Bruce Garrett Cartoon
The Cartoon Gallery

A Coming Out Story
A Coming Out Story

My Photo Galleries
New and Improved!

Past Web Logs
The Story So Far archives

My Amazon.Com Wish List

My Myspace Profile

Bruce Garrett's Profile
Bruce Garrett's Facebook profile


Blogs I Read!
Alicublog

Wayne Besen

Beyond Ex-Gay
(A Survivor's Community)

Box Turtle Bulletin

Chrome Tuna

Daily Kos

Mike Daisy's Blog

The Disney Blog

Envisioning The American Dream

Eschaton

Ex-Gay Watch

Hullabaloo

Joe. My. God

Peterson Toscano

Progress City USA

Slacktivist

SLOG

Fear the wrath of Sparky!

Wil Wheaton



Gone But Not Forgotten

Howard Cruse Central

The Rittenhouse Review

Steve Gilliard's News Blog

Steve Gilliard's Blogspot Site



Great Cartoon Sites!

Tripping Over You
Tripping Over You

XKCD

Commando Cody Monthly

Scandinavia And The World

Dope Rider

The World Of Kirk Anderson

Ann Telnaes' Cartoon Site

Bors Blog

John K

Penny Arcade




Other News & Commentary

Lead Stories

Amtrak In The Heartland

Corridor Capital

Railway Age

Maryland Weather Blog

Foot's Forecast

All Facts & Opinions

Baltimore Crime

Cursor

HinesSight

Page One Q
(GLBT News)


Michelangelo Signorile

The Smirking Chimp

Talking Points Memo

Truth Wins Out

The Raw Story

Slashdot




International News & Views

BBC

NIS News Bulletin (Dutch)

Mexico Daily

The Local (Sweden)




News & Views from Germany

Spiegel Online

The Local

Deutsche Welle

Young Germany




Fun Stuff

It's not news. It's FARK

Plan 59

Pleasant Family Shopping

Discount Stores of the 60s

Retrospace

Photos of the Forgotten

Boom-Pop!

Comics With Problems

HMK Mystery Streams




Mercedes Love!

Mercedes-Benz USA

Mercedes-Benz TV

Mercedes-Benz Owners Club of America

MBCA - Greater Washington Section

BenzInsider

Mercedes-Benz Blog

BenzWorld Forum

October 5th, 2023

How Many More Dear God…How Many More…

Gay teen, terrified of his emerging sexuality, falls into a hyper conservative Christianity with the usual outcome. Thankfully he drew back from ex-gay therapy figuring (correctly) that it would likely push him over the edge.

I have seen firsthand what this does to people. I wish there was some way to get it more forcefully across, but all there is are testimonies like this one, and a slim hope that someday it’ll finally sink in…

Is My Family Better Off With A Gay Dad Or A Dead Dad?

In order to distract myself from my internal core issues, I spent the next 17 years pouring myself into my marriage, work, and leadership roles within my Churches of Christ congregation. While I prayed daily that God would take away my feelings, the internal conflict persisted, leading to an increased level of self-hatred. I would sometimes go to large Pentecostal church rallies seeking healing, but never divulged my struggle, knowing I would be ‘marked’ and disowned by my community.

Eventually, all this took its toll and brought my life to a crisis around the age of 40. While recovering from major depression, I was under the care of a clinical psychologist. Once again, because of fear, I didn’t divulge my same-sex attraction in these sessions, but I did become aware of the interplay of internalised stress on my wellbeing.

During this time, my anxiety over my homosexuality became unbearable, and I contacted a gay conversion organisation seeking change & healing. I was also dealing with increasing levels of suicidal thoughts. This terrified me. I reached out to a well-known conversion “therapy” organisation, Exodus. After several email interactions, I knew that if I followed through, it would drive me faster down the path to suicide, so I ceased communications.

The years of self-hate had led me to the darkest point of my life…

Read the entire thing Here.

 

One Response to “How Many More Dear God…How Many More…”

  1. Steve Boese Says:

    Yeah, for me, born on the cusp of 1960, growing up in small towns of Minnesota, my step-dad (community college instructor) asked Mom about whether her 13-y/o might be gay. She wasn’t judgmental in her response, just uninformed, with “No, Steve isn’t that way.”

    Twenty years later, coming out to her as gay in the midst of a sinking marriage with 3 young kids, one of her comedic responses was, “But, you were my NORMAL one!” (Yeah, eldest of 5, married at 25, making strides in the corporate career, determined to be a rich presence in my kids’ lives from the start.)

    I didn’t buy into the toxic lies that my ex-spouse wanted me to adopt to become a certifiable ex-gay.

    In the process, though, my now 30+ y/o kids have barely been in touch with their Granny B and made sure I knew I was unwelcome at graduations and weddings.

    I fought for some semblance of a relationship with my distant dysfunctional dad. I knew all along he was troubled and damaged. I just never imagined that my commitment to being a better dad would be met with such resistance because I turned out to be gay.

Leave a Reply

Visit The Woodward Class of '72 Reunion Website For Fun And Memories, WoodwardClassOf72.com


What I'm Currently Reading...




What I'm Currently Watching...




What I'm Currently Listening To...




Comic Book I've Read Recently...



web
stats

This page and all original content copyright © 2024 by Bruce Garrett. All rights reserved. Send questions, comments and hysterical outbursts to: bruce@brucegarrett.com

This blog is powered by WordPress and is hosted at Winters Web Works, who also did some custom design work (Thanks!). Some embedded content was created with the help of The Gimp. I proof with Google Chrome on either Windows, Linux or MacOS depending on which machine I happen to be running at the time.