The Coliseum

Grad school to become a therapist challenged me, but not so much in the ways that I’d hope. I assumed I’d learn new skills and tools for talking to people. Maybe find patterns of speech or hidden body movements that indicate certain emotions  or maybe even learn about neural pathways creations and how to modify them. Of course, very little of that happened.

I already knew some of the “tricks of the trade” because I’d learned them as a client in Conversion Therapy. Seeing some of the outdated and abusive skills still used was beyond infuriating. Although, it was nice liberate some Freudian and Jungian skills which Conversion Therapy had misused.

I think the only tools of value that I gained came from a better understanding of feminism and the role of equity. I certainly gained little from our cultural sensitivity lessons except a common language regarding privilege and a deeper love for Muslim culture.

If there’s one thing I really really wish I’d known, about myself before going to grad school, it is that I need to let go of my hope that straight people will ever be able be good enough to teach me what I crave to know.

I don’t think straight people are qualified enough in the realm of trauma, torture, and general experience of rejection to be able to offer me anything of value. I don’t believe they’ve lived through enough hell, by default, to have ended up on the other side of that crucible knowing that they’ve had to forge for themselves a brand new person who is actually aware of which lies our society has fed them and which truths are independent of themselves.

This is why, when my grad school teachers or readings made a claim, unless it was qualified first by some kind of claim to prove relevance or recent experience, I rejected it by default.

I’m tired of people telling me what they “think” is right or to “trust the process”. I’m tired because I’m still cleaning the blood off from my own crosses that I’ve been nailed to by people who believed with “every fiber of their being” that what they were doing was the right thing.

I’m willing and excited to have my strongly held opinions proven wrong. I crave truth. I crave trust. But if that knowledge was not gained through equally powerful experiences that I’ve been through, they lack the stamina and heart and haven’t earned the right to enter into my coliseum.

Insane

 What is sanity?

How do you know if it’s there?

Can you teach it?

Can you have it?

Is it realities we share?

Does it move?

Does it get bored?

Does sanity stay in one place?

Can you touch its colors?

Can you smell its moods?

Can you taste its dry face?

Can you lose it, if you don’t take care?

Or perhaps, is it just always there?

Or, how can we know what this word truly means?

When it’s mostly an agreement of things that are seen?

Is it us who get lost?

Between the haves, and have nots?

Is it the privileged who get to retain their own thoughts?

Because what is real, since our senses are so small?

We live in cupboards, cradled, covered, censured.

Pinched inside the cracks of insanity violence flourishes unseen.

Unheard screams laugh when the poisons infect.

The good is undone when the facts become fiction.

Heroes become villains when their masks disappear.

It’s the insane who see clearly.

Unfettered by cowards rules.

They’re awake from the slumber of consciousness.

They reach out.

They grasp.

They cry.

They die.

Sticks and Stones

 “Stupid n-word!” His eyes were fire and his chest was a train. I had no idea these words of disdain... were meant, for me. Again with his words. First daggers, now a sword.

“You’re a stupid lazy spic!”

As if my race were something I picked?

Soccer was fun, I’d felt so carefree.

So, why then? Why? Why say this to me?

I’d stand there stunned, frozen, afraid.

The rest is a blur.

My memory goes dim.

Why would I want to remember?

What happened to him?

Was he stupid?

Was he gay?

Was being brown his sin?

Oh, why would I want to remember?

What happened to him?

Just shut up.

Say nothing, survive!

Yes, yes, hold all the anger inside.

One day you’ll get them.

One day you’ll have the resolve.

Treat this like math, just a problem to solve.

Because words aren’t sticks,

they’re not even stones.

Even though each word, cuts to your bones.

The solution is clear, pretend you’re not here.

Become a robot. We have no passions nor fears.

We have no dreams to drop, nor feelings to hurt.

Especially, when racism is so purely overt.

Robots have no race, no sexuality, no ADHD.

That's how I forgot what happened to m... him.

The Cycle

Every six months, just like clock-work …it happens.

Every six months, it’s the same.

My whole world would stop when the Prophet was speaking.

Now, I wince, hold my breath, numb the pain.

It’s our General Conference, for all Mormons, everywhere.
A time for family.
A time a prayer.

A time.. to track the uptick in suicides.

Why? Because we number the temples erected,
NOT the queer teens rejected.
They enjoy healing,
while we lie there bleeding...
because both of our ears were wide open.

Now My Facebook Lights Up!

Queue the posts from the faithful!
No, silly, not this year.
No baptism for your children, no temple marriage too.
Oh, wait! The baptism rule changed. You’re so lucky!
Isn’t it great our Church is still true?

