A Personal Hell

Hey Guys! Checking in so that I can talk a little about me and religion.

I mean, the doctrine can be silly sometimes. Like the choices they give gay people (4% of men, so not a huge focus of the church I suppose). But also look at the tax exempt statement and the clear political stances of the church. Look at... well, a lot of things.

Also want to say how frustrating this church can be. For me. I lost the one man I have ever really loved (I always claimed that I didn't really know what love is but, looking back, I think the word might be appropriate). And I lost him because of the church. He couldn't choose between me and the church for three damn years. So, I made the decision. Not for him, but for me. Friends tell me I made the choice for us, so we could both live better lives. But, in the end, I'm not that holy of a person. I'm not that nice. I made that decision for me. He is in just as much if not more pain for this, but I know I can (and mostly have) move on better than he can. I caused him pain for me. Unnecessary if the church had not been a factor in life.

So, I lost someone who wants to be Mormon and can sometimes pretends he isn't gay. Not to bad, right? But what if I also said I lost UCLA due to the bullying that I went through to go to BYU. Yes, my mother had the best intentions in mind. But, how does the saying go? "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." This is suppose to mean that people just never got around to doing the right thing but, in my case, this saying means that, yes, my mother had good intentions but the road she paved lead me to Hell.

However, BYU isn't  Hell for everyone. Some people thrive here.

Similar, Mormonism isn't a Hell for everyone. Even gay people. Some people want to be gay and embrace the church. Just because I can't doesn't mean that other people are wrong to do so. Mormonism has just as many flaws as other religions. And people need spirituality. So let them have what they will. I just don't want old men (notably, not woman) to tell me what to do. But other people do. Other people see their wisdom.

Enjoy your life. Guilt has a point and even if I believe that the church puts a little too much emphasize on this idea doesn't mean anything. Just means other people embrace copious amounts of guilt similar to how a masochist embraces pain.

So, even if you wish to remain Mormon, please, enjoy your life (doesn't mean be morally ambiguous, just means be yourself). That is more important than the Mormon God himself for even he claims that man were made that they might have joy. (See! I can still quote scripture!)

Man, I do not miss adolescence. Not one bit.

A good friend of mine lives in Utah. She was dating a guy a little while ago. We write to each other frequently and sometimes Skype, so I heard lots of lovely details about his job and his biceps and his issues and yes, I called it, he’s gay.

Well, he says he’s bisexual. I should probably defer to his self-identification—bisexuals are real I think—but I’m pretty sure he’s just in fooling himself. I say this because some weeks before my friend and this guy broke up, he forwarded her a link to a talk, which she forwarded to me. The speaker? Jeff Robinson.

Maybe you don’t recognize the name. He’s famous / infamous in gay LDS  circles.

I would share the link with you, but the url has some private information in it thanks to the guy’s file-naming choices. It’s essentially a John Bytheway style talk expounding Robinson’s theories about how boys become attracted to boys and how they can combat that . . . that “challenge.” Sorry ladies, your development is not theorized.

My friend’s “bi” friend treats these ideas as God’s Honest Truth. I do not think this is so. Nevertheless, I find some of the ideas appealing. Robinson says that gay guys are generally intelligent boys who are in touch with their feelings and who have a higher than normal urge to be Good, and that coupled with the somewhat dysfunctional/negative/nonexistent LDS teachings about sex leads these boys to orient themselves toward other boys. He goes on to say that during puberty, when boys are aroused pretty much twenty-four / seven for any reason at all, that orientation becomes sexualized. (Other boys are bored with boys by this point, so it’s their budding interest in girls that becomes sexualized.)

There are good things about this view. It’s more compassionate than one that says we’re just Satan’s aberrations or whatever. Who doesn’t want to think of themselves as intelligent, in touch with their feelings, and desiring to be Good? And yes, for those of you who’ve never been adolescent boys, that frequency of arousal is just about right. And so frustrating when you’re trying to be Good.

There are problems, though. Forgive me for not getting in to them, but without a copy or transcript of the talk to give you, I’d have to transcribe big chunks of it on my own even before setting upon the rats’ nest of logic and assumptions going on there. I’m not up to it tonight.

Luckily for all of us, I’ve been reading gay Mormon blogs for a loooong time, so I remember when way back in 2009-ish a couple of other bloggers talked about the same guy! (Though not the same talk.) Jon contemplated him. O-mo disagreed with him. And Alan eviscerated him. Ouch.

