Start from the beginning

They say the best way to springboard into anything is to start from the beginning. Or so they say at least. I guess when people re-tell their stories there is always some sort of major high point right at the start, something starteling, something which started them down the road they are on. Something which they can look back and point to and notice that that incident just totally ruined their life. My story doesnt start that way. In fact, it starts pretty calm. I guess you can say I was the average teenage male. Reved up on hormones, and feeling the effects of the hormones on a pretty much daily basis, as well as just curious about this new phase of life which I was entering into, that being of feeling, thinking, and experiencing ever increasing sexual thoughts and feelings daily. Going to a public school, the one thing which we were encouraged almost daily to do was to explore our sexuality to its fullest. This of course, is perfect in the modern world where there is nothing wrong. What is right for me is right for me, and what is right for you is right for you. Perfect logic wouldn't you say? Without me having to point out the obvious logic in the flaw, let me continue on before I get to deeply sidetracked. I was about 13 at the time. My dad, being a manual laborer, was tired and sleeping in the living room. I remember it clearly, though not proudly. My mother was at work as she worked the third shift, and I was poking around their bedroom. At first I was looking around for a video cause I was bored and wanted to watch something(bordom = catalist of sin) to pass the time until I got tired and could fall asleep. It was the weekend after all, you can't just go to bed early. Well, as I was poking around the room I found two items. The first(in the video cabinet, and not hidden all that well) was a box of condoms. The second was a book which I found out later my dad had taken to "spice" up the bedroom.
Moving along here.
So I found the book, and I read the cover. "Stories from Penthouse Volume IV"(Don't ask why or how I can remember the title so clearly, that is unfortunatly something that will be in my head probably for the rest of my life) Being in my extremly curious and bored state, I cracked it open and started to read for a little bit. The first few stories did not seem to hold my attention, and to this day I still do not know fully why. I continue to flilp through the list, and eventually came to the gay section of the book, and for some reason that is where I stayed. In retrospect, I don't know what made me stop there. I just did. And as I read, I was confused about the acts which they were describing in the book. But yet, something continued and kept my attention. These stories continued to grab my mind for many more months to come. I would sneak away while my dad was asleep in the living room and my mom was at work and re-read those same four or five stories over and over again, trying to grasp what they meant. The wording escaped me. It was not until a few years later that I would learn.

I continued on reading those stories over and over again for about a period of a year. During that year many things happened, but there were two main things which did happen. 1) My father was diagnosed with terminal cacner in the brain, liver, lungs, etc... 2) I was going to church with my dad, and one day I committed my life to Christ. Needless to say, I didn't know what I was getting into at the time. I had belived, I had given my life to Christ, I trusted in his promises for eternal life, but yet I continued to live in my own life of sin, including the weekly reading of the book. Shortly around the year mark, my father died from cancer. This of course threw many things into dissarray for a while, and I didn't find the energy/excuse/time to slip away and read from that book. Shortly after my father's death, my mom found the book once again(as I was careful to place it in a similar position and location as I had found it to keep from rousing suspect from anyone) and threw it out. For a while, I thought that that was the solution and that I would be free finally from the grasp of the book, as it had control over my mind, and my schedule. Alas, that was only the begining of a long road.
Attending my public school did not afford to me many close and good friends who were clean in language and dead, especially the first two years. The last two years were better off, mostly becasue I choose to hang out with different people. But back to where I was once again. Those first two years of high school were really damaging to my mind. My friend back then where, to say the least, not the most uplifting. They were constantly swearing and talking about sex and things like that. Being a young man at the time(at the age of 14) these sorts of things started to take on their own life in the back of my mind. Stimulating and exciting me hours beyond when the last word of the conversation had been spoken.
During this time I continued on with my triple life at the time. I had one life at church. One life at home. And another life at school. It was hard to keep the three from interacting with one another, and when they finally started to all interact with one another, it became crazy.
This continued on for a few years, until finally life took an interesting turn. I was starting to get involved with the youth group and one of the more outgoing guys in the group asked me if I wanted to be in their youth group praise band. Well, just starting out and wanting to get to know people, I said yes. This new turn in events and this elevation to some sort of "leadership" position put a new pressure on me. And it was for the better that this pressure was there at least at first. At first, it kinda almost forced me to live a consistent life, so the life of me at church/school/home started to line up. It was entertaining at times, to have three lives converge into one. But unfortunatly this did not last long. It wasn't but about a year that this pressure kept me going in the right direction. After a little while, this is when I started to get into my porn addiction fully.
Remembering those stories which had been ingraned into my brain as a young teen, I started searching on the web for the same sort of things which I had read about and been stimulated by a few years earlier. Being clever and able to navigate through computers, it didn't take long until I found a way to go online and it didnt take long before I had what I was looking for at my finger tips. I'm not proud at all to say it, but once that porn took hold of me, it was an addiction that was tough to beat. It was something that plagued me for many many years. Gay porn and the gay lifestyle became norms for me. I remember going to practice for youth group late becuase I had gotten lost while looking at the porn. It was crazy. It was controlling. At first it started out more as a curiosity. But soon I was "mastering" the language and the culture of that of the typical young gay male. It was this that has stuck with me the longest. It is also this which is the hardest thign to get rid of from the mind and habit. It has been, to say the least, interesting at times. To look around my campus and see everyone and their (apparent) hatred of the homosexual movement. And yet, here I am a recovering homosexually myself living in their midest. It can sometiems be a little intemidating.
I can say that I never got fully into the gay lifestyle. Now. Did it influence me and the way I thought. Yeah. Did it change my everyday life? only to the point that I started to crave it everyday, and if it didnt seem like Iwas going to get it becuase of like homework, I would skip the homework and go and look at the porn instead. I can remember looking forwared to the times when my roomate at my old college would leave, so I could have the room all to myself. I would lock the door and spend all night surfing the web for the porn.
When I got to my new college, I was told about the features in the network which were there to help prevent students from bring caught on a porn page, and in all honesty it has been one of the main helpers. It has also helped that I have finally been ready and willing to confront my problme, as well as finlly getting enough support from the family(they all know now--and by family I mean close friends who practically are family to me.)

Well that is an intro to me. More to come.

Taking a risk

To me, one of the things which is most important is to daily fight for freedom sexually, and also to be honest with everyone that I know. Another big passion of mine is to help others. I know it is impossible to change the world. But as a character on one of my favorite TV shows said as he was told he couldn't change the world, "I just need to change my little corner of it." This Blog of sorts is kind of rare. Yeah, I am not going to publish my real name, or provide access to my email address(as of now, until I get one that no one would know that it was me) for comments(either of hate or whatever) But at the same time, I am going to be upright and honest about things. I guess I really don't expect anyone to really read this. But then again, you never know. This is the information age, and weird things can be found online easily. My goal, my passion, my reason for doing this is not to cause divide. There is already too much of that going on in the world. Instead, it is to hopefully provide a real and true and accurate description of life for a young man going from the realms of being gay to straight, and the struggle and fighting daily which must go on inside of the brain and the heart. Not only a man growing up in this world, but also more so a Christian man and how all of that is resolved. This won't be something that will be easy. No, on the contrary, instead it will be very hard. And just as a warning up front, in case you were still wondering, I am putting a warning on here because of the fact that some adult material might be covered, but I hope for the sake of all things which are good and what not to keep it as PG as can, but sometimes in trying to be real and frank about such things ,the ability to PG can easily be lost, which is unfortunate. So, without further adu.....let the daily fight begin....(will update soon)