Found Deceased CO - Alana Chen, 24, driving to Chautauqua Park, Boulder, for hike, 7 Dec 2019

[dixiegirl1035]

Behind a pay wall for me. Can you summarize?

A trick that someone shared with me on another thread long ago. If you start to hit a pay wall and it begins to load, quickly put your phone/computer in airplane mode.

Usually you have about 2 or 3 seconds to do such, and you will be able to read the entire thing before it turns into a subscription block. It works for some sites, and it worked for this one.

See if it works for you? If so it will help you on other threads perhaps.

Colorado’s new ban on conversion therapy wouldn’t have protected these LGBTQ women. Here’s why. – The Denver Post

How this can go on is just so tragic to me. What ignorance and cruelty to another human to do such.

 

[Seajay]

Poor thing. She sounded like she was tormented in her confusion over her religion and her sexuality being in conflict with one another. May she Rest In Peace and I pray her family finds healing and understanding.

 

[Owutatangledweb]

Rest In Peace. Another beautiful young woman gone too early.

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

PUBLISHED: December 10, 2019 at 5:07 pm | UPDATED: December 10, 2019 at 5:24 pm
“A woman who shared her story with The Denver Postabout undergoing conversion therapy through the Catholic Church was found dead Monday afternoon near Gross Reservoir, according to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.

[SBM]

In August, Chen discussed her mental health and self-harm struggles with The Post, saying she had endured conversion therapy when she came out to a priest at Boulder’s St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church. She said she later sought more formal counseling through the church and Catholic Charities’ Sacred Heart Counseling.

Chen and her family reached out to The Post over the summer to help tell her story so others facing similar struggles wouldn’t feel alone. Chen said she hoped to educate readers about the harm the therapy caused her. The Post published the story in August.

Suicide prevention resources
Colorado Crisis Line: 1-844-493-8255, coloradocrisisservices.org. Chat online or text TALK to 38255.

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention:afsp.org

Crisis Text Line: crisistextline.org. Text 741741 from anywhere in the nation to reach a counselor.”
Woman featured in story about trauma of conversion therapy found dead in Boulder County

 

[perfectingpink]

PUBLISHED: December 10, 2019 at 5:07 pm | UPDATED: December 10, 2019 at 5:24 pm
“A woman who shared her story with The Denver Postabout undergoing conversion therapy through the Catholic Church was found dead Monday afternoon near Gross Reservoir, according to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.

[SBM]

In August, Chen discussed her mental health and self-harm struggles with The Post, saying she had endured conversion therapy when she came out to a priest at Boulder’s St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church. She said she later sought more formal counseling through the church and Catholic Charities’ Sacred Heart Counseling.

Chen and her family reached out to The Post over the summer to help tell her story so others facing similar struggles wouldn’t feel alone. Chen said she hoped to educate readers about the harm the therapy caused her. The Post published the story in August.

Suicide prevention resources
Colorado Crisis Line: 1-844-493-8255, coloradocrisisservices.org. Chat online or text TALK to 38255.

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention:afsp.org

Crisis Text Line: crisistextline.org. Text 741741 from anywhere in the nation to reach a counselor.”
Woman featured in story about trauma of conversion therapy found dead in Boulder County

I cannot imagine what this poor girl went through with conversion therapy. I pray she now has peace.

 

[sans_soleil]

Her story is so heartbreaking rest in peace.

 

[sans_soleil]

"
Chen came out to a priest at Boulder’s St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church when she was in high school around 2009. The priest began counseling Chen informally throughout her high school years, telling her not to tell her parents, she said.

Chen continued attending the church after enrolling at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2013 and sought more formal counseling through her church and Catholic Charities’ Sacred Heart Counseling, formerly known as Regina Caeli Clinical Services. Chen said she was trying to reconcile her sexual identity with her dream of becoming a nun.

“I felt a lot of shame and anxiety,” Chen said. “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Was I going to hell? But I was still extremely faithful, and I felt like the church and the counseling was the thing that was saving me. The worse I got, the more I clung to it.”

Mark Haas, spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, said it would be improper to comment on the specifics of Chen’s counseling, but added: “We reject any practices that are manipulative, coercive or pseudoscientific.”

Credible counseling allows a patient to establish goals and that every person’s life experience and reason for seeking counseling is “completely unique,” Haas said.

“In general, Jesus Christ has called his Church to love and walk with anyone who is struggling, and that is a mission we strive to live out daily,” Haas wrote in a statement.

In January, the Denver Archdiocese sponsored a conference by Andrew Comiskey, founder of Living Waters and Desert Stream Ministries, which Comiskey describes as a ministry “healing the sexually and relationally broken” with a commitment to “overcome homosexuality.”

Catholic Charities offers clinical services at sites throughout the Front Range, including outreach to Catholic schools and archdiocesan ministries.

Chen wound up in a psychiatric hospital in 2016 after her family found scars on her arms from self-harming. She distanced herself from the church, stopped attending CU Boulder and started long-term mental health treatment.

“I think the church’s counsel is what led me to be hospitalized,” said Chen, who is now 23 and going to college in Arizona. “I was feeling so much shame that I was comforted by the thought of hurting myself. I’ve now basically completely lost my faith. I don’t know what I believe about God, but I think if there is a God, he doesn’t need me talking to him anymore.”

