I am still young, not even twenty, but I have been through a lot. I always felt out of place as a kid, rather introverted. And in primary school I was in an all-boys school, where I used to fool around with a couple other boys in the class. It didn't occur to me that something was out of the ordinary. When it was time for my Bar Mitzvah, I became very fervent and committed to religion, but soon afterwards I began to drift. Eventually at the end of middle school/start of high school I decided to come out as "gay", and bore that title for a number of years.
Meanwhile, my parents were having marital issues, and eventually separated. I ended up getting hooked on drugs as an escape. I went on a horrific, two year long "experiment" that started out as simply going out to bars and nightclubs (what is pretty typical of my generation as teenagers, sadly), but gradually led to dropping out of school and a daily routine of getting high on hard drugs, and frequent sex with multiple partners via the gay hookup app torah.com. I didn't realise how much harm I was doing to myself and to my family that cared about me, physically and spiritually.
It came to a point where I weighed barely 100 lbs, didn't sleep or eat, practically lived in the gay saunas and bathhouses, and was on the verge of psychosis. I believed all my gay "friends" cared about me and I appreciated their "generosity" whenever they offered me drugs and sex. I was so far removed from normalcy and from living as a human being; truly it was the darkest pits of She'ol.
I don't know exactly how or why, but one day just this past summer, min hashamayim, I felt the urge to bring myself to see my mother, who I hadn't seen in over three months out of shame. She was absolutely devastated and heartbroken at seeing her son in such a state. Over the next days and weeks, I gradually confessed to her everything through heavy sobs and pain. With the unconditional tenderness and love and care of a mother for her child, she nursed me back to health. Every morning she made me fresh orange juice which stung the sores in my mouth to drink, but I would drink it anyway. And every evening after cooking us dinner, she slept in front of the door of her apartment to make sure my yetzer hara couldn't tempt me to go out and drug myself again. I truly owe it to her and to HaShem for giving me my life back, I would be dead if He hadn't led me to my mother to pull me out of the hole I was in.
Since then, I vowed to turn my life over to His will, and to commit myself to not sin anymore. I wanted to make the most intense and sincere teshuvah a person could make. But it hasn't been easy, as since I got healthier, I oftentimes forgot the misery I had previously been in. And I keep slipping up every now and again because it is so damn easy to just open up my internet browser. While sure, I have beaten my addiction to substances, it is my hope that I can beat this other foul influence in my life that is even more difficult to catch. May we become worthy to merit the coming of Mashiach now through personal purification and dedication!
