I’m right, right?

Originally written 8/27/23 

Alana Chen is a young woman from Colorado who after coming out as lesbian to her religious community, was coerced into conversion therapy. Alana ultimately lost her life to suicide. This chilling story of a young woman gave me pause as I reflected back over my spiritual life. Listening to the documentary podcast about her life, ‘Dear Alana’, helped me realize that I have religious trauma to process. 

Part of the podcast series includes a voice actress who reads aloud some of Alana’s diary entries, emails, and text messages. Hearing Alana’s strong language throughout her professions, pleading with god to make her different, to guide her decisions, and make her “more pure”, eerily reminded me of what I sounded like several years ago in the midst of my “re-version”. 

It happened my freshman year of college. It was the beginning of the school year when all the clubs and student organizations set up tables throughout the lawn of the main campus. Students mill about meeting new people and sign up for clubs and activities that interest them. There were athletic club teams, and art focused groups, volunteer clubs, health clubs, sustainability groups and the list goes on. Out of all of the folks on campus that day, I stumbled upon the Newman Center’s info table. My Grams had put a bug in my ear all summer to keep an eye out for this catholic group. With her voice in the back of my head I talked over to a white haired gentleman and a college missionary who manned the table. They invited me to sign up for a bible study which I did…thinking to myself what harm could it do to learn about the bible? My roommate was not so into it but she stood by my side as I filled out an information card. 

A few weeks later I was assigned to a women's group and was instructed to go to a dimly lit room in one of the buildings on West Campus, where my dorm was. The group felt awkward and clunky. Few of the girls were inclined to speak up or share freely. In those kinds of situations I’m usually one to jump in and keep conversation going, so I shared my thoughts and ideas about what we were reading. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the week I was content living in my new found freedom. Away from home for the first time, I was able to manage my own time and live how I wanted to live. I was very content  with my party girl life. I balanced out the binge drinking and late nights with weekly attendance at bible study, regular visits to the gym, a healthy relationship with a steady boyfriend, good grades and hard work in school. My weekly attendance at bible study kept that nagging small voice in the back of my mind content - the voice of my grams, and the voice of catholic guilt that had been ingrained in me since a small child. I was in a bible study and went to church on occasion…I was doing the “right” thing.

As the semester went on people came and went and we moved through different topics at this women’s group. Sometimes it was actually reading the bible and other times we studied packets that were created by FOCUS. FOCUS, Fellowship of Catholic University Students, was the group of missionaries that worked out of the Newman Center and led the campus outreach. I was enthralled by these 20 something years olds who decided to “lay down their lives” as college missionaries. They were seemingly cool, “normal” people not like the characters that lived in my head - those homeschool type Christians. They were all very chipper, joyful people. And that joy was weaponized in some ways. They discussed joy and the topic of abdiging happiness as something attainable through merit. If you give your life to Jesus you will be like this too. 

As time went on we eventually read a FOCUS study about “what it means to be a woman”. It talked about true femininity and modesty and a myriad of other things. I thought it was a load of bologna and ended up telling my bible study leader that I disagreed and that I was uncomfortable with the study. She tried prying and putting it back on me. She proposed things like, “maybe I was feeling bad because I’m meant to be living differently”. Perhaps “God was placing those feelings on my heart”. I began to question myself and put my trust in what she was saying. 

As I was struggling with anxiety and depression (something that looking back on I believe I’ve always struggled with but did not have the language to name until my adult life) I was looking for answers and a way to break out of the binge drinking, standard college experience. I had clung to my friends from my hometown and my highschool sweetheart as I moved into this new phase of life. I wanted to change and grow but my social anxiety and people pleasing kept me from doing so in a lot of ways. This desire to change came from a very natural and good place but was quickly tainted with religious guilt imposed on me first by others, and then by myself. After being told that I “was made for more” by Catholic missionaries a deep seed of self hatred was planted. 

 During my Junior year of college my grandpa became very ill. His multiple heart attacks, diabetes, and coronary heart disease had caught up to him.  My grandpa was the most beloved man I’ve ever known and someone that I loved and admired deeply. He was a huge part of what rooted me in my Catholic identity and helped instill my faith. 