 

[Vail]

I hope the Denver Post journalist does a followup. I really think the church is complicit in this and it makes me so angry for Alana and her friends and family. She was so beautiful and smart. I wish just once someone in her life would have told her the amazing story of evolution and why homosexuality exists in all biological beings. Conversion therapy is now banned in Colorado, so what was she doing back there? According to the Denver Post, she was supposed to be attending uni in Arizona.

 

[0101ABA]

Rest In Peace Alana. The power of religion is truly evident here. Boulder is probably one of the most liberal places in the United States and it saddens me that Alana was somehow unable to feel embraced in an an environment so diverse and accepting.

 

[Blondie in Spokane]

Poor thing. She sounded like she was tormented in her confusion over her religion and her sexuality being in conflict with one another. May she Rest In Peace and I pray her family finds healing and understanding.

My heart hurts for Alana and the turmoil she endured. I was just reading about Ed Smart’s journey to come to terms with his homosexuality and he is hurting so badly too, not only for himself, but his wife, children, Mormon acquaintances, etc. He just wants to live his life as he should with no pretenses. When religion is involved there is so much guilt and baggage heaped onto a person. I too was raised Catholic as Alana was....it’s not a very forgiving religion either when it comes to homosexuality, to say the least. What an struggle just to be who God made you to be. RIP Alana.

 

[Seajay]

In that article, she talked about hanging on to her faith through it all. It obviously was important to her and she held on to it diligently. IT also was her downfall because she could not correlate her sexuality to it. She was in extreme motion all pain to be cutting.

What she needed was someone to tell her that she wasn’t an accident, being just the way she was. She’s at peace now.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Condolences and sympathy to her family and friends.

 

[Seajay]

DBM

 

[kaen]

Thank you, Seajay. I was sad before when I read that Alana had taken her life. Her mother's words make me infuriated. I hope that the Roman Catholic Church opens an investigation and that the local community demands it. I only wish that Alana had been able to hold on. She was so loved. And, she deserved to have loving, kind support to help her through the pain she was experiencing.

 

[scapa]

DBM

Thank you for posting this. And to think that some of these same priests would now refuse to have her buried as a Catholic (as my family know, sadly, to our cost). No one should have to suffer such pain for their race, religion or sexual orientation. I have very little time for faiths and creeds who make it their mission to regulate the intimate lives of their adherents.

As my Jewish grandmother would have said: "What is that your business?"

 

[kaen]

Thank you for posting this. And to think that some of these same priests would now refuse to have her buried as a Catholic (as my family know, sadly, to our cost). No one should have to suffer such pain for their race, religion or sexual orientation. I have very little time for faiths and creeds who make it their mission to regulate the intimate lives of their adherents.

As my Jewish grandmother would have said: "What is that your business?"

I agree with your grandmother. Further, I would say that any clergy or counselor who counsels that a person should not share their issues with family as family would support them is suspect in terms of their counseling skills. They isolated her and puth er at risk for further depression and suicide.

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

Alana’s obituary. Would love to have met this beautiful young woman:
https://www.legacy.com/amp/obituaries/dailycamera/194704000

 

[shinimeggie]

Rest in Piece, Alana.

We really need to start protecting and helping young LGBTQ+ people who are effectively forced and shamed into unproven treatment, no matter if it's religion, family, or some shame that compels that response.

Alana seems like she was a wonderful young woman who should have been allowed to have her space to soar wherever on the rainbow she considered herself -- as a LGBTQ+ person myself who has also had MH problems, I can't help but to feel a kinship towards any person who considers themselves as fitting in that rainbow and is blocked, and shamed, and faces stigma.

I would have liked to meet her and tell her no, it does get better, LGBTQ+ stuff and mental health stuff, it really does, and it's worth fighting for, and you can do this, and let's see what can help you so you don't do this right now, but unfortunately if life was that simple, many more people wouldn't struggle and suffer. She was very brave, way more brave than most, to discuss her story before she went, and I hope that it touches other people who may be undergoing difficult times or challenges unproven 'treatment' of something that is not an actual problem that needs a 'cure'.

 

[ElementalLaura]

The Trevor Project is a remarkable organization that works to end LGTBQA youth suicides and campaigns against conversion therapy and other harmful programs and policies at the state level. They do outstanding work. (I have no affiliation with them other than admiration for their much-needed efforts.)

How I wish that Anna had been met with love and understanding when she sought insight from someone she considered an expert.

 

[Jim_M]

Rest in Piece, Alana.

We really need to start protecting and helping young LGBTQ+ people who are effectively forced and shamed into unproven treatment, no matter if it's religion, family, or some shame that compels that response.

Alana seems like she was a wonderful young woman who should have been allowed to have her space to soar wherever on the rainbow she considered herself -- as a LGBTQ+ person myself who has also had MH problems, I can't help but to feel a kinship towards any person who considers themselves as fitting in that rainbow and is blocked, and shamed, and faces stigma.

I would have liked to meet her and tell her no, it does get better, LGBTQ+ stuff and mental health stuff, it really does, and it's worth fighting for, and you can do this, and let's see what can help you so you don't do this right now, but unfortunately if life was that simple, many more people wouldn't struggle and suffer. She was very brave, way more brave than most, to discuss her story before she went, and I hope that it touches other people who may be undergoing difficult times or challenges unproven 'treatment' of something that is not an actual problem that needs a 'cure'.

THIS post needs to be read by every human being on this planet. And even those not on this planet. Yes, they are in space orbiting our home. Where, sadly, way too many humans are still denying our science. All science, really. IMHO of course.