Back to Therapy

I’ve decided to go back to therapy after a six month hiatus. I’m going to be seeing a different therapist than I was seeing the last time. My new therapist was referred to me by my spiritual director, and apparently he has had some success in helping men and women deal with same-sex attraction. I’m optimistic that I will be able to find some additional healing through this latest round of therapy.

I decided to go back to therapy for several reasons. One is that the last round of therapy did not help me to deal with my same-sex attractions as much as I had thought. After I concluded the last round of therapy in February, I went for a period of several months without experiencing any same-sex attractions. I was even experiencing some of the things that had triggered same-sex attraction in the past, such as feeling rejected and not feeling liked by someone who I was interested in being friends with. Nothing happened. I was also experiencing pretty strong attractions to women. I was really optimistic that my feelings of same-sex attraction had finally been dealt with, and that I could begin to consider a priestly vocation or begin moving towards marriage by getting into a serious relationship with a woman. But then the same-sex attractions came coming back. That was a couple of months ago, and since then I’ve been struggling with same-sex attractions again. Sometimes these struggles get pretty intense, and I feel a strong longing for sex and a romantic relationship with another man. Now most people would say that I should give into those feelings. But the problem with that is that I know what happens when I give into my same-sex attractions and engage in homosexual activity and masturbation. It leads to nothing but unhappiness and misery. Through these struggles, I’ve realized that there is something very wrong with me to make me want sex with another man. Something has gone very wrong in my childhood. I can no longer pretend that I’m emotionally healthy even though I have same-sex attractions. I can also no longer live with the frustration of wanting sexual contact with another man so much but also knowing that giving into those desires would lead to much unhappiness. That is why I decided that I need the help of a therapist in dealing with all of this.