My ending thoughts are that for all I know, for at least some of us, he could be on to something regarding how sexual orientations are formed, at least in part. Lots of little bits of his theory resonate with me. I don’t think that means same sex attractions can be changed or even substantially lessened, though perhaps you can learn to devalue them and not pay attention to them. As someone who doesn’t believe in God’s condemnation for homosexual sex, I don’t think that’s necessary or even desirable, but if you, like my friend’s “bi” friend, want to try, be my guest.

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This week I’m going to think about “the gay identity” and read a few essays that I came upon this week and tucked away.

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I’m twenty-four now. It's been a really long year, full of good, and now I'm ready to hibernate. Three more weeks of school!

Guilt and Shame

This week I've been thinking about the difference between guilt and shame. My therapist tells me there is a difference. Guilt, she says, can be healthy--I feel guilty that I yelled at my cousin, or I feel guilty that I made my boyfriend feel bad. But shame is negative. Shame is self-hatred. Shame is despair and loathing and imposed by society and other people.

The thing is, I don't know how to tell the difference. Shame rings in my head. It's a harsh word. It pings and cuts. But guilt is deep and hollow. Guilt doesn't drive me towards anything--apology, change. Guilt sits like a pit in my stomach. A peach pit, say, wrinkled and brown, squeezed down my esophagus and stewing in my gut. Guilt is the way I was raised (not intentionally, no, but I was young and obsessive and it seeped into my brain like orange juice). Guilt is the way I defined myself, what decided my actions. Should I read my scriptures for a half hour a day? If not, I'll feel too guilty to sleep. (This was often tricky, since I was OCD; the New Testament has such short books, but I couldn't move onto another book once I finished a certain book in the same night, so I just had to read the same verses over and over and over and over again until the time was up.) Did I snap at my brother? Yes, I feel guilty, and I have to keep leaving my room and apologizing over and over and over again until my mom snaps at me to stop, okay, we get it.

The notion that guilt can be healthy isn't new--I remember the seminary video starring Aaron Eckhart, the groom of a despoiled bride who didn't want to cancel her wedding because she felt "the shame of the world." Not until she felt the "shame before the Lord" could she repent and move towards a temple wedding again. Strangely enough, that video didn't do a lot of good--it sparked a thirteen-year-old panic about canceling a wedding the day before and the shame of having everyone know you'd done something wrong, even though the point of the video was to teach us that if we feel embarrassed, we're just being wordly--we need to feel guilty about hurting God's feelings and breaking his commandments, not about calling all of our invitees and un-inviting them because, oops, we're whores!

Anyway, I'm still working on figuring out the difference. It's okay to feel guilty if I do something that hurts someone else, as long as that guilt is healthy--inspires me to action or apology (not excessive apology, that compulsive habit of my childhood self). Shame is a more ambiguous concept, which makes it harder to figure out how to eliminate. The only thing I can think to do, now, to counteract it, is to speak positively to myself and others: You look fine today. In spite of arguments to the contrary, suicidality is not a sin. This is not your fault. There are good things about you.

I once had to make a list of the things I liked about myself for a Women's Health class (which, tangentially, I took my senior year of college and which was my first introduction to birth control, pregnancy, and what the hell menstruation actually is--all good facts that should never be denied to ANY woman, including girls who grow up in Provo. Thanks, Utah's educational system!). First I had to list ten things I liked about my appearance. Then I had to list ten things I liked about myself--my character, my personality. It was surprisingly, shockingly, embarrassingly hard. Which only served to make me more depressed, of course. But it was a good lesson for me to learn. In order to eliminate all that excess shame that society and family and random acquaintances and kids from high school on my facebook wall and even I pour all over myself like hot tar, like wax, like eggs pelted from a car window, I should spend some time each day thinking of things I like about myself. Try to chip away at the icy cave I sometimes feel I've sealed myself away in, severing myself away from myself and the good things in life that I love and like, and the people I care about.

Anyway, if any of you have insights about the difference between guilt and shame, I'd love to hear them. I'm still trying to figure it out myself. Have a lovely week, everyone, and a fun Thanksgiving. I wish my aunt's A-MA-ZING mashed potatoes on you all!

The poem of the week is for those of you, who, like me, suffer from SAD--Seasonal Affective Disorder--that is slowly settling on us all as the November gloom descends. Emily Dickinson gets us.

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons – 
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes – 

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – 
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are – 

None may teach it – Any – 
'Tis the Seal Despair – 
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air – 

When it comes, the Landscape listens – 
Shadows – hold their breath – 
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –