When you grow up in a small town, things stick with you for a lot longer than you would like.

I still have never found out why I was outcasted and bullied in grade school. I was neither rich nor poor, smart or dumb, pretty or ugly… I fell right into the middle with no distinguishing features. The town I grew up in was so slow that we didn’t even have our own high school. Instead, we were given the option to choose to go to one of four neighboring high schools. Given that our class was small to begin with, this offered a nice dispersal of everyone. When you finally think you can break away, go to a high school where only three or four of your former classmates will be, you think that you can maybe break away from some of the torment. However, those few who went to the same high school as me (and others who came in the later years) made most of high school hellish for me. It’s hard to find people who want to be your friend when there are others spreading degrading falsehoods that you used to fiddle with yourself in class. I spent so much of my life thinking I was something that I’m not, and that caused me to believe that I was not worthy of true friendship. It distorted my views of people, leading me to become close with toxic people rather than the few who truly wanted to know the real me.Friendship was, and still is, a huge deal to me. I tend to value other people more than I value myself, and this trend led me to a “friendship” with Rose in my senior year of high school. I don’t know exactly what drew me to her: if it was her own life struggles or if it was actually an attraction by my unrealized sexuality. All I know is that I thought that Rose was that one true friend I had been searching for my whole life, and that friendship came at a great price. Rose had a slightly manipulative personality. You never knew when she was in a good mood or a bad mood, and she could flip moods without warning. Sometimes we would be hanging out, having a wonderful time, and all of a sudden, she would become cold and refuse to talk to me. The look in her eyes during these times was one of contempt and annoyance, like my mere existence was a hindrance to her. She would frequently blow me off, refuse to talk to me when I was terrified she was going to hurt or kill herself, and would lash out at me at random. I still remember my mom taking the two of us on a vacation to the Mall of America. Rose got angry that I wouldn’t go on a roller coaster due to my fear of them, and she would only talk to me in short, angry snippets after that for the rest of the day. One day, in particular, we were driving around town window shopping when she started texting some other friends and began to get upset. I don’t remember exactly what all had transpired, but we wound up in a Walgreen's parking lot with her sobbing and me trying to figure out what to do. She went on about how I was her only friend (I would find out later that most of her old friends were pushed away by her), and that she hated God, then fell silent for a while. We sat there for so long, and the heat from the car being off was getting to a suffocating point. Then she opened the door and left. I was stunned and terrified of what she may do, I couldn’t move, I could hardly think. Then a small voice inside of me said “follow her” and I did. As I rounded the corner to catch up with her, she asked me why I was following her, and when I told her it was because she was my friend, she responded with “Well, your friend really wants to kill herself right now.” Rose had been walking towards the road, but turned shortly after I joined her and came back to the car with me. On the way back, we saw a rainbow, and she made a snide comment about God trying to show her that everything was okay. Some days I wonder if Rose really had intended on committing suicide or if it was all just another manipulation game of hers. Regardless of the why, I do know that if given the chance to relive that day again, I wouldn’t change a thing about it, because for me, that was a defining moment. As a Christian, it made me see just how close God is in all instances. It gave me some comfort, and in later years, it would give me an anchor that would keep me from taking my own life time and time again.With Rose, I felt so useless and that I was somehow defective. I had friends who truly cared about me, but I was so blinded by Rose that I could not see them even when one of them accompanied me to the bathroom after one of her explosions and sat with me as I cried. Despite all of this, I stayed by her side. I grew to the point where I was easily irritable and would lash out at people who had never harmed me just because they said something negative about her (despite those words being remarkably true). Her actions hurt, but I always excused her behavior on account of her depression, despite the fact that it was taking a heavy toll on my own depression and anxiety. Our own friendship would flicker on and off for a time over the next couple of years. Until one day, after I had left for college, I resolved to not try again. I was too tired and worn out, from both her and the topic of my next story, to even try to rekindle anything. Everything I knew and took comfort in during my high school years was shattered and blown to the wind, and that was made worse by another person, named Hope. I honestly do not think Rose was fully aware of what she was doing. I think she had a lot of problems within her family that only she could resolve, and I do think that she cared for me in some degree. Hope, however, does not have that small comfort attached to her. When I left high school and went to community college, I was determined that this would be the place that I would find change. I was still in an on/off friendship with Rose, and past experiences had me retreating even further into my shell. For a change, I immediately threw myself into a small Bible study that met once a week. I was terrified. I wanted something new and something real but I didn’t think I would actually find it. I thought that fellow Christians would be the safest route to take. I thought there was no such thing as a “bad” church. I thought Hope was that one person I’d been looking for.

Hope immediately took me under her wing. She was confident, funny, and, looking back, it really is a wonder I didn’t realize I was gay sooner. Over time, Hope boosted my confidence. She knew about my struggles with Rose; she knew about all the pain and loneliness that filled me and threatened to snuff me out.

