The Reason Why
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For the longest time I found myself living life in despair. I felt that I had little to live for, and had not only contemplated, but also attempted, suicide several times between the ages of 14 and 26. My life felt cursed, and in many ways it truly was, though not in any supernatural form.
As a child I felt that I was being raised in hell. My family was all fire and brimstone Christians, and at a young age not only did I realize my attractions were different from those of my fellow classmates, but also during the same year my family’s pastor gave a sermon I’d never forget, about the abomination of homosexuality and how HIV was the divine punishment for gay men.
What that sermon did for me was 1) make me know that I belonged under the label “gay,” and 2) make me believe that there was no such thing as unconditional love. If God had no unconditional love, neither could his creation, right?
After a lot of drama, and some abuse, I became legally emancipated from my parents, and at 17 I came out as gay. I would no longer allow fear to dictate the truth. But that truth included a series of better and worse relationships, including a partner who gave me HIV, and an eight-month relationship with a chronic liar who I stayed with so long because the pain he caused covered up the pain of my past. And then my grandma died just before I was arrested in July 2010. It was 17 months of pure hell.
But little did I know that my time in prison could actually be beneficial to me. I studied HIV virology, and became an advocate on HIV, LGBT and religious issues. But I was still in pain. I couldn’t trust anyone. One of my best friends and I had a falling out, and it shook me up pretty badly. I started being more reclusive. I recognized my views of people did not live up to the Wiccan ways I had lived for the previous 20 years, and started questioning my own core beliefs.
Eventually I found the Unitarian Universalist church and started finding my beliefs lining up with the principles, and even the sources, as I had started working backwards in Wiccan history and finding that my beliefs were aligned more with UUism than with polytheism, dualism, etc. At that point I felt comfortable reaching out to a Buddhist organization to receive a book called The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer.
I started reading the book around the time I started falling in love with a guy I couldn’t bring myself to talk to, because I was so afraid of rejection. The book was teaching about the same type of scenario, and really opened my eyes to who has control over me—not me, only my fear.
A transgender friend of mine said she was going to talk to him for me. I didn’t believe her, but she did, and he told her to tell me to talk to him the next day. I was about to back out when I started thinking about the lesson in the book. I chose to follow through, and take my life back from my fears.
Today, I am so happy that I made that choice. I am still falling in love, and so is he. Little did I know at the time that he would be the answer to many of my prayers. Even if the two of us don’t work out, he has released me from a self-made prison. While I pray I don’t lose him, I’m no longer afraid of the pain that accompanies love and loss. That fear almost stopped me from experiencing the feeling of real love again. Casting out despair returned me to a state of hope.
The truth is, pain is a part of life that we cannot avoid. Yes, there will be heartache—it is inevitable. But we should not fear the pain enough to not engage. That, in itself, is despair.
- Voices of Compassion - July 1, 2022
- The Reason Why - January 1, 2019
