Alana’s Story
You can now listen to Alana’s story in the new podcast Dear Alana, available wherever you get your podcasts.
On December 8th, 2019, Alana Faith Chen died by suicide at 24 years old after years of conversion therapy and sexual oppression.
Committed to serve God and her church, Alana confessed to a trusted priest at 14 years old that she thought she was attracted to women.
That priest responded by telling Alana that being gay, having “impure thoughts”, and acting out on those desires was a “mortal sin” and that she would go to hell if she were ever to have a lesbian relationship.
He also convinced her not to tell her family because if they accepted her as a lesbian she would not change and go to hell. As a devoted, impressionable girl, Alana listened to that priest.
Alana endured 7 traumatic years of this miseducation, “pastoral counseling,” conversion therapy, and religious abuse, which resulted in years of severe depression, self-harming and extreme suicidal ideation.
When Alana’s parents discovered her great suffering, they got her the help she needed through inpatient and outpatient therapies, and several specialized therapies.
Alana began a new healing journey, and even applied to get her Master’s in Counseling so she could become a therapist herself one day.
Even while Alana was getting legitimate professional help, the traumatic religious abuse and psychological torture that Alana experienced for many years was still too much to bear.