To those weighing the ban on conversion therapy--

Good afternoon to you.

In 1989 in my freshman year at Duke University, I visited my on-campus counseling service wrestling with deep depression over the flood of awareness that I was attracted to other men and that I wasn't able to sidestep it any longer.  I appealed to that therapist, a licensed psychologist, to see all the options for moving forward.  It's hard to think now about how much I contemplated suicide.  The therapist suggested that if I really wanted to change there was a conversion program based off of Freud's psychoanalysis fifteen miles down the road that was two hours a day, four days a week for fifteen weeks.  I couldn't see how I would have the energy, time, and money to drive there every day and take classes.  I think I would've considered it if it had been less "intense".  In the end, things worked out.  I'm as happy as I have ever been.  I fear what might've happened though if I had gone through that at 18.  What did sting though was how that psychologist reinforced my shame.  That took a while to work through.  Please be on the record unequivocally that conversion therapy is junk science.  That Virginia is a state for truth, empathy, and principle.   Thank you.