American Idol runner-up David Archuleta is detailing his struggle with his sexuality as a Mormon, which at one point led him to consider suicide. "I was almost willing to give my life up because I was so devoted to what I believed," Archuleta, 35, told People in an interview published on Wednesday, February 11. Archuleta came out as queer in 2021, one year before he left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In his new memoir - Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself, out on February 17 - Archuleta explained that his life was changed by a conversation with God. "I had to learn how to not be ashamed. I always felt like I had to hide before," Archuleta said. "I'm just grateful to be alive and to see what I can do with my life while I'm here. It really feels like starting again." David Archuleta Reveals How His Life Has Changed Since Coming Out In an excerpt of the memoir shared by the outlet, Archuleta wrote that he thought God "abandoned" him because "He was so disgusted with me." He explained that he felt if God "left me with these homosexual feelings, I suppose He didn't want me to exist." Archuleta noted it was a "constant internal war" with himself, contemplating whether he should admit that he was "gay or end my life." "My mind buzzed with questions. What would be the most efficient way to do it? The safest way? What would cause the least anguish for my family?" he wrote, explaining that he began looking for places where he could end his life. "When I found a decent spot, I thought, 'Should I just do it now?' The thing that held me back wasn't the fear of death, but the fear of not dying. If I survived but broke my back, I might be paralyzed, and then it'd be impossible to try again. I'd have to exist with my thoughts for decades without being able to do anything about them." Archuleta wrote that he felt he would "never be able to make up for being bisexual, gay or whatever I was" and had "tried everything to change that, and nothing worked." "I went on a mission and was an obedient servant. I'd confessed, felt shame and repented. I'd been engaged three times. I tried therapy, and that got me nowhere," he wrote, explaining that he had a "revelation" after ending his third engagement. David Archuleta Says He 'Can Do What I Want' After Leaving Mormon Church He continued, "I was in my living room alone. Suddenly, I felt something while walking across my shaggy Walmart rug, a lightning slash of sensation that cut through the shell of numbness and weeks of not feeling anything. There He is. There's God, I thought to myself. I said, 'God, if you are there, and if you have a plan for me, please just take this away from me. Please help me overcome my sexual feelings for men because I don't want to be like this. I'm so tired of dealing with this.'" Archuleta explained that he felt God began speaking in his head "suddenly," telling him to "stop asking me this." "He said, 'You've been asking me this for over half of your life, since you were 12. I'm not going to change anything. I don't see you how you see you. It's time for you to understand that,'" Archuleta said. "It wasn't exactly a burning bush, but there, on hands and knees, the dam of confusion and mixed messages - from the church, from its leaders, from therapists, from my own self - crashed down as the voice of God flooded my head." He continued, "I had spent a lifetime letting others interpret who God was for me and what He wanted for my life, but there adrift in the silence I had finally heard the message He had for me all along. God was telling me that I was wrong to think that being gay was a mistake. I'd been thinking that it would be better to end my life than to live as a gay man. But now God was giving me permission - encouragement! - to start dating men, something I never thought would be OK." Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself hits shelves on February 17 and is available for preorder now. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.