INTERVIEW: Author writes memoir on life after Focus on the Family.

Amber Cantorna is the daughter of an executive at the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, where she was a leader of sorts in her church community. She was also a lesbian — which left her feeling at conflict with her family and faith.

After years of struggling with depression, anxiety and self-harm, Cantorna came out at 27 years old. And in response, her family, who she has not publicly identified, and her community cast her out. So she packed up her home in Colorado Springs and moved to Denver.

Cantorna details her experience, the war within herself, the hurt of losing her family and the path toward rediscovery in her memoir “Refocusing my Family,” which will be released on Oct. 1.

Despite losing so many loved ones, Cantorna says she is happier these days as an out Christian and the founder of Beyond, a nonprofit that helps LGBT people navigate the coming-out process.

She sat down with The Denver Post to talk about her book, the message of hope she tries to convey and her relationship with religion.

Cantorna’s responses have been edited for brevity.

Denver Post: Did you write this book for the LGBT audience or the Focus on the Family audience?

Amber Cantorna: I think it has dual purpose. I think one of mine is the LGBT Christian audience, specifically, because they don’t have that support or they don’t realize they have that support. When you grow up in that Christian bubble, you don’t even know that other people like you exist. It’s so isolating.

Especially for me, I was homeschooled all my life. I was raised in Focus on the Family. My parents really thought, “If we just keep her in this Christian bubble, we’ll keep her safe from the outside world.”

I really had no exposure to any diversity or anybody different than me. I think in the end, that ended up harming me by not knowing there are other people like me who I could relate to. I want to give those people hope and help reach them because that internal war of trying to reconcile your faith with your sexuality is so — not only devastating for what you’ve been taught to believe about gay people — but then also you feel like you’re all alone because you have nobody to talk to.

I want to reach them with a story of hope but then also create conversations for change among parents, influential leaders, pastors and teachers so they can put a human face to the story and realize this isn’t just a news issue. It’s an actual person. I think the more we humanize it, the more that we can really cause change within people’s hearts. It’s when it’s their daughter or their niece or their sister or their brother, that’s when it starts to really make them think and process through things.

DP: It’s interesting that you say “story of hope.” There’s a common critique of Lgbt-focused media, where a lot of the times it’s really not hopeful. And I think it’s starting to change but even you were saying how you watched the movie “Prayers for Bobby,” where in the end he commits suicide.

AC: Yeah, it doesn’t feel hopeful. I think it’s an interesting place where I’m living now because even though I’ve lost all my family and a good majority of my friends and all my extended relatives and everything, I’ve never been happier in my entire life. I’ve never felt more free or more joyful.

There are very few people who know me now who knew me before I came out that have stuck around. But those who have are like, “You’re happier now than I’ve ever seen you. You were always struggling. You were always wrestling with something you just couldn’t pinpoint what was going on.”

And I agree. I was always struggling with depression and anxiety and I could never really pinpoint the root of it. Since coming out, even in this intersection of grief and loss, I still feel more happy and free than I’ve ever been.

DP: Do you think your family will read this?

AC: I hope they read it. That’s the most popular question right now: “Does your family know?” and “Does Focus know?” And I don’t know because I have no contact with them. I suspect that they’ve heard something.

I hope that they will read it with an open heart because I think they would learn a lot about my journey and a lot about where my heart is really at. I think if they took it at face value, they’d be angry to see, “Oh, this is our private story and she’s making it public.”

But that’s really not the point at all. The point is really to reach these people in similar places and help reduce the suicide statistics because I was so close to suicide myself. You know “Prayers for Bobby,” I thought that was going to be my life. If I hadn’t found Highlands Church — that’s really what saved my life. It’s that supportive community around me.

I think a lot of times parents think they’re doing this out of love. My parents think they were loving me. They didn’t realize how harmful it was to my soul and how their behavior affected me.

DP: What I found to be so interesting was the family unit and how the action of one impacts everyone. And so with your mom, your being gay would destroy the entire foundation of her faith. Did you already realize that prior to the book or was that something you discovered while writing?

AC: I think I had to struggle with that when I was going through the process of accepting myself. I faced that moment of fear, too, when I was like, “If I’m wrong about this, what else could I be wrong about?”

It put a crack in my own foundation because growing up in that bubble, whatever you’re taught is true. You’re right and everybody else is wrong. There’s no room for discussion or differing opinions or differing theology.

To be able to pull away from that and see what other people see looking in, I realized that not everything I was taught was true or accurate or should be taken at face value. I started being able to question that. But that was a scary thing. That’s a process I’ll probably continue forever.

I see other parents who come up against that same thing but they still push through it for the sake of their children. So for my parents not to do that, it made me feel like their reputation and appearances were more important than their daughter. And that was a really painful thing to accept. That they didn’t love me enough to really analyze it and work through it from all perspectives.

DP: Did you always have faith in God?

AC: Yes. I think right now I’m at a point where I’m questioning more. All that I’ve seen Christians do in the name of God is so disheartening. I think I’ll always be a person of faith and have a relationship with God. But it’s embarrassing to call yourself a Christian with the way that so many people are treating others in the name of God. I still identify as a Christian but very much more on the progressive side.

But in a way, it’s also very freeing. I don’t feel like I need to have all the answers like I used to. Growing up, we had to have the answers. You couldn’t be wrong. There was no room for doubt.

What I love now about my faith community at Highlands is that there’s so much room to question and to doubt and there’s no fear in that.

DP: It’s not necessarily a question but what I found really interesting was when you talked about how you felt unsafe at church. And it’s a place where you’re meant to feel safe.

AC: I still experience that now. There was a time when I really tried to still make that system work somehow. You know, be able to go into a non-affirming church and still feel OK because I missed these pieces of my life that I had grown up with.

We would try to go to this church that wasn’t affirming but was very similar to our upbringing. But that just does more damage because then you feel subhuman. You’re allowed to attend and they’ll take your money but they won’t let you serve or be on the worship team. And those are the things that are really passionate in my heart. To feel like a second-class citizen at church, it really eats away at you over time.

There are lots of people who feel like that’s their calling, to go into these non-affirming churches and live their life in front of these people. That’s just something that we’re not wanting to do at this point. The more time passes, the more unsafe I feel. The harder it gets for me to go back into those places and feel on edge, like people are watching you.