Nahuel Santiago Medina

I lost all my friends because I became a Catholic. Story that takes place from 2002 to 2021 in Argentina. My name is Nahuel, I am Argentinean, and since I was a child my relationship with God was, to say the least, strange. My first contacts with him came from very strict and rigorist people, with a terrifying vision of God. And since I was a child that was something that made me uneasy. I could never concentrate, I'm autistic and I have ADHD, so I suffered a lot of nagging in my life because of this. Doing homework and other basic things were always hell for me. My classmates bullied me, I wasn't very social and I wasn't very knowledgeable either. As you can imagine, that brought me depression and psychological problems. From the age of seven I started to suffer from suicidal thoughts. From that age I began to ask myself why there was so much evil in the world, why there was so much suffering, what had we done wrong? And that, logically, generated resentment in me. At some point, and for some reason, I came to the conclusion that God did not exist. I grew up and when I entered adolescence I became the typical anti-clerical atheist who thought that either God did not exist, or He existed and did not care about us. In religion classes I fought with my teachers and more than once I made them angry. Also at that age I became obsessed with gnosis, and that led to a renewed interest in religions. Soon, near-death experiences began to catch my attention. And suddenly, God frightened me again. I was grounded by the idea of a punishing, evil, cruel God. I was a conservative-minded guy, so that's what I was advocating for, and I once posted a video talking about transgenderism. Well, one of those days, looking at the comments I had posted, I came across the comments of a transgender person in which he seemed to refute me. I was shocked. There, at that moment, I met those who were my long time friends. Each and every one of them were members of the LGBT community. And learning their stories made me care more and more about them. They became my friends, I loved them and so did they. I remember I had a transgender friend who was very hurt because she heard her family say they would rather have a thieving son than a gay son. Their suffering and marginalization was something that hit me hard, because I loved them, I cared for them. While my life was collapsing, while I was suffering from depression, I was there for them. And at the same time, God was closer and closer to me. I began to frequent priests, to listen to their arguments and little by little I was convinced by Catholicism. Until one day I told a priest friend of mine: I am a closet convert, I had read the whole catechism and I was convinced that the Catholic Church was the true one. And he told me to convert. Afterwards, I had a suicide attempt, which meant that I had to stay away from everyone for some time. When I came back, things were no longer the same, they were tense. But I still told my friends that I had become a Catholic. And I'll never forget what one of them said to me, "And that's supposed to be good news?" Logically we ended up arguing, and in response, at the end of the argument, I published a 15-page article on Catholic Truth, something that didn't go down too well with him. That publication was the beginning of the end of an era for me. My former friends now viewed my encounter with God with astonishment and anger. In response, a friend of mine posted horrible and disgusting images on my profile, which made me angry and upset. I had not done that to them. But, out of anger, I responded. I got together with other people to annoy them, and that logically caused yet another quarrel. In the end, logically, I had to go off the internet for a while and ended up locking myself in my room. Again I was alone, crying all the time, not taking a bath, not shaving, very sad again. But this time I no longer felt alone, this time I felt God on my side. And little by little, as the years have passed, I have seen my friends, little by little, come to God with me. I hope to see them again soon.