As he was dying I was deeply struggling. It was right around this same time that one of the missionaries sat me down and gave me the “gospel presentation”. She asked me where Jesus was in my life… there were only 3 options: “1. God is not a part of my life. I rule over my life myself. 2. God is a part of my life, but he is not at the center. He’s important and I involve him in my decisions sometimes, but I still rule over my life myself. 3. God is the very center of my life. I surrender my life, my plans and my dreams in his hands, and I seek to do his will and not my own. He is the Lord of my life. He is sitting on the throne of my heart.”

These are direct lines from the PDF/pamphlet that FOCUS makes available to missionaries, student missionaries and the general public. 

After being presented with the options the person then asks you, “Right now, will you make the decision to place Jesus Christ at the center of your life? Will you give your life to him and choose to follow him? 3. (a) If not, what is preventing you from committing your life to Jesus as a disciple? OR (b) If yes, will you pray right now to express your desire to invite Christ more deeply into your life?”

I remember feeling very sweaty and uncomfortable in my body as this conversation was happening. We were also in public, in a coffee shop and I remember feeling like I didn’t want this conversation to be overheard. 

I remember saying that I felt satisfied with where I was with God. He was in my life and I was content. But there was something about the strong language in the packet and the way that the missionary responded to me that made me feel as if I were responding incorrectly when I said I didn’t want to change anything… so despite the sensations of discomfort I was feeling in my body I half-heartedly agreed to let Jesus into my life more. 

This was the first instance in which I stopped listening to my conscience and my body and let someone else tell me what my relationship with a cosmic Creator ought to look like. 

I look at that younger version of Grace and wish that I could step in and let her know that she is doing okay and that she should listen to the sensations in her body. She doesn’t have to agree with this person sitting across from her. I would tell her, “I know you are hurting and scared of your pop-pops death and death in general. I know you want to do what is going to make you a “better” person and I know you are struggling with keeping up with the party scene but you don’t have just one path.” I would tell my younger self to take a step back from all of this and from this group. 

After I’d agreed to this person’s wishes for my relationship with Jesus, she then invited me to a conference that FOCUS puts on called SEEK. I was not interested in attending and had even anticipated her invitation to attend the conference but even as I felt a strong urge to say no in my head, the word “yes” came out instead. She was ecstatic and hugged me. 

It was all down hill for me from there. I ended up attending the conference and went to talks about how to have “emotional chastity”, how to avoid relativism, and why porn kills love. There were praise and worship nights that culminated in 18-20 year olds weeping over God and the emotional experience created throughout the week. I recall one of the boys in my group crying loudly next to me and as I looked around the room at others I thought that’s what I should be experiencing too. I worked myself into tears and prayed that God would make me less sinful. Self loathing in the name of self righteousness became my new normal. 

Another thing that happened was that I decided to quit taking birth control that week. I had been brow beaten over the last few semesters to believe that my relationship with my boyfriend and behavior was sinful. As I learned in the relativism talk there was no wiggle room. I couldn’t be in a loving relationship and make choices about my own body… according to the church I was condemnable. 

I returned to school after Winter Break resolute in my decision to turn away from “sin” and towards God. I was determined to do every virtuous thing to save myself from hell and fit into the Christian group of people around me. Mind you I was still partying on the weekends but at least I was trying to put God at the center of my life by abstaining from sex. 

The most difficult thing about reflecting back on all of this is that it was no one’s fault but my own. There is no one to blame. Not the missionaries, the priests, the other students. I chose all of these things. I bought into this very specific way of living out the Catholic faith. No one forced me. And yet at the same time I don’t know if I feel fully connected to myself and the way that I was processing information or making decisions in my life at that time. 

Sometimes I look at the decisions made between that “all in” change of heart and what would follow the next several years as a part of me that I dissociate with all together. I broke up with my high school sweetheart because he wasn’t Catholic. I took a job hundreds of miles away from my friends and family to be a receptionist at a small catholic organization. I went all in on supporting a catholic figure-head because of some books I read meanwhile overlooking that person’s fatal flaws and total lack of ethical/moral compass. 

Looking back I lost myself more and more in the name of scripture. He shall become greater and I shall become less (John 3:30)… was actually becoming true but not in a freeing and loving way. 

In some ways it feels like I threw away the last 9 years of my life. I turned myself inside out in order to “be-the-best-version-of-myself”. I lost touch with many friends over the years and living 12 hours away from home has caused so much FOMO over the years. As I see my parents and siblings age I wonder if I’ve missed out on too many big moments. 

