“I’m a 22 year old gay college student who struggles with extreme anxiety and depression. When I was 17, i came out to my parents. It didn’t end well and I was hospitalized for suicide. My parents didn’t take it seriously enough after I got out and tried to change my sexuality. I became super bitter against them, and eventually became numb. I used sex as my way of feeling for about 3 years. I was sexually assaulted twice in that period. At the time I didn’t know who I was. I was battling myself over who I knew myself to be, and if God was “okay” with it. In my lowest times, campus ministry called Cru, picked me up. They gave the usual “love the sinner hate the sin” spiel, and told me that I couldn’t be gay and god still love me. I gave into those lies, mostly because it was something. It was something to feel. Something to live for. I took everything they said and rolled with it. In the meantime, I made friends with people who I cared for deeply. In the meantime, i was working on becoming a minister myself.

Then depression hit full force again. Cru took advantage of this. They threw everything they had about gay not being okay, and at this time threatened to take away my leadership I had built if I “gave into my sexuality”. And again, I took everything they said, and ran with it. They would say things like my sexuality is why I’m depressed. They’re homemade conversion therapy ruined me without me even realizing it. At the end of the semester, something clicked, and I kept praying for God to tell me why he allowed me to go through depression. Cru said it was my being gay. My heart told me something else. Lo and behold that something else was that shit happens. Depression runs in my family. No nothing about me being has made me depressed. No nothing about anything I’ve done has made me depressed. I left Cru almost immediately after I made this realization.

Meanwhile, my church was making bold statements about how being gay was a sin and how they’re not allowing any gay leadership. I have sat through 2 meetings with 100s of people saying amen to these statements while holding back tears. Because if I had let those tears flow, I would be ousted. I may have even been shot, and I’m not even kidding after hearing many of these “men and women God” say their true thoughts on the issue. I’m in the process of leaving them too.

After almost 2 years since I left Cru, and now leaving the church I grew up in, I’ve realized that I cannot be a Christian. Because Christianity took it all from me. It took away the friendships I thought were so beautiful simply because of who I like to be in bed with. I watch as the people I once called friends forget who I am. My name. My face. It took away a good relationship with my parents, and now I watch from the sidelines as my mom is slowly dying of cancer, and my dad literally losing his mind. All while wondering what could have been if they had just accepted me. It took away a career of helping people to be loved fully. And to be cared for fully. I wanted to feed the homeless. I wanted to help give the abused a place to rest. I wanted to help all the ones who have had nothing. Because I have been through what it’s like to have nothing and no one. But now I have to find a different way to do it. Because I don’t want anything to do with Christians. Churches. None of it.

I’m scarred. I have to take 4 pills a day to survive. I go to therapy and cry my eyes out each time over the things Christianity took away from me. My friends. My family. My passions. I feel lost still, and definitely feel alone. I’m trying to make it, but all I have are me and my boyfriend, and a few old friends here and there. It’s nothing like it used to be. I felt alive when I was a part of Cru. But Christianity has taken away that feeling too. If anybody relates, I would love to talk. Some solidarity would really help me feel better. Sorry for the long post, but I don’t really know where else to turn.”

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/comments/ekm1mb/christianity_took_everything_from_me_long_read/