Quote of the Day

What happened to me has made it impossible to speak with God, to believe in a version of Him that isn't charged with self-loathing.  My ex-gay therapists took Him away from me, and no matter how many different churches I attend, I will feel the same dead weight in my chest.  I will feel the pang of a deep love now absent from my life.  I will continue to experiment with different denominations, different religions.  I will continue to search.  And even if I no longer believe in Hell, I will continue to struggle with the fear of it.  Perhaps one day I will hear His voice again.  Perhaps not.  It's a sadness I deal with on a daily basis.

-- Garrard Conley, Boy Erased, p. 337

Quote of the Day

In the years since (Love in Action), I've had to spend so much time catching up with other people, learning how to believe in a world that no longer teems with angels and demons.  Every time I've read a book or ingested a new historical fact that my Baptist upbringing taught me to reject, I've had to fight against the sneaking suspicion that I am being lead astray by Satan.  In the message boards and hidden ex-ex-gay Facebook groups I will join, I'll see others talking about their own attempted suicides, and I'll glimpse in these confessions elements so remarkably similar to my own that they will seem, for a moment, to issue directly from my mind.  I will see people talk about losing their families, about the yearly trials they've faced as winter holidays approached and the loneliness threatened to overwhelm them once again.

-- Garrard Conley, Boy Erased, p. 334-335

Quote of the Day

On some days, it's hard to believe that I ever lived in a world that operated on such extreme notions of self-annihilation.  But then I turn on the news, read a few articles, and realize that what I have experienced may have been unique, but in no way was it disconnected from history.  Minorities continue to be abused and manipulated by both nefarious and well-intentioned groups of people, and harmful ideas continue to develop new political strains all over the world.

-- Garrard Conley, Boy Erased, p. 327-328

Quote of the Day

My parents were able to imagine a new life story for me, not what they expected so much as what was true.

-- Garrard Conley, "Why my parents tried to cure me of being gay"