Gay Mormon Stripling Warrior

I just received a $2,500 MacBook Pro with Retina Display for Christmas. I graduate in April from college with my Bachelors Degree. My parents are building a huge gorgeous half-million+ dollar house that I will be able to call home and you know what? I'm still not happy. I'm tired. So very tired. I'm tired of a father who desperately needs medication but refuses it. I'm tired of being on the receiving end of his tirades of anger. I'm tired of a mother who always seems to be able to pick out all the things I do wrong in my life. I'm tired of siblings who still treat me like a child, and don't appreciate or respect what I have to contribute. I'm tired of having them tell me I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to health and fitness (it's just my major right?). I'm tired of being betrayed by ones that I used to call my friends. Is it really that hard to remain faithful to someone? I'm tired of people having their o...

In my last post I shared an email that I wrote to my siblings where I outed myself. It was literally days before I would be boarding a plane for my sister's wedding. It was the first time my entire family would be together in 5 years. After I pushed send, I felt a huge weight lifted from my chest. I felt I could breathe and relax. Like I was no longer hiding anything. Lyn called me literally 10 minutes after I had sent the email. She and her (now) husband were on the phone. She wanted me to know that what I had told them didn't change anything. They were surprised, but they loved me just the same. They said they didn't hold any judgement towards me, they actually held more respect for having the courage to tell the whole family and then choose to stay in the Church. Lyn also asked me about my heartbreak and how I deal with that. My sister Lindsay who had up to then been texting me about a friend of ours who had decided to leave the Church and lead a gay lifestyle. ...

An email I recently sent to all my siblings: My dearest family, This email has been a long time coming. I've felt strongly prompted to write this out for a while now.  I apologize in advance Lyn for writing this right before your wedding, I don't want this to take the focus off of you. It just felt like an appropriate time since it's the first time all six of have been together since Ashtyn's wedding. With the trials our whole family has gone through, I can't help but feel the necessity to be honest and genuine with my siblings especially with the limited time that we get to see each other, plus how fragile we have come to find life is over the past couple of years. I'm gay, which Ashtyn and Benjamin I'm sure have already figured out a long time ago. Some people call it same sex attracted, same gender attracted, etc. A lot of people including Mom don't like to call it gay because it makes it sound like one is actively pursuing the life...

grief [greef] 1. keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret. 2. a cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow. Grief is an complex human emotion. Grief, I have found usually occurs because of an unexpected loss or event in one's life. A lot of times when one of these life changing events happens, most people in your life are aware of it because it tends to be a big thing. Friends and family console you. They send you notes, give you hugs, and then they move on. The problem is... you don't. I can't blame people for moving on. Unless they have directly experienced what I have (which they have no way of doing that), they can in no way understand how deeply my grief runs. They move forward with their lives as I try to cope. At times I feel like I have a handle on everything and then all it takes is a simple trigger... a name, a car, a song, and I break down and feel this ache that won't go away. "When I tell t...

It's been a good minute since I've posted anything or really participated in anything with the MOHO community. I felt the need for a break for personal reasons. I didn't want this blog to turn into a bitch fest about how my life sucks because this or that. I've always wanted to be able to inspire people and give them hope. Another large problem is that more and more people that I know are aware of this blog. Which at times can make it hard to express my feelings or be completely unfiltered without repercussions. I've looked for other ways of dealing with my pent up feelings and nothing has really seemed to work for me. If anything I shut myself off emotionally to feeling anything. I've become tired of hurting and tired of aching for the ones that I love who don't love or care for me anymore. I've made multiple mistakes over the past couple of months to try and just escape the feelings I'm trying to avoid feeling. Instead these mistakes just made...

I feel like such an ass right now. I've been lonely and really missing Jane. I want to be close to someone physically. I want to kiss and make out. Preferably this would be with a guy but since I'm trying to avoid that kind of thing (it's not going to lead me to marriage in the temple with a woman), I've been trying to meet this need by going on dates with girls and attempting some type of emotional link. I haven't been kissing them, but there's been a lot of hugging and some cuddling. My roommates introduced me to the trashy dating app called Tinder. It's a hot-or-not rating system with people that have similar interests as you. Two of my roommates brought home several different girls in the course of the week (and made out with each of them). Mind you though that these aren't the girls you look for as marriage material; belly button piercing, fake tan, exstensions, dresses like a floozy.  I downloaded tinder to see if any girls found me att...

I decided to start seeing my counselor again. I haven't seen him for almost two years because I thought I was at a stage where I didn't need it anymore. The recent flair up in anxiety attacks, racing thoughts, reckless behavior, and thoughts of suicide would suggest otherwise. There was a distinct contrast between this counseling session and my first one I had with Doug almost two years ago. Two years ago I had just begun my journey of gay-dom. I was reserved about talking about things and didn't really know who I was. This time it was easy to be open with Doug and share about myself. I know that I'm gay (whatever, I accepted that a long time ago), I know what's right... but that's about it. I'm comfortable with Doug and it was very healing to be able to open up to someone and share everything that's been going on in my head since February of this year. It made it seem a bit easier to deal with since I haven't talked to anyone sincerely about...

Every night I lay staring at the ceiling, my thoughts can't help but always think of you. My body shakes, quivers as the ghost of you being close to me passes before my eyes. Shutting my eyes tight, the pain so intense as I silently cry, hoping you're out there thinking of me and missing me too. I spend my days keeping busy with but a shell of what I once was. My emotions are nothing now, I am but cold and devoid of that true happiness I rarely glimpsed. I keep myself busy with the mundane of day to day life, but how much longer can I go on with this gaping hole in my heart?  I wish I could change what happened. I wish I could undo the words I said. I wish I knew how to fix this. I wish I knew what was going on in your head.  People ask me how I'm doing. I say I'm doing fine. It's easier to try and feel nothing than to feel hurt from your absence. I concentrate my efforts on others and their lives, but somehow I always come back to you.  I driv...

