Monday, December 29, 2014
Therapeutic Letter to my Assembly of G-d Pastor
This is honestly a difficult letter to write. I've been trying all day to address it to the Assembly of G-d Church in general, but really, that's not working. I've been trying to figure out what my issue is with the whole church in general, but what it comes down to is this: I don't have a personal beef with an entire group of people. Oh, sure, it was your culture and your formation, and your entire worldview that led you to fail me, but in the end, you were the point of contact between my crazy ass dad and your crazy ass religion.
I'm furious, and broken hearted. It's not just that you failed to rescue me, but that you made what happened to me so much worse. Without you, and your worldview, my dad would have been a sadistic, perverted, drunken child abuser. With you he was a sadistic, perverted, drunken child abuser with G-d on his side.
I honestly believe that if my dad had not been completely deluded by your particularly poisonous version of fundamentalist Christianity, he would have had to try a little harder to blame me for my own abuse. When you promised G-d's divine healing for me, you gave him a ready-made weapon to use against me when G-d didn't deliver. You gave him the vocabulary and the framework in which to see me as culpable. You brought even crazier people into our church to say yes, the devil is in this child. Her infirmity is because of demons.
I honestly believe that if my dad had not been completely deluded by your particularly poisonous version of fundamentalist Christianity, he would have had to try a little harder to blame me for my own abuse. When you promised G-d's divine healing for me, you gave him a ready-made weapon to use against me when G-d didn't deliver. You gave him the vocabulary and the framework in which to see me as culpable. You brought even crazier people into our church to say yes, the devil is in this child. Her infirmity is because of demons.
Not only did you set me up, but you made me feel responsible. Oh my G-d. I cannot tell you how much of my childhood was spent in misery because of your sermons. And the altar calls. Oh, my G-d. How many times did I "get saved"? How many "rededications"? How many tears did I shed, kneeling by those old altars in front of the sanctuary? Didn't you ever wonder just what in fucking hell I had to feel so guilty about? Didn't it ever once occur to you that wasn't normal?
Did you ever once think "Hey, maybe I could offer some counseling and find out what is bugging her so badly?" You visited our house often. It was at least once a week. Every Sunday night after Dad got so ill, you'd come by before church, and visit with Dad. Then you'd pray with us. I still remember holding your hand as we joined in a circle. Your hands were warm and strong. You listened to my dad and you prayed with him. During all that time, all those words, didn't you ever once think: "Wow, this guy's insane and evil."?
Did you ever once think "Hey, maybe I could offer some counseling and find out what is bugging her so badly?" You visited our house often. It was at least once a week. Every Sunday night after Dad got so ill, you'd come by before church, and visit with Dad. Then you'd pray with us. I still remember holding your hand as we joined in a circle. Your hands were warm and strong. You listened to my dad and you prayed with him. During all that time, all those words, didn't you ever once think: "Wow, this guy's insane and evil."?
On that note, how did you sleep at night, when you held hands with us for years and years, praying for divine healing that never came? No matter what we did: more church attendance, more "love offerings", more "mission support", the steady tithing, giving of our time and talents, attending more and more "revivals", earning badges in Prims, Daisies, and Missionettes, singing in the choir, singing solos, despite all of it, G-d just didn't choose to heal anyone. How did you reconcile that?
Knowing that what was wrong with my eyes was treatable, knowing that my dad delayed medical treatment for me based on your promises, knowing that by the time he gave up and allowed my mom to take me to a surgeon that it was too late for anything but cosmetics, knowing that the only reason he allowed it was because he was convinced that I was demon possessed and G-d would never do anything for me, knowing all that, did you ever feel a twinge of guilt? Didn't you ever think of saying "Look, man, going to a doctor is okay." Hell, didn't you ever once think of saying "Hey, man, if YOU can go see the doctors at the VA, then YOUR KID can have surgery." EVEN ONCE? DID THAT NOT OCCUR TO YOU?
Huge swaths of my childhood were spent completely dissociated. It's weird, but all those times that I stumbled down the aisle to the altar to repent, I never clearly thought "I am feeling guilty because of the sexual abuse." It was so weird, but every time it happened, it was like a horrible surprise, like something that sprang up out of the blue, and then when it was over, I would just not think about it anymore. I would completely ignore it. Yet, I was convinced that I was a terrible sinner. That there was something integral to me that was unacceptable to G-d. I would pray to Jesus, sing hymns, cry my eyes out, feel guilty, get forgiven, and then feel happy and joyful. Over and over and over and over. Didn't you ever once think "Man, something's wrong here."? Because I think I would have noticed.
Did you notice? Were you guys gossiping about me when I wasn't around? Did you have a narrative? Did you know? Did you know what was going on and tut tut about it in private? Did you deliberately ignore it because it "wasn't any of [y]our business"? Seriously, I wish I knew.
P.S. That bullshit you pulled with my mom about college? Not cool, Dude. Not. Cool. It's been almost thirty years and I still wake up in a cold sweat worried that I'm wrong, you're right, and it's demons.
P.S. That bullshit you pulled with my mom about college? Not cool, Dude. Not. Cool. It's been almost thirty years and I still wake up in a cold sweat worried that I'm wrong, you're right, and it's demons.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Therapeutic Letter to My Mother
Mom. What the ever-loving fuck? WERE YOU ON CRACK????
I called her agency. I demanded to talk to her supervisor. I told her the whole story, the way I learned it. I didn't want them to minimize it. I knew it wasn't "the bad thing" even though every alarm bell in any normal person's head would be going off like crazy, but it also was really fucking inappropriate. And it was Not. Okay.
I'm a mom myself now. I hired a babysitter once. She was bonded and certified. She worked for a reputable agency that did background checks. She stayed with the kids at our house one day while I attended a conference for CEUs back when my license was still active. My oldest son started having nightmares about hands shortly afterwards. Hands touching him, hurting him. I did what any good mom would do, I talked to him. He said he didn't want to talk about it, that he was ashamed.
I waited. I swallowed my panic. That night, I picked him up and cuddled him in our rocking chair, the one he'd nursed in since he came home from the hospital. He'd had a warm bath with epsom salts. He was relaxed. No one else was around. He was in his comfy jammies. I said "Son, I love you. No matter what happened with the baby sitter, you can tell me about it and I will believe you and I will help you." Slowly at first, scared and shaking, he told me the whole story.
She held him down and tickled him. She wouldn't stop when he asked. She called him "chicken" when he ran away from her. On the inside I took a huge breath of relief. So that was "all". But I didn't let him see that. I told him that it was not his fault. I told him that decent people stop if someone says stop. I told him that if someone bullies him, it's because they are making a choice to do wrong, not because he did anything to deserve it. I told him firmly that I would deal with it. That he was safe, and that she would never come into our house again. He went to bed. He trusted me.
I called her agency. I demanded to talk to her supervisor. I told her the whole story, the way I learned it. I didn't want them to minimize it. I knew it wasn't "the bad thing" even though every alarm bell in any normal person's head would be going off like crazy, but it also was really fucking inappropriate. And it was Not. Okay.
They listened. They heard me. They disciplined her. She didn't come back to our house. And my son knew he could count on me. He knew that I had his back. He knew he could come to me with troubles that were too big for him, and I would help him. The nightmares went away. That's what you DO when you learn that someone is hurting your child. You fix it. You make it stop.
So, I ask you again: what the ever-loving fuck?? WERE YOU ON CRACK?????
You knew I was being molested. You had a doctor look you in the eye and tell you that your baby girl was being molested. That a sexual predator had wormed his way into your life and that your baby was being hurt. And you did what? You told my dad?? **MY** DAD??? The useless asshole with a known criminal record because he had already had sex with underage girls? You trusted HIM to come up with an appropriate response?
Mom, that was worse than useless.
Mom, that was worse than useless.
There were other failures. There were failures of boundaries, there were failures of knowledge, there were failures of developmentally-appropriate expectations. But none of them come quite to the breathtaking level of fail of you turning over the task of "What do we do about the sexual predator taking advantage of our daughter?" to the even-worse sexual predator you lived with.
"What else could I do?" you asked me once, a decade and a half later. You could have left. You could have called the fucking cops. You could have shot the bastard for all I care. YOU COULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING BESIDES TURN YOUR BACK AND IGNORE ME WHILE YOUR HUSBAND RAPED ME BECAUSE I WAS OBVIOUSLY A WHORE WHO WAS ASKING FOR IT ANYWAY.
What the ever-loving fuck, Mom? Were you on crack?
What the ever-loving fuck, Mom? Were you on crack?
Therapeutic Letter to my Father
No Broadway show tunes for you, you bastard.
While "Grandpa" may have left me confused and struggling to sort out the good from the bad, I don't have that luxury where you're concerned. I have two, TWO, happy memories of you from my entire childhood. (When I was four, we went to a dance in the school gym. I remember you and I danced. You let me stand on your feet, and you twirled me around the glossy wooden floor and it felt like flying. On the drive home, the tree branches overarching the road felt close and comforting. Then when I was five you and I got up before Mom and you helped me bake her a cake for her birthday in my EasyBake Oven. We decorated it with leftover Valentine's Day candy hearts.) Two happy memories. And, to be charitable, one neutral memory. (When I was a bit older, eight or so, you drove Mom and I out to a big empty field and you waited in the car while she and I flew my Baby Bat kite in the spring wind.) Everything else is evil. Evil, stupid, horrible, sadistic.
