The Night I Considered Suicide

If you did not know before now, you are about to find out that I am gay. To most, this is never a great revelation. To some, however, knowing me from my youth and knowing I was raised in a very conservative denomination - the Church of Christ - this might have some element of surprise. But, if you have met me anytime since 1995 you know that I have nothing to hide and therefore have no astonishment.

I'm feeling compelled to write and publish this because of the rash of teen suicides over the past few weeks - all relating to gay bullying.

For many hours on the evening of the 20th of October 1992 - two days after my 24th birthday - I sat on the back porch trying to decide whether or not to pull the trigger. Yes I, Darren Goad, contemplated suicide. I literally sat weighing the pros and cons of what it would mean if I shot myself in the head. It was Abilene, TX after all and access to any type of gun was easy. I had the means. The only thing was to decide if I had motive.

I was in graduate school at Abilene Christian University, living with my two best friends. We called our little group the Three Lonely Guys. As it happened, I was the only one who was lonely. One friend was in fact engaged to be married to an absolutely beautiful girl. The other was rarely single and if he was, there was always a long procession of eligible women waiting for a date. It wasn't that there was an absence of women that wanted to date me. In fact I had had several offers that summer and in the years prior. I even had one camp out in her car in front of my house on several occasions. But I was lonely. I was not getting the emotional fulfilment in life that I saw everyone else getting. Aside from being a world class institution ACU is a marriage factory. But is just wasn't working for me.

On the outside, I had everything going for me. I had received my undergraduate degree in Theatre from ACU. I was working part time as a shop foreman at the university's theatre. I was working on my masters in Theatre Ministry. I was working part time as a worship/drama minister at a very up-and-coming church. I was involved with a group of people going to be missionaries and they wanted me to be a part of their team. I was in a fraternity that anyone of it's members would have taken a bullet for a brother. I had a family who loved me - that was never in doubt – and I had friends who loved me. I was a leader and had been for many years. People looked up to me. I had status.

Now, I wasn't bullied in university, but it was very clear from church doctrine that homosexuality was unacceptable. I feared hell. I feared damnation. I feared AIDS. Several students I knew that had "strayed" had died rather horribly painful deaths. Scandals had ripped through the theatre my freshman year, devastating all involved due to expulsion and stigma. It seemed that homosexuality was the one unforgivable sin which outweighed suicide.

But during my undergraduate years, I was in such emotional turmoil that I cried a great deal - in private and a unfortunately, a lot in public. My friends, God bless 'em, put up with more crying from me than I'm sure that they've heard from the children that they have since had. I would cry myself to sleep because I did not feel that the love I had for my friends was being reciprocated to the degree I wanted or needed.

It all came boiling up in October of 1992. For weeks I had been dealing with something so horrible and heinous that it seemed insurmountable, devastating and all consuming that killing myself to escape was an extremely viable option. In the weeks prior, I had been to a church conference with young missionary a few years older than I was. We had just met. As we drove to Dallas from Abilene I asked him what prompted his return from the mission field in Eastern Europe. His reply was that he could "no longer run".

Somehow, those words were the cannonball that crashed through the wall that was my own self denial. I knew immediately what he was talking about. Suddenly I was talking and spilling forth confessions of feelings and desires that I desperately wanted to control. Yet control this I could not. I suddenly came face to face with what was the real problem.

Looking back over my life I suppose I knew I was "different" from the age of four. I remember having a crush on several of the boys in kindergarten and even had a crush on Elroy Jetson. And somehow it was clear that boys do not have crushes on boys. The bullying I endured in elementary and junior-high school was due to the fact that I was weaker than most boys. I hated sports. I refused to fight anyone and it was easy to make me cry. Yes, I was called queer and faggot more times that I can remember. I loved music and theatre. In high-school I was a Band-fag, Drama-Fag and Choir-Queer. I looked up to the boys, but due to the name calling I avoided any appearance of attraction. All this did was make me withdraw my personality deeper inside. Even with all of this, acceptance of the word Gay for myself never entered the picture.

Gays were just not part of my life, or so I thought. Until my senior year in high-school when I got a job as an usher at the local summer-stock theatre, I had never met a gay person. There, they seemed to be all the undesirable stereotypes that even I laughed at. Or ran from.

