By the age of 15, my experience had taught me that when my family and friends learned of my sexuality, they either believed I needed to be cured, or worse, that I was suddenly a threat to them. Clearly, I had to keep it a secret. The problem was, many of the people in my school already knew that I was gay or had heard rumors due to all the things Jack had said about me.

Thus, when my father decided to move to Collegedale, I felt as if I had been handed a blank slate to build a new reputation on — a reputation that did not include my sexuality. So, I set out to do just that. I focused on academics and friends. I tried to believe I was straight. I even embraced a new name, "Ac."

Although my self-perception was already dangerously unhealthy, it quickly degraded further as distance strained my few remaining friendships. Once my only space for sharing and reflecting on my own experience with sexuality disappeared, I found myself completely alone with my own thoughts. I began to think obsessively about my damnable form of love. It was clear to me that God detested sin and I sinned without even thinking about it. When I thought about what I'd heard from my friends' parents, school deans, and teachers, I acquired an unrealistically bleak picture of the queer community. Thus, when the opportunity presented itself, I became determined to become straight. I wanted to avoid a future where I, too, was a pedophile and actively supported the devil's goals.

Of course, I didn't feel or do any of the things I'd heard gay people felt or did, but I just assumed that would come in time. I didn't feel the irresistible urge to have gay sex, but apparently that is what my feelings would turn into if not cured early on. I didn't feel attracted to kids much younger than myself, but the nightmare others called “the future” wouldn't leave my head. Recurring dreams of being rejected by everyone I knew convinced me that if I wanted to be accepted for who I was in the church, I would have to become straight. If I was to get to know God, I needed to sexualize females. Until then, there was no point in even trying to talk to Him again.

My first defense to pray the gay away fell short quickly. Was I not praying hard enough? Should I be crying every night rather than occasionally? All I ever felt while praying by my bed were the vibrations of my ceiling fan.

I reflected on my therapy sessions to inspire more ideas. One thing I remembered was my therapist talking to me about how I needed to want to change if he was going to be of any help. That I needed to hate my homosexuality enough to want to leave it behind for good. Did I hate that part of myself enough? I reasoned, maybe not. I simply tried to will the disgust into myself whenever I had a "gay thought." Usually these were most prevalent while walking between classes at school. Oh, he's smiling at m-no stop that. You can't think about that, ever. I soon realized my will wasn't enough.

Next, I had what I thought to be the most brilliant idea: to condition my mind using paired association. I reasoned that if my “gay thoughts” became mentally linked to pain and punishment, I would naturally draw away from them. For the next few weeks, I would duck out of school hallways into the restrooms to hit my head against the walls after thinking about a popular guy walking at the other end of the hall. When I couldn't bring myself to inflict too much pain, I used my locker door or focused on psychological forms of punishment.

This conditioning didn't really achieve what I hoped it would. Rather than feeling less gay, I just felt worse about daring to have a crush. It became harder to get up, to look into a mirror. My mind started exploring other, more radical possibilities. What if I figured out how to be castrated? Would no testosterone equal no problems? I wasn't in a great position to ask an expert, so I decided not to do anything hastily before I could be sure to get the facts straight.

Despite already spending over a semester trying to resolve and re-rail my sexuality, I thought I wasn't trying hard enough. I noticed that thinking about a kind or attractive guy often began with seeing a kind or attractive guy. I began to control every action or idea that could lead to me having "gay thoughts".

He was asking to borrow a pencil? Sure, but I should put it on his desk, so I don't accidentally touch his hand. Was that Luke smiling at me from across the hall? I'd better look the other way.

This quickly led to a rather obsessive fight to guard myself from any interactions that might be interpreted as gay. I remember sitting down in a classroom after successfully avoiding eye contact with all my male classmates. I meant to ask the teacher about my grade, but a classmate walked in and sat in front of me.

Ahh, I probably can't get up without seeing him. Probably best to sit here and intently stare at my iPad. Wait, why are you even thinking about another guy . . . wait does my finger look like it's pointed at him? He might figure out I'm gay . . . I curled up my hand. I hid my eyes behind my hair. Or what if I look unnatural around other guys, that might also give it away . . . did he notice that I noticed . . . I forced myself to relax. I tried not to notice, not to even think. I realized I was going crazy.

I was failing at it all over again. The idea that liking guys wasn't a satanic ritual may have crossed my mind, but the delusions I had bought into were reinforced over and over again. For instance, when my friends liked someone, others were dying to know who it was.

"Believe in yourself." "You won't know until you try."

But, when a friend suspected that I might like someone or I dared share my darkest secret with them, I was often avoided. Slowly estranged. A handshake was no longer seen as a friendly straight handshake, but as an opportunity for a gay to grope them. In my mind, the divide between myself and the rest of humanity grew.

It's not that my peers were judgmental or mean. We just came from a background that normalized this phobia. I know this because I fully understood why I was viewed this way. I doubt whether I would have acted differently had I been in their position. Moreover, I did my best not to show that any of the slurs and comments bothered me. Showing emotion equated to admitting my sexuality. As a result, most of my peers had no idea their words had a lasting impact.

Overall, the most detrimental experience may not have been enduring the derision and gay jokes that made fun of the hardest struggle I faced. Rather, my steadfast belief that my church offered the full, undiluted truth and that this included hating gay people, made the most permanent impact. My church did not, in fact, officially believe many of the things the culture portrayed. However, I paid more attention to casual discussions on the topic than to any official statements made by the church.

Having devalued my own non-straight life and losing motivation to become straight, I shuffled closer to an invisible line at the deep end of depression. Ending my life wasn't a novel idea, but it was one that grew almost impossible to refute. I was afraid I wouldn't make it if I kept thinking about my sexuality. Because I lived within two hundred feet of train tracks, I knew I only needed to slip up once to lose all my future fights. To push it as far away as possible, I aimed to focus so much of my energy and attention on my academics that I would have none left for thinking "gay thoughts" or even thinking considering my sexuality. Though this could only ever be a temporary solution, this strategy worked far better than anything else had.