Sometimes I think our culture is a bit obsessed with healing. We go to doctors, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists. There is no end to nutritional supplements and treatments. We try this and that. Exercise and diets. We seek out surgeons who specialize in all kinds of amazing stuff. There are scientists working round the clock for cures. We have drugs for all kinds of ailments. The list goes on and on.

Healing is returning to a place where we were before. Wholeness is moving towards a new place

This healing is all really, really good stuff. Lives are saved every day. People have hope of getting better. Of getting back on their feet. This is good! But what if we took it a step further? What if we could reach past healing to a place of wholeness?

Healing implies returning to a state of health that we experienced before; before the accident, before the trauma, before the illness. Wholeness is moving towards a new place, a place we have never been. It is a promise and hope of something new and different. It is as if the DNA of our soul remembers something it has not experienced and yet is still connected to and drawn towards. This longing for wholeness lies within each of us and yet we settle for healing when we could experience so much more.

A Longing to Return to “Before”

When Austin and I returned to the US, we were given a budget for 4 counseling sessions apiece by the agency we volunteered for. We decided to combine them so that we could do 8 joint sessions, knowing we had no space in our budget to continue counseling once those sessions were up. We chose a Christian counselor who specialized in both marriage and sexual wholeness. At this point, I still wasn’t sure if I even wanted to stick with our marriage. We both dove in and made ourselves vulnerable. We did good work but we didn’t get very far. I walked away from our 8 sessions feeling frustrated because it felt like we were frantically grasping for healing, yet neither of us were feeling closer to being healthy, much less whole. I had yet to grasp that wholeness is moving towards a new place.

To be fair to our counselor, she agreed that eight sessions were not enough. She wrote a letter of appeal to our organization, asking them to reconsider and allow us more sessions, but they denied her request. She then told us about an upcoming program at a local church that focused on sexual and relational healing. We were told about various people who had gone through this program and had found sexual healing, some of them having been gay. She encouraged us to give it a shot.

I desparately wanted things to go back to the way they were before and Austin really wanted to be rid of his attraction to men. It was the only somewhat affordable option for us at the time. It sounded hopeful but we couldn’t both afford to go, so Austin went by himself.

Reparative Therapy

Austin willing chose to go to this training and saw it as a way to give God another chance to heal him of his unwanted same-sex attraction. Ironically he did experience deep healing during these months and made very close friends. Yet when it came to his sexual orientation, the very reason he had shown up, the healing was elusive. He felt pressured to pretend to be healed because that would have fit “the narrative” and yet he felt that to be dishonest about that would defeat the whole purpose. One of the things Austin hates the most is pretense.

There is no easy way for me to talk about his experience. Any program that either implies or outright teaches that queer people can find “healing” from being queer, is really telling them there is something innately wrong with them. Instead of freeing them from shame, it deepens the shame. Any type of reparative or conversion therapy, especially when combined with religion, alienates the created from the Creator and does horrific soul damage.

Instead of finding much sought after healing, I watched as my husband went to a very dark place.

Instead of finding much sought after healing, I watched as my husband went to a very dark place. Stories of other queer people who were “healed” were like nails in his coffin, pushing him deeper into a spiral of shame as his experience was not bringing him to a place that he imagined his healing would look like.

Being Gay is Not a Mental Illness

Reparative Therapy is based on the idea that being gay is a mental illness that can and should be cured. In 1973 (the year my husband was born), the American Psychiatric Association ruled that it is not a mental illness. More than 700,000 individuals have already been subjected to reparative therapy and tens of thousands of youth will continue to be pressured into it, despite the fact that 18 states now ban conversion therapy for minors. These bans, however, only apply to licensed mental health practitioners and do not apply to religious providers.

Reparative therapy is based on prejudice and homophobia. It is deeply devastating, shaming and one of the worst types of rejection a human can put onto another human being.

Research has shown that youth who are forced into reparative therapy are at a much higher risk of experiencing depression and attempting suicide.

Reparative therapy is based on prejudice and homophobia. It is deeply devastating, shaming and one of the worst types of rejection a human can put onto another human being. It does not bring healing and it most certainly does not bring wholeness.

But Does It Work?

I can’t tell you how many people, held up as “success stories” for the movement, have since confided in my husband that it did not work for them. It certainly did not work for him. The internet is also full of stories like this. Who knows how many success stories of formerly gay men or women in heteronormative marriages are actually bi and choose to remain closeted out of cultural convenience.

Last winter, we went to see Boy Erased, the movie, based on a true story, about the son of a Baptist minister who was forced to go through conversion therapy. We could barely make it through. Hands clutched, we heaved silent sobs that ripped us both to shreds. All I could do afterwards was say, “I’m sorry.”

My husband was never forced to go through the extreme therapy portrayed in the movie, but the same premise was there behind each class, seminar, prayer group and therapy session that sought to heal him and change his sexual orientation.

It quietly yet persistently gave him the message that something was innately wrong with him that needed to be healed. It took him to a place of shame and self-loathing where it was next to impossible to grasp the concept of a God who loved. In reparative therapy, God can only be experienced as a God of cruelty. Take it from one who has been able to glimpse this from the inside of the closet door.

Wholeness Is Moving Towards a New Place

This is not the God we have come to know. God created my husband uniquely and made no mistakes in the process. Accepting this has been a part of moving into wholeness for both of us. We had to reject beliefs that promised healing but brought further shame. We have had to distance ourselves from those who suggest healing is possible and necessary. That belief has proven toxic and harmful.

In reparative therapy, God can only be experienced as a God of cruelty.

If someone you love is in the closet, please be human enough to fight for their wholeness, not healing. As straight people, we have no idea what we are communicating when we suggest that changing orientations is possible. We are not called to change, or judge, or teach. We are called to love and love is the most wholesome thing in the universe.

True healing is good but wholeness is something else. Wholeness is moving towards a new place. It is glorious, freeing and unpredictable. Have we arrived? No, but we are arriving every day. It is not past tense, it is always present, always expanding, always unfolding.

Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.