I don't want to chronicle everything here. I can't chronicle everything here. Where would I start? The time when I leaned out the car window to wave goodbye to my friends at church and you rolled the window up catching my neck in the window and laughed while I struggled to breathe? The time you left me in the truck on Christmas Eve while you went into the bar and got drunk out of your mind? The time my friend Sharla spent Sunday afternoon at our house and fell asleep on the couch and you poured ice water into her ear to wake her up? All the times you beat me with your belt until I was covered in bruises and all the kids at school saw them and I made up stupid, unbelievable lies about how they got there? The time we went to the county fair and they were doing some idiotic "jail" fundraiser, and you paid them to lock me in the cattle racks and then left me while I screamed in terror? The time you got angry with me for "talking back" pulled over on the highway and made me get out at a rest stop and drove off and LEFT ME THERE?
I can't even.
No, let's concentrate on the worst. The first time you ever called me a whore. I was eight. I'd been being molested by our neighbor for at least a year. I was being molested by the neighbor that you trusted to babysit me while you and mom went to your doctor's appointments at the VA, the neighbor you let me visit frequently. The neighbor you packed me off to their house for overnight visits with the admonition: "Be good. Do as you're told. Don't make me give you a whipping for talking back."
I was in the third grade. My behavior at school was so bizarre that my teachers must have talked to you and mom about it, and I was taken to a doctor. I remember nothing about the exam, just sitting in the waiting room forever with Aunt Sue and my cousin Carolyn while Mom talked to the doctor. Later, decades later, I would find out from Aunt Sue that the doctor had told Mom that I'd been molested. Mom denied it, at first denying that the visit had taken place. When I pressed the issue, telling her every single detail I remembered, she finally admitted that the visit had taken place, that we were there, but it was my cousin Carolyn who'd been examined, not me. That Carolyn had been abused, not me. Crazy making much?
I never forgot what happened afterwards though. You and I were in the backyard. You were leaning on the propane tank and I was standing there with you. We were talking about something, when you leaned over and you said to me: "I know what you're doing over there with that dirty old man." I froze. I stopped breathing. You continued. "You're a dirty whore. You're no good. You're going to burn in hell if you keep that up."
That was your sole contribution to protecting me. To blame me. To insult and shame me. To threaten me with eternal damnation. To put the responsibility for somehow extricating myself from the situation on my shoulders, on an eight year old child. I tried, G-d, I tried. Because even though you knew what was going on, YOU STILL SENT ME OVER THERE. The next time I found myself alone, scared, with a pedophile lifting up my shirt to fondle my nonexistent breasts, I said "We can't do this any more. My Daddy suspects something is going on." "Let him suspect!" he said, and continued planting sloppy kisses on me, the saliva drying on my skin as I stood there and waited for it to be over.
I guess I lied. That's not the worst, come to think of it. Believe it or not, that's not as bad as it gets. The worst is the terrifying flashback that is always there. The nightmare that won't go away. It's not at the neighbor's house. It's not in the cellar. It's not in the workshop. It's not riding his too-big-for-me bike in the lane behind the garden with his fingers slipping inside my shorts yet again. It's not in his upstairs bathroom with a too-small washcloth clutched to my chest, staring at the light fixture in the ceiling pretending that if I can't see him, he can't see me . It's not in the study trying to perfect a headstand with his hands steadying my legs before they, inevitably, slip between my thighs. I am in my bed, in my room. I remember the padded white headboard. I remember the window and the starlight outside. I remember my nightgown around my neck, choking me. I remember the sensation of my hair being pulled. I remember heaviness on my chest. I remember feeling stiff. I remember the pain in my throat as I wanted desperately to scream, or cry, but I didn't, and the ache of holding that all back. And I remember. . . nothing else. Not who it was on top of me, not any sensation at all below my waist. Not what actually happened. Not who did it. But I suspect it was you.
Who else would have had access to our home? Who else would have been there in the middle of the night? Who else would have had that kind of power over me that I wouldn't scream for help?
I've felt confident enough to change my name. I've felt confident enough to come out to our family. I've felt confident enough to say "My father raped me." I've told my story over and over. Besides Mom, who (let's be honest here) had a stake in denying it, not one person has ever said to me "No! That's not possible! Your father would never have done such a thing." I've heard "That explains what a weird kid you were." I've heard "We suspected something was going on." I've heard "He always was a creep." I've heard "We knew it was going on at the time but what could we do? It wasn't our place to interfere." Two separate women in our family have even privately come to me and said "He did it to me too." And that's good enough for me.
But it's not good enough for my brain, apparently. The flashbacks keep coming. The memory keeps clawing at my subconscious. I don't want to remember that fully. I don't want to know any more. I don't want to be plunged any deeper into despair and terror. I just want it to go away.
But it isn't going away.
While "Grandpa" may have left me confused and struggling to sort out the good from the bad, I don't have that luxury where you're concerned. I have two, TWO, happy memories of you from my entire childhood. (When I was four, we went to a dance in the school gym. I remember you and I danced. You let me stand on your feet, and you twirled me around the glossy wooden floor and it felt like flying. On the drive home, the tree branches overarching the road felt close and comforting. Then when I was five you and I got up before Mom and you helped me bake her a cake for her birthday in my EasyBake Oven. We decorated it with leftover Valentine's Day candy hearts.) Two happy memories. And, to be charitable, one neutral memory. (When I was a bit older, eight or so, you drove Mom and I out to a big empty field and you waited in the car while she and I flew my Baby Bat kite in the spring wind.) Everything else is evil. Evil, stupid, horrible, sadistic.
I don't want to chronicle everything here. I can't chronicle everything here. Where would I start? The time when I leaned out the car window to wave goodbye to my friends at church and you rolled the window up catching my neck in the window and laughed while I struggled to breathe? The time you left me in the truck on Christmas Eve while you went into the bar and got drunk out of your mind? The time my friend Sharla spent Sunday afternoon at our house and fell asleep on the couch and you poured ice water into her ear to wake her up? All the times you beat me with your belt until I was covered in bruises and all the kids at school saw them and I made up stupid, unbelievable lies about how they got there? The time we went to the county fair and they were doing some idiotic "jail" fundraiser, and you paid them to lock me in the cattle racks and then left me while I screamed in terror? The time you got angry with me for "talking back" pulled over on the highway and made me get out at a rest stop and drove off and LEFT ME THERE?
I can't even.
No, let's concentrate on the worst. The first time you ever called me a whore. I was eight. I'd been being molested by our neighbor for at least a year. I was being molested by the neighbor that you trusted to babysit me while you and mom went to your doctor's appointments at the VA, the neighbor you let me visit frequently. The neighbor you packed me off to their house for overnight visits with the admonition: "Be good. Do as you're told. Don't make me give you a whipping for talking back."
I was in the third grade. My behavior at school was so bizarre that my teachers must have talked to you and mom about it, and I was taken to a doctor. I remember nothing about the exam, just sitting in the waiting room forever with Aunt Sue and my cousin Carolyn while Mom talked to the doctor. Later, decades later, I would find out from Aunt Sue that the doctor had told Mom that I'd been molested. Mom denied it, at first denying that the visit had taken place. When I pressed the issue, telling her every single detail I remembered, she finally admitted that the visit had taken place, that we were there, but it was my cousin Carolyn who'd been examined, not me. That Carolyn had been abused, not me. Crazy making much?
I never forgot what happened afterwards though. You and I were in the backyard. You were leaning on the propane tank and I was standing there with you. We were talking about something, when you leaned over and you said to me: "I know what you're doing over there with that dirty old man." I froze. I stopped breathing. You continued. "You're a dirty whore. You're no good. You're going to burn in hell if you keep that up."
That was your sole contribution to protecting me. To blame me. To insult and shame me. To threaten me with eternal damnation. To put the responsibility for somehow extricating myself from the situation on my shoulders, on an eight year old child. I tried, G-d, I tried. Because even though you knew what was going on, YOU STILL SENT ME OVER THERE. The next time I found myself alone, scared, with a pedophile lifting up my shirt to fondle my nonexistent breasts, I said "We can't do this any more. My Daddy suspects something is going on." "Let him suspect!" he said, and continued planting sloppy kisses on me, the saliva drying on my skin as I stood there and waited for it to be over.
I guess I lied. That's not the worst, come to think of it. Believe it or not, that's not as bad as it gets. The worst is the terrifying flashback that is always there. The nightmare that won't go away. It's not at the neighbor's house. It's not in the cellar. It's not in the workshop. It's not riding his too-big-for-me bike in the lane behind the garden with his fingers slipping inside my shorts yet again. It's not in his upstairs bathroom with a too-small washcloth clutched to my chest, staring at the light fixture in the ceiling pretending that if I can't see him, he can't see me . It's not in the study trying to perfect a headstand with his hands steadying my legs before they, inevitably, slip between my thighs. I am in my bed, in my room. I remember the padded white headboard. I remember the window and the starlight outside. I remember my nightgown around my neck, choking me. I remember the sensation of my hair being pulled. I remember heaviness on my chest. I remember feeling stiff. I remember the pain in my throat as I wanted desperately to scream, or cry, but I didn't, and the ache of holding that all back. And I remember. . . nothing else. Not who it was on top of me, not any sensation at all below my waist. Not what actually happened. Not who did it. But I suspect it was you.
Who else would have had access to our home? Who else would have been there in the middle of the night? Who else would have had that kind of power over me that I wouldn't scream for help?