Because now we’re accepting, we love you for all you.
Just please leave all that gross stuff behind.
Because God's church never changes.
Haven’t you always felt safe here?
How could you say we’ve been unkind?

And where would you go,
if you didn’t have us here,
to show you mercy and love always unfeigned?

Queue the posts from the tearful.
Did I know them? Was there pain?
I’m so sorry for your loss.
This is insane.

So, our cycle continues.
Always longing. Always hoping,
But like clock-work, it's always the same.

Because when churches are people and our leaders are blinded,
by old prejudices stuck in their head, 
what use is a hope for things to get better,
what hope until we are dead.

Hazed Into Mormonism - The Day My Hope Died

 *Trigger Warning – religious and sexual abuse content*

A great mentor, and amazing therapist reminded me that when it comes to overcoming the impact of trauma, I should “Never stop talking about this. Never stop talking about it until it’s a story, not an experience”.

I used to detach myself and become emotionally dead when talking about my experiences. As a therapist, I’ve now learned and even seen the harm caused when we avoid and suppress our feelings, rather than face them. So, in an attempt to share a story without re-experiencing it like a PTSD flashback… The image posted here is an excerpt from an online community of current and former Mormons.

 

For those who never went into a Mormon temple to receive their “Washing and Anointing” I should clarify the officiants did not directly touch my genitals, but instead touched my inner thigh, my chest, and other parts of my naked body. This ordinance was an essential rite of passage I had to endure before I was allowed to serve my church as a missionary for two years.

That afternoon, as I received my endowment and sacred Mormon garments (the special Mormon underwear people talk about), I remember seriously considering walking out of our most sacred building. I was 18 and was not told what was going to happen to me, because keeping it secret kept it “sacred”. Because I was fasting, I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since the night before.

When the attractive man at the desk handed me some cloth and told me to remove all my clothing and put on my “shield”, I thought he had given me my first sacred garment. When I unfolded it and realized it was a single sheet of cloth with a hole for my head, I became extremely confused and honestly very frightened. It was more revealing than a hospital gown!

I had been told that “Satan isn’t allowed in the temple and can’t tempt us”, but as I tried to understand why this attractive man behind a desk told me to remove my clothes and put on my “shield”, I felt a familiar and unwelcome homosexual attraction to him. This desire, of course, was a grave sin. Did I somehow bring Satan into my Heavenly Father’s temple? Was I somehow not ready for this? Why didn’t my bishop protect me by using his special powers of discernment, he should have known that I wasn’t ready. Had I actually been lying to my bishop and to myself that I was “worthy”? Which commandment had I missed?!

I put on my shield, but before I could leave my stall to join the line of other young men waiting to receive their washing and anointing, I had to wait for my... very obvious arousal to go away. I quoted scripture to myself until I felt confident that I wouldn’t be discovered. Can you imagine what mental gymnastics I, a closeted gay 18-year-old man, had to contort myself with in order to stand next to other naked men without becoming aroused? Could you do this? Could you ever forget it?

As I stood panicking in that line, I could overhear soft whispers from the men ahead. I can vividly remember the catatonic fear I felt all over when I deciphered that a temple worker was going to touch me. I agonized over the thought that whoever would be touching my naked body might be someone attractive. My internalized homophobia was so intense that I assumed if anything went wrong it would have been my fault. I knew that it would prove my deepest fear, that I was a dirty homosexual unworthy of God’s love, and worse that the entire temple would probably have to become rededicated all over again because of the filth that I brought into God’s house. Fortunately, the temple worker that day was a much older man and was methodical when he touched me.

This temple ceremony has now thankfully changed. Obedient Mormons no longer have to be naked for their “washing and anointing”. Yet, this change didn’t magically erase the trauma experienced by me and countless others.

Years later, when I realized that I could no longer piously call myself a Mormon, it occurred to me that I’d have to stop wearing the holy garment, which I had earned on the day I just described. That was one of the most painful moments I can remember on my journey out of Mormonism. The night I realized I’d need to remove my garment, which I had covenanted with my Heavenly Father to never remove, I fell to my knees and cried until I finally fell sleep from exhaustion. That’s the night when the realization of my situation truly hit me. THIS is the ultimate price I had to pay for my decision to live with integrity. My parents considered me dead to them, but that is the night when I lost my final connection to the only loving parent I felt I had. My relationship to any kind of “family”, “Deity”, “religion”, or even any kind of “spirituality” has NEVER been the same.