 |
| Photo by BingBing |
I'm writing a book about growing up Mormon and gay. Some of you may know this, many of you do not. Below is the first draft of one of the chapters; it charts the first conversation I've had with my mother since coming out to her in a letter two weeks ago.
More than anything, this experience illustrates to me how much the LDS Church (and religion in general) holds families and their relationships hostage. I cannot understand why so many members of the Church believe they have a monopoly on God's love. Furthermore, if you don't fit the Church's mold, you are unworthy of His affection and grace. I don't understand it and I refuse to believe it.
This post is not a plea for your affection or an attempt to fish for your compassion. It's not an attempt to condemn or vilify my mother, either. It is simply a recollection of my personal experience and an attempted illustration of the damage that can happen when religious dogma supersedes a faith's foundation of love and charity.
Anyway, thank you for joining me in my journey - it is my goal to help ease others' burdens by sharing some of my pain and experiences.
--
On Deaf Ears
“Where do you want to sit; we can talk at the table or here
in the living room?”
“I don’t care, mom,” I replied. “Wherever you want is fine.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s just sit in here on the couches
then.”
As we sat down we never broke eye contact. We looked at each other, carefully sizing the other up, not knowing where to start.
Several moments of the most awkward silence of my life
followed.
Over the last two weeks I thought I had prepared myself for
whatever argument my mother would throw at me.
In my mind, I had endured my trials with the patience of Job and I felt as though nothing
she could say to me, no hurtful insult she could scream at me, would
change how I felt or affect me or my resolve moving forward.
I was wrong.
The electric silence came to a halting stop as flood gates
opened simultaneously for both of us.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she demanded through clenched teeth and tear-stained eyes.
“Because nobody in this family is bashful about how much
they hate gay people,” I similarly responded.
“Yeah, that’s because I believe in the scriptures, Michael,”
she replied. “I know how evil this path is and I know people, firsthand, who
have chosen to live the homosexual lifestyle and it has destroyed them. If you
choose this path, it will chew you up and spit you out.
“How could you do this to me?” she continued. “The first
three days I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t
sleep. I couldn’t even breathe. I wake up every hour on the hour panicked
that I’m going to lose you to this sinful path.
I’ve started having evil, satanic dreams. I know the devil has a hold of you. And in my dreams he is pulling you away from
me. But I’ve got you and I am not going to let you do this. You are a part of this celestial family and I
will not let you do this to yourself or this family.”
I wished she had screamed at me. I wished she’d hurled every British and American
insult she could come up with. I wish
she’d said anything but what she did. I couldn’t respond; I didn’t know how to.
My lack of response seemed to fuel her momentum so she
continued.
“How long have you been ‘dealing’ with this?”
“I don’t have an exact idea but at least since I was 11 or
12 and started going through puberty,” I meekly replied.
“Did anyone ever touch you?
Were you ever molested or sexually abused by anyone?” she demanded.
“No.”
“Did someone ever expose themselves to you or to anything
else?”
“No, mom, not that I can remember,” I responded with an irritated edge to my voice.
“I think this happened when you were a sophomore in high
school and saw those naked images of men on the Internet,” she replied.
(I had convinced my
parents that an image search of “muscle men” that I neglected to delete off
our computer’s Internet history was part of an assignment for my health and
team sports class. For better or worse,
I guess, I’m a pretty good liar – especially when it comes to covering my butt
and keeping myself out of trouble.)
Actively rolling my eyes and trying to share my
dissatisfaction with the direction of the conversation, I said, “Please mom,
give me a break. That wasn’t the first
time I’d seen a naked man or woman and it sure wasn’t the last time. Beyond that, our society and culture is
filled with sexuality and sexual imagery. Everywhere! And there’re way more heterosexual
messages and images in the world around us than any type of gay propaganda.”
“Why didn’t you come to us sooner, so we could help you
overcome this; get you the help you need” she pushed forward, undeterred.
“Mom, did you read my letter?” I shot back. “I have spent
thousands on counseling and prescription medications to try and 'get help.' I am who I am and I can’t be fixed or
changed. I’ve tried.”
“Well, was this at BYU?” she countered. “I read an article
just last week in the Deseret News
that those methods don’t work. You said
you were suicidal? That was why, I’m sure!”
“I was suicidal in high school. I told you, I’ve been dealing with this since
I was in seventh grade! Counseling at BYU was my final effort because nothing
else worked up to that point. I have done everything to try and change,
mom. Everything.”
“Well, we need to get you better help. Someone who knows how to deal with this; we
need to get you over to LDS Family Services.
I'll help pay for it,” she announced.
“Are you on antidepressants right now?
You need to be. They will help
you beat this.”
“No, they make things worse,” was all I could muster.
And then she went in for the kill.
“If I could take this from you, I would,” she said through
choked sobs. “I would take away all of your pain, and sorrow, and temptation. I would take whatever lies you’ve
been told and I would take every unrighteous desire you had away, too. I have prayed to Heavenly Father and asked Him
for this. When I go in for my operation
next month, I begged Him to let me die on the operating table if it meant you
could be whole and our eternal family could be kept together forever and you
could keep your covenants.”
I was dumbstruck. My
mother had just told me she had prayed to die on my behalf; to literally become
my own personal savior. I just stared into her tear-streaked face as my own 15
years of raw, religious emotion came boiling to the brim. I couldn’t respond, I told myself I needed to
calm down before moving forward because I didn't know what would come out.
So, without my response, she continued.
