During the first week of my sophomore year of high school,my paternal grandfather died. It bothered me a lot less than it probably shouldhave; I wasn't close at all, and the majority of my memories of my grandparentsthat lived in Pittsburgh were of having to go through quarters they receivedfrom their car washes and taking out all the Canadian coins. I once threw up inthe car while driving to visit them.

This was a significant year in a lot of respects. Theprevious year, I was officially diagnosed with my neurological disorder and myfirst surgery was slated for December 4 of my sophomore year. I went into theschool year with more anxiety for that single event than for anything else, butthis all before the chain reaction.

I was living happily at school. The previous year, I hadscored straight As but my school had failed 16 out of 23 basic requirements aslaid out by the recently implemented No Child Left Behind Act; our alreadymeager resources were slashed further, especially in the arts. The only realenjoyment I had in school was in the music program and when they upped clubfees to over a hundred dollars per activity, I was forced to withdraw fromeverything besides choir and band- they were classes, so no extra fees.

My after school activities gone, I was forced to take thebus home after school. Because the neurological disorder was growing worse bythe day, I wasn't able to participate in even our marching band, and for once Ifound myself having free time at home. My two older brothers were both atcollege at this point, leaving me the oldest at home while my parents marriagefelt to shreds around me and my troubled younger brother.

Desperate for any escape, I turned to two very conflictingsources for comfort. One of them was church- I began attending youth group atthree different churches in the area, happy to be involved in a free activitythat provided me with rides so I wouldn't have to depend on my parents foranything. The other comfort was porn.

Some afternoons, when my little brother would disappearwithout a word, I would just sit online and watch porn for hours straight. Itbecame such a common activity that it was almost non-sexual for me; I can’trecall ever truly enjoying it. It was just an obsession that I could satisfywith our home’s new broadband internet.

Eventually, I started making online friends. The moreserious my church attendance became, the more serious I would take my littleonline relationships. I’d lie about my age to guys who lived really far away,but at other times I could be honest about the fact that I was 15. Things tooka dark turn when I secretly stole a webcam and began to get validation in allthe wrong ways.

But anything was better than facing my life. The clock wasticking away to the surgeries and my mother started disappearing at night asoften as my little brother. I once asked her for a ride to a church event andshe entered a violently angry mood, screaming profanities at me usuallyreserved for our janky washing machine while I was on the phone with a friend.

Church became a necessary emotional crutch. I told myfavorite youth pastor about the fact that I was gay and he gave me a responsethat was shockingly compassionate compared to my parent’s belief thathomosexuals unquestionably go to hell. He put me in a mentoring program withsome older kids in the youth group- two straight couples made up of seniors. Igrew to depend on my older friends, to trust them unquestionably, seeking themout as the older brothers that my blood brothers had never been.

The natural dissonance that arises from seeking gayreparative therapy (self-inflicted at this point in time) while at the sametime occasionally earning money by doing adult and illegal things online put mein a pretty bad place. My grades started slipping, and I stopped talking to allof my regular school friends- while I went through my first ultra-Jesus phase,they began to practice witchcraft.

Then D-day hit and my dad drove me down to Children’sHospital for the first of two bone surgeries I would eventually have. I was inthe hospital for four nights before being wheeled home. I didn't walk fornearly a year afterwards; I took Oxycontin for the next 20 months, but perhapsthe most difficult was that it was so cold out that as long as my overallcondition stayed positive, I wasn't to leave the house even for hospital visits.I didn't see sunlight until my dad wheeled me outside the following March. At16 and 6’1 tall, I weighed less than 90 lbs.