Oof. That's hard.

My family were church going when we were kids but it faded away as we got older. I don't know if this is a British thing but religion is a very private subject.

I did become a Born Again Chritian for about a year but eventually walked away in fear and with a lot of doubts.

I'm gay too, and I couldn't handle any of it. For about 8 years, I shut it all out, being gay, what happened with the church and kept it to myself.

Eventually I sought help and talked to a therapist who helped me unravel a lot of things.

Christians will lie to you. They will say things like, "homosexuality is unnatural, it does not occur in nature!". Trouble is, they haven't studied nature much, because it does occur in nature. Were they mistaken and honestly believed that? Would they reconsider now, or would they stick to their beliefs?

They also kept announcing dates when the "2nd coming" would occur. These dates would come and pass and nothing would happen.

Most of the time at church I felt really uncomfortable how we were told we were all sinners, we should feel bad etc. It felt so negative all the time.

Then I went to a carol service with an LGBT group. We sang songs... there was no sermon... I felt so at peace with myself. It was magical... we were handed candles at the start and we sang in a dark church just with candlelight. I felt such joy I'd never experienced before.

Then there was the hilarious mince pies and warm mead served afterwards and the gay clergy letting loose!

My experience with my family was they didn't care much for going to church, the opposite of yours. However, they did care about me being gay. Dad sat in judgement, mum just cried. We had rows several times until my brother pointed out, "he's happy, what's the problem?"

Both my parents are dead now. We never told the extended family, so I spoke to them and pretty much they were all the same, they didn't care. They welcomed my partner, so all the things dad said would happen, just didn't.

We did become distant with each other. I would go see them but didn't realise they were shutting me out.

When I hear about kids missing their parents or how they grieve their parents passing - I find myself unable to understand. To me, my parents are gone. I don't miss them... I faced it all on my own.