Episode 10 • Get Thee Behind Me Ooltewah

"One of the lesser known burdens of being gay is that you live a lot of your life in your head. At a young age, you start having little conversations with yourself. And you keep having them—over and over and over again. And the conversations evolve . . . they intensify. They're all about how you got this way, and what went wrong, and what if so-and-so finds out, and what if _________ or _________ or _________ happens. These conversations are led by fear, fueled by self-doubt, and they all end with the same urgent warning echoing around in my skull: "TELL NO ONE.” A beautiful world spins around us—wild with life—pulsating with the beats of festival-joy, and here we are, staring at a cracked mirror hung crooked on the concrete walls of our minds. And this constant internal chatter, this constantly bubbling brain babble is never-ending . . .It's time-consuming, stressful, exhausting. It's a unique prison. It's an on-ramp to narcissism. It's like a starving man diving into a feast and then discovering it's his own soul he's eating..."