His name is Blake McMillan.
I was raised in the church, and being from the south, that was a major catalyst for the declining of my mental health. I was really content with my relationship with God throughout middle school and high school. I was one of those Christian guys — sang in the choir, never cussed, never drank, was proudly a virgin, carried my Bible in my back pack to school. God was the centerpiece of who I was.
I always was different than other guys in the south. Hunting and fishing never peaked my attention. I wanted to talk about music or read books instead. As I got older, I knew deep down that my interests ran deeper than masculinity. I started to get worried that I might be gay when I was about 16. I tried to pray to God that since he created me, there’s no way he could make me something that was listed as a sin in the Bible.
The phrase ‘to pray the gay away’ is sort of a joke these days, but it strikes me with so much fear because it’s actually a really difficult activity. A lot of the things in the Bible that are sins are sort of about mentality. It’s all in your brain. You can say in your head. “Don’t steal”, “Don’t lie”, “Don’t cheat.” But who you choose to love? That occurs in the heart. I couldn’t correct that. I spent the rest of high school crying myself to sleep every night, feeling like I was being pulled in so many different directions.
The only person I came out to was a friend from church named Carly (names have been changed for privacy), who fed me the same fears I already had. After I graduated I got to do an internship at a Christian summer camp in Nashville, and it was something I knew God wanted me to be apart of. I felt a real calling towards it and so many things I prayed about were answered. When I got back home, I noticed my youth pastor was being sort of weird around me. I asked Carly if she knew what was up. She initially said no, but then after I kept talking about it, she told me she did tell our youth pastor I was gay, and he told her that he did not think I deserved to go on the internship.
That was a big turning point in my life. I felt like I could never be my true self. I started wondering about a lot of things; specifically, how could religion bring me more hate than love? I felt a distance between God and I.
I didn’t come out to anyone for almost another year. In 2018, towards the end of my freshman year of community college, I came out to my best friend Isabel (name changed for privacy). When I was about to start crying, scared of her rejecting me, she instead came out to be back. She told me she was gay, too.
I remember feeling so free, but the more Isabel and I hung out and talked about gay issues, boys, and other things that we gays discuss, I sort of felt dirty. If you’ve ever been a Christian, you know how after you’ve sinned, you feel awful? You feel like you’ve let God down? You’ve let your parents down? I felt like my existence was disgusting. Christianity was the belief system I subscribed to for 19 years, so it made since that I felt like I had done something wrong. This, as I have since learned, is called internalized homophobia. I’m not homophobic of anyone else, just myself, and it occurs in most LGBTQ people that were raised in the church. It’s something I still experience today. I still meet other gay men today and when I flirt with them, I feel guilt run through me.
It was during this time with Isabel that I started to feel anxious. I became so anxious, that everywhere I went, I was scared of what people were thinking. It filled my brain up so much that I didn’t want to go to classes. I spent most of my sophomore year without any motivation. Before transferring to BVU my junior year, I got diagnosed with anxiety and depression and was put on Lexapro. When school started, I began therapy and fell on and off medication, but still didn’t take steps to get motivated. Finally, in February this year I realized the importance of a routine to help me get motivated. I started going to bed earlier, journaling before bed to help my brain get ready, and setting reminders throughout the day to keep myself on track (Fun fact: a reminder went off about 30 minutes ago that said ‘Write about mental health journey’). The pandemic took me off that schedule, but when classes started again, I was elated to get back into things.
I felt so empty and scared for two years straight. I can’t express how free I started to feel being back at school. Before, I would already be anxious and it would just pile up, so there was no way to do it. Now when I get anxious I can identify it and I immediately do something about it. It feels so incredible to be out of my brain and to be able to recognize now when I’m anxious. It occurred to me about a month ago that I felt okay for the first time in 2 years. I felt like I was living in the dark for so long, and now I feel like I’m standing in daylight.
*Please feel free to reach out and share your own thoughts and stories!*
Comments