My last post talked about the LDS doctrine behind its stance on same-sex attraction. This time I’d like to talk about my personal history with religion and how it affects my life now.

The earliest church-specific memory I can come up with right now is singing in the children’s program every congregation likes to have once a year. I must assume I had a very typical childhood vis-à-vis the LDS church. I don’t remember ever complaining about going to church. It was the only thing we were really able to do on Sundays, it’s not like I was missing out on something else by going.

At age 12 boys receive the Aaronic Priesthood and take a more active role in church meetings. We also start doing activities together like temple trips and campouts. I don’t know at what age it began, but I often felt different from many of the other boys and usually felt more comfortable talking with the adults than the other boys. But I also remember actively staring at boys or wishing I could see them shirtless. Going to and from the activities, I sometimes gave back rubs or massages so I could touch them.

It was probably around this age that my bishop found out about this fascination. I don’t remember anything he said, but I was sent to see a counselor for a few weeks. I talked openly in these sessions about the boys that caught my attention and tried to describe just what it was about them that fascinated me. But at no point was I accused of being gay, and I certainly didn’t consider the option myself. Maybe it was there that I learned to “appreciate and ignore” rather than dwelling on anything, because in all the years of high school and college I never felt stressed or conflicted about noticing cute boys. After a few weeks I felt better and stopped seeing the counselor. I hold no grudges against the bishop or the church he represented for sending me to therapy for same-sex attraction. I don’t know how I would have felt if I was really aware of the whole context of the situation back then, but if it helped me get through high school without one more thing to worry about, I’m okay with that.

High school teenagers sometimes have the option of taking (either in addition to normal classes or in place of one) additional religious education during the normal school week. We called it Seminary. And since so much of the local population were LDS, our high school allowed us to take Seminary as a normal class during the school day.

I loved Seminary. As a teenager, it’s typical to begin to question what other people say. If your parents taught you to believe in God as a child, as a teenager you really get the chance to believe because you want to. I remember one lesson about the Book of Mormon and the witnesses that also saw and held the plates that resonated with me. I credit that as one of the foundational pieces of why I have never doubted the credibility of the church in all the dark times since.

It was also in my early teenage years that I have my first memorable experience feeling the Holy Ghost. As I said earlier, this was a time of determination. Did I believe in the religion of my childhood? While I was in the middle of thinking all these things, my family visited Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time, this was one of the few places where you could watch a film the church produced, called The Testaments, about Christ’s appearance to the people of the Americas shortly after his resurrection as recorded in the Book of Mormon. Entering the theater we saw groups of young adults who had come together passing out tissues for when they would cry during the movie. At the point when the movie is portraying Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, I felt a rush of warmth that filled me up and stayed for a few minutes. I’ve come to recognize that feeling as the witness of the Holy Ghost through many more experiences in my life. All these personal experiences form the second but more important foundational piece of my testimony.

But in high school also came drama. And somehow in the midst of the stress I discovered masturbation and pornography. I didn’t go typing in “show me naked gay porn dot com,” but I did seek out pictures online of naked boys. My dad had installed content filters on all the computers and prevented our personal computers from accessing the internet at all. But since I was developing an interest in website creation and my oldest brother was willing to give me access to his server to play on, dad opened a tunnel from my computer to my brother’s server, which I was able to coerce into giving me carte blanche internet access in the privacy of my own room. Having never really gotten “the talk” from my parents, I credit everything I know about sex and anatomy to the things I learned online.

Around the age of 15 or 16, my bishop was interviewing me for an upcoming temple trip. He asked the usual questions, which include “do you keep the law of chastity?” I probably paused, thinking about the things I secretly did in my room, before saying yes. He stopped, took a breath, and asked me again. This time I told the truth about viewing pornography. I don’t know if I admitted that I only ever looked at boys, but I’m certain I made that point eventually.

The bishop and I then began talking more regularly as I tried to get over the habit of porn. At this point I won’t call it an addiction. I turned 16 and was supposed to advance to the next office of the priesthood, but since I was in the process of repentance, my birthday came and went. This certainly triggered warning lights for my parents, but the bishop never told them what we discussed in our meetings, and I didn’t tell them for another two years.

