I felt lonely, afraid, depressed—I plummeted deeper into cycles of self-harm that had offered themselves to me as pain-avoiding compulsions, but I couldn’t say a word. Not only to them, but to anyone else. I had staked my entire life upon this specific shot at a sense of certainty. To express grief, upset, disappointment, or worst of all anger over what had been done to me would have been to give myself away as an unfaithful, double-minded individual, unfit for service in building the kingdom of god. Ironically and unluckily,