All I knew was that something was wrong. I repressed and buried these thoughts and feelings so deep that I didn't really recognise it until I was 23 years old - until that fateful car trip to Dallas. I suddenly realised that I was attracted to men and had been all of my life. The total number of girlfriends tops out at four – one of which I actually bought a diamond ring. I was more in love with Musical Theatre than the idea of dating. The sight of breasts did absolutely nothing for me.

Through High-School, I preferred to spend time with my best friend than anyone. In college I found the emotional stability and comfort of men more appealing. I was fighting constant battles in my head. I would convulse with fear anytime a man would hug me. To most non-Christian University goers this isn't a problem. But ACU is quite known for it's affectionate displays. My fraternity was the "touchy-feely" one, I would nearly collapse when a frat brother would put his hand on my shoulder. It wasn't a fear of sexual response, but sheer, raw emotion that I did not know how to control. I wanted to be held and taken care of – but I could not express this.

But after the flood-gate opened I realised the real problem lay in the fact that I could not reconcile what was going on in my heart with what I thought God and the Church were saying. I could not fathom how this could have happened to me. How could something so part of my being for my entire life be a sin? But how could the Church be wrong?

So, there I sat. Hoping beyond hope that my house mates would not come home early. Through the tears, more sobs than misty eyes, I made a list of the Pros and Cons:

The Pros:
I would no longer be different than anyone else.
I would no longer cry myself to sleep.
I would no longer wonder why I could not have the relationship I wanted.
I would no longer wonder "if" I was going to Hell, I would know.
I would no longer question why God made me this way.
I would no longer be punished for thinking such horrid thoughts.
I would no longer fear dying a horrible and painful death.

The Cons:
What if I missed and lived and became a vegetable – I had never fired a gun before
It would hurt my mother.
I was afraid of Hell.
I was afraid to die.

Though few, the con's won out over the benefits of no longer living. I couldn't bear to think of what my mother would go through having had a son commit suicide. Looking back, I think something inside me actually made me think that life get's better. With the gut wrenching torment that I was going through I was convinced that somehow, some way it would get better. Perhaps it was the memory of some wise person whispering in my ear that it would get better. What ever that spark was, it saved my life.

The struggle lasted for another two years with many more nights of gut-wrenching sobs until I finally said no more closet – that in itself is another long story. But I accepted who I am and what I was. Even after that, the struggle continued. I left the ministry, I was asked to leave the Church, a prominent Dallas minister threatened to out me to my parents, I lost many, many friends and nearly lost my family.

But over the past 18 years my understanding of God's love has changed and my fear of Hell has vanished. My relationship with my parents is the strongest it has ever been. I have a career I love, with students I cherish - one even calls me Maestro. I am proud of who I am. The bullies and the condemers do not hold any sway over me now.

I stand before you as a gay man totally at peace with God. I repeat: I am at peace with God. I'm not here to debate the political or scriptural ramifications of homosexuality. Whether or not you believe it is a sin to be gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender is not the point. The point is that teens all over America, Britain and the world are dying by their own hands because of their – real or perceived – sexual orientation.

It is unacceptable that schools are ignoring bullying by saying that if the victim only would change their behaviour then the bullying would stop. It is unacceptable that parents allow their children to make fun of other children. It is unacceptable that the use of derogatory words is main stream in music. It is unacceptable that churches constantly spout anti-gay rhetoric. We must stop this. We must take action. We must stop and tell all children that life is worth living. Tell them that there is a way through this. Life does get better.

In a couple of weeks I will celebrate my 42nd birthday. Two days after that, I will celebrate a second birthday. It will be 18 years to the day that I decided not to pull the trigger and I chose life.

Unfortunately for Seth Walsh, Tyler Clementi, Billy Lucas, Asher Brown and countless other teens and young people who have taken their own life because they were bullied, told that they were worthless or told they would be forever in Hell it is too late. To someone that you know, it is not. Tell them it is ok. Tell them life does get better. Tell them – Choose Life.

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If you know of someone that is young and questioning please give them these links:

The It Gets Better Project - http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject

In the UK: The Samaritans - http://www.samaritans.org/?gclid=CL_285HJuaQCFU8_4wodQnmYzg

In the US: The Trevor Project - http://www.thetrevorproject.org/