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A
Boys Own Story
The
following article was written by a 17 year-old young man who hopes people will
learn from his story
Although
outwardly I have led the normal life of an average seventeen year old guy . . .
emotionally, psychologically, physically, and even spiritually it has been
anything but. Let me start from the beginning, which is usually the best place
to start anyway.
All
my life, ever since my adoption, I have grown up in a Christian environment.
I've always have been taught to trust God in all I do that He'll be my Best
Friend. And I still believe that. I still believe strongly that Christ is my
Savior and Only Way into Heaven that He was crucified for the world and in
three days He rose again to cleans our sins. But relatively recently I've
broadened by horizons.
Around
October of 1996, I began to notice something different about myself I
finally started to become aware of myself and my place in this world. At the
same time, I also became aware of my feelings, sexual feelings, towards that of
the same sex. Though it sounds horribly hackneyed, all my life ever since I
was old enough to understand such driving forces as love, sexual attraction, and
physical appeal I knew somehow I was "different." But I had never
seemed to recognize their relevance to me until then.
I
began to question my beliefs. Would a god as loving as my God really create a
homosexual? I always thought or was conditioned to think homosexuality
was a choice and not something one was born with. Before I had dismissed such
feelings as a "phase" and would completely disregard the fact that
when all my male friends were just getting interested in the opposite sex, I was
not only uninterested, but almost appalled by the thought of viewing the
opposite sex as anything sexual.
For
long hours into the night I would cry and cry, hoping and praying that I would
awake the next day and find out I had a sexual attraction toward women, but it
never happened. I soon grew scared. I was the worst kind of sinner in the world,
or so I thought. I began to practice self-mutilation, thinking the physical pain
would take my mind off the emotional pain. But after a few months I stopped,
seeing that it wasn't working. I then began to slip into a severe depression. I
began to starve myself plummeting from 169 pounds to 130 pounds in just a
few months causing myself to become a textbook example of an anorexic.
During
the summer of 1997, I became so depressed that I attempted to commit suicide for
the first time. I entertained the thought of taking my life many times before,
but I had always failed to act upon those feelings. Though unlike other times,
this time I followed through. So before I went to bed, I consumed a large
quantity of pills that I knew were deadly enough. Gradually I began to feel
drowsy and disoriented, yet at the same time very peaceful and serene. Sure that
I would wake up the next day in a much better place than the one I was in, I
went to bed, a bit anxious, though calm and at ease.
Fortunately
during the course of the night I vomited the pills up, then spent the rest of
the night curled up beside the toilet in tears, knowing that at that moment I
could have been dead, just another gay teen suicide statistic.
Shortly
after I decided to come out to myself, to finally be at peace with me and accept
myself for who I was, and not for what I wanted myself to be. I thought that if
God was perfect, and He made me this way, then He has a purpose for me in this
world, and just for that reason people should love me for who I was. I began to
see God as a sweet Savior who loved me enough to pay the wonderful sacrifice on
a tree, and not as a condescending, unreachable God, condemning me for every
wrong I did. I know there will be no homosexuality in Heaven . . . neither will
there be heterosexuality. Heaven will not be a matter of sex . . . but of
eternal life with Jesus Christ. I turned to God in my time of depression, only
if I would have realized how wonderful His love can be earlier.
Today
I still battle with manic-depressant syndrome and am therefore prone to unusual
mood swings, though not as drastic and violent as before. But if I learned only
one thing through this all, it is that I should love people for who they are,
and not as they should be or not as I want them to be. Everyone is human and
therefore everyone craves acceptance.
I
know that in the future I will face bigotry, hatred, discrimination, and blatant
homophobia, but I also know with the help of God, friends, family, and help from
people like you who were nice enough to read this section, I should do just
fine.
Paris
"For
you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mothers womb. I
praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are
wonderful; I know that full well"
Psalm
139:13-14
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