I've felt confident enough to change my name. I've felt confident enough to come out to our family. I've felt confident enough to say "My father raped me." I've told my story over and over. Besides Mom, who (let's be honest here) had a stake in denying it, not one person has ever said to me "No! That's not possible! Your father would never have done such a thing." I've heard "That explains what a weird kid you were." I've heard "We suspected something was going on." I've heard "He always was a creep." I've heard "We knew it was going on at the time but what could we do? It wasn't our place to interfere." Two separate women in our family have even privately come to me and said "He did it to me too." And that's good enough for me.
But it's not good enough for my brain, apparently. The flashbacks keep coming. The memory keeps clawing at my subconscious. I don't want to remember that fully. I don't want to know any more. I don't want to be plunged any deeper into despair and terror. I just want it to go away.
But it isn't going away.
Therapeutic Letter to My Abuser
I remember sitting across a card table from you. It was winter. Your home was warm and cozy. Your wife sat in the living room crocheting and watching television. You had no use for television. You preferred to build things and read. At the time you were teaching me to play dominoes. Double nines, because double sixes were too easy. I remember the long trail of numbers on our scoresheets.
We talked a lot then, about a lot of things. We talked about your garden plans for the spring. You always had a huge garden, almost an acre. I remember the dill plants, and the crunchy dill pickles every year. I remember the watermelon. I remember you talking about organic gardening before I even knew that was a thing. It was the seventies. You were too old to be a hippie, but you were still into all those things. Alternative energy, organic gardening, compost, recycling, energy conservation; you built your own solar shower out in your workshop.
I don't know why I was allowed / encouraged to spend so much time with you, except that my parents just wanted me out of their hair. Even after it all came out what you were doing, they still sent me to you for babysitting. I still can't wrap my head around that. (Weird Freudian slip; I originally typed "warp my head around that".) I know that it was important in my formation. I know it was messed up. I know I adored you. I believed all your tall tales so much that I argued with my teachers if any of their new-fangled "science" contradicted your stories. Yeah, I know, I'm cringing now. Sorry, Mrs. Neese.
I think one of the things that bugs me so much is that it wasn't all bad. That "so much of me is made of what I learned from you. You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart." Pretty sinister for a Broadway show tune, innit? You were a rebel. You weren't content to be trapped inside the conventions that said "you must believe this and not that", and you didn't want me to be either. You believed in me. If I said I was too little or too clumsy to do something, you said I most certainly could learn to do it, if I wanted to. You taught me yoga. You taught me to ride a bike. You taught me to build things, and use power tools. You taught me to climb a rope and to balance on a rolling barrel. I was athletic around you, like I couldn't be anywhere else. When the kids at school made fun of me for being pudgy, you just kept encouraging me, and helping me adapt and learn. And you cheered all my successes. But it was all twisted, wasn't it?
It seeped into everything, you know, like your fingers sliding up my legs and under my shorts at the most unexpected times. Yoga, biking, balancing. There we were, having fun, and then suddenly this unpleasant, unexpected (no matter how many times it happened, I never really managed to see it coming) touching that grossed me out. Sometimes I think "What a fucking idiot!". My therapists, and all the books say that's normal. They say children need love and acceptance and mentoring from adults, and if their caregivers can't or won't give it to them, they'll seek it elsewhere. They say that's what people like you do, that it's how you choose your victims. You look for the lonely ones, the hurting ones. They say that's how you get them to go along. "Grooming" they call it. The presents, the companionship, the time spent, the praise. All of it a means to an end. Or maybe the majority. Maybe part of it. I don't know.
That's hard to sort out too. Were you just an evil, conniving bastard who manipulated me so you could use me sexually? Were you just a fallible, fucked up human who really cared for me somewhat, but didn't bother to see that your desires were inappropriate and would cause me long term harm? I don't fucking know. How the hell should I know? But it's still with me either way. Like that g-ddamned handprint on my fucking heart.
"It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime,
so let me say before we part:
so much of me is made of what I learned from you.
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have rewritten mine, by being my friend.
Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea,
like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood,
who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you, I have been changed for good."
"For Good - Wicked"
We talked a lot then, about a lot of things. We talked about your garden plans for the spring. You always had a huge garden, almost an acre. I remember the dill plants, and the crunchy dill pickles every year. I remember the watermelon. I remember you talking about organic gardening before I even knew that was a thing. It was the seventies. You were too old to be a hippie, but you were still into all those things. Alternative energy, organic gardening, compost, recycling, energy conservation; you built your own solar shower out in your workshop.
I don't know why I was allowed / encouraged to spend so much time with you, except that my parents just wanted me out of their hair. Even after it all came out what you were doing, they still sent me to you for babysitting. I still can't wrap my head around that. (Weird Freudian slip; I originally typed "warp my head around that".) I know that it was important in my formation. I know it was messed up. I know I adored you. I believed all your tall tales so much that I argued with my teachers if any of their new-fangled "science" contradicted your stories. Yeah, I know, I'm cringing now. Sorry, Mrs. Neese.
I think one of the things that bugs me so much is that it wasn't all bad. That "so much of me is made of what I learned from you. You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart." Pretty sinister for a Broadway show tune, innit? You were a rebel. You weren't content to be trapped inside the conventions that said "you must believe this and not that", and you didn't want me to be either. You believed in me. If I said I was too little or too clumsy to do something, you said I most certainly could learn to do it, if I wanted to. You taught me yoga. You taught me to ride a bike. You taught me to build things, and use power tools. You taught me to climb a rope and to balance on a rolling barrel. I was athletic around you, like I couldn't be anywhere else. When the kids at school made fun of me for being pudgy, you just kept encouraging me, and helping me adapt and learn. And you cheered all my successes. But it was all twisted, wasn't it?
It seeped into everything, you know, like your fingers sliding up my legs and under my shorts at the most unexpected times. Yoga, biking, balancing. There we were, having fun, and then suddenly this unpleasant, unexpected (no matter how many times it happened, I never really managed to see it coming) touching that grossed me out. Sometimes I think "What a fucking idiot!". My therapists, and all the books say that's normal. They say children need love and acceptance and mentoring from adults, and if their caregivers can't or won't give it to them, they'll seek it elsewhere. They say that's what people like you do, that it's how you choose your victims. You look for the lonely ones, the hurting ones. They say that's how you get them to go along. "Grooming" they call it. The presents, the companionship, the time spent, the praise. All of it a means to an end. Or maybe the majority. Maybe part of it. I don't know.
That's hard to sort out too. Were you just an evil, conniving bastard who manipulated me so you could use me sexually? Were you just a fallible, fucked up human who really cared for me somewhat, but didn't bother to see that your desires were inappropriate and would cause me long term harm? I don't fucking know. How the hell should I know? But it's still with me either way. Like that g-ddamned handprint on my fucking heart.
"It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime,
so let me say before we part:
so much of me is made of what I learned from you.
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have rewritten mine, by being my friend.
Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea,
like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood,
who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you, I have been changed for good."
"For Good - Wicked"
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Subtext is of the Devil
Way back in the day, when my husband and I were just friends and I was dating someone else, my boyfriend and I had a terse exchange in front of him. After my boyfriend walked off (kinda in a huff), My Beloved asked me "What's up with that?" I shrugged and said "You know. subtext." He looked confused and said "No." I sighed and said "You know, when you have something going on between the two of you, and neither of you is really willing to talk about it, but it keeps coming out in little ways in unrelated conversations and stuff?" He looked blank and then said "When I have a relationship, there won't be any subtext." I said "How you planning on pulling that off, Dude?" He said "We will just always be 100% totally honest with each other no matter what and then there won't ever be a chance for any subtext." I laughed in his face and said "You are so fucking naive. That is NEVER going to work." He confidently said "Oh yes it will."
Fourteen years later, it's working. And what's more, it's made me absolutely intolerant of anything less. I refuse to play head games. I cannot abide friendships that aren't brave and open enough for people to say what they mean, be who they really are, and ask for what they want, even if the answer is no. Radical honesty isn't easy. It's damned hard. It means having to admit when I fuck up, and oh man do I fuck up more than I wish. It means having to own my own crap instead of pulling the "You made me feel X" BS. It means having to talk about sex instead of just shut down and go along because it's easier, quicker, and he probably wouldn't be able to tell I was faking it anyway. But it's worth it. We've come through really scary stuff together, and we're still good.
I'm going through something now that's scary, and I want to fall back on my radical honesty, but I'm still nervous pulling that out on other Not-Husband people. I'm scared of what happens if the recipient doesn't yet understand how freeing it is. Scared of what will happen if My view point is deemed too threatening. At this point I don't think it matters though, because honestly? At this point I don't think I'm capable of playing it any different way.
Fourteen years later, it's working. And what's more, it's made me absolutely intolerant of anything less. I refuse to play head games. I cannot abide friendships that aren't brave and open enough for people to say what they mean, be who they really are, and ask for what they want, even if the answer is no. Radical honesty isn't easy. It's damned hard. It means having to admit when I fuck up, and oh man do I fuck up more than I wish. It means having to own my own crap instead of pulling the "You made me feel X" BS. It means having to talk about sex instead of just shut down and go along because it's easier, quicker, and he probably wouldn't be able to tell I was faking it anyway. But it's worth it. We've come through really scary stuff together, and we're still good.
I'm going through something now that's scary, and I want to fall back on my radical honesty, but I'm still nervous pulling that out on other Not-Husband people. I'm scared of what happens if the recipient doesn't yet understand how freeing it is. Scared of what will happen if My view point is deemed too threatening. At this point I don't think it matters though, because honestly? At this point I don't think I'm capable of playing it any different way.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Playlist
I love to find music that speaks to me when I'm working through deep crap. Here's what's on my playlist lately.
