How To Deal With Bigots And Awful People, Without Feeling Awful

I have a very kind gay Christian friend, whose husband recently shared on Facebook that an old work colleague had recently contacted him to remember the good times she had had working with him (my mom says this was probably a ruse, since this woman had probably heard he was divorced and thought he was newly single and ready to Christian mingle). He told her all that was going on his life. Hours later, she contacted him again, saying that her Christian witness was damaged if she didn't "call you out on your lifestyle."
He went on:

With all the love and gentleness I could muster, I explained to her that being gay isn't a choice. That for many years I tried to pray away the gay. That I had lost my biological family because they can't condone my lifestyle either. And that what had damaged her witness with me was that she felt the need to change from loving me to feeling the need to call me out as a sinner.
The church in general, and evangelical Christians in particular, have no idea how much they hurt LGBT people!


 I don't know that I fully agree with him. I think for the most part, the church knows how much they hurt LGBT people. But they think their loving God makes them.
When I come across these people (though I try to avoid them, whenever possible), I find myself saying things like, "I don't need your permission to be a Christian or have a relationship with God." And, "If it bothers you that gay people do not commit to lifelong celibacy, then I invite you to lead by example."

But those things are only what I say to other people. What matters even more, is what I say to myself.
There are negative messages coming from these people, to me. So I have to counteract them with positive messages, from me. I have to be on my own side, even if the awful people are not.
Through gathering signatures for my atheist club at school (when I thought of myself as an atheist), and finding a way to combat nervousness, I learned how to say the same thing to myself, over and over again in my mind. This skill has come in handy, in more ways than one.
So I have a secret weapon, to build myself up, when the bullies and awful people wish to tear me down and make me doubt myself. And the best part is, these people don't even know that I'm using it. They don't even know that I have it--maybe they don't even know that it exists. If you yourself are in a bad situation, you can use this to combat the negative messages that you are receiving, and regain your confidence and love of yourself.
My secret weapon (or rather, my secret shield) is this: I say to myself, over and over again in my own mind, "I love you AJ, I love you AJ, I love you AJ," constantly, dozens of times, as many times as I need to, in order to feel better.
I did share what I did, with my friend quoted above, and I hope it helped. It certainly has helped me.
It puts a barrier between myself and others. It reminds me that I am on my own side, even if they aren't.
Sometimes when I'm lying in bed, especially--when I have no distractions--I use this technique. I don't just use the one phrase, either.

"God is glad, he made me gay," I remind myself.
"Everything will be all right."
"I did everything I could for him," when thinking about my late cat, and feeling guilty.
"It's a game," when thinking about work, and feeling unproductive.
And always, "I love you AJ, I love you AJ, I love you AJ," when I don't feel I am being treated with love, by others.
I'm sure you can think of other things, to use for yourself.

I do this when I'm not even being judged, too. Any time I need to feel better, I do this. And it's made me feel a lot better.
I try to avoid negative statements, such as "They don't matter," because I'm afraid my subconscious brain will only understand positive statements, and think that they do matter. But anything else that helps, I use that (because I think that if God is good, then he has no problem with LGBT people--and if he does have a problem, then he's not good--and not to be flippant, but in that case, I don't want to know him anyway). And in this one life I know I have, I want to love myself, and be completely at peace with myself. And if I have to believe something, then it's going to be that I am just fine the way I am.

"I'm just fine, the way I am. I'm just fine, the way I am. I'm just fine, the way I am..."