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Enough years have passed that I can tell this bedtime story around puffs of laughter. Maybe that’s the only way it can live in me. But how do I begin to reveal one of the most terrifying moments of my young life, yet which brought such a sense of relief?
It was that time they tried to cast out the demon of homosexuality. I went through it so you don’t have to.
They = evangelical Christians. Well-meaning, destructive Christians who tried with all the intent they could muster. They needed to save me, lost gay soul that I was. I submitted because it was the last stand. I tried the distance, denial, prayers and counseling. I had to get rid of being gay. I didn’t want it; didn’t want to feel in love with a woman and was aware of the cost. My college career, my reputation and the universal revulsion plastered on otherwise friendly faces.
I simply could not be gay.
I was too pretty, too normal, too smart. Even the word lesbian was such a disgrace that it was stapled down across a page in my journal, fearful that a nosy RA might discover it. The code of conduct — a huge list of DON’Ts — was signed three years before with a solid and sure hand. Committing sexual immorality was something never considered. I didn’t party, break curfew and kept my doubts about God to a minimum. Virginity intact, waiting for my cool husband and the missionary teacher life that lay ahead of us. I mean, it was okay that I gagged after kissing my first boyfriend and the others who were horny amusement that never touched my heart. Right? I just hadn’t met the right guy.
Ah, but the girls in my Christian high school. The one who’d hug me for minutes under the stairs and tell me how pretty I was. Her. The first love who ran away, returning two years later with a baby and trembling fingers that held a letter of love and apology. The other friend who slept over and gave me a back rub that quickly escalated into other forms of touch that immediately put my arms into frozen soldier pose while prone on my stomach. The others. The girl at Christian camp who laid in my arms, then outed me with a word I didn’t understand. The ostracizing. The longing under the guise of friendship.
My stomach knew. My mind refused.
The other girls at college, the ones like me, were fearful of the same expulsion from our community. We knew the deal. One accusation and you’ll go before the Dean and a jury of students to confess your sins. Two strikes, and you’re out.
However, it was impossible because gay people simply did not exist, except for the ones who furtively held hands in the back of the gospel team van or took naps together on a late Friday afternoon. The ones who’d glance away if our eyes lingered a moment too long. They were easy to recognize, tied at the hip to their best friend who spent every moment possible together.
For the tough cases like me, the ones who went to reparative ministries to be counseled by a strident ex-lesbian, I was a lost cause. Born aberrant.
She’s too smart, she said to my sort-of girlfriend at the time.
I’d heard that one before, in many different forms.
Rebellious. Too strong. Not faithful and trusting enough.
The circle of weepy gays and grim lesbians who met in her living room were a reminder of fun youth group meetings of the past, except we were the miserable backsliders who could only be made whole by agreeing to be celibate, if we couldn’t bring ourselves to marry someone of the opposite sex.
That was the cost of admission, if we were willing to pay.
I wasn’t. Out of what was going to be lost — in only a few weeks, I’d sit in front of the Dean and then a roundtable of students to describe whether I’d been sexual with the other woman — something in me, that same stubborn streak, refused to lose the person I loved. I’d lose everything else, including myself, but she wouldn’t be taken from me.
In the end she was, along with being barred from campus except for classes, therapy and outright threats from the Dean that if I contacted my sort-of girlfriend, I’d be promptly expelled, three weeks from graduation.
I contacted the leader of a deliverance ministry, which in Protestant terms is the equivalent of an exorcism. It’s important to note that a born-again Christian like me couldn’t be possessed because of the indwelling Holy Spirit but could be oppressed with a demon, such as the one they claimed put me under the delusion of being gay.
If only I had met the right guy, I wouldn’t have found myself seated once again in a circle with six sets of warm hands on my shoulders and arms, praying fervently to be released of the demon who plagued me with homosexuality. The leader of the group — a man, of course — began to speak to the “demon”, asking its name and why it oppressed me.
{This is where I insert a side note about exorcism in Christian churches. They may call it various names but certain men really get off doing exorcisms. Very superhero / Marvel stuff, as they believe themselves invulnerable under the blood of the Lamb as they chase after demons.}
As a Tarot reader, I’d say to those men now: be very, very careful where you tread.
I was confused then. Scared I’d never be the same and start talking with a weird voice. I’d done the surgical pre-op of fasting and prayer. It was time that whatever made me want to get naked with a woman get OUT. I wanted to be normal like everyone else.
He kept shouting and shouting in my ear; a biblical water torture. The hands gripped as I felt the pressure to answer the standardized test correctly, except all the answers could be kinda.
The only thing that waited for me was hell if I didn’t get it right.
Minutes which felt like hours and it wouldn’t stop until he got an answer, so I gave him a name: Corolla because I did like Toyotas. Once he began to dialogue with “Corolla” and demand that it come out of me, the session ended quick enough. Prayer and moaning and lots of sweat and spit, dripped onto my hair. The leader released his grip and patted my shoulder, as if we’d finished a 3 hour workout.
You must stay holy and keep yourself clean, he said. The next 7 days are crucial. No contact with her. Otherwise, you know the verse: 7 more demons can come. No masturbating or any thoughts like that.
A mortifying end to an otherwise successful evening. The last thing I wanted was to talk sex with a bunch of people who looked liked my relatives. It seemed as though people who had no business asking, loved to ask. My pastor. The dean. The leader of the group. The ex-lesbian. My Christian counselor.
Sex, sex, sex. Everybody wanted to talk about sex. Hm. Wonder why?
I was 20. I left shaky but determined. The strength of the Lord surrounded me. Strong for a day or two, maybe even a week, then I slipped back into everything they’d warned against. For all I knew, 7x7 demons came in after I saw my girlfriend — or maybe it was after the first thought of her?
I graduated, stayed the summer and then fled to Cape Cod, returning to visit when my sort-of girlfriend called from a dorm phone when she missed me. I stepped back on campus, certain I’d be arrested but no one was around. No one remembered or cared. The Dean passed on the way to chapel and my body seized up. He smiled and walked on; just another day.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds. That’s nonsense. The scarring from that era — though many degrees easier to write about now — remains. It took years to calm the terror that arose any time I felt attraction to a woman.
Love = the demon’s gonna get ya.
It’s hard to believe I ever let anyone treat me like they did, but my Christian childhood was one of bullying and dominance. Of being told what was right, that theology could not be questioned and that women knew their place.
Thank God for my rebellious, smart and not trusting enough spirit. It’s why I’m still here, rather than deciding to kill myself in my 20s.
That’s why I am so adamant about clients protecting themselves from readers/psychics who are innocently nefarious like the deliverance group. This doesn’t exclusively reside in Christian churches. It’s in wellness centers, online psychics and well-intentioned readers.
Words are spoken — and words remain, lodged in your head to spin around in circles until you are strong enough to cast them out.
The most insidious ones can come from those who think they speak it for your own good — to protect and guide — such as proclaiming a dark entity has attached itself to you or that you’re under an Akashic contract that has been manipulated by aliens.
Don’t know about you, but that sounds like some straight-up bullshit. Stay away, unless you wish to suffer.
There is nothing wrong with me. I am perfect as I am — and I love myself.
No one has power over me. I proclaim it to the Universe in all directions of space and time! No one controls me. No one enters without permission. Only the divine spirit of love guides, helps and protects me.