It was exactly a week after my eighteenth birthday, in a big metal building surrounded by razor wire that sat next to the entrance to the camp, that I saw an electroshock machine for the first time.
There’s a trick, often used for training dogs, called Pavlov’s Law. The basic idea is that if you reward a dog, or any creature, when they do a certain activity then they will associate that action with a positive feeling and be more inclined toward it. Do this enough times and the association becomes instinctual. The dog no longer needs to think about what to do. It just does the desired action automatically because it “feels” right.
Apparently, this can also be used for negative associations. It’s also not limited to dogs. People can be trained as well.
In a twisted sort of way, it almost makes sense. The camp staff wanted to mold me into a certain kind of person, so they would “train” me to have the reactions they wanted. They hooked me up to the electroshock machine, then showed me images and videos that were basically gay porn. With each new picture or video, the machine delivered a shock, set to just a high enough voltage that it would cause pain while staying within levels that were deemed “safe”. In theory, this would then cause me to create a negative association with gay content and eventually turn me straight.
It was logical. It was also evil.
Well, the joke was on them. Until then, I’d never seen any erotic content of any kind. My mother had been so obsessed withkeeping me as childlike as possible that she would immediately turn off the television if it showed two people kissing, no matter their gender. I’d never thought about any sexuality at all, let alone my own.
The staff at Camp Green Hill wanted to turn me straight, but they were actually the ones who introduced me to the idea of being gay.
At first, I didn’t know what they wanted from me. I didn’t know how to play along or give them the answers they were looking for. If anything, I was almost determined to become gay just to spite them. To this day, I still don’t know if my sexuality is natural or a choice made in rebellion.
For three months, every single day for hours and hours this was my life. Therapy sessions, long sermons about morality, and “training”. Eventually, with the help of some of the other kids who were also stuck there, especially Eli, I figured out how to play along. I learned the right things to say during therapy, how to act repentant during sermons, and even how to put on a believable disgusted face during “training” so they wouldn’t have any reason to use the electroshock machine to correct me.
The one thing Camp Green Hill was good at teaching me was how to adapt and survive.
Then, when I was finally feeling like I’d be left alone, maybe let out into the world as “cured”, something changed. I was assigned a partner. Her name was Layla, and she’d been sent to Camp Green Hill after her family caught her kissing a female classmate of hers at school. I didn’t even have to ask how long she’d been there. I could tell as soon as we met, and I looked into her eyes. New arrivals still had life in their eyes. Still had a spark glittering within their depths that they couldn’t try nomatter how hard they tried. I’d looked like that once, back when the staff’s insults and verbal abuse still bothered me.
Back when I would still flinch when someone raised a hand in my direction.
Now, I didn’t flinch, and the constant verbal abuse just rolled off my shoulders like raindrops. I’d built up a thick skin to survive, but that thick skin had also stolen the light in my eyes.
Layla, she was missing that light, too. I knew, without a word, that she’d also been there a long time. We were both veterans in this war for survival.
At first, we were simply assigned to sit together during meals. So long as we complied with this, then we didn’t have to go to “training” and we were even given extra treats when we were together, like desserts or extra recreational time. If we were together, then good things were sure to come our way.
I recognized what they were doing. It was just another form of “training” only this time they were using positive association instead of negative. They were once again trying to guide my mind and shape my actions into a more desirable form. However, back then I was too naive to understand their end goal.
Over time, the instructions escalated. At first it was simple. When Layla and I were together, we had to hold hands. This seemed harmless enough, so we complied without any argument.
Then I had to kiss her on the cheek.
Okay. Weird, but not too bad.
But it kept escalating, little by little, until the day Layla and I had been moved into a room together. The staff claimed that itwas due to a lack of space and overcrowding with too many new arrivals, but neither Layla nor I were stupid enough to believe that. We just couldn’t do anything about it, so we hung up a sheet to separate our two beds and tried to make the best of our new roommate situation.
That lasted exactly two days. We were just starting to get comfortable when the camp staff finally revealed the reason for our new arrangement. On the third morning after moving in together, the door to our room was locked and we were told that we wouldn’t be allowed out until we proved that our “training” had been successful.
It was just like when they’d taken my clothes back when I first came to the camp. Layla and I weren’t allowed any food until we complied with the staff’s demands. This time, I managed to hold out for longer than three days. I told myself that the staff would have to give in sooner or later. If they didn’t feed us, we’d eventually starve to death, and surely, they wouldn’t take the risk of actually killing us.
Abusing kids to turn them straight was one thing. I’d managed to look it up in my limited free time and sparse Internet access, and the camp was already walking a fine line of legality. Technically, conversion camps were legal, and most of their so-called treatments fell under the category of “medical treatment” since they didn’t cause any physical harm and were performed by real licensed doctors.
Murder, however, was illegal no matter which way you looked at it.
So, we thought we could wait them out. We really did try, but we underestimated how painful starvation was.
My stomach was empty, but the gnawing hunger chewed on my entire body. Even my bones seemed to burn until I was hollowed out. I was an empty gaping pit in the shape of a person, growing larger with every second that passed, yet I also felt like I was striking in on myself. The skin felt tight along my limbs and face, like it would tear if I moved too fast. I could barely bring myself to breathe too loudly for fear that my ribs would snap.
In the end, I broke. We both did. Maybe the staff would have eventually given up before we actually starved to death, but the pain of reaching that point was too unbearable.
And what if we were wrong?
What if they were willing to let us die?
At that point, I wasn’t sure anymore.