Seeds
presented at Connecting Generations: LGBT+ People of Faith, 12 Nov 2018, during Scottish Interfaith Week
My story has three parts.
Three acts, and when I think about it I see it played back on a projector, like it’s someone else’s story.
But it’s mine.
one.
2008. I’m sixteen, churchgoing, not devout but my church are my family and part of my life. I read the youth bible because I think it’s cool and somewhere I read that sex before marriage isn’t condoned by God.
(Small threads that don’t yet link up; tiny kernels that are taking root deep inside which will, years later, burst out in destructive ways.
Not yet.)
My church isn’t toxic - I never feel suffocated - but I’ve never dealt with facing my own sexuality within it. At sixteen and a half, I feel stirrings that I may not be straight but I read queer books in secret and I’m lonely so I live in my imagination. I put it aside, to deal with later.
Somewhere, the world is changed forever.
two.
I’m nineteen and my mental health is shaky; I’ve moved away from home and university is not what I thought it would be.
Disillusionment.
I go to Christian Union and nothing else, thinking my best friends will end up being there. I’m sad I don’t live with Christians and I immerse myself in toxic evangelism.
(I never “convert” anyone; a girl tells me she’s trying to convert someone she knows, and it’s the first thing that unsettles me. I ignore it; this is my life now.)
I spend too much time with these people. Preachers tell us we’re sinners because we’re teenagers with sexuality; we are inevitably going to do bad things.
My mental health declines; I feel myself wilting internally.
The Straw: winter 2011, the petition against marriage equality, led by people like those I’m spending my time with. I have no other perspective. It’s unhealthy. I’m unwell. It’s the first major crisis of faith I’ve had; I don’t think I can sign this thing because it’s not the Christianity I was brought up with.
(There’s something there, rooting me in place, dead in my tracks, telling me I not only want to avoid this petition for reasons of inclusion and equality but also for me.)
I can’t sleep. I’m convinced I’m going to hell, and my nervous breakdown peaks over Christmas.
-
Looking back, that December into January is a sepia haze; blurred edges with a strange light in the centre. I remember googling “anxiety symptoms”, the first search result being “Anxiety Can Be a Living Hell”, and clinging onto that shred of light with my entire being.
By second semester, I don’t go back to CU.
-
Over a few years, my health starts to improve. Therapy, medication, and I learn I’m not a bad person; I just have a guilt complex, but coming to terms with my experience brings a suspicion of religion. I tell people I have a faith, but I don’t necessary feel connected to anything else. It’s cautious.
I’m still not out, but I’m an ally. The niggling thought that my teenage bisexual feelings were indeed Not Just a Phase hangs over me. I harbour it longer, and it becomes harder to ignore.
Finally I come out at twenty-four. I’m happier than I’ve been in years; life isn’t perfect, but it’s mine. It’s blossoming in pastel colours and I’m out, I’m out, I’m out. I’m about to graduate, I meet my partner, but I’m further from my own faith than I ever have been.
three.
Something has been missing and suddenly I am making peace with all of this. I surround myself with good people, people of faith, like me, who have had the same experiences. As it turns out, these two parts of my identity can be reconciled, and I want to reach back into my past and uproot all those things that made me feel so guilt-ridden.
But I can’t.
Still, hope blooms. I turn my face to the sun.
This is present day, and I am living it.