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The Boy Who Walked Himself Home: a memoir of breaking, becoming, and remembering
At nineteen, Peter Michelsen lost everything in a single night.
Raised inside The Church at Carson City, a strict religious cult in rural Michigan, Peter was taught that obedience meant safety, love had to be earned, and anything outside the church could cost him his family—and his soul.
Then the church cast him out.
With one decision, the only world he had ever known disappeared. He lost his faith, his family, his identity, and the place he had been taught to call home. What followed was not a clean escape, but years of searching—for belonging, for love, and for someone who might finally choose him.
From Chicago and Houston to the Arizona desert, Peter tried to build a life as a gay man while carrying wounds he did not yet understand. Freedom brought adventure, sexuality, friendships, and love—but it also exposed the abandoned boy still living beneath the surface. When the end of a relationship pushed him to the edge, he was forced to confront a truth he had spent his entire life
No one else could come back and save him. He would have to become the one who stayed.
Inside these
• A childhood shaped by control, fear, and public shame inside The Church at Carson City
• The night Peter was excommunicated and separated from his family
• The complicated freedom of discovering life and sexuality outside the church
• Love, heartbreak, and the abandonment wounds that followed him into adulthood
• EMDR therapy, nature, and sacred medicine as paths toward healing
• The quiet transformation from waiting to be chosen to finally choosing himself
The Boy Who Walked Himself Home is a raw memoir of religious trauma, gay identity, heartbreak, healing, and the lifelong search for belonging.
It is not a story about having all the answers.
It is the story of a boy who spent years searching for home—only to discover that home had been waiting inside him all along.
You may recognize yourself in these pages if you have ever felt rejected, abandoned, silenced, spiritually controlled, or afraid that becoming yourself would cost you the people you loved.
Sometimes healing is not about finding your way back to who you were.
Sometimes it is about becoming the person who finally comes back for you.
Raised inside The Church at Carson City, a strict religious cult in rural Michigan, Peter was taught that obedience meant safety, love had to be earned, and anything outside the church could cost him his family—and his soul.
Then the church cast him out.
With one decision, the only world he had ever known disappeared. He lost his faith, his family, his identity, and the place he had been taught to call home. What followed was not a clean escape, but years of searching—for belonging, for love, and for someone who might finally choose him.
From Chicago and Houston to the Arizona desert, Peter tried to build a life as a gay man while carrying wounds he did not yet understand. Freedom brought adventure, sexuality, friendships, and love—but it also exposed the abandoned boy still living beneath the surface. When the end of a relationship pushed him to the edge, he was forced to confront a truth he had spent his entire life
No one else could come back and save him. He would have to become the one who stayed.
Inside these
• A childhood shaped by control, fear, and public shame inside The Church at Carson City
• The night Peter was excommunicated and separated from his family
• The complicated freedom of discovering life and sexuality outside the church
• Love, heartbreak, and the abandonment wounds that followed him into adulthood
• EMDR therapy, nature, and sacred medicine as paths toward healing
• The quiet transformation from waiting to be chosen to finally choosing himself
The Boy Who Walked Himself Home is a raw memoir of religious trauma, gay identity, heartbreak, healing, and the lifelong search for belonging.
It is not a story about having all the answers.
It is the story of a boy who spent years searching for home—only to discover that home had been waiting inside him all along.
You may recognize yourself in these pages if you have ever felt rejected, abandoned, silenced, spiritually controlled, or afraid that becoming yourself would cost you the people you loved.
Sometimes healing is not about finding your way back to who you were.
Sometimes it is about becoming the person who finally comes back for you.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 25, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 12, 2026
I grew up in Carson City and knew of the "Shermanites." We lived just down the road (Bloomer St.) from a family who were members until I was about 6 or 7 years old. My older brother was friends with the boys who lived there and later in life worked for them at one of their automotive shops. We knew their religion made them dress differently, like many of the Mennonite's in town, but we had no idea about the abuse or that it was a cult. My parents even worked at Gibsons/Frigidaire/Electolux. It's so bizarre that things like this can go on in such a small town where it seems like everyone knows everybody's business. Devastating to think kids were treated this way in the place I loved so much as a child. I wish you had a better childhood, but I admire you for coming forward, exposing the truth and sharing your story. ❤️
July 2, 2026
Personally wouldn’t wanna read someone’s inspirational memoir who comments mean hateful things on people’s videos.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews