Do you ever think about death?

I do.

I’m thinking about it right now.

I’m thinking about how - and where - and what it will feel like.

I’m thinking about after – how people will react.

I’m thinking about the silence it will provide me.

Many times I’ve stood on the balcony, six floors up. In an instant I can see myself catapulting over the handrail. Spreading my arms bird – like, trying to catch the air with my invisible wings. I know it would be quick. But in my head I imagine it taking an eternity for me to fall. Instead of being afraid, I feel at peace in this thought.

No one should feel this way.

I do.

Do you?

This was something I wrote when I was still a Jehovah’s Witness. I was a lost boy, in a sea of unhappiness. 6 months after I wrote this passage, I left the organisation known as Jehovah’s Witnesses, as guided by the Watchtower, Bible and Tract Society. An organisation I have long felt was not inspired by a heavenly source. A religious entity I was trapped within.

I’m 29 years old.

I was raised in a family of 7. I have two brothers and two sisters. Two loving parents.

You would never have considered our family wealthy as such. Dad worked hard to support us all, we were never destitute.

My entire life I have only ever known one path. The path of the ‘truth’. See, my family is blessed. They walk the way of the ‘truth and the light’. As Jehovah’s Witnesses, we were set apart from the cursed world around us. We were in a ‘spiritual paradise’. I loved that decisiveness. Knowing there was only black and white.

Moral certainty keeps you warm at night.

There is only one problem.

I am a homosexual.

One night, after crying long into the hours of the morning, I came to the conclusion that I, Robert Watkins, could no longer pretend that being a homosexual was not sewn into my heart. It was with this realisation that I knew that any ‘God’ should he exist, could not possibly expect me to live a lie. ‘He’, if ‘he’ existed had created me as a homosexual male. And it was illogical to think that he would then curse me with a sinful existence. It was at this point I knew it was all a lie.

What leads a man to think his family must choose between God and their Son/Brother?

You think it’s about the sex, don’t you? Driven by base desires, one young man chooses his sexual desires over family ties.

It is not about the sex.

It had NEVER been about the sex.

It is not about the sex.

The thought of putting my family in such a position makes me physically ill. I am later to hear that my mother did not leave the house or speak to anyone for weeks after my shock split from the church.

Sex could never be the driving force behind such a wrenching ‘betrayal’ of my family and their ‘righteous standards’.

There was a motivating factor. To admit to it seems self serving. In a way, I guess it is.  It doesn’t remove the fact I was out of options.

You see my motivating factor was simple – Of a morning, when I woke up, I would go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. A simple mundane task, the ritual of oral hygiene. As I brushed those teeth, I needed to look at myself in the mirror.

Here’s the clincher:

I didn’t know the man who looked back.

The stranger who brushed his teeth with me each morning was not the man I was inside.

I was not unaware of how this would proceed. I did not step blindly past the barrier, and expect some sort of invisible protection. I knew I was going on alone.

I see organizations such as PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends Of Lesbians And Gays) and I ache. It is impossible to explain, but I am envious of those with such support from their families. I begrudge them that ease. This is petty, and unworthy. Everyone deserves a family bond that withstands all manner of adversity.

Should God be divisive, a stumbling block, a hidden catch to the family unit he supposedly created?

I grew up a fundamental Christian. I was not a blind follower. I earnestly loved the principles of my faith. As a Jehovah’s Witness I studiously endeavoured to be the finest servant of God I could be.

I am ashamed to admit that I followed their laws of Christian purity, and shunned all those who had accepted the faith and then turned their back on it.

That is my hypocritical stain.

Just as I have now been excommunicated for my rejection of their beliefs, I have historically turned my back on friends or family whom have taken the same stance.

Grant me forgiveness, those I have wronged.

I understand now the pain of that silence.

I am so proud of having left behind the cult that is Jehovah’s Witnesses. While everyday I struggle with the idea that I am not fit to be a part of my own family, I grow ever stronger. I would never return to that religion, or that life. I am proud of who I am, and outspokenly so. I have found a beautiful core of friends. Perhaps some day I will write more here of my life, and what it has meant to leave the people I loved for the sake of my own sanity and because I do not believe they have any concept of ‘truth’, despite what they have been taught, and despite what they continue to try to teach others.

I am ever grateful to the online community of ex JW survivors, and am always amazed at their strength and compassion for others. They fuel my own drive to continue to be the person I am supposed to be, and I will forever be in their debt. Together we will become the people we are supposed to be, and lead the lives we are entitled to. Life is not fairytale, but we have the right to make it one.