P!nk: Fuckin' Perfect
Tori Amos: Girl
Tori Amos: Precious Things
Amanda Palmer: In My Mind
Roy Zimmerman: Jerry Falwell's G-d
P!nk: Fuckin' Perfect
Tori Amos: Girl
Tori Amos: Precious Things
Amanda Palmer: In My Mind
Roy Zimmerman: Jerry Falwell's G-d
Monday, November 24, 2014
Losing My Religion (Or "Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater")
In my head, I already hear people asking me "Well, sure your childhood faith was crazy-cakes cultish fundamentalism, but the Catholic church isn't like that. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater / tar everyone with the same brush / insert the metaphor of your choice here / judge a radically different institution for the same crime?" In short, why isn't the title of this blog "Ex-Pentecostal" rather than "Nascent Nullifidian"?
Fair question. And the answer is two fold, really, one arising internally, and one externally.
In the first place, the internal reason: my judgement is suspect. I was indoctrinated into a cult. Brainwashed. I was literally unable to critically evaluate my belief in G-d. That faith system had multiple highly effective techniques that were designed to shut down critical thinking, judgement, evaluation. In the light of that, my conversion to Catholicism is highly suspect. In Catholic terms, it fails to meet the standards of full consent of the will. Unless and until I tear down every single false assumption that my latter belief was based on, that latter belief is suspect. If you've inherited land, and you build a big fancy house on it, and then you find out that there's a sinkhole under your big fancy house, you don't keep living in the house. You inspect the soundness of your house. You determine if the structure is still sound. And even if it is, you can't just keep living in it. You have to move the house to solid ground before you can relax in it.
In the second place, the external reason: the Catholic Church has made serious, grave errors. They have persisted in these errors despite calls, exhortations, and demands that they stop and correct these errors. The sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church is not even the biggest sticking point. The biggest sticking point is the cover up. Yes, there will be predators. Yes, the predators will probably be in the Catholic Church in roughly the same proportion as the rest of society. Yes, some of them will escape detection until they have hurt people. No one expects the Church to be filled with only perfect people. No one expects the Catholic Church to be prescient. What we do expect of the Catholic Church is what we expect of every reasonable, responsible institution in the world: when predators are discovered, you do not spirit them away to Rome out of the reach of prosecution, and treat them like royalty. YOU CALL THE FUCKING COPS.
Look, I was not molested by a priest, but I was molested. I was maltreated sexually, and it was not invisible. There were signs and symptoms. People knew or suspected. Teachers talked to my family. Doctors talked to my family. I was blamed, and ignored. The perpetrator had hurt other people in the same way. People who could have intervened, instead looked the other way. People ignored what was right in front of their faces. People took the cheapest, crappiest, most useless advice in the universe: "Ignore it and maybe it will go away."
Now, I don't expect perfection, but I expect more than the absolute, rock-bottom worst humanity has to offer. My family were poor, drunken, uneducated, completely fucked up, inbred, redneck, hillbilly scum. If you claim to be the source of truth, and the foundation of faith and morals, if you claim to be the institution founded by G-d Himself, then by G-d Himself, you have to do better than that!
In the light of the Church's repeated choice to protect itself, its reputation, its wealth and its standing against the very advice of the G-d they claim to worship (something, something, something millstones), it is a fair question to ask: Where is your G-d? If you can swallow the camel of wholesale child rape, yet strain at the gnat of the ordination of women, you have no grounds to defend yourself when people suggest that perhaps right and wrong mean less to you than power and prestige.
If you are indistinguishable from the world, then it is not unfair for the world to look at you and conclude that you are no more, no less than the rest of us. It is not unfair for you to be painted as merely one other stripe of screwed up humanity. And frankly, it is an obscenity for you to demand otherwise. It is an obscenity for Benedict XVI, and John Paul II to write over and over and over and over that the sins of the laity are "profoundly disordered", "intrinsic evils", and "anathema", while repeatedly maintaining that the sins of the hierarchy are nuanced, complex, and moderated and partially excused by the prevailing culture of the times.
I AM THAT I AM
I've been thinking a lot obsessing about G-d lately. If there is a G-d. If so, what he/she/it might be like. The less certain I get about any knowledge of G-d, the more I feel an expansiveness and a love connecting me to lots of other people and things. WTF, right?
A week or so ago I wanted pictures of sunrise from the mountains, so I got up before dawn and drove north of Boulder to Flagstaff Mountain. Only I didn't actually check the weather or anything. I got there, and it was already a grey bucket of suck. It was cold, overcast, and had I concentrated on what I wanted instead of what I got, it would have been ugly and unwelcome. Instead, I focused on the here and now, on what was right there in front of me. This tree, this icicle, hanging from this rock. This mist swirling around my feet and shoulders.
I ended up having the most amazing experience ever. It started to snow. Black ice formed, and the dogs and I slid our way down the mountain. There were wild turkeys. There were elk. There was holiness and connection and light and love. I pondered the "mountaintop experiences" of my misspent youth in Pentecostal holy rollerism. I concluded that maybe they were all wrong and stupid to attribute a mountain top experience to G-d when maybe it was just the mountaintop.
Later that week I told my friend Irim about the experience. She reminded me of the name G-d gave himself in the bible: I AM, meaning "this present moment." That resonated.
Yesteday I went to contemplative mass at the liberal Catholic parish. There was music and there was silence. We had reflection questions. This was the one that spoke to me.
After making my way home on public transit, I texted my priest the following: "Dude. What the fuck are you thinking? Where the hell are you? Get your ass back here. Do you have any clue what these wolves are up to?" #textstojesus
Later in the mass we did the sign of peace in silence. I felt an echo of the mountaintop as I held and hugged people in silence. Eucharist was immediately afterwards. Eucharist is the center of the life of the church for me. It is the reason we come together. I was scared, and I was yearning. I cannot say that I believe currently. I cannot even say I want to believe. I want to tear down everything that is false, and rebuild what can remain, no matter how small. So I stood in line, and when Mother Kae put communion in my hand I literally COULD NOT say "Amen". I started to cry. I said "L-rd, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief."
I took the Body of Christ and ate. I took the Blood of Christ and drank. There was no connection, there was no Jesus. There was dry bread. I choked on the dry bread. There was wine. I had a sip of red wine, and there was nothing except a slight improvement in the ability to swallow the bread. I stumbled back to my chair. I sniffled quietly. I let the tears fall. I remembered the mountain top, and I remembered I AM, this present moment. And I thought "Even in dryness, I AM. Even in unbelief, I AM. Even in nothingness, I AM. So this too is G-d. This too is this present moment. This too is presence.
And it wasbetter marginally less bad.
A week or so ago I wanted pictures of sunrise from the mountains, so I got up before dawn and drove north of Boulder to Flagstaff Mountain. Only I didn't actually check the weather or anything. I got there, and it was already a grey bucket of suck. It was cold, overcast, and had I concentrated on what I wanted instead of what I got, it would have been ugly and unwelcome. Instead, I focused on the here and now, on what was right there in front of me. This tree, this icicle, hanging from this rock. This mist swirling around my feet and shoulders.
I ended up having the most amazing experience ever. It started to snow. Black ice formed, and the dogs and I slid our way down the mountain. There were wild turkeys. There were elk. There was holiness and connection and light and love. I pondered the "mountaintop experiences" of my misspent youth in Pentecostal holy rollerism. I concluded that maybe they were all wrong and stupid to attribute a mountain top experience to G-d when maybe it was just the mountaintop.
Later that week I told my friend Irim about the experience. She reminded me of the name G-d gave himself in the bible: I AM, meaning "this present moment." That resonated.
Yesteday I went to contemplative mass at the liberal Catholic parish. There was music and there was silence. We had reflection questions. This was the one that spoke to me.
"In Matthew, Christ the King is described as a shepherd. Some modern shepherds are using technology to keep track of their sheep: a collar with a heart monitor senses when sheep are in distress and sends a text message to the shepherd, along with the sheep’s location. If you could send a text to Christ the Shepherd, what would it say?"
After making my way home on public transit, I texted my priest the following: "Dude. What the fuck are you thinking? Where the hell are you? Get your ass back here. Do you have any clue what these wolves are up to?" #textstojesus
Later in the mass we did the sign of peace in silence. I felt an echo of the mountaintop as I held and hugged people in silence. Eucharist was immediately afterwards. Eucharist is the center of the life of the church for me. It is the reason we come together. I was scared, and I was yearning. I cannot say that I believe currently. I cannot even say I want to believe. I want to tear down everything that is false, and rebuild what can remain, no matter how small. So I stood in line, and when Mother Kae put communion in my hand I literally COULD NOT say "Amen". I started to cry. I said "L-rd, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief."
I took the Body of Christ and ate. I took the Blood of Christ and drank. There was no connection, there was no Jesus. There was dry bread. I choked on the dry bread. There was wine. I had a sip of red wine, and there was nothing except a slight improvement in the ability to swallow the bread. I stumbled back to my chair. I sniffled quietly. I let the tears fall. I remembered the mountain top, and I remembered I AM, this present moment. And I thought "Even in dryness, I AM. Even in unbelief, I AM. Even in nothingness, I AM. So this too is G-d. This too is this present moment. This too is presence.
And it was
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Eating the Ghosts
When you see a new counselor, you have to do something called a trauma history, and lay out in some kind of organized manner, the things that have hurt you deeply enough that you need recovery from them. I have always hated that. For one thing, I don't know this person yet, why should I trust them with that much? Second, because it just feels unreal to me. It doesn't seem possible that one person should have had such a shit hand dealt to them. And so I hate it ever so very much.
