They all held me down, one on each arm and leg.  I was terrified and I was drunk.  A couple times I got a hand free and tried to throw a punch, but mostly all I could do was scream.  Somehow I flipped myself over.  I was trying to bite them and tearing up carpet with my teeth.  The priest was reading verses from Psalms.  He was screaming at me, speaking in tongues.
                                                         
They believe that when Jesus exorcised a demon, he got power over it by calling it by name.  The priest started asking over and over, wanting me to tell him the name of the demon.  I just kept saying, “My name’s Andrew!  It’s just ANDREW.  There’s no one here except Andrew!”  The more I said that, the stronger they thought the demon was.  It must have gone on all night.  The next morning, they decided it hadn’t worked and checked me into a mental hospital.

***

When I first started having gay feelings I didn’t give them a name.  It wasn’t even a possibility for me or anyone I knew.  At that time, my whole world was my family and my church.  When they talked about gay people it was always them, or those people.  It was just assumed that no one in our world could be gay.

Yeah, I was living a really insulated life, sort of in a bubble, but there were good parts about it too.  I remember my home being a really safe, secure place.  Church was like my extended family.  We were there on the weekends for services, Wednesdays for Bible study, and almost every other day of the week for some group or another.  It was really comforting, like, I don’t know…being in Disney World or something.  Bad stuff happens out there, but it’s all right, you’re safe in here.

So I was in this bubble, but I loved the bubble—at least part of me did.  The other part was having these feelings.  I knew they weren’t something I could talk about.  A person in my world shouldn’t be having them.

What actually outed me was when I got caught sleeping with my pastor’s son.  I guess I was 16 then—we had been seeing each other for about three months when the pastor walked in on us.  That was when the exorcism happened.  He was convinced the demon inside me had seduced his son, cause he would never be gay on his own.

I don’t remember too much about the hospital.  They had me on a lot of medicine cause I was so depressed…it was a really thick fog.  I do remember my parents were really upset and embarrassed.  They said they didn’t want me to come home.  No one from my church called after that.  These were people I had known since forever—and my whole circle of friends—and then, nothing.

After I got out of the hospital I started working.  I worked three jobs, I worked all the time, just anything to keep myself busy.  That was a bad time for me.  It’s like all your life you have this structure around you, like this big building.  Then out of nowhere everyone turns their backs on you.  The building crumbles.

Having to rebuild it all again…it took a lot of energy.  I decided I would come out to my new co-workers from the beginning.  It was easier to tell people after everything had already hit the fan.  Also I thought, well, I’ve just thrown away everything else I had to be gay, so I might as well go be gay.

It felt really strange to say it for the first time.  I still couldn’t quite believe that telling people I was gay wouldn’t totally ruin my life.  But it made it easier that people got to know me as a gay man, instead of me having to “come out” to someone who already knew me.

That was about 4 years ago now.  Since then I’ve made a lot of close friends here in Philly.  I’m starting to feel like I have some kind of structure back, some place to feel safe.  Like how home and church were before, I guess.

Lately I’ve thought about calling my family.  Not because I need their approval, or cause I feel like anything’s missing from my life.  My friends are great, I’m making it on my own…maybe that’s why I want to call them now.  I’m not the scared little kid they remember, and if I’m going to have a relationship with them again, I want them to know that.

I also want them to know I’m not ashamed.  I don’t agree with their belief system, and they don’t agree with mine, but I can live with that.  I respect where they’re coming from, and I’m not trying to change them, but I want the same thing in return.  I want to be equal.  Fine if we disagree, but I’m not a repentant sinner or someone who needs help.  I’m an equal.

Andrew, 20