Today’s Video Story was collected on the 50-state Story Tour. Check out the blog where you can follow us on our adventure, and where you can learn a bit more about Sam. If you haven’t submitted a story yet to IFD, or if you want to submit another one, I’d love to read and publish it. Write one up and send it in. You can see Part 1 of Sam’s story here.

I’m Samuel Brinton, and I’m from Perry, Iowa. My mom finds me up on the roof. Says “she will love me again, if I will just change.” Which is not the thing to say to a person standing on the edge of a building. So, I run back in to my mom’s arms saying “You know what? I’m changed! It’s done. It worked. Epiphany from God.” The pain finally stopped. Immediately nothing was ever said about it. We literally, that part of my life disappeared, it is as if nothing had ever happened for the past year. So I come to KC, I start recognizing that people here are treating me a little bit differently. There’s not nearly as much judgement. I live in a house of thirty guys. It starts getting very uncomfortable. I’m starting to recognize, oh crud, these feelings are getting really really strong and so I finally meet a lesbian couple, recognize that there’s a gay culture. And my K-State story begins. I came back out to my parents. My mom, and she didn’t really know what to say anymore cause she thought it had worked, she’s told me that she would tell my dad cause we didn’t want the same situation to happen again. I left for the afternoon, I came back and my stuff was on the front door, with it locked. I’ve tried to call them multiple times, my mom has answered the phone once or twice, for on her birthday or something, saying something, hi. My dad, has held a gun up to my head multiple times but the last time I got on the phone, I try to keep calling, I want contact, was that he would shoot me if I ever tried to walk in the door again. I have a 12 year younger baby brother who was born. I’m not supposed to contact him. I’m not supposed to contact my sister. The family, if I’m going to live as a devil child, then I’m not part of the Brinton family any longer. Everyone says, oh after a few months your parents will come around. I don’t necessarily see that happening cause of what happened last time, I think they have a lot of work they need to do. But, I do recognize that I will give them that chance. What my parents did was part of what they believed. They thought they were losing their child and they wanted to help him, so I have to forgive them, I have to move forward. But I think the reason why I was so excited to be able tell the story was that if there’s other people who have gone through conversion therapy, who are having those feelings of, “I’m the only one alone”, you need to know that there are people who have made it through and, you can’t change what I never chose.