At the age of 13 my parents sent me to an all girls school. With no motivation to live I paled in comparison to the beautiful, vibrant girls in my school. Once I overheard them speaking about lesbians and how absolutely disgusting they are. I was not familiar with the term ‘lesbian’ so I asked and I remember how I stood horrified in front of them upon realising that I myself was a lesbian! That was the point where I fell in my second diagnosed depression.
But at the same time something happened to me, at that moment it was magical: I fell in love with a classmate ! It was a bomb of emotions repressed to the fullest. I suffered in silence, every time the night came I thought of her but every single morning, I had to wake up again to a harsh reality. A whole scholastic year of fantasies which led me to failing class and having to repeat the whole year. This separated us due to our schedules I felt even more desperate and broken! I cried every night, wanting to die.
At the age of 17 my life was a total internal chaos. My parents took me very often to evangelical church but I didn’t really have Jesus in my life. I had heard him but He was very far away in time and space and He would not attend to my requests. But one day, they took me, and something happened. The previous night I had cried so much that I got a fever. I thought to end my life and that Sunday when the Church choir began to sing, I felt that it was like a thunderbolt that pierced my head. I started to cry, I cried all the worship and I repented of my sins, my parents wanted to take me to the hospital (they thought I was sick) but I told them I was fine. That day Christ came into my life.
At that time my father requested a transfer at his work and we went to live in southern Chile. I began to congregate in the Evangelical Church (but not where my family went), to grow in the knowledge of the Bible. There I met some pastors who welcomed me very well, I spent 10 years with them. I worked in Sunday school, I was a youth leader, I did evangelism, I preached, I worked in all areas of the Church. But something was happening inside of me, I had an unsolved secret and it was my attraction to women. God knows I was fighting with all my strength to not feel that. I felt guilty but couldn’t get it out of me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, I was afraid of being rejected. One day I told my pastors, they just prayed for me, but they didn’t know how to help me.
I suffered from having those feelings, the devil lived accusing me. Every so often I had erotic dreams where I was the man and had sex with women, occasionally I masturbated with lesbian fantasies and after doing it, I promised God that I would not do it again, I felt the most sinful person on the planet. My Christian life was no longer so pleasant, because it was more an internal suffering. I wanted to live the peace that the word of God promised, I wanted that joy, and I wanted that freedom. I was still mired in self-esteem problems, I didn’t love myself, and I felt ugly. It made me uncomfortable when men flirted with me or told me I was cute. I was simply not happy.
Years went by and I attempted to be in 2 different relationships with men but they both failed as I could not love them more than brothers.
I had been serving in the congregation for almost a decade (faithfully, with dedication, with enthusiasm) still hiding my secret. I had the opportunity to go to a conference in another city in the country. There I met a sister of my age, she was a national youth leader, I was a leader in my region when we met it was a unique chemistry! There were many compatible things, we talked a lot, and we shared as much as we could. It awoke a deep affection between us. Things escalated from there and we ended up in an intimate relationship! We became crazy about each other and kept our relationship while being in Church. One day the Pastor of my old congregation arrived, he traveled from the city where my parents lived to where I was living, just to talk to me. He told me that leaders of the Church knew what was happening between us, and that I should stop the relationship because if I did not, this would explode and it would be a serious problem. I was afraid and felt devastated. But I decided to leave. The director of her church was in charge of exposing it everywhere. He warned them to be careful with “the perverted sister”, to keep an eye on me. Over time I was able to recover from depression without the need for medication. I didn’t look for a woman again. I was terrified of the idea of suffering, that they would attack me again like the Church did. I participated sporadically in the Church, but no longer held positions. They didn’t interest me either, the Church tasted bitter to me.
I moved on to fully embrace the lesbian lifestyle. I discovered a group of gay people who launched me into the gay life. I went into full rebellion. I was fascinated by the partying the alcohol and all the attention I was getting from women! I had several different partners and felt like I was valid, women wanted me and I was quickly going from one to another. After this I decided to finally come out to my mother. She cried and later became angry, she didn’t even want my clothes to be washed with theirs because she did not want to get AIDS from me. I hated her for saying this and her words triggered me to move out of the house with the partner I had at the time. This relationship with my partner however was extremely toxic and I was constantly missing work as I was not fit by the doctor to carry on with a normal life. One day I was high on marijuana and I thought I would die! I felt death very strong. In the middle of the party I just cried and asked God to forgive me and within my drugged state I told my friends, who were trying to calm me down, not to tell my mother about it. I was intoxicated for almost 24 hours. God once again delivered me from death because the marijuana overdoses almost paralysed my heart. After that I just drank and smoked (cigarettes) and took pills for depression.