“I didn’t get married until I was 27 but I can promise you
that there were times I wondered if I was ever going to get married,” she said,
believing she was making headroom with me. “If I hadn’t gotten married, I would
NEVER have gone out and done ‘anything’ just because I was lonely. The gospel is that important to me.”
Finally she said something that sparked me out of my silent stupor.
“That’s completely different, you can’t compare the two,
mom,” I countered. “You would go through this life with the hope that maybe,
someday, you would get married. You could hold onto the hope that you COULD get
married. You aren’t told by the church
to live alone, single, and celibate for the rest of your life with no hope of
companionship and love.”
“It is too the same thing, covenants are covenants,” she
countered. “I have a friend who I’ve known for 30 years who deals with this issue.
You don’t need to know who it is (I
wonder who the hell that is, you only have one single, male, gay friend and he
ran away to New York in the ‘90s and then a few years later to San Francisco to
get away from his family and the church.
If he’s active in the church now, you can be sure as shit he sowed his ‘wild
oats’ before settling back down in to his churchly routine [no, his name isn’t
Mitch Mayne] I thought to myself.) but he’s found meaningful service in the
church by doing genealogy and serving in the temple. He’s accepted his cross and lives within the
bounds of his covenants.
“If you never marry and just become the favorite uncle to
your sisters’ kids, so be it. At least I
would know that you have stayed true to the gospel and the promises you have
made in the House of the Lord. Now, I know you think members of the church can
be mean…”
“No, mom, stop,” I demanded! “The members of the church are
bad enough but you don’t understand the hell I’ve been through. I did
everything the church demanded. Every
prayer I’ve uttered over the last 15 years was a desperate plea with God to fix
me and take away this burden. Every time
I fasted, I held true to the hope that I would be cured of my unrighteous
desires. Growing up, when these feelings didn’t go away but only got stronger,
I researched everything and received promises from church leaders that if I only
gave more of myself I would be strengthened and that this curse would be
broken."
Tears freely flowing down my face; great, heaving sobs
rocking my entire body I continued.
“I was president of every quorum. I did sports and joined nearly every club and
group in high school to prove I was worth something. I graduated at the top of
my seminary class with a 4.0 and spoke at seminary graduation. I went on a
mission and served faithfully. I graduated
from BYU and dated girls and even got engaged.
But for what? I would wake up in cold sweats, terrified that I was going
to ruin everyone’s lives. That if I did
get married, I would destroy her hopes and dreams for happiness because I wasn’t
worthy; it wouldn’t be fair to her. I
have lived my life terrified that I was going to destroy our family and disappoint you;
that I would never be good enough for anyone.
“And then you add apostles who say horrid, hateful
things. Do you know what it’s like being
told you are unnatural, that you should be cast out, that you are an ‘enemy to
the family’ and that a loving heavenly father would never make one of his
children, in his image, with these feelings.
No, you don’t, you don’t know what it’s like to give your life to a
church and have it spit in your face and cast you out. To hear that they prefer
child rapists and sex offenders in their fold over you, that somehow these
monsters are better than you – more worthy. You don’t, you don’t know what it’s
like to feel so abandoned.”
And that was it.
Every particle of strength and resolve I had was expended. I sat,
hunched over, silent tears streaming down my face, literally bathing my hands
in their warmth.
My mother finally came over to my couch and sat down next to
me, placing her arm around me and continued her crusade for my soul.
“Oh baby, my sweet baby boy,” she cooed. “It’s okay,
together we’ll beat this. We all have our trials in this life. I don’t know what the rest of my life holds
but I can promise you that we all have things we struggle with; we all have
burdens to bear. I have things, your dad
has things he struggles with, which is why we’re not going to tell him. It’s just how he was raised. He couldn’t handle it.”
I sat silently staring at my hands unable to respond. Everything I had said in my letter, everything
I had said in this wretched conversation had fallen on deaf ears. Every word.
Perceiving my silence as a form of agreement, she
continued with a hint of a smile in her voice.
“Everything makes sense, now, at least. Your anger and frustration over the years,
the acne and bad skin; and if that wasn’t bad enough, all the many other trials
you’ve been given. Of all my kids, you
had to have the worst teeth, the bad eyesight, the blemishes and be the worst l…
well, I mean, you’ve always had a hard time losing weight. All these things add up, you know? They
really drag down on your soul.”
Really, mom, on top of being the gay child, I was apparently
the ugly one, too. If the conversation wasn’t enough
of an open wound, hearing your mother call you the “worst looking” of her kids
while pointing out your many physical faults definitely was the proverbial “salt.”
Her final sting was the necessary nudge I needed to jump ship and abandon the
situation.
I stood up to break my mother’s partial embrace as the
doorbell rang. Fortunately, for my sake,
this was the interruption I needed to leave. I gathered my wits,
straightened the pillows, and cordially acknowledged our visitor before taking
my leave as graciously as possible.
Empty, broken, and lost, I got in my car and drove away.
--
In light of this week's events, I think it’s time to leave.
Maybe I'm running away. Maybe it’s
just a new adventure. Either way, if I am going to live my life authentically and for myself, I need to leave. At least for now, I
cannot do that in Utah. It’s time to move on –
hopefully this time next week I’ll have a definitive answer to where that will
be - here's hoping, anyway. Wish me luck!
PS - If you haven't read enough, I have another post today at http://mcwilleyfactor.com that further illustrates my two worlds colliding and slowly merging into one. It's all about one tiny step out of the closet at a time, right?
.JPG)
.jpg)
