Let's take it from the top

I tried to mentally and emotionally visualize and prepare for all the possible ways of being a martyr so I’d know what to do (and do it right, without failing God through cowardice) when the time came sometime before I became an adult in a school shooting or terrorist attack or targeted porch bombing or something.

I was always always trying to train myself for all possible nightmare scenarios so I could at least know for sure when the moment arrived that I’d be strong enough to make the right choice. I had to believe that. I had to be able to hold up under torture. Any kind of torture. Any I could learn or think of.

I spent several years in a row frantically training to be a martyr driven by desperation, feeling constantly like I was likely already out of time, and I couldn’t say for sure I’d die for my faith because I had too many doubts from even before my first holy communion.