“The Girl From Ipanema”

By Sadie Roa

I was born into the Seventh-day Adventist Church (a conservative, yet very political and hypocritical, Spanish Adventist church), and have been raised in it all my life. I am currently an active member.

As long as I can remember, I know that I have been attracted to girls. I was a tomboy (still am), and one of those kids who used to dream of marrying Barbie, not Ken. I didn’t understand why I felt that way about girls and started to think there was something wrong with my brain and me because I had been taught in elementary school that “boys like girls.” I already thought I had some sort of mental disorder. Due to ridicule from the very feminine girls at school, I went from being very outspoken, loud, and flirtatious with my girlfriends, to being very shy and quiet. I was scared.

Then, in fifth grade, I finally learned what “gay” was. Still, I didn’t associate or label myself as “gay,” not only because I was in denial, but also because I feared what might happen if someone (church, family members, or friends) found out. Finally, in sixth grade, I came out to myself. I remember crying myself to sleep that night—happy because I’d finally found myself, scared of what was to come in the future, and sad because I felt I was damned to hell.

It was that belief that “homosexuals will burn in hell and have no hope for salvation,” that horrible message of hate that I learned in the Adventist church, that nearly killed me. Before I had come out to myself, I felt very close to God. He was my Buddy, my Father, and I was a “Jesus freak,” a very happy Christian. Then after I finally came out, I felt all that change. I felt as though I was now hiding from God. That, as a homosexual, just waking up was a sin for me because my “lifestyle” was a sin.

Slowly, I slipped into depression. From the age of 14-16, I began to self-destruct. I felt, and still feel, that life is just not worth living if you’re not working towards going to heaven. Therefore, I would mutilate my body; not severely, but just poke myself with a needle in order to focus on physical pain rather than my excruciating emotional anguish. I began to smoke and drink and experiment with drugs, such as pills like THC. I even went to where I overdosed on pills, not once, but twice. My parents just thought I was going through one of those rebellious teenage phases. They’ve never been involved in my life nor my school life, though I’ve had no problems in school. They also have never hugged me nor told me they love me. I’ve grown up mostly alone, without their affection and support.

During this period, I began to date. So not only was I going through personal and emotional problems trying to deal with my sexuality, but I was also dealing with homophobia in public and at school. My peers were, mostly, very supportive and accepting; it was some teachers who harassed my current girlfriend and me. We were constantly threatened and falsely accused of engaging in “inappropriate behavior.” All of this stress got to me many times; thus, I attempted to kill myself time after time.

Then, when I was 15, the mother of a friend of mine found a note from her daughter to me talking about me being gay. She freaked out. She not only beat her daughter but also called up all of her friends, our mutual friends, and talked to their parents about what a sick person I am because of my sexuality. She said that, because of my sexual orientation, I was a threat to their children. She said I abused drugs, though I had quit by this time. She said I was a pervert, the leader of the gay group at school, and a bad, very bad, diabolical type of influence.

Some parents bought what she said some didn’t. Mine did. For she called my parents and told them all of that and more. And, since my parents had never been involved in my life, they believed all she said about gays and who I am. That night they yelled and yelled. They threw away everything in my room—all of my material possessions, electronics, my magazines that I do, my poetry, my books, any literature I had, my homework, schoolwork, everything but my clothes. They said I hadn’t been born that way, and therefore some outside influence had taken over and was now controlling me.

My father (who physically abused my older half-sister her whole life and has mentally and emotionally abused my mother throughout their whole marriage) threatened me a lot. He kept telling me I wasn’t, and am not, normal; that “my condition” had probably come from my mother’s side of the family. He told me I was to never mention to anyone that I had had this little problem. Also, my parents told me I better “turn straight” or they would take me out of school and put me in a Christian anti-gay boarding school. After I was outed, one of my male gay friends was thrown into one of those by his parents who discovered he was gay. Of course I was scared, and I told my parents that I would go straight. Ugh! It still sickens me to think about that.

Many of my friends were very supportive during this time. One teacher even offered to take me into her home since my parents were so very willing to throw me away. And things continued to be horrible for me until…

Until one day, as I was sitting in a school bus with a Christian friend of mine, he told me that instead of believing all this garbage about gays and hell, to research about it in the Bible myself; to ask God directly for the answers; to look for support in him—and I did.

That saved my life, and today is my inspiration and motivation to live on to help other GLBT Christian youth understand the truth. Since then, I have developed a very close relationship with my buddy Jesus. As with all Christians, it is a struggle to do what is right and stay “on the right path,” but that’s a struggle I’m never willing to give up on.

On a different note…. I felt I couldn’t end this story without mentioning another event that changed my life. Soon after all this chaos had died down a bit, I met my first love, Blanca. We went out for a year and 8 months. She broke up with me this summer after she discovered she has some sort of chemical imbalance, resulting in manic-depression mental problems. Some things she has just recently come to terms with. She changed my life a lot and gave me two of the best years of my entire life. I still love her, now as a friend, and continue to be her friend. Currently, she has been engaging in self-destructive behavior, so I’ve been under some stress trying to care for her and be her friend and all. But I’m learning to walk away and live my own life as well.

In conclusion, despite everything I’ve been through, I’m proud of who I have become, and am glad of where I’m going.

Thanks for reading my story. It’s websites like SDA WomynFriends that could have saved me from developing the ulcers I got from the pills I abused and saved me from almost dying twice had I come across it at a younger age.

Sadie Roa was a student who wrote from south Texas.