Several years ago I wrote a trauma history on register tape, and when I went to the therapist's office, I flung it on the ground dramatically and we both laughed when it rolled under the couch. That sucker was long though.
I've used a lot of different metaphors to talk about healing from pervasive childhood abuse. That it's like an onion: you heal in layers. The outside being the easiest, and most superficial, then the interior layers getting more raw, more intense. Currently, my favorite metaphor is that healing is like trying to untangle a box of necklaces after a move. It's challenging to figure out what to untangle first, because no matter what chain you pull, it's attached to every other chain. Try to tease out the roots of your eating disorder, and BAM! suddenly you've pulled "Why I hate sloppy kisses" into your lap. Pull too hard, and suddenly every damn issue you've ever had is laying on the floor in a giant mess and you can't take a step without triggering yourself.
I think the Gordian knot at the center of my pile of necklaces is tied up with my faith of origin and my father's insanity with regards to faith healing. I was raised Pentecostal Assembly of G-d. To me it was just church. I had no context to put it in, and I didn't know that it was a relatively small, recent Christian denomination. I did not realize that it was born at the turn of the last century and came of age during World War I. I couldn't articulate that it was a desperate attempt to claim control in a world that must have seemed increasingly out of control. No, to me it was just The Truth.
I was born with a condition called amblyopia. Crossed eyes, in the vernacular. I remember being dragged to many optometrists and opthamologists from the time I was two. It was universal consensus among the doctors that I needed corrective surgery to save my vision. It was my father's opinion that surgery was bullshit and that Jesus would heal me. In fact, I remember one painfully embarrassing visit when I was quite young, pre school age, so four or less, when my father had coached me to tell the doctor to "Go fly a kite because Jesus will fix my eyes." I asked over and over if it would REALLY be okay for me to say something so rude. Random Opthamologist: I'm sorry. I'm so, so very sorry. Really. My dad was a dick, and I was an idiot. In my defense, I was four. So, um, yeah. That happened.
Anyway, by the time I was seven, my mother had won the argument, and Dr. John Edwards of Saint John's in Tulsa, Oklahoma did the corrective surgery. But by that time it was cosmetic only, just a clip of the muscles so I wouldn't look weird, and kids wouldn't make fun of me. My brain had already decided that my left eye was a troublemaking little bitch and it was totally going to ignore it from here on out.
Several years ago I wrote a trauma history on register tape, and when I went to the therapist's office, I flung it on the ground dramatically and we both laughed when it rolled under the couch. That sucker was long though.
I've used a lot of different metaphors to talk about healing from pervasive childhood abuse. That it's like an onion: you heal in layers. The outside being the easiest, and most superficial, then the interior layers getting more raw, more intense. Currently, my favorite metaphor is that healing is like trying to untangle a box of necklaces after a move. It's challenging to figure out what to untangle first, because no matter what chain you pull, it's attached to every other chain. Try to tease out the roots of your eating disorder, and BAM! suddenly you've pulled "Why I hate sloppy kisses" into your lap. Pull too hard, and suddenly every damn issue you've ever had is laying on the floor in a giant mess and you can't take a step without triggering yourself.
I think the Gordian knot at the center of my pile of necklaces is tied up with my faith of origin and my father's insanity with regards to faith healing. I was raised Pentecostal Assembly of G-d. To me it was just church. I had no context to put it in, and I didn't know that it was a relatively small, recent Christian denomination. I did not realize that it was born at the turn of the last century and came of age during World War I. I couldn't articulate that it was a desperate attempt to claim control in a world that must have seemed increasingly out of control. No, to me it was just The Truth.
I was born with a condition called amblyopia. Crossed eyes, in the vernacular. I remember being dragged to many optometrists and opthamologists from the time I was two. It was universal consensus among the doctors that I needed corrective surgery to save my vision. It was my father's opinion that surgery was bullshit and that Jesus would heal me. In fact, I remember one painfully embarrassing visit when I was quite young, pre school age, so four or less, when my father had coached me to tell the doctor to "Go fly a kite because Jesus will fix my eyes." I asked over and over if it would REALLY be okay for me to say something so rude. Random Opthamologist: I'm sorry. I'm so, so very sorry. Really. My dad was a dick, and I was an idiot. In my defense, I was four. So, um, yeah. That happened.
Anyway, by the time I was seven, my mother had won the argument, and Dr. John Edwards of Saint John's in Tulsa, Oklahoma did the corrective surgery. But by that time it was cosmetic only, just a clip of the muscles so I wouldn't look weird, and kids wouldn't make fun of me. My brain had already decided that my left eye was a troublemaking little bitch and it was totally going to ignore it from here on out.
However, the interesting part is what transpired BETWEEN the ages of four and seven. At some point in there, my father decided that just praying on our own wasn't doing it, so he started taking me to faith healing services. Most of them were at our little church, some were at other little churches, and a few were far away in bigger churches in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
It worked like this. They would have a sermon, and during the altar call, the preacher would ask for people to claim their healing from Lord Jesus. Sorry, LORD JEEEEEESUS! The sick person would walk up to the altar, and the preacher would anoint them with oil. I always got olive oil rubbed on my eyelids. Then he would lay hands on them and ask G-d to heal them. It was pretty sedate and ordinary (for a Pentecostal service anyway).
But a few times a year, we would have something called a revival meeting. Revival meetings were to call the faithful back to true repentance, and renew our "zeal for the L-rd". Revival meetings lasted one or two weeks, and instead of going to church three or four times a week, you were there every damn night, and twice on Sundays. We usually had a guest preacher there, and our regular Sunday giving was expanded to nightly "love offerings".
The guest preacher was always bigger, louder, more everything than our local preacher. The music was always bigger and louder too. And so the healing services were bigger and louder. On this particular night that I'm remembering, there was a loud, booming, angry sermon, and then they gave the standard altar call and my father led me up to the altar. The guest speaker picked me up and stood me on the altar. He took my head in his hands. He called for our pastor, my father, and all the elders of the church to lay hands on me with him. I remember being excited, and scared all at the same time. Then he started screaming at me and shaking my head. He was praying in tongues, and in English all at the same time, all mixed up. He kept ordering the "demons of blindness to leave this child of G-d in JESUS'S NAME!" Every time he said "In JESUS'S NAME!" he would either give my head a violent shake, or he would hit me. My pastor kept whispering that if I just believed enough, G-d would heal me.
I don't know how long that went on, but at some point I decided to make a deal with G-d. I would prove to G-d that I believed. Now, I was terrified of the dark. My mother's not-so-helpful advice that "there's no reason to be scared of the dark. The dark can't hurt you. Only what's IN the dark is scary." was, unsurprisingly, not helpful. I decided that the offering I could make to G-d, to prove that I believed in him, was to voluntarily remain in the dark. I would close my eyes, and not open them till the next morning, at which time, I would obviously be healed.
So I closed my eyes and I prayed to Jesus with all my little heart. I clung to my daddy's hand on our way back to our pew. I kept my eyes closed until the service was over. I kept them closed on the walk to the car. I kept them closed on the drive home. I got undressed and ready for bed with my eyes closed. I kept my eyes squeezed tight shut as I climbed into bed and eventually fell asleep.
The next morning after I realized I was awake, I was afraid to open my eyes. Eventually though, I did open them, and my eyesight was unchanged. I couldn't make sense of that, because I had prayed, I had believed. I was completely confused. But my father wasn't confused. He had listened to the sermon, and he knew what was wrong: demons.
The next time my mother brought up the subject of eye surgery, my father relented and told her she could do whatever she wanted because "the devil has that one anyway."
This is another one of those things that I never forgot, I just forgot how it felt. I can't imagine being that five year old girl, standing on that altar, surrounded by old creepy guys with their hands all over me, while a screaming maniac alternately shook me and hit me, yelling about demons the whole time. I LIVED THAT, BUT I CAN'T IMAGINE THAT. I know I must have been so scared. I don't know how an entire community could look at that as some kind of religious theater, and not just run up and snatch that poor little girl up, hold her tight, and tell them all that they were wrong and what they were doing was evil. I CAN'T IMAGINE HOW MY OWN MOTHER SAT THERE WATCHING THAT.
But yes, that is the center of it all, as far as I can tell. That is the fracture line of my brokenness. And everything else spirals out from that. The molestation that I couldn't stop. My father's belief that I was evil, and thus a whore. All of it.
It worked like this. They would have a sermon, and during the altar call, the preacher would ask for people to claim their healing from Lord Jesus. Sorry, LORD JEEEEEESUS! The sick person would walk up to the altar, and the preacher would anoint them with oil. I always got olive oil rubbed on my eyelids. Then he would lay hands on them and ask G-d to heal them. It was pretty sedate and ordinary (for a Pentecostal service anyway).
But a few times a year, we would have something called a revival meeting. Revival meetings were to call the faithful back to true repentance, and renew our "zeal for the L-rd". Revival meetings lasted one or two weeks, and instead of going to church three or four times a week, you were there every damn night, and twice on Sundays. We usually had a guest preacher there, and our regular Sunday giving was expanded to nightly "love offerings".