I tried to find you at the bottom of a bottle Laying down on the bathroom floor My loneliness was a rattle in the windows You said you don't want me anymore And you left me Standing on a corner crying, Feeling like a fool for trying I don't even remember Why I'm wasting all these tears on you I wish I could erase our memory Cause you didn't give a damn about me Oh, finally I'm through Wasting all these tears on you These tears on you You ain't worth another sleepless night And I'll do everything I gotta do to get you off my mind Cause what you wanted I couldn't get What you did, boy I'll never forget And you left me Standing on a corner crying Feeling like a fool for trying I don't even remember Why I'm wasting all these tears on you I wish I could erase our memory Cause you didn't give a damn about me Oh, finally I'm through Wasting all these tears on you These tears ...

This past Saturday Suzanne tied the knot to the boy she has been dating for over two years. It brought a sense of closure and relief to me as I looked back on the past and my relationship with Suzanne and what might have been. My family moved during my Senior year of High School. Suzanne was my sister's best friend that she had made from our ward. First time I met Suzanne she had come over to pick up my sister because they were going downtown. I walked down the stairs to see who was at the door, and she stood there all 5'3'' of her. The first words I heard from her mouth were "I didn't even know this neighborhood existed back here." I was immediately turned off because I thought she sounded like a snob, so I turned around and headed back upstairs to my room. For whatever reason, Suzanne started coming over to our house all the time. It annoyed me because whenever she was there she would just make fun of me.We would all sit up in my sister's room...

I changed my anxiety/depression medicine from Prozac to Lexapro back in December while I was home for Christmas break. I've been on Prozac since I was 19 and it had been working up till about 6 months ago (May/June of last year). I noticed I was struggling to concentrate and my anxiety seemed to be coming back. My doctor cited the reason from my body adapting to the Prozac and so it was time to switch up medications. He put me on Lexapro and for the first little while it seemed to work. Though for the past couple of weeks, it seems to have made my symptoms worse and upon looking up the label, that is an adverse reaction to the medicine and signals a reason to stop using it. I took this semester off to give my body and mind a break from the grind but I've been having daily anxiety issues. I've had an anxiety attack each time I've gone to the Plasma Center for the past two weeks. I had one a couple days ago when I was laying on my bed that left me unable to breathe o...

Last night I went to Iron Man 3 with a new friend (Hans) I made at work and a group of his friends. The movie was awesome, but I'm not going to really talk about that in this post. We were waiting in line at Texas Roadhouse and got on the topic of dating as most Mormons often do. He's single and 25. I told him I was going on a date Saturday morning and he should find a date so we could double. He seemed somewhat apprehensive about it, like he didn't think he could find a date. Now Hans is an attractive guy, there's no reason he shouldn't get a date with a girl. I commented that it seemed he was scared of dating and there had to be a reason for it. He acknowledged that there was a reason for it (y'all know my mind immediately thought SSA). Turns out Hans was married for three years and got divorced last year. I was speechless. Hans confided in me that his wife committed adultery while being married to him several times with several different men while th...

This past weekend was somewhat of a game changer for me. There's this girl Jane. Jane and I have had the same schedule for the past four months. All of our classes are together. The first time I saw her, I judged her because I found out she was a runner up to Miss _______ (fill in the state of your choice). I made the judgement that she was a stereotypical dumb blonde that had gotten this far in college because she had cheated off people.... oh how wrong I was. Jane and I spent a lot of time over the semester getting to know each other. We would work on physics, kinesiology, and chemistry together. Turns out she was much cleverer than me. I would give her rides home from lab. I would come over to her apartment and hang out. We would in-depth conversations about life and what we wanted. We would jam out to music. All the music on my iPod she loved... she would sing along. Not only does she have an incredible voice, but she can play the piano and guitar as well. I was able to ...

This past week has been my Spring Break away from school. So I've been able to spend some down time with my family, sleep in, and think about my life. Saturday as I sat on the airplane home, I felt severe anxiety about my friends in my life. I felt like one by one they were either disappointing me or falling as a casualty to the war against Satan: Adam and I have drifted somehow. Our schedules have both been insane. I've been preparing for finals and job hunting while Adam has been preparing for finals, graduation and finding a stable first career job. In addition to that, he's just distanced himself from me which has made me more frustrated. It seems like we used to be able to talk forever and never get tired of it, but now whenever I ask him how he's doing, his response is always "good". He never divulges or goes in depth like he used to. It's like he's shut himself off to me. He recently told me he doesn't believe the Church is true anym...

I was the concluding speaker in my ward this Easter Sunday. My Bishop had specifically asked for me to close the semester as the last speaker everyone would hear. He said he had been very impressed with my Sunday School class and my spirit. No pressure right? So I decided to attach my talk. Hope y'all enjoy it. Happy Easter! My older sister Ashtyn has always been a great example for me. She’s always been extremely talented at the piano. Growing up, she and I used to butt heads. But somehow we could always raise a white flag of peace as we sat at the piano together; she would play, and I would sing. She attended school at BYU - Idaho. She served in the Montana Billings Mission. She married a return missionary and was sealed in the Bountiful Utah Temple. Ashtyn was diagnosed with endometriosis when she was a teenager, so she and her husband Benjamin decided to have their children as quickly as possible. She became pregnant shortly after she was married and 9 months later ...