belief and non-belief

The beginning of my coming out was the beginning of the end of my belief in the historical claims of Mormonism.

I was a convert to the LDS church in my late teens. I had grown up in a mainline Protestant church which my family attended regularly until I was 12. My father was agnostic, my mother descended from a long line of religious people, with some ministers in the further reaches of the family tree. I had a strong sense of belief in God from a young age. I started to read the Bible at about 7 years of age. I remember my grandmother's funeral just before I turned 8, and having this feeling that she was in heaven that I relayed to my grieving mother.

When I entered puberty, I started searching for a church. Somewhere I got the idea that there had to be one true church, one church that was more correct, more consistent with the Bible, than any other. I approached the matter from an intellectual point of view, meaning, I more or less assessed different churches by how well they seemed to me to conform their teachings to my understanding of the Bible. I guess you could call me a Biblicist (I think that is the right term for it), to some extent a literalist (I was pretty anti-Darwin, etc.). Anyway, I had a few encounters with Mormonism over this period, but it was not until I was 16 and almost 17 that I finally decided to really study it seriously. I had a couple of good friends who were LDS and who lived their beliefs, which impressed me and I think helped to soften my heart towards the church. The other event was an attempt to read the Book of Mormon that was positive and where I felt "intelligence" or "light" when I read portions of it (where I had tried before and only felt an empty feeling about it).

To cut the chase, I eventually took the discussions over a period of a couple of days, committed to baptism, but then had to wait to meet my parents' requirements. I attended church before and after my baptism faithfully, even had an unofficial calling as branch pianist (it was a small branch of about 25 members where I joined). I was ordained an elder 5 months after baptism, just after I turned 18. At 19 and a half, I went on a mission, served for 18 months (what I was called to do, although I could have extended but my branch president at home was against it).

My mission solidified and greatly deepened my commitment and belief in Mormonism. I was pretty orthodox; I loved Bruce R McConkie, tried to read everything I could, etc. Anyway, I was trying hard to be a faithful Latter-day Saint.

But I was also struggling with this feeling of sexual attraction toward guys.

That attraction first appeared I guess in early puberty in dreams. At first, I dreamt of bisexual threesomes. But the woman quickly dropped out of the dreams, and it was then just about the guy. My father also had porn around when I was a kid and teen, and when I could I would look at it; I was never interested in the women, but looked at the spreads of couples and focused on the men. I became intrigued by letters written to these magazines about guys having sex with their buddies and how great it was. This just fascinated me.

Meantime, I was a pretty straight-laced, repressed type who was almost anti-sex. I had crushes on girls (and probably on guys though at the time I attributed it to wanting a close male friend) but I was horrified by the idea of having any kind of sexual thoughts towards women because it was wrong, blahblahblah. I thought I was SO righteous and noble.

Anyway, after joining the church, I continued with this struggle. I was shy, and rarely dated; indeed, I have really only had 2 girlfriends in my life, both fairly serious but one ended when I left for the mission field and she moved away, and the other when she dumped me. My self-esteem always struggled with my small stature (5'5" and thin and not muscular at all, much less athletic) and I found the women I was attracted to usually saw me as a great little brother and friend but never as a potential romantic interest. After I got my first full-time job at 25 that seemed to change, but by then the gay feelings were get a little more insistent and I felt guilty about them which affected my ability to be open to being attracted back to some of these women (although most of the time, they were not my type; too often they seemed needy and clingy and that scared me).

My first real struggle with the gay feelings came a few years later when I was an elders quorum president and I went and bought gay porn and ended up released from my calling and put on probation for a couple of months. It was horrible although the process of being humbled was not a bad thing. But the idea that this total abstinence for two months from the m word and porn was a pipe dream. I got a new job and moved, and the "problem" resurfaced.

For the next ten years, I struggled increasingly with these issues. Through nearly all of it, the only person who knew what I was going through was my bishop at the time. No one else knew. I had been counseled not to talk to others about it. The secrecy really didn't help me much, but I felt trapped and obligated to live up to my strong convictions about Mormonism. I was a perfectionist in many ways, so when I "fell" I was very hard on myself. Lots of negative self-talk.

