Dance Through Trauma

September 6, 2022

I am a victim of religious trauma. It is the only trauma I have left to deal with, and I've kept it hidden inside me for so long because it is beyond traumatic. The religious trauma I experienced as a pre-teenager was due to my sexual orientation. For years, the pastors from the churches I had been to that my father had attended preached homophobia, especially at this one baptist church that my father attended from 2014 to 2017 where the pastor of the church was hugely homophobic. The pastor often read scriptures to justify his hatred for the LGBT+ people, especially in 2015 when same-sex marriage was legalized across all of America. Hearing all of that added so much fear onto my little brain at the time. In 2016, I came to realize I was gay even though I had lied to myself that I was straight out of fear. So, I did conversion therapy on my own self. It was the most traumatizing thing I had ever done to myself. I prayed every day and night to God, begging him to turn me straight. Along with that, I forced myself to watch heterosexual pornography and lesbian pornography to make myself feel sexually aroused by women. I forced myself to masterbate as I watched those videos without wanting to, but I did it so I could become straight. I did it throughout that entire year, but I did it every single night of Fall 2016. I thought that by watching and masterbating to porn that showed naked women, it would turn me heterosexual. I had noticed a few times that when I watched heterosexual pornography, I would focus more on the man in the video instead of the woman, which is why I would tune into lesbian porn. I basically sexually abused myself because I thought God would hate me if I stayed gay. I forced myself that entire year to have girlfriends, and to imagine them in imaginary sexual settings to become more attracted to women. I texted these girlfriends in sexual nature to feel more heterosexual, but I found myself doing this with a male friend online in the Summer of 2016, and I ended up feeling bad for it. I hated myself so much for failing at my attempt at becoming straight. I watched and watched and just continuously watched videos on YouTube about homosexuals going to hell for their "sin." I had read about demons taking over people and tempting them to homosexuality. I was scared to death, so I continued my ways all year. The forced masterbation to pornography that showed women is the most traumatizing part of this because it feels just as if I had been sexually assaulted except I did this to myself... or maybe not? Maybe what's to blame is religious abuse across our world who scare and shame people into believing or following such toxic beliefs regarding God. It's time for me to heal from this and speak more in depth about my trauma with my therapist this Thursday the 8th, in the morning. I never would have thought sharing and thinking deep back into this very traumatic moment of my life would bring me such good sense of relief.

- September 6, 2022