Tales of an Anxious Soul

Honestly I have been a lot happier after coming out, but then for other reasons I have been more confused and paranoid than I have ever felt in my life. I have reverted back to old habits, I have still had the same depressing thoughts, I have felt like people around me are just saying things that they want me to hear. Why have I had it so easy when others in the LDS community have it so hard after coming out? I have almost had an identity crisis because I don't know what to believe anymore. When people tell me to look forward to the future and get excited, I think "excited for what?" people who want me to say my husband is just my friend when I am around their kids? Or always feeling like I am seen as some gone astray Mormon, because how can you be fully active while "living the gay lifestyle?" Let me ask you though... Most of you who are reading this are probably straight. Some may be gay but do you look at your life as a "lifestyle" you chose? Were y

I honestly don't know what all I am going to talk about in this post. I just felt like there was more for me to say, and open up about. So with this post I decided to come up with a title and I am just going to type and see what comes out. I was born gay. When I say that what do you think about? Do you see a child sitting around thinking about sex? For some reason that is the main thing people think about when they hear that someone is gay. Why is that? Or if someone is transgender the first thing people think about is what their "down there" looks like when it's really no bodies business. I grew up in an amazing LDS family. I have three wonderful sisters who for the most part we have all gotten along pretty well. We would always play house, play with barbies, do eachothers hair, I may have even tried on a dress or two. I think the first time I had anything remotely close to a crush on a boy was in kindergarten. We kids would always chase each other, usually the boy

Over the last week or so, I have really had to get my thoughts and feelings in line in order to discuss them. On June 30, 2015 the first presidency of the LDS church released a letter in response to the June 26, 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same sex marriage. If you are interested in reading the full letter here is the link ( LDS Newsroom ). Originally when I read the letter, I got sick. The letter bothered me. I was upset with how it was worded, how I felt it made us gays look to the other members of the church. I was also concerned for how fully active members would treat us LGBTQ members of the church. I know for the most part I can feel comfortable in my family ward. I have many friends married and unmarried, my age, and some older. I am not necessarily concerned for myself or how I may be directly treated because all the essential people in my life have welcomed me with open arms. I do feel pain for the other people who don't have my situation. Either their parents dis

For those of you who don't know what it is like to suffer from depression, let me explain it a little further so you can try to understand what its like. According to www.mayoclinic.org , "depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Also called major depression, major depressive disorder or clinical depression, it affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. You may have trouble doing normal day-to-day activities, and depression may make you feel as if life isn't worth living. More than just a bout of the blues, depression isn't a weakness, nor is it something that you can simply "snap out" of. Depression may require long-term treatment." When you are truly depressed you literally feel worthless and no matter what people say, you will continue to feel that way until it either subsides, you find out what your triggers are, and or you get put on med

I have alot of things running through my mind so this post may jump around a bit. The list of things I want to discuss are the following: The topic of me continuing to occationally blog about anything gay and the issues that people have with that, Straight pride and how it's offensive, Caitlyn Jenner and the lack of Christlike individuals in our conservative bubble, and the last one is me seeing my life as a mission. As time has gone on I have gone from saying that I have SSA, to stating that I am gay, then I had to clarify that by identifying as gay I was also saying I will get married and life my life accordingly (I didn't know that I had to really spell that one out for people). I have had many people tell me that I should not focus on the "gay aspect" of my life so much, and that it is just a small part of "Zachary Jones". While this is true, they don't truly understand what it means to come out. Before I came out I was living as "normal"

Last night was a major turning point for me. While in Tempe with my friend, we were on our way to Jack in The Box when two homeless men pleaded for us to buy them food. They even had some money but had been told by management that they were not aloud in the restaurant. We decided to pay for their meals and to hand the change back to them.  While the food was being prepared, I decided to go back outside and sit on the park bench with my two new friends. We just started talking about some random stuff and laughing. One of the men then asked me if he could talk to me away from his friend. We stepped away for a little bit so we could talk. He began telling me all about his life, he told me how he is scared every night being in that part of town and how nobody cares about him. He gets beat up constantly. Fellow homeless people who he has bought food for have even beat him up in the past. He asked me what he should do and how can he get out of there. On top of all this, he is religious. He

So here's the thing. In the beginning of my journey of coming out I stated that I had SSA and I really believed that I could either live my life remaining celibate and alone, or I could lie to myself and live in a heterosexual relationship and have a family. I know that there are people who find ways for either of those options to work for them. For me however, that is not the case. Most of you who are in the church you will remain set in your ways and not see this from mine or my families point of view because you either don't want to understand, or you see me as someone who has "given up on the fight" and you are disappointed. I have decided to just not care what people think. This journey has really helped me see the difference between those who love unconditionally vs. those who love with conditions. One thing in life that I strongly believe in is that we all need to find what makes us happy. I don't know about you but my long term idea of happiness is being a

As many of you know I have been going through a lot lately. When I say a lot I really do mean A LOT. I won't get too into it with you because it will literally make you so depressed you will not want to finish reading. I'm ok now though! I know when I originally started this blog I stated that I had or was living with SSA. I have since then changed my stance. No I didn't change it, I am just now getting to the point where I am comfortable saying "yes. I am gay". Now, I have no idea what this means for me. As for right now I can not see myself marrying a guy or doing anything like that, but I do know that I have been really depressed because I have not felt completely like myself. I have felt lost and alone. I know my "changed point of view" will upset some people, and to be honest that's perfectly fine. You have no idea how hard this is for me or how hard it is staying in the church while also being crazy attracted to guys. I can not even count all

Dear friends and family, This is NOT a suicide letter. This is however, a very open letter to everyone so you can all see how my life is not some amazing fairy tale.When I first started blogging on here, I felt like that was the way to be happy. Yay! everyone knows I'm attracted to boys. I thought that would somehow make life easier. It did too a point. I finally stopped caring about how people saw me. I no longer worried about what my style of the day was, or what fad I was going to follow. I just started dressing however the heck I wanted and I still do, because it feels so amazing to not care about other peoples opinions. One persons opinion that started being more prominent was mine, however. I started being my worst critic and saying the most negative things to myself and I started to believe it. On top of all of this, I stopped praying, I stopped reading scriptures, I stopped caring about the church and about the gospel therefore I began to slip away in all aspects. I hav

The topic of forgiviness has been on my mind alot lately. This last Sunday was Fast and Testimony Meeting, and someone spoke on the power of forgivness. I thought I had forgiven all who had wronged me, and caused me pain in Jr. High and Highschool but I hadnt. I was still holding in emotions and anger towards alot of people. One in particular. I went on facebook yesterday to look up the message I had sent to the individual who had shouted across campus to me in Jr High. I was very dissapointed in what I had said to him. My words were a horrible representation of me as a person and also a bad represention of someone striving to become fully active in the church. I decided to send another message and this is what I said    "Dear, ****** I know you probably won't see this message, as you haven't seen the other ones I sent in the past. You have been on my mind off and on since I have began blogging. I was wrong to message you a few years ago. I was mad and hurt and I didn&#