Finally, three years ago, after lots of changes in my life and another move (I'll talk about that some other time), I was in a new city and ward. My new bishop called me in, evidently to give me a calling, but when I told him I was strugglling with using porn and the m word, he concluded that I needed to be put on informal probation, to be prohibited from holding any callings, from praying or speaking in church, no taking of the sacrament, etc. An informal probation that seemed to have most of the restrictions of a disfellowshipment. Anyway, I could take the sacrament again if I could go a month without masturbation.

A few weeks later, I was struggling with digestive problems (acid reflux) and was put on some medication, including a pain killer that I think probably was a mild depressant. My bishop had referred me to and LDS social services counselor, who I met with and who was completely focused on helping me stop masturbating and using porn, with no insight on my sexual attractions. A few weeks after seeing him and starting the medication, I was feeling worse, and then right around Christmas fell into an episode of depression.

Depression is a terrible thing. I really didn't know anything about it, but I sure learned lots over the next few weeks and months. I had no energy, my body felt weighted down by lead, I couldn't sleep, my mind would at times race with uncontrollable wild thoughts, I could not use the computer for more than a few minutes without becoming really agitated, I couldn't read, I had no interest in anything that usually interested me. I had no sex drive at all.

I got medical help, eventually started taking anti-depressants, saw a great counselor, and started walking lots every day. It was hard, but after two or three months my mood was more or less back to an even keel.

However, in the process of all of this, I confronted the reality that many Latter-day Saints, including bishops, are really ignorant about depression. The anti-science/anti-medicine bias of many really bothered me.

But I also had to confront some things about myself. I came out to my parents on Christmas day. They are not LDS, and I have a gay brother, so while they were surprised by my revelation, they were totally supportive. The greatest blessing of my depression may be the way it has drawn me closer to them; not that I wasn't close, but in a lot of ways they really saved my life through that very difficult time.

I confronted the fact that during the depression I did not feel the spirit at all. Nothing. I was used to having spiritual feelings on a regular basis. Now, nothing. I couldn't understand this. I had always thought that the spirit was independent ultimately from the body and that while the body's condition influenced the spirit, if we were trying to live right we could still feel the spirit. It was not as if I was living any more unrighteously than I had before, so why now no spirit?

While I came out to my parents, by that I mean I said that I was "struggling" with gay feelings. I didn't want them. I wanted desperately to be straight. I didn't like that my parents were so supportive of me being gay. I felt like I was becoming some kind of battleground in this great war between the pro- and anti-gay movements. And I didn't want to be anyone else's battleground. But I didn't want to be gay.

A turning point that started the wheels in my head turning was meeting with a psychiatrist who specializes in gender identity issues. He pointed some things out to me that I had never thought about before that really made me think. At the time I met him, and all through the appointment, I was determined that at worst I was bi. When he had taken my history, he straight out said "you're gay". I resisted and argued with him. But he pointed out to me that if I were really straight like I thought and this gay stuff was just some temptation or something, why was it I only ever had dreams about sex with men? And he pointed out that real straight men do actually have to control their sexual attractions and feelings--how can you "bridle your thoughts" if there is nothing to bridle? At the time, I was dismissive, but over the coming months these ideas began to take root.

I moved again, back to where I am now, the city of my birth. I intended to return to church but in the end did not because I feared that the double issues of depression and sexuality would turn me into a battlefield in my ward that I didn't want to be. I wanted space to work through things myself.

I finally got referred to a psychiatrist here. He has worked with me ever since. At first, and for a long time, I fought with him over my sexuality and my religion. I was inactive, but still believed. But, over time, his challenging me forced me to confront myself, my beliefs about myself and about Mormonism and life generally. I also started studying some more about Mormonism in areas where I knew there were problems but had tended to be dismissive in the past, and I learned things that I had not known that put my faith in the church's claims in a different light. I also realized that my belief system rested on a lot of untested assumptions that, when challenged, were not so sturdy a foundation for my faith. I became more tentative about my beliefs, and eventually came to the conclusion that I could not believe in Mormonism's truth claims any more.

Eventually, I went to a coming out group and tried dating a few different guys. Some positive experiences, but in the end, no relationships developed, and I remained the 40plus year old virgin I have become. (Not that being virgin is all bad...in some ways, it makes me feel powerful).

Anyway, that is my basic story. With time, I will discuss certain aspects in more detail.