When you're a mistake...

Growing up, from my earliest memories I remember feeling different, like there was something wrong with me. I was 4 years old in 1978, and I can look back at that time and realize that I knew I wasn't normal like everyone else. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I was different. I grew up pretty normal, aside from being molested, verbally abused by my dad, having my parents get divorced and being a sickly kid...I was to everyone, even myself...normal. But somewhere inside me, I knew that I must not be normal since the thoughts and feelings I had, I somehow knew instinctively not to share with anyone. But I still had no idea, what exactly it was that made me feel so uncomfortable in my own skin. I lost my mind right after 8th grade with lots of my early memories flooding into my life drowning me as if a flood gate had busted wide open and I had no way of stopping the deluge. My high school years were what I refer to as my "dark period," a time that I spent much of my time reading up on how to commit suicide, I spent a lot of time hurting myself by cutting, crushing, bruising or burning myself. I used to think that I did it because my dad wasn't there to abuse me so I had to do it myself, but I know now, he had little to do with my behaviors. Yes, the tapes of him calling me names played in my head, but to assign all that was going on to my father was incorrect on my part. But it was all I knew...all I could make sense of.

At my churches girl camp, I tried to kill myself...and I kept trying...it got so bad that they had to call my mom to come and get me because they couldn't keep me safe. For the next 5 years I spent almost each day hurting myself, punishing myself, feeling so out of place in my world and never understanding what the problem was. I sat through church, went to seminary in the mornings before school...did all the stuff I was supposed to do as a young Mormon woman. I didn't date until I was allowed, wasn't sexually active, didn't swear or drink coffee. I was for all the world, a good little Mormon...and I hated myself more than mere words could ever describe. I hated my existence, I knew God had made a mistake by making me. I knew that I was an after thought...a body created from spare parts, a soul not meant to be living, destined for torment because I was taking up a body and the space of a better, more worthy person. I used to cry at night, begging God to tell me why he created me, why he let me be born? I was clearly a mistake.

In 1997 I met the first gay/lesbian person I had ever known...and I used to think that being gay was a bad thing...I was taught that they were sinners. Being a Mormon isn't just a fade or lifestyle...it is in my blood. It is all I have ever known...but suddenly my world blew apart yet again. A year later, I started to question who I was...at first I claimed that I was bisexual, unwilling to give up that last connection to any sense of normalcy...but it didn't last long. It took a few years for me to realize that I was a lesbian, I fought hard to be a heterosexual, I had boyfriends...but it never felt right. And I still struggled almost daily trying not to hurt myself, yet still felt like I was a walking lie...a mistake. I started looking back on periods of time in my life and the pieces started to fit together...my feelings and thoughts started to make sense, I would compare crushes that I had on guys vs. girls...girls far out numbered the boys by more than 8 to 1. Slowly I realized that I was indeed a lesbian and I started feeling a little more comfortable in my own skin...but still working on trying to believe that God doesn't make mistakes. My soul is so tortured that I have to take 3 different medications just to keep from killing myself, just to keep myself remotely normal.

I have worked daily trying to understand myself, my role in this world, my place in this life...trying to figure out why God made me gay. It's not like it's fun, easy or some kind of amusement ride. I would never choose to be gay...to be mocked at, bullied, told that I am a sinner, that I will burn in hell, that my life means less than yours, that my being gay is worse than murdering someone...that being gay means I can't get married, can't visit my significant other in the hospital because I don't count as "family"...that I can't adopt a child or raise a family because somehow my being gay would scar a child for life. Well guess what, I was raised by an incredibly loving and caring mother, who worked over 40 hours a week to put food our table and clothes on my back...and I'm still gay. I have worked so hard to be normal, to try and be straight...but it is not who I am. I can't help it. I don't want to be a lesbian...if I could change I would in a heart beat. If I could, I would gladly be straight with a husband and kids...but I would hate myself to the core. Being Mormon and gay is like oil and water...they don't mix and every day I work to try and learn to love myself...only to have my religion continue to spurn me, my prophet tell me that I have an illness, my family to believe that something is wrong with me...to hear my aunts words about gays and lesbians be "I have trouble feeling like God could make that many mistakes."

I continue to feel lost and alone...separate from my family and my religion...somehow a lesser soul for what I am and cannot change. I hate feeling like a mistake...I hate even more that my church and family think I am.