The guest preacher was always bigger, louder, more everything than our local preacher. The music was always bigger and louder too. And so the healing services were bigger and louder. On this particular night that I'm remembering, there was a loud, booming, angry sermon, and then they gave the standard altar call and my father led me up to the altar. The guest speaker picked me up and stood me on the altar. He took my head in his hands. He called for our pastor, my father, and all the elders of the church to lay hands on me with him. I remember being excited, and scared all at the same time. Then he started screaming at me and shaking my head. He was praying in tongues, and in English all at the same time, all mixed up. He kept ordering the "demons of blindness to leave this child of G-d in JESUS'S NAME!" Every time he said "In JESUS'S NAME!" he would either give my head a violent shake, or he would hit me. My pastor kept whispering that if I just believed enough, G-d would heal me.
I don't know how long that went on, but at some point I decided to make a deal with G-d. I would prove to G-d that I believed. Now, I was terrified of the dark. My mother's not-so-helpful advice that "there's no reason to be scared of the dark. The dark can't hurt you. Only what's IN the dark is scary." was, unsurprisingly, not helpful. I decided that the offering I could make to G-d, to prove that I believed in him, was to voluntarily remain in the dark. I would close my eyes, and not open them till the next morning, at which time, I would obviously be healed.
So I closed my eyes and I prayed to Jesus with all my little heart. I clung to my daddy's hand on our way back to our pew. I kept my eyes closed until the service was over. I kept them closed on the walk to the car. I kept them closed on the drive home. I got undressed and ready for bed with my eyes closed. I kept my eyes squeezed tight shut as I climbed into bed and eventually fell asleep.
The next morning after I realized I was awake, I was afraid to open my eyes. Eventually though, I did open them, and my eyesight was unchanged. I couldn't make sense of that, because I had prayed, I had believed. I was completely confused. But my father wasn't confused. He had listened to the sermon, and he knew what was wrong: demons.
The next time my mother brought up the subject of eye surgery, my father relented and told her she could do whatever she wanted because "the devil has that one anyway."
This is another one of those things that I never forgot, I just forgot how it felt. I can't imagine being that five year old girl, standing on that altar, surrounded by old creepy guys with their hands all over me, while a screaming maniac alternately shook me and hit me, yelling about demons the whole time. I LIVED THAT, BUT I CAN'T IMAGINE THAT. I know I must have been so scared. I don't know how an entire community could look at that as some kind of religious theater, and not just run up and snatch that poor little girl up, hold her tight, and tell them all that they were wrong and what they were doing was evil. I CAN'T IMAGINE HOW MY OWN MOTHER SAT THERE WATCHING THAT.
But yes, that is the center of it all, as far as I can tell. That is the fracture line of my brokenness. And everything else spirals out from that. The molestation that I couldn't stop. My father's belief that I was evil, and thus a whore. All of it.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
I Love My Fat
I've been in therapy on and off again for twenty five years.
I've been dieting on and off again for thirty five years.
At some point those two things were going to intersect. And so they have.
This latest round of examination and poking started off by me being wildly successful at weight loss.
I'd started at 347 pounds in October, 2012. By January of 2014 I weighed 184 pounds. 184 pounds was exactly one pound less than I weighed when I graduated from high school. In high school I felt fat, ugly, freakish, and unloveable.
One of my best friends was a guy that I was crushing on so hard. He confided one night that what he really, really wanted more than anything, was a girl with my personality but who looked like Connie. Ah, Connie. Green eyes, curly brown hair, big tits, tiny waist: your basic nightmare. He elaborated, explaining that while I was smart, and deep, and passionate, and we could talk about anything, she was shallow and boring and annoying. "So, why her and not me?" I asked. "But you're not pretty. She's so pretty." Cue Tori Amos in 3. . . 2. . . 1. . .
Precious Things
Incidentally, I found out later that they dated. It didn't work out.
I was also raped at a graduation party. When I weighed 185 pounds.
Over the years, I gained weight. Some years I would gain a little. Some, a lot. And I hated my fat. I hated myself. I knew I was not pretty. But hey, it wasn't okay to be pretty. Pretty girls were whores anyway.
And over the years I slept around. A lot. I fucked guys I barely knew. I fucked guys I didn't like. I fucked guys I was desperately crazy about. I had sex that I wanted to have. I had revenge sex. I had bored sex. I had a lot of sex I didn't want to have, because I couldn't say no. I wasn't a prick tease. But I wasn't a whore either. Why wasn't I a whore? I mean, I was whoring it up big time. I was probably the whoriest whore that ever whored, except for the money thing. But when you're an evangelical Christian, it doesn't really matter that no money exchanged hands. Prostitutes take money for sex. And yeah, all prostitutes are whores, but this is the thing:
Not all whores are prostitutes.
Sometimes whores are just women who like sex. Women who cut their hair. Women who wear too much make up.Women with long fingernails. Women who want to look attractive for men. They're whores.
Not me. I was ugly. Everyone said so. I didn't care what men thought of me, OBVIOUSLY. I mean, sure, I'd paint my face. Whore! And yeah, I'd paint my nails. Whore! And the hair! I dyed my hair as red as I could make it. Fucking cheap trash whore! But I wasn't pretty! LOOK! I'm fat! So not pretty. Not a whore.
So, in my bumbling, inept, oh-my-g*d-really-i'm-free-i'm-on-my-own-i-have-no-idea-what-i'm-doing-here-do-you-think-they-can-tell way, I used my fat as my armor. I used my fat to enter this crazy world called sexuality. I put on my fat to deal with the utterly toxic task of becoming at home in my adult female body in just the same way that a scientist puts on the thick gloves and stands behind the lead-lined glass to handle radioactive materials.
But that was then, and this was now. And I was looking in the mirror and seeing pretty. I was seeing strong, and confident. And I was okay with that, or trying to be okay with that.
I shared on my blog, on my facebook, I talked about losing weight. People asked me about losing weight. My girlfriends praised me. My husband praised me. And then, the shit hit the fan, because other men started noticing, started congratulating me. Started complimenting me.
Started calling me pretty, gorgeous, attractive.
What the actual fucking fuck?
What do I do with that? Why are they saying that? Don't they know that I'm a GOOD GIRL? I'm MARRIED! I'm MONOGAMOUS! WHY ARE THEY CALLING ME A WHORE??
Weight loss totally fucking stalled. I probably lost fifty pounds losing the same four pounds, between 185 and 189 over and over and over again, but I wasn't going anywhere. My workouts got erratic, my food prep got crazy. My sex drive crashed, hit the floor, and died.
I wasn't stupid. I knew this was related. I got myself a therapist.
However imperfectly, my fat has been my security blanket. It is not the enemy. It has helped me (inadequately, ineptly, clumsily) resist the enemy.
Can I replace my fat? I know I can lose weight. Not hard. I'm still floating within 3 pounds of 247. I've lost, and kept off, 100 pounds. That was easy. But can I find another set of armor? Can I fearlessly look in the mirror, both when I see ugly, and when I see pretty? I don't know. That's the focus of my work right now.
I've been dieting on and off again for thirty five years.
At some point those two things were going to intersect. And so they have.
This latest round of examination and poking started off by me being wildly successful at weight loss.
I'd started at 347 pounds in October, 2012. By January of 2014 I weighed 184 pounds. 184 pounds was exactly one pound less than I weighed when I graduated from high school. In high school I felt fat, ugly, freakish, and unloveable.
One of my best friends was a guy that I was crushing on so hard. He confided one night that what he really, really wanted more than anything, was a girl with my personality but who looked like Connie. Ah, Connie. Green eyes, curly brown hair, big tits, tiny waist: your basic nightmare. He elaborated, explaining that while I was smart, and deep, and passionate, and we could talk about anything, she was shallow and boring and annoying. "So, why her and not me?" I asked. "But you're not pretty. She's so pretty." Cue Tori Amos in 3. . . 2. . . 1. . .
Precious Things
Incidentally, I found out later that they dated. It didn't work out.
I was also raped at a graduation party. When I weighed 185 pounds.
Over the years, I gained weight. Some years I would gain a little. Some, a lot. And I hated my fat. I hated myself. I knew I was not pretty. But hey, it wasn't okay to be pretty. Pretty girls were whores anyway.
And over the years I slept around. A lot. I fucked guys I barely knew. I fucked guys I didn't like. I fucked guys I was desperately crazy about. I had sex that I wanted to have. I had revenge sex. I had bored sex. I had a lot of sex I didn't want to have, because I couldn't say no. I wasn't a prick tease. But I wasn't a whore either. Why wasn't I a whore? I mean, I was whoring it up big time. I was probably the whoriest whore that ever whored, except for the money thing. But when you're an evangelical Christian, it doesn't really matter that no money exchanged hands. Prostitutes take money for sex. And yeah, all prostitutes are whores, but this is the thing:
Not all whores are prostitutes.
Sometimes whores are just women who like sex. Women who cut their hair. Women who wear too much make up.Women with long fingernails. Women who want to look attractive for men. They're whores.
Not me. I was ugly. Everyone said so. I didn't care what men thought of me, OBVIOUSLY. I mean, sure, I'd paint my face. Whore! And yeah, I'd paint my nails. Whore! And the hair! I dyed my hair as red as I could make it. Fucking cheap trash whore! But I wasn't pretty! LOOK! I'm fat! So not pretty. Not a whore.
So, in my bumbling, inept, oh-my-g*d-really-i'm-free-i'm-on-my-own-i-have-no-idea-what-i'm-doing-here-do-you-think-they-can-tell way, I used my fat as my armor. I used my fat to enter this crazy world called sexuality. I put on my fat to deal with the utterly toxic task of becoming at home in my adult female body in just the same way that a scientist puts on the thick gloves and stands behind the lead-lined glass to handle radioactive materials.
