Page 10 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
“Well, let’s unpack that. You said you broke up before because of your penance from confession, correct? Do you still feel that same guilt or shame about your sexuality that led you to want to make amends for it?”
Well, fuck. I hoped to get through this conversation with minimal vulnerability. I hardly know Dr. Lee, so I wanted this to be as simple as me listing off all the relevant information and her diagnosing me with my current amount of relationship readiness.
I shift uncomfortably on the couch at the prospect of a feelings-heavy conversation. Talking about shame and guilt isn’t exactly the most clinical topic, but if that’s the information she needs for my relationship diagnosis, fine. But if she wants a tragic backstory or to see me cry, she’s out of luck.
I don’t know how to answer right away, so I grab one of the stress balls in the basket next to the couch and lie down. Something about being horizontal and tossing a ball in the air over and over again makes this whole thing feel more casual. Her question reminds me of a conversation I had with Yami when she visited me in the hospital last year. She asked me then if I was ashamed of her, or of Jamal, or of Bo. And since the answer was an easy no, she reminded me there’s no reason to be ashamed of myself.
A fair argument, but it’s never been that simple for me. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like there’s this nagging voice in the back of my head that says it’s different. ThatI’mdifferent. That I’m special, and uniquely bad.
I told Father John about that guilty voice during the infamous confession, and he explained that it was probably God’s way of reaching out to me, trying to save me from the devil’s influence. I believed it then, but now I’m not so sure.
“I don’t know,” I say with another toss of the ball. “If I do, does that mean I shouldn’t be with someone?”
“I don’t think there’s a black-and-white answer here. I supposeit depends on where those feelings are coming from and how you address them. Do your feelings of shame come from within, or is it other people and outside influences that say there’s something wrong with you?”
Honestly, I expected her to just tell me I’m not ready if I can’t get over that shame, so she gets an unexpected point on my imaginary how-much-I-like-this-therapist scoreboard. “Well, my dad isn’t supportive. And I used to get bullied for it at my old school. So I guess some outside influences. And I’m Catholic, too, so there’s that. Would religion be an outside or inside influence?”
“That’s an interesting question. I’d say your spirituality is your own, but organized religion comes from other humans. So perhaps it’s a bit of both.”
“Okay, so two and a half points to outside influences, and half a point to myself,” I say as I catch the ball in front of my face and toss it up again. People have always described my shame as being internalized, so I never really thought of it as coming from anything but me.
She starts jotting something else down while she answers. “And are those outside influences any threat to you? Is there any fear for your safety or well-being if you were to go against them?”
“I don’t go to Rover anymore, and my dad lives in Mexico, so I’m not in any danger or anything, but...” I hesitate before tossing the ball again or saying the next thing. Going against God doesn’t threaten my physical safety, at least not while I’m still alive. “I don’t want to go to hell,” I finally say.
Her eyebrows tilt upward just a tiny bit in another micro expression of what I assume is pity. “I want to give you full disclosure that I’m not a religious person, but for the sake of thisexercise I’ll speak as if your experience of Catholicism is the objective truth, all right? With that said, would you mind if we explore this a bit?”
“Okay...” I go back to tossing the ball. I’m not trying to have a religious argument during therapy, so maybe her pretending she believes what I believe for “the sake of this exercise” is best for now.
“Can you tell me what it is that makes someone worthy of a fate like hell?”
I squint at her skeptically, not really sure where this is going. Still, she seems to have an end goal and not just random questions, so I humor her. “Sinning. If you don’t confess and repent for your sins before you die, you go to hell.”
“I see.” She nods her understanding. “And do good deeds have an effect as well, or only sins?”
“Well, it depends. Like, if you’re so well-known for being good that you get canonized as a saint, then you’re guaranteed to get into heaven. And if you do something so bad that it’s a mortal sin, then you’re pretty much guaranteed to go to hell unless you confess to a priest and repent.”
“And is your sexuality a mortal sin?”
“Depends who you ask,” I say automatically, still tossing and catching. I’ve been trying to figure that out for so long, but none of the nuns or priests I’ve asked can seem to agree. “To be a mortal sin, it has to be grave, done intentionally with full knowledge of the impact and consequences, and done with full consent of the sinner,” I say, basically from memory. The grave part, I think is what gets everyone hung up. Like, what qualifies a sin as being grave? Everyone agrees on murder, but that’s pretty much the only consensus we’ve all been able to come to.
“I see,” she says again. “Did you fall in love intentionally with full knowledge of the consequences? Did you consent to falling in love?”
Her question surprises me so much that I miss the ball and it bounces right off my forehead before rolling away on the ground. I laugh a little. “I guess not.”
No one’s ever focused onthatpart of the equation when it came to this whole mortal sin debate. Another point for Dr. Lee. If me loving Jamal isn’t an unforgiveable type of sin, then maybe there’s hope for me. But is it the type of sin that can be canceled out with a good deed?
“I think, in general, good deeds should also count,” I add.
Another micro smile. “So maybe you can focus on the good deeds you know you can do, like treating people with love and being generous and kind as much as possible, instead of focusing on something you can’t control.”
“You know what, yeah,” I say, feeling a little pumped up. I think back to that conversation with Yami from the hospital. She told me she loves herselfbecauseshe loves me. Because we’re the same. Maybe loving Jamal will be like that for me. If I love someone I can see myself in, maybe I’ll hate myself a little less. And with hell out of the picture, the only consequences of being out are other humans, who I can handle for sure. “Fuck what anyone else thinks. Who cares if people don’t like it? It’s my life, not theirs.”
Micro smile. “I think you found your answer, Cesar.”
She’s right. The answer was so obvious all along, I don’t know why it took this conversation for me to figure it out. The answer is him.
I’m ready.