She and her sister invited me to join their church, and I essentially became a member of their family. I loved their parents so much, and given my relationship with my own parents, it was like I was finally being accepted into something. It gave me security. Hope gave me security. Hope and I would spend every weekend hanging out. Whether it was hiking, movie nights, or even game nights with her sister and other members of our friend circle, we were always together and having the time of our lives. We’d see each other during lunch at community college, during our weekly Bible study, and at church on Sunday.I thought that church was the greatest thing in the world. I took part in all of their festivals and looked forward to Sunday worship. Everyone there seemed so friendly and welcoming, they proclaimed they were a loving family that loved all and wanted to do the best they could for the world. I ignored my mother’s warnings about that place, considering them as bad rumors spread by resentful people. Someone should send an Oscar out to them and Hope, for the stellar performance they put on. After about a year of being friends, things began to change with Hope. She suddenly became short with me, refusing to chip in more than one or two words in a conversation. She skipped out on plans and helping out with events if I was going to be there. She would lie about getting to go places and then gloat in my face that she went and could have taken me along, but didn’t. I only became relevant to her when it was convenient for her, like keeping secrets and helping her when she needed it. Eventually, her texts started becoming verbally abusive. Hope would never say anything rude to my face, but had no qualms about hiding behind her phone. She told me that I wasn’t important. She told me that friends were “nice to have, but not necessary.” She told me that she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore, and phrased it as if it was all my fault, and she refused to tell me why. I was completely and utterly confused, wondering over and over what I did wrong. With this, the illusion began to crack. During Bible study, I rarely saw Doug, one of our friends. He used to be a regular, someone who was a staple in the group, but now we only saw him on occasions. He was someone that Hope had feelings for. Then the memory hit me. One day a few months back, Doug brought a lady with him and introduced her as his girlfriend. Hope trashed talked her constantly behind her back. She spent a lot of time that night trying to talk to Doug and be near him at all times. After asking one of the leaders in private about it, he confirmed that Doug felt that he and his girlfriend were driven out by Hope, and that he [the leader] wished someone would start a new group because Hope was contaminating that one.At a Bible study bonfire, I tried once more to figure out what had happened between us. Hope had spent the whole night acting as if I didn’t even exist. I was an invisible spirit who was not seen nor heard. I felt hollow and sick, like that small drip of poison from Hope would seep into the rest of the group. I was too afraid to ask her if we could talk with so many people around. The thought of her ignoring me in front of everyone, and possibly starting a commotion if someone decided to comment on it was too much. I messaged her, asking if we could talk. She said that we could not.Something in me shattered that night. I tried so hard to hold it in, to appear normal in front of everyone, but I knew I couldn’t. Within a half hour, I was getting in my car, with the excuse that it was getting late and I was tired. When I pulled out of the driveway, my sob came out as a scream and I smashed my head against the steering wheel. I could hardly see the road through my tears, and I started hyperventilating. I wanted to die. Everything good that I had been told was invalidated by “not necessary,” everything I thought I was, I wasn’t. I wanted to push my car to its limit and run it head on into a tree or light post. I clung on to my relationship with God and ended up in a dark parking lot. I sat there for a while, crying and scratching at my arms, trying to get my breathing back under control. The illusion had shattered.It wasn’t much longer until I no longer went to that church. A couple of members suggested counseling with one of the pastors, so I tried that. It made everything worse. The pastor, Carol, would talk to me, and then would talk to Hope to try to piece together what was going on. All I ever got out of those meetings was that Hope told Carol that she didn’t want to be friends with me in the first place, she only wanted to “bring me to God” despite the fact that I was already there. None of it ever added up. Carol always talked like Hope was this star studded golden child who could do no wrong. But she had. The more I opened up my ears and listened, the more I heard people from our own age group saying that Hope was a bully as a child, that Hope had hurt so many people she called “friend,” that Hope was manipulative and a sociopath. In the end, Carol stopped our meetings. Her husband, another pastor, claimed it was because she felt she “had failed with me.” Over time, I saw more and more of the sickness of that place. It was no church, but a cult. The pastors were manipulators, after leaving I discovered that many of the things they promised to do with donations were not being fulfilled, and that they were using them for their own gain instead. I heard the pastor proudly boast about how much better they were than Baptists and other denominations. He once talked with great pride how a lesbian couple came to him for prayers. One of them was sick and the two of them wanted him to pray over her for healing, he turned them away saying that the reason she was sick was because they were gay and together. Even though I hadn’t realized my own sexuality at the time, and was deep in the teachings of that church, it still struck a chilling nerve as being completely immoral and wrong. This pastor even told the husband of a woman who died from cancer (who had also refused certain treatment because she believed God would save her) that she died because she didn’t believe enough. There is still so much more that place did, so many more people it hurt.It broke me as a person to see this “loving” congregation I came to know and care for, was really a hoard of pretentious people who turned their noses up to anyone who wasn’t a part of their group. That dear family I found became a shadow in my heart, a dark place from which I was cast. All that was build up in me over months was obliterated in a few days. I was broken, I was lost, and I didn’t think I could ever trust anyone ever again.