Got in the letter below. Following it I’ll run the letter again, but this time with my spontaneous thoughts and responses to it embedded in bracketed lovely blue.
Hello John,
Sometimes you feel a tug on your heart, a little nudge or prompt, and for whatever reason, I want to write to you. Probably because you’re lovely and kind and I feel like your blog and Facebook pages are more of my church than the one I actually attend.
I’m a lesbian and I know that’s what I’m branded as at my church. It’s the label people have attached to me. I know it’s what they think about before they say hello. I know it’s what they pray about when they say they’ll pray for me.
I hate being torn between the people I love and the person I am.
I go online and feel accepted, like God is accepting me and telling me that I was created like this. But then I leave church ashamed and conflicted. My Friday night is one where I get off with random women and sometimes do more and then my Sunday night is me crying, whether Downton Abbey is on or not. I’m living in two worlds and I want them to be brought together.
I have a personality disorder and I get addicted easily. I’ve dabbled in drugs and I binge drink like cider isn’t going to be there tomorrow. And to finish it off, I self harm. I’m in counseling yet I feel like I’m going round in circles.
I’m sorry for using the word “I” so much. It always makes me feel selfish, which I probably am, but anyway.
Please help. Help would be terrific, top notch, super duper.
Best wishes.
Hello John, [yo]
Sometimes you feel a tug on your heart, a little nudge or prompt, and for whatever reason, I want to write to you. [Whoa. That was pretty majorly lovely.] Probably because you’re lovely [hey! same word!] and kind and I feel like your blog and Facebook pages are more of my church than the one I actually attend. [Wow—thank you for that.]
I’m a lesbian and I know that’s what I’m branded as at my church. [Branded. That’s such a loathsome phenomenon with which gay people are so painfully burdened. It’s so ridiculous that gay people have to go through life knowing that about the first thing straight people think about them—and most often pretty much the only thing straight people can seem to think about them—is who they are sexually. Who wants to have their sexuality always be the main focus of who they are and how they live? It’s like if I, a straight guy, had to go everywhere out in the world with my badoinker hanging out of my pants, or with a big sign on my forehead that said … I dunno, “I dig hand jobs,” or whatever. Ugh.]
It’s the label people have attached to me. [Of course they have. Ugh redux.] I know it’s what they think about before they say hello. I know it’s what they pray about when they say they’ll pray for me. [I hate your church. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to start telling straight people, “I’ll pray for your predilection for sexual perversity.” (It’d be worth saying that just to see that panicked look sure to flash across their face as they wonder how the heck I know about them.)]
I hate being torn between the people I love and the person I am. [That sentiment and insanely painful reality is exactly why I collected and presented the stories I did in UNFAIR.]
I go online and feel accepted, like God is accepting me and telling me that I was created like this. [Yay Internet!] But then I leave church ashamed and conflicted. [Boo church.] My Friday night is one where I get off with random women and sometimes do more and then my Sunday night is me crying, whether Downton Abbey is on or not. [That’s pretty much the greatest/most perfect sentence I’ve ever read: what about the human experience doesn’t it capture? But writerly-art aside, I’m so sorry that Sunday nights sometimes, or perhaps even often, find you crying. That’s just the saddest thing. You don’t deserve that.]
I have a personality disorder and I get addicted easily. [Everybody’s got a personality disorder, and everyone gets addicted easily. Just know that.] I’ve dabbled in drugs and I binge drink like cider isn’t going to be there tomorrow. And to finish it off, I self harm. [In one way or another everyone self-harms: everyone eats too much, or drinks too much, or smokes too much weed or tobacco, or in some other way facilitates their own destruction. People are just sort of designed to self-destruct: the will to death, and all that. It sounds like you, perhaps habitually, cut or burn yourself. That’s not good; that’s a habit you’ll want to break by seeing a counselor to help you understand why you’re doing that.]
I’m in counselling yet I feel like I’m going round in circles. [Well, consider getting yourself a different counselor. And to cut to the chase with all this sort of stuff: the reason you’re cutting yourself is because at a very deep level you accept as true the horrible lie that someone drilled into you—and I’m gonna guess that someone was your parents, cuz it’s always the parents—which is that you are bad and wrong and weak and evil and terrible and embarrassing and disappointing: that you are, in a word, a loser. You believe that about yourself; by hurting yourself you’re trying to prove your parents right about you, and to show your devotion to them, your love for them despite it all. That’s … the way your parents got you, forever: whether they meant to or not, they ultimately turned your organic, ineradicable love for them into a weapon you use against yourself. For a bit more on this, read my Perpetually unhappy? Consider rejecting your parents. (And of course the terrible bitch of it is that you also—and perhaps even primarily—grew up with the universe messaging to you that because you’re gay you’re less than human. Thanks, world, for that vicious craziness. And thanks for daring to claim that toxic inanity comes first and foremost from God, lazy and bigoted Christians.)]
I’m sorry for using the word “I” so much. [Oh, please. That’s the only word anyone ever wants to use anyway. You’re just being honest.] It always makes me feel selfish, which I probably am, but anyway. [You don’t sound selfish to me, at all. You sound awesome to me. I love the way you write and think. Besides, again, everyone is obsessively selfish. Your problem isn’t that you think there’s anything wrong with you. Your problem is that you don’t yet realize that there is a ton of stuff wrong with everybody. You think too little of yourself, and way too much of others. But that only means that you are (I’m guessing) young. Time will even out for you the balance between how crazy you and how crazy it turns out everyone else is, too. The good news is that you’re not special; from what I can tell there’s nothing particularly wrong with you. The bad news is … well, that ultimately balancing out/healing can be kind of … anti-climatic, insofar as it’s easy to use your “dysfunction” as a way of keeping yourself feeling unique and special. Once you realize that everyone’s crazy, and therefore crazy is entirely normal, it’s all kind of … “Meh. Life. What’s for dinner?” Which is awesome. But not exactly dramatic.]
Please help. [What can I do but what I have?] Help would be terrific, top notch, super duper. [Okay, well, I can definitely offer you this career advice: become a writer. I could see that being … the new way you go, if you haven’t already. You’ve definitely got that special and magical word thing writers have.]
Best wishes. [To you too, sweetheart. Write me and keep me up.]
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