Yesterday I heard from a friend from the New York area, who like me survived “treatments” to de-gay us. As he prepared for the storm, he reflected on Hurricane Irene, and used it as a metaphor to explore homophobia and the religious-based anti-gay therapies he endured.

Hey I was reflecting on the storm during a bad night of struggling with homophobia, ex gay counseling and the like…I wrote this:

My experience with homophobia, has been a disaster. Of epic qualities. It became a cyclone of self hatred, a whirlwind of fear, a raging rapid river of doubt.

First the winds developed and the depression began, as my parents rejected me and condemned me as a child. And than like a classical fugue, it built up into a grand storm, and rained upon me the fear of Hell, clashed me with the winds of anger, and pelted me with the sleet of pity. My conscience dilapitated, my anxiety raged within my mind, my body fell into the pit of alcoholism, codependency, drug use. I was beaten and lashed by the ideas of Hell and hate that I collapsed into a pit of dispondency, of hangovers and wasted money, of years without physical care, abusive relationships and nights of insomnia.

But as these drifting winds begin to still, and I mature, this hurricane is passing. I shall rebuild. I will exercise myself to health, insure myself with independence and self love, and rebuild with every fiber of my being the long lost structure of myself under the azure sky of self worth.