My career - my precious, misguided source of affirmation and value - turned into a neck-snapping roller coaster as I started pursuing my actual values and not just blindly climbing a ladder to compensate for a lack of self-worth. Some of my family and friend relationships crashed and burned, and have still never recovered. I was born in 1985 but on December 4, 2019, I gave myself permission to start living. I decided I was done trying to live the life others expected from me, and it was time to finally start living the life I actually had. It wasn't until I was 34 years old - burned-out, exhausted, clinically depressed, and broken - that I finally looked in the mirror at the grown, empty shell of a man staring back at me and knew that enough was enough. I tried 4 different therapists and 3 different conversion therapy programs over the next 18 years, with disastrous consequences for my mental, physical, and spiritual health. But I failed.įollowing that conversation - at my own pleading - my parents immediately put me in conversion therapy. I'd decided there was only one way out, and I was trying to take it. At age 16 I'd finally broken, unable to reconcile the idea of being gay with my strict conservative religious upbringing. I had guarded this secret more closely than nuclear launch codes. I'd known since I was 6, but had my suspicions confirmed when puberty hit at 13. I could barely choke out the word "yes" through my tears. Mom's question came over the phone line as 16-year-old Matt sobbed uncontrollably on the other end, a half-swallowed bottle of aspirin spilled out all over the table in front of me.
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