<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">It’s been just over a year now: a year since I “came out to myself.” But not in the way some people assume when I say that. I already knew I was gay. For a long time. Since college, 15yrs ago, when I felt sweaty, tingly, and warm around a person of my same sex and knew it was “sexual attraction” even without thinking those words, I have known. It wasn’t new information I stumbled upon last year, it was allowing that part of me to be fully integrated into my whole self, and not put away in a corner safely behind a brick wall I had constructed. It was 15 years in the making, that brick wall, after fear and shame pulled out the mortar and trowel and put me to work building it. I knew it was there behind the wall that whole time, and occasionally I would even talk about it to close friends, trusted mentors, or even my first three therapists. They all took the information in stride but either agreed with or respected my belief that I was not going to be “acting on” that attraction: pursuing a romantic or sexual relationship with a woman. It just stayed that “thing” behind the wall. A part of me that I just kept hidden from myself and the world during most of my conscious living. </span></p><p><b style="font-weight:normal;" id="docs-internal-guid-647787d0-7fff-f5f8-1c92-a777dcf1a4b5"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">But that wall needed constant maintenance. I needed to patch the cracks that appeared in the wall when I found myself looking too long at a woman in the coffee line. I had to pull out the trowel and mortar of fear and shame when I realized I was trying too hard to be liked by a new female friend. I had to put a few bricks over the gaping hole that would rupture open whenever I would feel very keenly the touch of an attractive woman, the impression still there long after her hand left my shoulder or arm. I was spending so much energy just keeping the wall maintained. The wall had to stay strong to keep my secret hidden, to spare my friends hurt, and most importantly, to save myself more pain and embarrassment if I “messed up” again by liking the wrong person the wrong way. I couldn’t let “that part” of myself infect the rest of me or become uncontrolled somehow. It was just too dangerous.</span></p><p><b style="font-weight:normal;"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">By late 2022, the wall kept on getting chipped at in my new job as a therapist. I felt exposed and uncomfortable in a room of queer people, hoping they wouldn’t know, wouldn’t see the thing behind the wall. It began to flake and crumble too quickly for me to keep up the maintenance, especially </span><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#444746;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">when my therapeutic work and study had already helped me feel and learn from uncomfortable feelings rather than keep locking them away.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> I soon realized if I was going to be any good at this work, I had to take a good look at what was behind the wall and at least acknowledge its presence in the room, even if I didn’t like it or change anything about my life as a result. </span></p><p><b style="font-weight:normal;"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">But what was “it” really? Just that I “struggled with same-sex attraction” but I could still eventually find a man I was attracted to enough to marry? Was it that I was full-blown gay and would maybe never get married? At this point, my sexual ethics still basically aligned with the traditional evangelical view that sex is only ok between one man and one woman in the context of marriage. I had already come such a long way in my faith journey, already found some peace with the unknowns, the tensions, the unanswerable questions that remained. But this thing behind the wall was still scary to me. What would change if I tore the wall down? During my entire deconstruction process, it was the dreaded “slippery slope” I feared most, which kept me from investigating this wall too closely. But now I knew I had to figure out what was behind it so I could better serve my clients at my job. What if I ended up gay after all of this? Would it just be proving to my family and people from my former fundy life that this whole thing of questioning your faith just leads you to eventually becoming one of those morally depraved (insert your church-approved slur of choice for queer people here)? </span></p><p><b style="font-weight:normal;"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Despite the risk, I knew I couldn’t keep living with all this discomfort and distraction in the middle of sessions that were supposed to be about and for my clients. I started seeing a new therapist and clearly communicated my intentions to figure out what was behind that wall. I have written previously about that experience where I named the feelings I had in college out loud and the radical shift that took place inside me (see <a href="https://admitted-battle-columnist.glitch.me/post/659225e4377b94c0c869e7a2" target="_blank">New Year’s Eve Reflection</a>). The wall was completely obliterated. In just a short time, the thing behind the wall—my sexuality—infused every part of me, allowing me to inhabit my body safely in a way I had never experienced before. </span></p><p><b style="font-weight:normal;"><br></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Some critics of affirming gay Christians will argue that our identity should only be found in Christ or that it gives people the wrong impression about what we are doing with our genitals if we use a certain label to describe ourselves. Is it true that sexuality is a central or foundational element of our personhood? Is this “identity” just about sex? I would say, yes and no. I would have definitely said “no” to both questions before that wall finally fell, but then after it crumbled at my feet after years of tedious maintenance, the difference I felt within myself was too stark to ignore. Before, I lived fractured from myself and hypervigilant in all my relationships, now I am integrated, at peace, energized and relaxed in my body. I am able to show up in all of my interpersonal interactions with more assurance of who I am as just me, and who I am in relation to them without the fear or anxiety I used to unconsciously carry. My fear that they would see the “real me” or I would be “discovered” one day in yet another embarrassing and shame-provoking debacle, is gone. Now, the fact that I feel much more at ease discussing sexual issues with clients (my original goal), just feels like a lovely bonus compared to the benefits to my personal life.</span></p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">A year later, I have no regrets. While I feel sad that some of my relationships have changed because of differing convictions and disagreement about how to maintain mutual respect for one another, I wouldn’t go back. I don’t regret all that I have learned about myself and how I can trust my instincts and the wisdom of my body. I don’t regret the caring, respectful interactions I’ve had with others in a context I had never thought possible for me before. I have learned to believe in the care and compassion of others and allow other people to own responsibility for their decisions as I own responsibility for mine. There have been risks taken and sometimes those risks led to pain or grief, but there has been so much joy, freedom, and love experienced because I took new risks. I realized how much life I missed out on all these years, hiding from myself and others behind my brick wall. When the wall was no longer able to hold me in anymore, I knew I wanted to </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">live, </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">and live a life not dictated by fear. My first year of </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">living</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> has been amazing, and while I know the high of all the sudden change will eventually die down, I am sure going to enjoy the whole ride from here on: the hard, the beautiful, the angsty, the euphoric, and everything in between. </span></p>
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ettie.v commented:
" Thanks for sharing your experience Bri!! I remember thinking that I would never be able to come out and that those encouraging everyone to come out simply do not understand my circumstances. Now I am out for the most part and I cannot imagine going back to a life where I have to hide in the closet (even though it came with a lot of sacrifices). "