I was able to clean up my habits before graduating high school and left for BYU with a clean slate. Living with five other guys who actively included me in their social activities kept me happier and more connected than I had ever been before. I never had any problems with porn during that first year of school.

I went to BYU planning on completing a whole year of school before leaving on a proselyting mission for the church, even though I would be old enough to go after one semester. So after coming back to school from Christmas break I began the process of interviewing and filling out all the necessary paperwork to go on a mission. I submitted my paperwork on February 1st, 2009. The next day I got a call saying the missionary department wanted me to speak with a counselor first. I thought this must be about my history with porn and made the appointment for a week or two later. When I showed up, though, they didn’t mention anything about porn. They asked if I felt I could handle the stress of being on a mission. I thought I could and told them so. I still don’t know exactly why they called me in.

It usually takes about two weeks from the time you submit mission papers to the time you receive the call telling you where and when to report. So my parents scheduled a visit to see me starting March 12, thinking that would be plenty of time. But waiting for the counselor appointment, then waiting for their evaluation, took up several weeks. I didn’t receive the call until the day before they were to arrive. So the next day we had to rush to get the final interviews done before going to the temple for my endowment, the most important prerequisite for going on a mission (and you usually need to have a mission call before going so young).

I was clueless going through the temple that first time. I didn’t know what direction was which, and I kept being told to remember specific details for later. But at the end, when you get to the final room and are figuratively in the presence of God, and your family is standing there waiting to greet you. That is the happiest I have ever felt in my life. And that alone is enough to keep me in the church, even if I had nothing else to go with.

I served my mission in Hawaii. I never had any issues with porn, I never had a crush on my companions, and the cute shirtless boys doing the hula and haka were just a nice bonus. But I came home after only eight months for medical testing which diagnosed me with Crohn’s Disease. I spent the next months recuperating before deciding not to return to the mission. I reapplied to BYU and went back in the fall, moving into the apartment my brother had just left.

I quickly fell back into the snare of pornography. This time I had a private room, no internet filter, and my roommates weren’t close friends. And I didn’t tell anyone, not my parents, not my bishop. It would come in cycles. I’d be fine for a few weeks, then something would slip and for the next two weeks I would be sucked into this dark hole. I tried to escape through tv shows. Each semester I would find some new show that pierced the cloud and let me feel something and watch it obsessively over and over. I went through the motions of school and managed to pass most of my classes, though my grades slowly and consistently began to suffer. With no one to motivate me to attend church, I began to occasionally miss it when I felt particularly dark.

I finally started to worry about myself. I didn’t like the habits I was getting into. I couldn’t really remember many childhood memories. I was so consumed by what was certainly becoming an addiction that it occupied my whole mind when duty or distraction didn’t. During the day at school I would be fine, but the moment I got home I was a different beast. So in my times of sanity I tried to discover the reasons behind my behavior and history.

Occasionally during these three years at BYU either I or my parents would travel so we could be together. My parents absolutely love attending the temple with their children, so that was always high on the list of desired activities when we were together. So whenever a visit was coming up, I would somehow manage to keep away from porn long enough to convince myself it was okay for me to go to the temple with my parents. But I would always crash again quickly after they left.

After graduation I moved one city over into a private apartment and began working full-time. Now I didn’t even have roommates to deal with. When funks would hit, you could observe the progress by the dirtiness of myself and my apartment. During these episodes I wouldn’t throw away trash or do dishes and laundry, and I took hygiene much less seriously. After a few months I ended up missing church for an entire month in a row because I never felt up to going.

This was the state of things when my mom made that fateful phone call I’ve recounted so many times. I finally connected the dots about my sexuality, but that gave me so many more questions. Over the next few weeks during our regular phone calls, my mom and I would discuss everything I had kept hidden over the years. She encouraged me to seek out counseling for my addiction and depression, but never hinted that my attractions were a problem that needed to change. I wanted to find a counselor on my own, without help from my bishop. I didn’t want this to be like my last stint with therapy. I wanted to be able to decide for myself who I went to, what we discussed, and when I could stop. Mom helped me find a counselor nearby and I made the appointment.

