was I started desperately praying for God to change me from homosexual to heterosexual. I didn’t know if God was real or not but I knew that if he was he didn’t want me to be gay. That’s what I was told.....

I hated myself and didn’t think that being gay was part of God’s plan. Only ever going to a small Anglican church on major holidays, I gained a basic, shallow knowledge of the God of the Christian bible. Love was preached but something else was practiced. This unconditional love shown by Jesus in the bible was not found in the church that I was at I would call myself a Christian but in reality that was far from the truth.

After all the church never told you that “gay is ok”. Instead I remember a message about those that are going to hell. According to the pastor, it included prostitutes, drunkards, greedy, the sinful and of course....gays. I constantly lied to myself and to others pretending to be straight. I would continually put on a facade as if everything was ok but underneath it wasn’t. I don’t know if there is anything harder than trying to deal with your sexuality in a church and a society that condemns you.

No one would choose to be gay after all. It was like receiving the ‘death card’ within the church and society. As far as I know I was born gay. Scientific and Psychological evidence has proven this recently and yet still there are so many people in the world today that would rather stay ignorant and judgemental.

With all of this in my past and with confusion, pain and hopelessness continually filling my life, I started looking for answers. Could I change, Is it possible?

At the age of 11 my parents started going to church more regularly and the same views on homosexuality did not change. If you were gay then you went to hell. I was told that homosexuals were an abomination and that is what I believed about myself. I had to change but how..?

After searching and searching, at 16 years old, I entered my first ex-gay program called ‘Door of Hope’. This was a 60 day mostly-online course where you were ‘cured’ from homosexuality. I didn’t tell anyone except some church leaders and when my parents asked where I was going I responded by saying ‘a friends place’. They honestly thought that’s where I was.

I was given a mentor. He was 42 years old and married with a family. He always sounded so sure of himself as if He knew 100% that he was no longer gay. His marriage he said was testament to this. But even at 16, I had my doubts but because I so badly wanted to change I was willing to go ahead and do the course. Each day it would take about 2-3 hours and I would sit through the constant lessons about how being gay is a sin and that only God can heal you from this terrible affliction. I had to confess everything, whether I had thoughts about men, if I had had sex or masturbated, whether I had looked at pornography. We had to tell the truth and admit those things every day. If we failed in one area we were told that we had to put more effort into this and try harder. During the early sessions I would give in to masturbation. Only about once a week but still I was a failure. I wasn’t trying enough. I was told to pray and ask for forgiveness and told that this demonstrated my lack of faith. I was only 16 after all, with hormones racing and a limited knowledge of the bible but they didn’t even take this into consideration. I just wanted to change because I didn’t want to go to hell and I believed that God wouldn’t love me otherwise.

I persevered and I finished 45 out of the 60 days before I couldn’t take it anymore. My school marks were failing and I could no longer deal with the immense pain I went through every day. Although the fact that I didn’t finish made me a failure, I just couldn’t handle it.

After about three months, the quest for change continued and I entered into another ex-gay program. The same one with the same rules and same hardships. Except this time they were harder on me because I had failed the first. I needed to have more faith or so they told me. The theology used and lessons taught are very debatable now but to a naive 16 year old they seemed so right. After 53 days (better than last time) I gave up once more. I just stopped going. I didn’t believe anymore in changing or in God but still the shame, confusion and damage remained.

Later that year I took off for an exchange trip to Germany and came back more relaxed, with a different outlook on life and a greater independence. I rarely attended church with my family and I became bitter and resented about the church as a whole and God for making me gay. It was still a problem in my eyes but I just refused to deal with it......

More coming soon.....