KEN WILLIAMS
“Counseling saved my life because it gave me encouragement and a totally confidential space to share everything”
I was the scrawniest boy in every class from kindergarten through high school, and I had great difficulty in keeping up with or fitting in with the boys. At eight years old while playing outside, some boys exposed me to hard core gay pornography and touched me sexually. I was desperately confused by the experiences and, from there, lived with overwhelming shame that I kept hidden for the next ten years.
On my walks home from school, male peers yelled out slurs at me like “faggot” and “homo.” So, I feared male social interactions—the locker room, recess, and lunch break. I distanced myself from most boys—definitely the rough and tumble ones—and canceled the masculinity around me as best as I could. To me it was inappropriate, rude, and ungodly.
But my need for masculine connection grew stronger, the more I pushed it away. While I rejected the brash, masculine stereotypical guy, I actively sought out whichever male peer I deemed to be strong who was also kind. If he showed me attention or affirmation, I felt valuable. If I could have his undivided attention, I was okay for the minute.
By middle school, I was experiencing same-sex attraction, which caused me to hate myself all the more because I didn’t want to have those desires. I developed one unhealthy friendship after the next through my teens, trying to find myself in each young man. Codependency, plain and simple. But no matter how much time or attention I received from a guy, it never was enough, even in the times it turned sexual. My “friend” would head home for the evening, and I was lost again. Obsessed. Depressed.
When I was 17, I felt so hopeless that I started planning my suicide. I just couldn’t imagine fighting the same-sex desires my whole life or bearing the weight of the loneliness and self-hatred I felt on a daily basis.
Scared that I would actually end my life, I finally told my parents about the depths of my pain and asked to see a Christian counselor. As a minor, I began seeing him weekly. Those five years of counseling saved my life because it gave me encouragement and a totally confidential space to share everything—all the shame over sexual encounters, pent up anger from being bullied, feelings of inadequacy, codependent fixations, and loneliness. He recommended that I join a support group, and there I realized for the first time that I wasn’t alone. The group pointed me to books, which I devoured, containing examples of people whose sexual feelings had changed over time. The books also helped me discover underlying issues contributing to my sexual identity confusion.
I then attended a ministry school and my addictions to pornography and masturbation, as well as my bent toward codependent fixation, dramatically waned. There, I began to experience God as affirming, forgiving, and a kind Father who could be trusted. These were attributes of God I’d not known before.
In time, I was not sexually aroused by men anymore. I started to notice a young lady in my church and found myself being captivated by the sight and thought of her. Months later, I asked her out, and we were married less than a year later. My wife is my closest and most treasured companion, and we’ve been married since 2006. We have a great sex life and have four children together.
Today, I have peace. I’m blessed with plenty of friends, and I feel known and valued by even the men in my community. I enjoy my life. None of that was true before.
CHANGED Movement, Co-founder: changedmovement.com