David Archuleta grew up in a strict Mormon family where obedience meant belonging and disobedience meant losing everything. As a queer person, he internalized the message that he had to reject himself to stay worthy. He describes learning to see his own beauty despite a lifetime of not hearing that he was enough.
I grew up very worried and mindful about being obedient. I was a very obedient kid. I wanted to be a good boy. And growing up religious, I. My family grew up as Latter Day Saints, Mormons. Obedience gives you power is what I was always raised on. Fear of separation. So you are cut off from God's presence. You are cut off from being with your family. You are cut off from being united with your tribe, community. If. Yeah, if you. If you stray, if you disobey. And so that was more the threat. It's like, well, I don't. It's like, do you want to be with your family forever? Well, then you've got to obey, otherwise you could lose your family. And it's like, oh, my God. Like, I don't want to lose my family. Being queer, I thought I was doing the right thing by hating what I was. So I had to learn how can I still see the good things that I have to offer? And I just had to learn how to find the beauty, even though the environment I was in didn't see that beauty.
