“Sitting there in the midst of my professors’ intelligent conversations, I had felt like both an impostor and a traitor,” he writes. During college, writes the author, the liberal teachings he received constantly clashed with everything he learned growing up. It needed to be changed for the sake of a higher being Conley wasn’t sure existed anymore. As people of faith, his parents sent him to Love in Action, a Christian ministry devoted to “curing” those filled with “sin.” “According to the scripture,” writes Conley, “I was no better than a pedophile, or an idol worshiper, or a murderer.” While attending LIA, the author met others struggling with alcoholism, homosexuality, and suicidal ideation, and he was told repeatedly that his inner life was wrong. The community he grew up in looked at him twice, his principles were blurred by constant self-doubt, and those he once considered friends became distant memories. When the author’s parents found out he might be gay, his hometown in Arkansas started to close in on him. In a sharp and shocking debut memoir, Conley digs deep into the ex-gay therapy system.
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