The counselor didn’t help much, but going did position me for improvement. I was able to figure out the full timeline of my attractions and prove that they didn’t arise because of porn, but were around and influencing me well before the age of twelve. I was given some advice on how to think about my situation. I was able to pose the important questions about my faith and future.

For Thanksgiving 2013 I met up with two of my siblings in Washington, D.C. Leading up to it I decided that I would not judge myself during the trip. I knew that traveling would present me with many new and attractive faces, so I told myself to take the advice of the counselor. When temptation to seek out pornography arose, acknowledge the situation, admit the attraction, and rather than choosing to fight head-on or immediately capitulate, sit in the feeling and realize that there are more than those two options. So I enjoyed the trip and did see my fair share of cute.

Coming back from that trip, though, showed the subtlety of Satan. As I boarded the train from the airport back to my apartment I thought “It’s been a while. I don’t have any responsibilities tonight. When I get home I can enjoy a nice, casual browse through the galleries of shirtless boys. No need to take it any further.” But of course, once I got home it quickly escalated to nudity. Somehow this brought me more pain and grief than ever before. Maybe it was because now I had full knowledge of what I was doing and all the motivations behind it. Now I had gone through so much effort to talk to parents and counselors to get over this behavior that disgusted me even as I did it.

The next day when my mom called I told her what was going on and how bad I felt. She said it felt like something “immense” needed to happen in my life to help me out. I knew what I had to do. I had to repent without any excuse or condition. I had to, as the scriptures put it, confess and forsake, without any of my usual dodges like “I don’t want to do this” or “I’ll try to stop.” But I was terrified to make such a promise to God. I didn’t believe that I could do it, stop just like that, and never slip again. I don’t know how long I sat there in prayer, avoiding the moment of repentance. But then I said it, and I was immediately filled with the strongest rush of the Spirit I had felt in years. I call this my Awakening.

From that night on and for many months after, I had no problem resisting temptation. I returned to church and made wonderful friends. I found North Star and overcame emotional barriers. I came out publicly and began to write about my experiences and testimony. All the strings in my life leading up to those few months became clear and I could feel the heavens watching me with bated breath.

It’d be easy to end it there, on a nice high note, but that was a few years ago.

Even during those good months, I felt like I was being carried on a pedestal. I knew that hard times would come again, and I should take the opportunity to build up some spiritual defenses against the storm. But I didn’t. Eventually things faded back to normal, and when the temptation returned I slipped once again. Since then I haven’t been able to go more than a few weeks free.

But now I have a different perspective on the Atonement and repentance. I’ve been confronted time and again by people who insist that my religion hates me because it doesn’t condone the behavior I may be tempted towards. I’ve seen people in my same situation question whether they can continue to believe and support the church because of its policies. I’ve seen so much pain and anguish as they try to find happiness and peace without losing such an important part of their identity.

And even though I try to deny it, I feel some of that pain myself. I see friends and family living in ways that I have decided to avoid. I watch movies, tv shows, and YouTubers who portray the pinnacle of what I wish for: acceptance of self, connection with others, and positive hope for the future. I secretly wish for some cute boy to sweep me off my feet so quickly that I can’t stop myself from falling in love. I keep hoping to experience a romantic first kiss without time to think about religion. I tell myself that I’ve never been sexually tempted by a person in the real world, so why should I be scared to seek out physical intimacy like cuddling or even kissing? I go to church and see attractive men and all I want to do is hug them or rest my head on their shoulder, but I do nothing because I know nothing will come of it and I don’t want to scare them away from being my friends. I wonder if I should try focusing on girls, since that relationship wouldn’t have any of the religious baggage, but can’t really convince myself that I’ll feel anything when its so rare for one to catch my eye. My loneliness builds up over time and I have no healthy way to release it and most of the time religion doesn’t feel like much of an excuse and I get angry.

And I write stuff like this. To satisfy an itch, to explain a point, maybe to entertain or enlighten someone, and to remind myself that the religious path is the only one that can make me feel the way I did that first time in the temple.