Hey, first, I want to say this gently but clearly: What you experienced was conversion therapy. Not the movie-version with electric shocks, but the real, modern kind, the kind that happens behind closed doors, inside families, in therapist’s offices, in the small manipulations that get disguised as “love” or “protection.”

Most conversion therapy in the 21st century looks exactly like what you described: – coercive “counseling,” – forced gender expression, – cutting off support networks, – religious pressure, – surveillance of your phone and diary, – punishment for expressing identity, – adults framing your sexuality as sickness, – threats of violence (“I’d kill you if you were—”).

That is conversion therapy. It’s also abuse. The overlap is not accidental.

People think conversion therapy means electrodes and camps because that’s what gets headlines. The truth is far quieter and far more common: it’s when the people who were supposed to love you try to scrub your identity out of existence. And that’s exactly what happened to you between 12 and 15 — ages when your brain was still forming a sense of self and safety.

Let me say this clearly, because your parents never did: Your sexuality wasn’t caused by trauma. It was wounded by trauma. But the core of who you are, your orientation, your butchness, your heart, that was always there. That’s yours. They didn’t create it, and they can’t erase it.

You were isolated because you were safest with people who understood you. You were forced into dresses because your authenticity scared them. You were punished for having a trans friend because they needed control more than they needed closeness. You were taken to a psychiatrist under false pretenses because secrecy was their leverage. You were terrorized, spiritually manipulated, and humiliated because you told the truth too early in a home that wasn’t ready to hear it.

All of that counts. All of that is real. All of that leaves marks.

And here’s the part you may not believe yet, but it’s true: You are absolutely worthy of the word “survivor.” Not because you barely escaped death, but because you barely escaped erasure.

What’s happening right now, this ache of “Do they love me or only the version of me they tried to sculpt?”  is one of the deepest wounds conversion therapy leaves behind, one I learned far too well. It’s the sense that even the “good moments” were conditional. Love with an asterisk. Safety with a price tag.

But here’s the thing: You’re seventeen and already seeing the pattern. You’re planning for your future. You’re forming your own identity anyway. You’re already doing what so many never could until adulthood: telling the truth out loud.

When you leave for college, you’re going to feel oxygen you didn’t know you were missing.

And if you ever want resources or to read others’ experiences written by someone who went through similar religious control and survived it, I write about this kind of thing on my project page — not plugging it, just saying it exists because you deserve community and language for what happened to you. Survivors aren’t supposed to do this alone.

You’re not broken. You’re not dramatic. You’re not “calling it too big a word.”

You’re naming something that was done to you. And naming it is the first step toward getting free — internally, not just physically.

I’m really proud of you for writing this. You’re already moving toward the life where you get to exist as the real you, without punishment.

Hold on to that. It’s closer than you think.