When The Lines Were Drawn

When I was 19 years old, at Nyack Missionary College in Nyack, NY, the chaplain tried to cast demons out of me. True story. We sat in a small upper room and he tried to talk them out of me. It was the most intrusive, molesting, filthy, and demeaning experience of my life and I have had things done to me that I will not mention here. Please believe that I am not being dramatic. I considered ending my life and, without the support of a dear friend in that moment, I might have.

Everything in my life shifted from that dark moment on. Anyone who knows me can attest to this. It was immediate. I was a completely different person from that day forward. The old me was dead. The young man who had set out to me a minister like his father and his grandfathers (uncles, cousins, brothers, etc.) was gone. He didn't exist anymore. Nothing would ever be the same. My entire foundation was ripped out from under me in an instant and, as I left that building, the only word that I could say (and I screamed it) was "bullshit!". The entire world became bullshit from that moment on and I knew that I would never be fooled again no matter the cost.

I told people but nothing was done. He continued in his position and was even responsible for having me kicked out for smoking a cigarette on a day I was actually playing a show upstate and nowhere near campus. I had begun smoking, drinking, doing drugs, and having sex within a week of the failed exorcism after having never experienced any of these things. No one cared and I took that message to heart. No one cared. He did it to others and I would see the change in them as well. It didn't matter. We didn't matter. We were discarded. Swept under the rug.