I Thought I Was Healed
Back when I thought graphic tees and a big smile could pray the gay away.
Me and my sweet friend Hannah at Potbelly’s in Champaign—right in the thick of college, campus church services, and pretending I had it all figured out.
We were good kids. We were trying. We were holy and hungry.
I Thought I Was Healed
(a poem by Adam Rye)
I raised my hands
like that would fix it.
Worship team, front row,
graphic‑tee collection on display—
My Bad under the apple bite,
retro puns plastered across my chest,
sweating out the gay
in every seam.
I gave a testimony
about how I used to struggle—
Used to.
Past tense.
Say it that way
or they won’t clap.
I told them I was healed.
I meant it.
I really did.
Because what else could I be?
I didn’t know I was allowed
to just be
me.
Back then,
holiness came
with rollover minutes
and a Cingular plan upgrade.
I prayed for my cell bill
like it was a demon.
They laid hands on me
so many times
I flinched at hugs.
My T‑shirt soaked through
with sweat—
underarms dripping proof
of the work it took to pretend.
But I smiled through it,
led the songs,
thanked God for feeling seen—
even when I was invisible.
Backstory: I Thought I Was Healed
This song comes straight outta the cargo-shorted closet of my Vineyard Church years. From 2003 to 2015, I was in deep—like, deep deep. Saturday night services, three rounds on Sundays, youth group on Wednesdays, Alpha and Healing Journey and seminary classes the rest of the week. I wasn’t just a church kid. I was the ex-gay testimony guy. The one who got up on stage and said “I used to struggle,” with a smile so big it almost fooled me too.
“I Thought I Was Healed” is the musical version of me standing at the front of the stage, raising my hands, drenched in sweat—part worship, part fear, part BO—and convincing myself that if I just sang loud enough, prayed long enough, and wore the right Christian graphic tee, I could sweat the gay out for good.
This was before I understood I was autistic, before I knew you could be queer and holy and whole and not have to earn your belonging with trauma performances in a mic’d-up prayer circle.
They laid hands on me so many times I flinched at hugs. And I called that love.
This song is a hymn for the kids who led worship to survive. For the ones who said they were healed just to feel safe. For the ones who got good at testimonies, and forgot what truth even sounded like in their own mouth.
Now I know better.
Now I sing this song—with a full chest, a clear head, and no apologies.
