Last summer, I broke up with my boyfriend for a few days (stupid me) and I was thinking about trusting. What is our first kneejerk reaction when something goes wrong in our lives? Maybe I should go back to church. Those thoughts are much more fleeting now–but they still appear. IF THERE IS ANYONE IN MY LIFE I PUT ALL MY TRUST IN–it was the leaders of the LDS church. LOOK WHAT THEY CAUSED and continue to cause. Both sides of the fallout are of equal importance for this issue to be heard (never by the LDS leaders though, they’ll never listen).

Anyway–my anguish of praying so long, I’d fall asleep on my knees and the heavens felt like they were slammed shut. All the blessings the bishop gave me. All the false hope–and all the guilt they heaped on me, too–as I had to be perfect to save him and I was considered not righteous enough when I didn’t–even by close friends. I literally begged God for years . . . .

So heartbreaking. It’s amazing how skewed it got for us. It still astounds me how uneducated and untrained the Mormon leaders are, and how they represent the absolute worst mental practices in the world. So archaic and torturous.

e

e

Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ I covenant that if ever I masturbate again you can kill me.

I understand your pain.

Carol, thanks for the detailed input, I really needed it in this chapter. I have tried to do a few things wrong here. First, I’ve tried to separate the gay from the doctrine, and it’s not working here. Although I may have experienced it somewhat separately, I can’t untie the two as they occurred in my life, so I need to rethink that.

I believe the knife is a chapter of it’s own. I had initially thought about it that way, but then tried to smash it in here by minimizing it and removing the detail. I think that’s a mistake. I need to pull the knife analogy out because it’s connected more to the gay aspect, and then add the church detail around that and flesh that out on it’s own.

Thanks for the input Carol, and all!

e

I suspect that you’re holding off on too much detail here because you don’t want to re-open any old wounds with your ex-wife. Yet, somehow, I feel like I need some kind of concrete detail from your family life in order to grasp how lonely you felt in your marriage (though, of course, I know some of it, having read her story ). If you can add some scene that illustrates the situation — and illustrates that she’d been trained from a young age to expect XYZ (and that if your life doesn’t fit that prefection model it’s a sign that there’s something wrong with you) just like you were — then there shouldn’t be too many hard feelings.

The part about looking at yourself in the mirror at the temple is good. It actually reminds me of Tom’s photo that his ex-wife took of him on their honeymoon. But I’d like to see just a little bit more of you as a young gay father of a heterosexual family.

Ditto for the part about the stage. The metaphor is right on the money (I know you didn’t make it up, but it really captures how the Mormon mindset works). Still, I feel like this part is a little too theoretical. I’d like to see more of how you felt when certain actors stepped onto your stage. This should explicitly tie back to your excellent description of your current mindset in chapter 2:

“I let myself think about them now, I let their images flood my mind and feel warm and free with it. It is no longer a terrible sin for me. It just is. How I ever denied myself this pleasure I’ll never know. My previous pain for even considering such thoughts was overwhelming, the fight of my life. I always found my oldest brother’s incessant attraction to women’s breasts amusing; he always noticed them and mentioned it to me when we were older men. I always wondered why he was such a freakin’ horndog. Now I get it, I am exactly like him, but gay. I can’t get enough!”

Anyway, that’s my critique — take it or leave it.

Keep up the great work!

Blessed be!

Kelly