But that was then, and this was now. And I was looking in the mirror and seeing pretty. I was seeing strong, and confident. And I was okay with that, or trying to be okay with that.
I shared on my blog, on my facebook, I talked about losing weight. People asked me about losing weight. My girlfriends praised me. My husband praised me. And then, the shit hit the fan, because other men started noticing, started congratulating me. Started complimenting me.
Started calling me pretty, gorgeous, attractive.
What the actual fucking fuck?
What do I do with that? Why are they saying that? Don't they know that I'm a GOOD GIRL? I'm MARRIED! I'm MONOGAMOUS! WHY ARE THEY CALLING ME A WHORE??
Weight loss totally fucking stalled. I probably lost fifty pounds losing the same four pounds, between 185 and 189 over and over and over again, but I wasn't going anywhere. My workouts got erratic, my food prep got crazy. My sex drive crashed, hit the floor, and died.
I wasn't stupid. I knew this was related. I got myself a therapist.
However imperfectly, my fat has been my security blanket. It is not the enemy. It has helped me (inadequately, ineptly, clumsily) resist the enemy.
Can I replace my fat? I know I can lose weight. Not hard. I'm still floating within 3 pounds of 247. I've lost, and kept off, 100 pounds. That was easy. But can I find another set of armor? Can I fearlessly look in the mirror, both when I see ugly, and when I see pretty? I don't know. That's the focus of my work right now.
Total Waste of Bandwidth
Back in 1994 I found and began participating in a vibrant online community via IRC. I remember one of the mods of our channel at one point pontificating that "personal blogs are a total waste of bandwidth." I promptly (in 1996) began a blog and titled it "Giselle's Total Waste of Bandwidth." It's long gone now, and even the revamped blogger version was quietly retired around 2010.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I'm thinking about why I'm here, writing this, exposing myself this way. Do I want to change the world? Maybe. Do I want to help other people? Sure. Mostly I think I want to join a bigger conversation. There are wildly courageous women out there, women who practice radical honesty. Women who aren't afraid to be who they are, no matter whether someone likes them or not. Well, they are afraid, but they do it anyway.
Amanda Palmer
P!nk
Tori Amos
Sarah Morehead
Felicia Day
Marlene Winell
Whitney Way Thore
I want to be like them when I grow up. I want to grow up. That's why I'm telling my story. That's why I'm putting this out there. That's why I don't care if it's a total waste of bandwidth. Because I have a story. I have a truth. I matter.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I'm thinking about why I'm here, writing this, exposing myself this way. Do I want to change the world? Maybe. Do I want to help other people? Sure. Mostly I think I want to join a bigger conversation. There are wildly courageous women out there, women who practice radical honesty. Women who aren't afraid to be who they are, no matter whether someone likes them or not. Well, they are afraid, but they do it anyway.
Amanda Palmer
P!nk
Tori Amos
Sarah Morehead
Felicia Day
Marlene Winell
Whitney Way Thore
I want to be like them when I grow up. I want to grow up. That's why I'm telling my story. That's why I'm putting this out there. That's why I don't care if it's a total waste of bandwidth. Because I have a story. I have a truth. I matter.
Parting Curses
"I am going to college."
For almost a decade it was my secret-but-not-secret dream, my way out, my cherished talisman that I wrapped myself around in the dark when I was terrified. I was eleven the first time I made a believable promise to myself that one day I would leave. (I had dreamed of running away and living like a hermit in the wilderness for five years already, but those schemes involved living in caves or on deserted islands and I had no path or roadmap to follow to make them happen.)
I had finally stood up for myself, and in the resulting chaos I left the house without permission, and without telling anyone where I was going. I walked aimlessly around the streets of the small town where we lived for hours. I walked past the library, past the small store, wandered the neighborhoods, hung out on the empty and deserted fairgrounds. I wanted to never go back. I wanted to run away, but I was too afraid (realistic?). I had literally nothing: no snacks, not a change of clothes, not a book, not even a pencil. I couldn't think of anywhere to turn, anyone that might help me. I couldn't figure out how to earn money, where I would sleep, how I would eat. Finally, after sunset, I gave up. I wandered back home but I promised myself that I would Get. Out. Teachers had promised me that I was smart, that I could earn something magical called "scholarships" and I was going to do it. Someday, somehow, I would go to college.
When I let myself back into our house, things were calm and quiet. The earlier threats and explosions of anger were ignored. The whole series of events became yet another thing that We Do Not Talk About. It probably would have made me crazy, but the barn door had been left open and that horse had run away years before.
So, throughout the tumultuous teenage angst that followed: bullying by my peers, my budding sexuality (and poor choices of partners / situations), the inevitable questioning of my religion, emotional estrangement from my mother, and my father's death, the idea of escape to college became firmly cemented in my mind as the Only Way Out. As I got older in school and kept getting good grades, participating in extra curricular activities that I could use on applications, I realized that not only was I going to escape, but I wouldn't be judged! In fact, I was celebrated. I was going to be the first person in my family not only to graduate high school, but to go to college.
The latter half of my junior year and my entire senior year were filled with ACT testing, retesting, college visits, research, planning, financial aid applications, and DECISIONS! Where would I go? What would I study? Ironically, I put almost no thought into a major. College was an escape from abuse and nothing more. "Going To College" was an end goal in itself. I put no more thought into what I would do once I got there than I put into what I would do once I got to heaven. It was the acceptance and arrival that was important in each case. What one would do there seemed irrelevant, irreverent.
By the summer after graduation, things were more or less settled. I had decided on a college. It was in state, for the cheaper tuition, but it was the more liberal, more cerebral college. Not the agricultural college that most of the other (few!) students who were going on to college had chosen. I had financial aid in order, housing had been applied for, and I had been accepted. Now it was just a matter of waiting. I had a part time job for the summer, and I had my first vehicle (purchased with my own money!) a little Honda Spree. I remember fondly zipping up and down the back roads to do whatever I wanted: buy pizza, go to a movie, play D&D with friends from church, and stargaze.
There was one complication: I had a boyfriend. Not a creepy, older guy that I snuck out and had illicit sex with. Nope, a real, legit boyfriend. A boyfriend that my mother adored. He did not want me to go to college. He drove by a small house in my hometown that was for sale, and he wanted us to buy it. We could get married, he said. I wouldn't need college, he said. He would work and support us. I would stay home. We would have babies. On the weekends we would work on the lawn. We could go to the church I grew up attending. And we could support my mom in her old age. It would be wonderful.
"Are you insane?" I kept asking him. I'm not doing that. I am going to college. Come with me. Move away. Eventually we hashed it out every possible way and I realized that there was no compromise, so I broke up with him. I tried to give him his class ring. He wouldn't take it. He promised to wait for me. I said "Don't do that." He said that I would "get it out of my system" and when I came back, realizing that the outside world just wasn't all that and a bag of chips, he would still be there waiting for me. He let me out at my house, and I threw his ring into the car just before he drove away. He slammed on the brakes, found the ring, held it out to me for a long time, and when I refused to take it, he dropped it in the driveway and drove away.
Eventually I picked up the ring, carried it inside and gave it to my mom. I asked her to give it back to him when he calmed down. She called me every kind of idiot and told me that no one would ever be as good to me as he was and that I was making a terrible mistake. I stomped into my room yelling and just before I slammed the door, I said "If you think he's so great, YOU marry him! I am going to college!"
Three weeks before I was supposed to move into the dorms, I came home from my job. I stepped into our living room, and I froze in place. There sitting in our threadbare, hardscrabble, ugly little living room, in the space where the ugly, second-hand, out of tune and impossible to keep tuned black upright piano with broken keys had sat, was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen:
a brand new, cherry finished Kohler & Campbell spinet piano. My mother was so excited. It was an early birthday present for me. I sat down. I played it. It was the most beautiful thing ever. I played it for hours and hours before I thought to ask any follow up questions.
Why did you get me a piano now? What will I do with it? Where will I keep it? Where did you get the money to buy this?
Because I always promised you one when you were little, but we could never afford it and I didn't want you to move away from home knowing that I'd not kept my promise. Well, you can't take it to college, obviously. I'll keep it safe here for you. I used the money we saved for you for college to buy it.
You what? You did not. You WHAT??
And then The Boyfriend showed up. The Boyfriend showed up in a pretty little candy apple red Mustang with a white interior. I just bought it he said. It's not finished yet he said. But I bought it for you. I'll totally restore it, and it'll be just yours. You can use it to commute to the junior college in Seminole. He had already put a down payment on the house on the corner. We'll put your new piano in the living room. We'll get married. We'll be happy.
They sent me to talk to my pastor. He was happy to give me his time.
You have always been too smart for your own good, he said. The devil has always had an easy way to deceive you, by making you rely on your own understanding he said. You need to stop being so arrogant. You need to stop putting yourself in harm's way by thinking too much. You cannot go to college, he said. I was on his playing field, so I played by his rules. I got out my bible. I turned to the book of Romans, chapter 1.
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,his eternal power and G-dhead; so that they are without excuse:" I said "See? It says here that G-d's truth is revealed in his creation. And I laid out my only original theology for him. I said "Truth cannot contradict truth. If G-d has made revealed truth available in the scriptures, and has made revealed truth available through what we can observe, then those two things cannot contradict each other. If they temporarily appear to, then we are misunderstanding one, the other, or both of them." He shook his head sadly and he said he was very worried about me, that he was afraid I was taking a first step on the road that would lead to destruction.