One of those big moments or series of moments was my Godmother Michelle’s death. She had been living with Breast Cancer for a few years and I didn’t ever let myself feel the pain and fear of what could happen to her. I shut my mom down when she would talk about Michelle’s treatment and I ignored that she was getting worse. Things progressed quickly the last year or so though. It was early in 2020 that Michelle’s treatment was becoming more and more difficult for her. She had some mets to other organs and I told my mom that she needed to tell me if/when things were bad enough to come home. The Covid lockdowns had just lifted… It was the end of March/beginning of April and my mom called me. She said I should come home and see Michelle. I cried hysterically to my work team over Zoom as I told them that I would be driving home to Minnesota to see her. 

PJ, my boyfriend of the time, agreed to come with me and meet my family. He drove almost the entire trip and held my hand as we talked about the future. 

We visited with Michelle and Kent many times that week. We celebrated my mom’s birthday with heaps of pasta and cheesecake with Michelle. Then later in the week PJ and I had dinner with them one evening just the 4 of us. Everyone could see that Michelle was in pain and I gently rubbed her shoulders to try and put her at ease. She breathed laboriously and talked slowly and quietly during our visits much the opposite of her boisterous, bubbly demeanor. 

We left MN and as I sit here reflecting I can’t remember my last goodbye with her. I must have blocked it from my memory. I can’t recall what I said to her or a final smooch on the cheek. But I think I left feeling scared and sad.  

We left MN at the end of the week and the day after we safely arrived back in Cincinnati she went into the hospital. She was dying. 

Later that week I woke early in the morning and began reciting Divine Mercy Chaplet, a Catholic prayer that I somewhat knew and had prayed a few years before somewhat regularly. I said the prayers for Michelle and dozed in and out of sleep finally waking fully after the most beautiful dream. I found myself in a vibrant green garden with perfect hedges with pink flowers creating pathways. There were also peacocks throughout this maze of a garden (peacocks held a significant meaning to me with Michelle, my past job, and my spiritual journey). When I woke up fully I knew somehow that she had gone. Later that morning my mom texted me to tell me she had died. 

Michelle’s death crushed me. It felt like her time here was not enough. She was so young and so lovely and loved. How could this be happening? And why her? Why did cancer take her and not others? Michelle’s death sent a tidal wave of grief. Much like the one I’d experienced with my pop-pop years earlier. This tidal wave was different though. I was grappling not only with this grief but with disillusionment from a Catholic leader, someone I looked up to was leaving the Church, more sex-abuse scandals about Catholic priests were making headlines, I was learning about social justice issues in and out of the church, and I was in this new relationship with someone who wasn’t tied down to any one church or religious belief system. 

It was the perfect storm to pop the bubble. Air rushed in and I was able to start dissecting my thoughts and ideas. There was a lot of restlessness in that period of time. Anxiety and panic about if I wasn’t being a good Christian or Catholic and what might happen to me. Yet feeling like my past ways of thinking were not leaving me satisfied. 

My word of the year in 2020 was “deconstruct”. I don’t think I knew what I was getting myself into when I chose that word but I certainly was able to deconstruct and have continued doing so over the last few years. I’ve also tried to re-construct and re-frame too. I know that I still believe in a Creator. 

I’ve stopped going to mass this summer and have been hiking and walking on the weekends instead. I’ve found poems, podcasts, and music to be a great source of life for me these days and I’m always striving to find a way to support causes that bring people and communities what they need. 

Some days I think I don’t want to identify as Catholic anymore and other days I can’t imagine not having a faith tradition in my life. I also look back at the last 9 years and think of all of the amazing friends I’ve made. They are some of my very best friends who have been with me through so much. They teach me about God more than any priest or religious person in the church ever has. The last 9 years have been a period of learning and growth and sometimes setback and floundering. 

As much as I don’t want to be a person of regret, there are many things I regret. Opinions I’ve had, ways I’ve treated friends, relationships I’ve ended or let fall away. I’m sorry to the people I’ve hurt in the name of a god or any religion. I hope that you’ll forgive me. I'm still growing and learning and I hope to never stop. 

Something my grams used to say to me growing up was, “who ever told you life was going to be easy?” It certainly hasn’t been and yet ife has also been so good to me. I’ve had loss, heartache, hatred, fear, melancholy, disillusionment, but I’ve also had love, forgiveness, generosity, and friendship. Life is tragic and it’s beautiful all at the same time. 

My only prayer today is that I’m open to whatever else may be in store for my spiritual journey. I wish to find peace, freedom, and love and spread that to others.