My oath through the stages of Loss and where I am now.

My Path through the stages of Loss and where I am now.

So basically I'm going to try and be honest and as detailed as I can be which is something I have trouble with.I'm sorry if this thread is too long or in the wrong spot.

If you want to skip to my current issue Control+F the word Present.

Before you read this I need to point out that in my family being gay is VERY bad and it took my younger brother who is pan sexual to basically go "Fuck you I'm the favorite and I'll love who I want" for my grand mother to change her view. When I first started to come to my sexuality I turned to church and you can guess how that went.

I am 22 and I am a church member who believes in the good of community and church and because of the good we have done I can't say I think church is evil and such. The best way I can describe it is each Thanksgiving we feed over 300 families and its just an amazing experience to bring these people a good meal. As well as the multiple families the food pantry helps each week. Its things like this that make me want to see churches grow as they can be very healthy and as a pastor I know said the other day "The God I want people to learn is the Loving God I know."

So the issue is of course those few damning verses but not only that. Through out my life I've been fighting with my sexuality and I was at the "I'm not gay, I wanna straight stage for years, all through middle and high school and even the first year after it.

It was nineteen when I had my first male crush, yeah I had a few female ones before, and well we both wanted it to work but distance is a fucking pain. He is still a really good friend of mine but I'll admit if I had been more mature and local I think it would have turned out better but thats the past. After half a year of us together I had become more out online to a small group of friends, and while still very in the closet I knew I wanted to change that and these people helped me do so. The closest group was, the crush, myself and another friend we jokingly called our "mommy" since she was a few years older then me and the guy is a year younger then I am now.

Then me and the crush had a falling out when shit hit the fan in his life and we got into a huge fight. He got together with someone who didn't respect him as a person and it was bad for everyone involved. This wasn't the end of my emotional pain with this guy but it was awhile before anything happened between us, and since 2009 that fight was one of the hardest times I've cried, maybe even in my whole life. Yes I'm aware it was long distance however he is very special to me and well I'm known to extreme emotions, when I love I LOVE, when I hate I HATE, and I had fallen for him HARD.

Long story shortened, after that I was feeling like shit for ages and got better but I was longing to feel wanted for months, so I did a really big dumb and I had a one night stand with a guy I barely knew who was a friend of a friend through out high school after it had been mentioned I found guys cute. Long story short I was not in the right emotional state for having sex, and above all losing my virginity to it, which was scary in and of itself, and afterwards he ignored me because as he said when it was over, I looked utterly horrified on what had happened. I was a bit of a wreck and felt guilty, and I had someone talk to me after he went to sleep (all this was at a party and it was my first time drinking, however I was completely sober during all this) and I was told he basically was like that pretty often with guys he found cute, fuck em and be done.

Needless to say this didn't help me at all and I remember spending the next week in a depressed heap feeling very dirty. I also think my little brother wanted to kill him afterwards, but thats for another day. I'll admit that this had taken the year of progress to accepting myself and shattered all of it, and now we are at mid 2011. I met some new friends and had one friend help me over understanding why I did what I did with the guy on that night and how I felt about it. I also was rather silly mind you, coming to terms with the fact that being gay didn't mean I had to be " a gay man" if that makes sense. I didn't have to the stereotype, as I worried for awhile that I couldn't be me and my sexuality at once.

Well life went on and that hurdle got crossed and then got thrown back at me when I was invited to a Halloween sleep over by the girl who was the friend of the friend of the friend and the guy I slept with was there, and mind you this is almost five months later after we hadn't seen each other since then, kept bringing up him having sex with me. I don't remember much but I remember I was not in the soundest mindset from his comments and attitude, which me and the first friend and her boyfriend discussed might have been his way to deal with what had happened between us last time. Needless to say both of them were very mad at him cause I had basically drawn completely into myself emotionally.

