Stop Running from Yourself

July 17, 2024

When I was a conversion therapist, I believed in an ideology that considered homosexuality to be an affliction. The thing that motivated me most during those years was freedom for myself and others from that affliction.

Freedom is a good desire. But I have since awakened to the truth that my actual affliction had been the ideology, not my gay sexuality. And it’s also become abundantly clear that my quest for freedom during those years was actually just me running from myself.

Repression of one’s genuine sexuality—a core aspect of healthy human nature—is extremely psychoemotionally harmful to attempt and impossible to successfully accomplish long-term. I can attest to this after having tried it for about four decades. I discovered many ingenious ways to make repression work. I taught them to others. I did so based on the belief that my religion was right and my sexuality was wrong. But I had it backwards.

Eventually, all my ingenious systems failed me and I was left with only a deep searing pain and emptiness. My building was burning down—I had no choice but to jump. I wish I could say that jumping brought immediate freedom and joy. But the truth is that the 5 years after coming out were nearly as painful as the 5 terrible years that lead up to it. Now, in year 6, I’ve finally been able to pull myself together. I’m taking new clients again. I’m engaged to marry a man who is simply beautiful inside and out. And I feel more inner peace than I have in at least two decades.

I am still motivated by the desire for freedom for myself and others. But now I know that freedom begins only after you stop running from yourself. Because you can’t outrun your truth. And the longer and harder you try, the greater the consequences are for doing so.