‘I am so deeply thankful they did not succeed’ – a Highland resident recounts his experience of conversion therapy
A Highland resident has told of how he was drugged as a young man in a bid to change his sexuality.
In England and Wales, homosexuality was legalised in 1967 – with Scotland not following suit until 1981.
However, even long after those landmark moments for the LGBTQ+ community, being gay was classified as a mental illness.
While American psychiatric and psychological professionals advocated for that to no longer be the case as early as the mid-1970s, it took until 1990 for the World Health Organisation to remove it from the International Classification of Diseases.
Until that moment in time, then, medical professionals were still very much “treating” being gay, and sometimes with extreme measures.
Back in the late 1960s, our Highlander was working as an assistant priest in an Anglican parish while regularly seeing his boyfriend.
While no longer illegal, it was still forbidden for members of the clergy, so he saw it as something “unacceptable” and wanted to make it go away, so he sought out the NHS to do so.
Referral by his GP to a doctor at the local psychiatric hospital led to scoring highly on the “homosexuality scale” that was used at the time, and it was decided to admit him to hospital two days a month and dose him with LSD.
“She discussed the results with me and said something like ‘you do score quite highly on the homosexuality scale, but I never pay much attention to that when I am dealing with other doctors or members of the clergy’,” he recalled.
“She probably told me why she felt that, but I do not remember what she said.
“She decided to admit me to the hospital and dose me with LSD ‘to unlock my subconscious mind and reveal the traumas of early childhood’ which she said were preventing me from developing ‘normal’ relationships with women.
“I went along on alternate Fridays for about six weeks. In a private room, I was told to drink a solution of LSD, lie on a bed and wait for something to happen.”
LSD is a psychedelic drug that causes intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception, and can lead to hallucinations for up to 20 hours.
It can also induce panic attacks, and users can experience flashbacks of the symptoms long after the drug has worn off.
Our Highlander felt much of that, with one particular episode manifesting as extreme anger, and the whole experience is not one he would want to relive.
“It is hard to describe the feeling that came over me in waves after taking LSD,” he said.
“The phrase ‘seeing sounds and hearing colours’ is appropriate. On the first day, I was given a mild dose, and I remember lying on the bed listening to a recording of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.
“At one moment, the base of my mind seemed to crack open and I sank into a very deep reverie. When I came out of the daydream, the music was still playing at the same point that it had been when the daydream began – time had stood still.
“This was consistent with what I had been warned to expect under LSD. However, I find the memory very frightening and I would go a long way not to have the experience again.
“Later on, the doses increased in strength and everything got more serious.
“One time, I remember the doctor coming in to check on me and I told her I kept thinking I was going to choke. She asked if I had ever had a tonsillectomy – I had when I was three – and when she returned she found me in a towering rage.
“I had concluded, and am still in no doubt, that the anaesthetic had been insufficient and that I had felt the surgery. I very seldom think about that terrible and long gone day, however when I do remember it, I still get angry.”
The “treatment” that our Highlander had been given was enough to convince him at the time that his gayness was the result of childhood traumas, so when asked late into the sessions whether he was still worried about homosexuality, he answered “no”.
He claimed he understood, and that would help him move on, but in hindsight he can see that he was deep in denial.
“Had the doctor explored the gay relationship that I continued throughout this time, she would have realised how deeply in denial I was,” he explained.
“She was pursuing a theory of her own, I had told her what she wanted to hear, and she was happy.
“In return, she had told me what I wanted to hear, and I thought I was happy.”
While not achieving the impossible and “curing his gayness”, the LSD doses did leave a lasting mark. A full 40 years later, he had a flashback, which prompted very different action.
“I had other issues which needed my attention and which I was reluctant to confront,” he said.
“One evening, in a pub on holiday, I began to feel as though I had taken LSD again. My partner, now husband, and I walked home and the sensations continued until I was in bed and asleep.
“Sounds such as the closing of a window sounded like an earthquake! I was very glad that someone else was with me. I was fine in the morning. I am always aware even now that this could happen again, although it never has and I certainly hope it never does.
“Following this episode, I went to a counsellor again. The contrast between this and the hospital psychiatrist could not have been greater.
“My gayness was taken for granted and affirmed. I was helped to understand and confront the issues that I had been avoiding. When those sessions ended, I felt strengthened and liberated. What a difference!”
Now approaching six decades since being given psychedelic drugs in a bid to change his sexuality, the whole scenario feels “bizarre”.
Reflecting on it, he can see that the path that should have been taken was towards acceptance, and he is grateful to have reached that destination eventually – even if by a much longer route.
“In my 20s, I would have benefitted from counselling to help me accept my gayness and to deal with some of the other conflicts and confusions that I experienced in those days,” he added.
“Instead, the NHS allowed a doctor to waste its resources and use a very dangerous hallucinogenic drug to attempt to destroy one of the foundations of my identity.
“I am now happily married to the man who has been my partner for nearly 35 years, and so I am deeply thankful that they did not succeed.”
