Addison M. Conley

I originally work The Promise in third person from the POV of Mika and her aunt Val. I had four main themes: the relationship between Mika and Val, the love between Val and Brie, Mika’s coming out and her love for Willow, and her grandparent’s betrayal. I could’ve published that long novel, but Mika’s voice kept jumping out and screaming at me. She wanted the reader to focus on her…

Ah, don’t you love it when authors talk about fictional characters as if they’re real? So, at the last minute, and without telling my editor, I changed the novel to tell it just through the eyes of Mika (which prompted more rounds of intensive edits). And so the book took shape as my first YA/new adult novel, but I hope that the character Mika resonates with young and older adults alike.

Formal conversion therapy didn’t exist when I was growing up. It was the family, the church, and a large part of the community that shamed gays. It was pounded over and over into your brain that homosexuality was a sin, an abomination, the lowest of low, etc. Anyone who came out was shunned and sometimes suffered abuse.

I grew up with two parents that never went beyond the sixth grade and had struggled to reach the lower middle-class. The “dad” was misogynistic, alcoholic, and abusive. I knew I was different from a young age, and by junior high school, I knew I was gay. Staying in the closet was the only safe option. I became the loner in school who didn’t seem interested in anything but math, science, and softball. A little bit of me is very much in Mika.

In my novel, the religious conversion therapy camp that almost breaks Mika is fictional, but I based it on various real-life experiences I’d read in articles and see on documentaries. The scene where Mika is forced to stand for hours in a corner with a backpack full of rocks is based on the true story of Alex Cooper. The non-fiction book, Saving Alex, by Alex Cooper and Joanna Brooks, tells the story of what fifteen-year-old Alex endured. Alex is now twenty-nine.

Even if there is no physical abuse at home or in conversion therapy, the psychological abuse and shaming is so damaging. And often, no one knows it’s happening because this type of abuse leaves no physical scars. And let me tell you, those scars last a lifetime. Sometimes, you’re not sure if you can trust telling someone your truth. There’s a fear that clings to your soul forever.

In the United States, we don’t have a national ban against conversion therapy like Canada, our neighbors to the north. Twenty-three states plus Washington DC have a ban on conversion therapy for minors. A few states have a partial ban, but nineteen states and four territories have no protection at all.

The majority of Americans overwhelmingly support bans on teen conversion therapy, but like on other hot button issues, the United States is a scattered and tattered tapestry of laws. It might be legal in one state, but not in another. One city or county might have pro-gay rights, but not the rest of the state. The fight for equality, especially for us, is far from over. Some want to take us backwards. Two of the current sitting Supreme Court Justices have openly said that same-sex marriage is wrong, and if given the chance for a majority vote, the court should roll it back. When there is so much evil in the world, they’re focused on stripping people of human rights. I can’t help but think they’re looking at the wrong things.

While writing this novel, I wondered if I should water down the more vivid camp scenes, but then I watched Katherine Kubler’s documentary, The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping. In the documentary, Katherine and some of her former classmates talk about what they experienced at The Academy at Ivy Ridge and how it affects them still to this day. I applaud them all for the courage to tell their story, in particular the one young man who suffered horrendous abuse.

Katherine and other former students visited their abandoned school, The Academy at Ivy Ridge, and found a trove of evidence, paperwork, and videos that show the horror that transpired. Being body-slammed, put in isolation, and being forced to sit in a chair and chant a phrase for hours were only a few incidents. Katherine interviewed some former employees. One, who quit after a month, told her the teens were treated like prisoners. In another interview at a diner, the woman said something like, “What really scared me was the gay ones.” That interview never concluded because Katherine was asked to leave the diner.

The documentary exposes how the owners of this school deceived and brainwashed the parents into paying large sums of money to help their children. The parents never knew that their teenagers were being abused as Ivy Ridge staff would make them write “happy letters” home, and if anything slipped through, they’d lie. The schools were a money-making machine. When a school was shut down, it would simply move to another state or another country.

Mika’s story has a happy ending. Obviously you’re going to have to read it to find out, but a lot of these real kids don’t get a happy ending. Conversion therapy, bullying, and being rejected by the family, peers, and others results in a higher risk of suicide for LGBTQ+ youth.

Lives are at stake. We must do better. It could start by stop pretending that LGBTQ+ people don’t exist. I applaud Scotland, England, and the Republic of Ireland, who have embedded LGBTQ-inclusive education in their educational curriculum. In the United States, only seven out of fifty have a law requiring LGBTQ+ classroom discussions. The other states, territories, and Washington DC have a variety of rules that vary from state censorship to no law at all.

And there’s a ban against books going on in the United States. I’m not saying my novel should be in a school, but it’s a glaring fact that book banners are targeting subjects on race/racism, or ones featuring LGBTQ+ or characters of color. Seven of the top ten banned books had LGBTQ+ content. The banners want to erase any story that does not fit their narrative. They don’t want children to have the freedom to read, think, and develop opinions. The banners are for subjugation to their point of view. When is the madness going to stop?

We must do better.

Mika’s coming out story is a major theme of The Promise. There’s no one way to come out in real life. Some of us are full of confidence, while others are hesitant and fearful how family and work mates will react and treat them. Some of that fear can come from early trauma. And let’s face the facts, bullies can live anywhere and exist in all social classes. Bullies can be family members.

Thankfully, as the country has become more progressive, more LGBTQ+ allies, peers, or adults have stepped up to the plate. The small act of showing kindness to someone who is different can go a long way.

Yes, we’ve come a long way in my lifetime to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people and to march towards equality, but discrimination still exists. In the United States, there are those in prominent positions that want to push LGBTQ+ back in the closet and women under the thumb of their male counterparts. We can’t go backwards. Scapegoating and shaming a person or group of people only harms us all. We can and we must do better. We must not go backwards.