If it's alright I'll skip ahead since nothing happened between November and February that related to sexuality and such. Well in February I was living with the two friends mentioned above, and the guy I had sex with became a constant guest as he worked nights at the store behind our place and the girl was really good company to be around. He had been nicer while there but it was still not the best to be around him, as I couldn't just avoid him, I was moved out at that time and working in that part of town so I couldn't move back with family, but at the same time his presence was a collection of mixed signals. Mainly cause he was sexy, yes bad reason, but I found him very sexually attractive, and he when he wants has a very attractive personality. So while our interactions were brief and I kept away either in the kitchen or outside on the porch, I had to come to terms and get over my hurt feelings. We were in a one bedroom apartment then, so I slept in the living room, hence no retreating to my room. After a month of daily interaction we never became close but I could be around him and not be upset. In the end it helped me get over what had happened between us.

After all that I had finally got to a point where I could look at my own identity again and my own sexuality and not think of the trauma I felt. I went through a phase of treating my sexuality as a right to make jokes to annoy the ones who were okay with it which I called Fag moments. It was all in good fun and a way to be open and satirical thus comedic at once. However this I bring up because I was faking what people expected from someone of my sexuality for laughs and attention. I don't remember why I did it but I knew part for my reason was I wanted to act out as I again was starting to long for attention. I was 20, jobless and all of my friends had moved on and gotten jobs and I moved again trying to find work, living with my mom in the country. I was tackling the issues of how much I wanted my sexuality to change me and how much I wanted it matter to me pretty much on my own at that point, and it took awhile to come to the terms that I still wanted to be me, not someone who was loud and over the top for who he liked, but someone who was loud and over the top cause it was fun. I didn't want my sexuality to be the center of my life, and though I wanted sexual attention from being lonely, I knew that I would regret following that feeling.


I started another long distance relationship that sadly didn't work out but I did see him, and we spent a month together before he broke it off, we parted on good terms, though it was very depressing. The time together with him helped me in many ways and afterwards I had the strength to come out to a friend of mine. Her response was pretty funny. "Baby Zane had sex?!?!?!?! I can;t picture it. Your not ugly or anything but you sexual, nope, pure angel." Afterwards she called me up and we talked about my tastes for a few hours. She also helped me through the break up, though again I said before I feel strongly so yea, I tend to get hurt badly when I get hurt. All of this finally leads us to the present.

Now at the present I've become more involved in the church and as such I've been questioning my faith. It has never been very strong and my sexuality has made it hard to stay when no one could agree if God loved me or not. And lets be honest, you can't spend an hour a week for two months hearing of God's love and heaven and not start having it resonate. As for just not going to church, I'm one of the people who do the media, and this past month I've been in charge every week as the normal leaders of tec have been very busy.

I've been thinking of going to a local gay church and talking to their pastor about it but I'm not sure why I'm hesitant. I think part of my hesitance stems from the fact that I don't want my sexuality to have to be my most defining feature, and it shouldn't define my faith in any way as far as I'm concerned. My concern is that I'll only be allowed to have faith in gay churches and that somehow my faith has less meaning in straight circles because of it, which is something I don't want.

I grew up in a church, I want the community it offers to matter, and I want it to not matter who I sleep with. I'm worried if I came out to anyone in my church, which again I state this is the church I was baptized at at like 3 years old, I grew up around these people, that I'd be disliked or hated for it. I want my church to accept me for my sexuality but I want it not to matter which conflicts.

Lastly I want somewhere I can find reassurance that my sexuality is okay to God.Christ was for forgiveness and kindness to everyone. I've lived my life trying to do just that and I think I want someone to prove to me that Christ will love me for that. I don't believe I need a reward like heaven to be given to me for being nice. I shouldn't need a reward to do my best to make the world better. But at the same time, why should I be punished for being myself? The same could be said to many vices, but why should sexuality be a vice?

As you can tell I'm at the point where I need help coming to terms with being a gay man of faith. So there it all is. I hope I'm not too long winded and really advice would be lovely.

 

The shortest way to say what I want to really know is does being gay have to make me a Gay Christian or can I simply be Christian who happens to be gay, as well as how the two can go together.

 

Pretty much the same boat. as I said Grand ma beat down that gay hate, on top of the general sexism in my family. I was raised by three women (My great grand ma my grand ma and my mom) who all three hate men. Also that video like http://emptyclosets.com/forum/1354893-post2.html I'd watch it but my computer can't load any videos that are longer than three minutes.