Back In the Gay.. I mean DAY!

Lately I’ve been thinking back to my days of therapy to “rid myself of gayness”.

Right after my mission, my parents quickly and quietly sent me to therapy in order to overcome my homosexual desires, or as my therapist referred to them: “Same Sex Attraction” or SSA for short.

My counselor was employed by LDS Social Services. I was there to keep peace at home and told him that I didn’t really want to do away with my homosexual tendencies. They were as much a part of me as my blue eyes. He would always remind me that my feelings of SSA were unnatural and that I needed to shake the chains of this behavior or I would not make it into the Celestial Kingdom. Honestly I always though that if the Celestial Kingdom was full of intolerant LDS church members then I would NOT be happy there anyway. It was a frustrating time for me and I’m sure my therapist as well.

During my first appointment, Dr. SSA asked me to keep a “secret journal”. It’s sole purpose was for me to write down all of my sexual thoughts and desires. The Dr was interested in knowing about each time that I masterbated and what my thoughts were during these personal moments. I was to log my mood, the time of day and any other pertinent information that might help him understand my specific condition. Any time I had a gay thought it went in the notebook. By the end of each week I had logged pages and pages of my life because pretty much EVERYTHING I though about was gay in one way or another.

I would take the sex journal to each appointment and stare out the window while he read my most personal thoughts and desires. Thinking back now, I wonder if the good Dr was a latent and closeted homosexual himself and just got his jollies by reading the things that I could never speak out loud. Perhaps it was a lesson in humiliation as well, a way for them to shame me into being straight due to my deviant thoughts.

At my second appointment, the Dr taught me the acronym “H.A.L.T”. He wanted me to think of this every time I saw a guy and had a lustful thought or whenever I was feeling weakened by same sex attraction.

“H.A.L.T. is a simple and easy way to overcome your same sex attraction” he’d say. It stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. Whenever my thoughts would stray I was supposed to ask myself, “Are you hungry, angry, lonely, or tired?”. If I was one of these four, I was to distract myself from the awful, dirty, and gay thoughts and to remedy these four basic needs. If I could resolve them, then my thoughts would again turn to purity and goodness and eventually I’d be cured!

It was after only two months that I fired my therapist much to the disappointment of my parents. In fact, I never went back to a therapist again for this issue. Therapy is a great and wonderful tool if you are committed to it and you are there for the right reasons. You have to believe in the change you are working towards and I did not.

My bachelors degree is in Marriage and Family therapy. How ironic that I am neither married nor do I have a family of my own. Perhaps my schooling taught me a thing or two or perhaps I am just picky and taking my time finding the right person to share the rest of my life with.

More to come....