He said that if I persisted in my arrogance, I would fall in with a bad crowd. The world was an evil, dangerous place, and of course Satan was prowling about looking for fools who thought they were wise in order to deceive them. I would lose my faith, and I would end up burning forever in hell. He said "I hope and pray that you change your ways."
I said the only thing I could think of by then, my mantra, the only thing that would save me. I said "I am going to college."
For almost a decade it was my secret-but-not-secret dream, my way out, my cherished talisman that I wrapped myself around in the dark when I was terrified. I was eleven the first time I made a believable promise to myself that one day I would leave. (I had dreamed of running away and living like a hermit in the wilderness for five years already, but those schemes involved living in caves or on deserted islands and I had no path or roadmap to follow to make them happen.)
I had finally stood up for myself, and in the resulting chaos I left the house without permission, and without telling anyone where I was going. I walked aimlessly around the streets of the small town where we lived for hours. I walked past the library, past the small store, wandered the neighborhoods, hung out on the empty and deserted fairgrounds. I wanted to never go back. I wanted to run away, but I was too afraid (realistic?). I had literally nothing: no snacks, not a change of clothes, not a book, not even a pencil. I couldn't think of anywhere to turn, anyone that might help me. I couldn't figure out how to earn money, where I would sleep, how I would eat. Finally, after sunset, I gave up. I wandered back home but I promised myself that I would Get. Out. Teachers had promised me that I was smart, that I could earn something magical called "scholarships" and I was going to do it. Someday, somehow, I would go to college.
When I let myself back into our house, things were calm and quiet. The earlier threats and explosions of anger were ignored. The whole series of events became yet another thing that We Do Not Talk About. It probably would have made me crazy, but the barn door had been left open and that horse had run away years before.
So, throughout the tumultuous teenage angst that followed: bullying by my peers, my budding sexuality (and poor choices of partners / situations), the inevitable questioning of my religion, emotional estrangement from my mother, and my father's death, the idea of escape to college became firmly cemented in my mind as the Only Way Out. As I got older in school and kept getting good grades, participating in extra curricular activities that I could use on applications, I realized that not only was I going to escape, but I wouldn't be judged! In fact, I was celebrated. I was going to be the first person in my family not only to graduate high school, but to go to college.
The latter half of my junior year and my entire senior year were filled with ACT testing, retesting, college visits, research, planning, financial aid applications, and DECISIONS! Where would I go? What would I study? Ironically, I put almost no thought into a major. College was an escape from abuse and nothing more. "Going To College" was an end goal in itself. I put no more thought into what I would do once I got there than I put into what I would do once I got to heaven. It was the acceptance and arrival that was important in each case. What one would do there seemed irrelevant, irreverent.
By the summer after graduation, things were more or less settled. I had decided on a college. It was in state, for the cheaper tuition, but it was the more liberal, more cerebral college. Not the agricultural college that most of the other (few!) students who were going on to college had chosen. I had financial aid in order, housing had been applied for, and I had been accepted. Now it was just a matter of waiting. I had a part time job for the summer, and I had my first vehicle (purchased with my own money!) a little Honda Spree. I remember fondly zipping up and down the back roads to do whatever I wanted: buy pizza, go to a movie, play D&D with friends from church, and stargaze.
There was one complication: I had a boyfriend. Not a creepy, older guy that I snuck out and had illicit sex with. Nope, a real, legit boyfriend. A boyfriend that my mother adored. He did not want me to go to college. He drove by a small house in my hometown that was for sale, and he wanted us to buy it. We could get married, he said. I wouldn't need college, he said. He would work and support us. I would stay home. We would have babies. On the weekends we would work on the lawn. We could go to the church I grew up attending. And we could support my mom in her old age. It would be wonderful.
"Are you insane?" I kept asking him. I'm not doing that. I am going to college. Come with me. Move away. Eventually we hashed it out every possible way and I realized that there was no compromise, so I broke up with him. I tried to give him his class ring. He wouldn't take it. He promised to wait for me. I said "Don't do that." He said that I would "get it out of my system" and when I came back, realizing that the outside world just wasn't all that and a bag of chips, he would still be there waiting for me. He let me out at my house, and I threw his ring into the car just before he drove away. He slammed on the brakes, found the ring, held it out to me for a long time, and when I refused to take it, he dropped it in the driveway and drove away.
Eventually I picked up the ring, carried it inside and gave it to my mom. I asked her to give it back to him when he calmed down. She called me every kind of idiot and told me that no one would ever be as good to me as he was and that I was making a terrible mistake. I stomped into my room yelling and just before I slammed the door, I said "If you think he's so great, YOU marry him! I am going to college!"
Three weeks before I was supposed to move into the dorms, I came home from my job. I stepped into our living room, and I froze in place. There sitting in our threadbare, hardscrabble, ugly little living room, in the space where the ugly, second-hand, out of tune and impossible to keep tuned black upright piano with broken keys had sat, was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen:
Why did you get me a piano now? What will I do with it? Where will I keep it? Where did you get the money to buy this?
Because I always promised you one when you were little, but we could never afford it and I didn't want you to move away from home knowing that I'd not kept my promise. Well, you can't take it to college, obviously. I'll keep it safe here for you. I used the money we saved for you for college to buy it.
You what? You did not. You WHAT??
And then The Boyfriend showed up. The Boyfriend showed up in a pretty little candy apple red Mustang with a white interior. I just bought it he said. It's not finished yet he said. But I bought it for you. I'll totally restore it, and it'll be just yours. You can use it to commute to the junior college in Seminole. He had already put a down payment on the house on the corner. We'll put your new piano in the living room. We'll get married. We'll be happy.
They sent me to talk to my pastor. He was happy to give me his time.
You have always been too smart for your own good, he said. The devil has always had an easy way to deceive you, by making you rely on your own understanding he said. You need to stop being so arrogant. You need to stop putting yourself in harm's way by thinking too much. You cannot go to college, he said. I was on his playing field, so I played by his rules. I got out my bible. I turned to the book of Romans, chapter 1.
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,his eternal power and G-dhead; so that they are without excuse:" I said "See? It says here that G-d's truth is revealed in his creation. And I laid out my only original theology for him. I said "Truth cannot contradict truth. If G-d has made revealed truth available in the scriptures, and has made revealed truth available through what we can observe, then those two things cannot contradict each other. If they temporarily appear to, then we are misunderstanding one, the other, or both of them." He shook his head sadly and he said he was very worried about me, that he was afraid I was taking a first step on the road that would lead to destruction.
He said that if I persisted in my arrogance, I would fall in with a bad crowd. The world was an evil, dangerous place, and of course Satan was prowling about looking for fools who thought they were wise in order to deceive them. I would lose my faith, and I would end up burning forever in hell. He said "I hope and pray that you change your ways."
I said the only thing I could think of by then, my mantra, the only thing that would save me. I said "I am going to college."
Friday, November 14, 2014
Tinted Chapstick, Cowl Neck Sweaters, and Whores
I was sixteen when I learned that prostitution was a thing, that people, usually women, sold sex for money. And yet, I was only thirteen years old the second time my father called me a whore.
It was Valentine's Day and I was over the moon excited. Dreamy Mike McDreamypants*, the middle son of our Pentecostal minister was coming to pick me up for the church youth group's party. I had a serious crush on Dreamy Mike. So serious, in fact, that I was COMPLETELY OVER John Schneider as Bo Duke. I had the locking diary with several pages covered with our names doodled together surrounded by curly hearts to prove it. My mission was to find SOMETHING to wear that would show Dreamy Mike that I was totally pretty enough to be noticed. Challenge accepted!
Now, being a "Good Girl(TM)" (read: totally brainwashed fundamentalist Christian growing up in the little shiny worn off spot on the buckle of the Bible Belt) I didn't want to dress like "Those Girls(TM)" that I'd heard about in Sunday sermons my whole life. You know, the ones that were brazen hussies who only existed to lure men into sin. No, I wanted to be someone he could consider in the role of "Future Wife". So, I had to go through my closet very, very carefully.
After trying on and discarding almost everything, I came up with something I was proud of. I wore a black long sleeved body suit with black slacks. Over the top of the plunging neckline of the body suit, I wore a cowl neck sweater dress in turquoise and green. I had a turquoise necklace and a ring that matched, and I braided my requisite ass-length brown hair into two long braids secured with matching turquoise and green ribbons tied into bows. Going into the bathroom, I daringly applied cherry flavored tinted chapstick, looked in the mirror, and nodded in approval. No skin showing below the neck, except for my hands, and everything matched. I was ready.
Believe it or not, thirteen-year-old fundamentalist Christian girls don't exactly have the healthiest self-esteem. So, being ready nearly two hours early left me plenty of time to fret. My mother was out with my older brother shopping for a new refrigerator, so I went to show my Daddy how I looked.
Later, in college, as the owner of a boa constrictor and the one responsible for feeding it live mice, I would reflect on how naively, and innocently I walked into my father's room hoping, no, LONGING, for his approval. I showed off my outfit and I'm sure I babbled about the party, Dreamy Mike, and L-rd only knows what else. I may have even pirouetted.
My father was an evil, psychotic man. I can say that now with the perspective of thirty some odd years of space and time between us. But at the time, he was my Daddy, the closest thing I had to G-d on earth. And I loved him. His words had the weight of authority and of truth. And they fell on me harder than the belt he used to whip me with when I was even younger.
"You are a dirty whore." he told me. He called me boy crazy. He told me that I was no good, and that I was of the devil. He tore into me with absolute rage. He said that I had ruined he and my mother's lives, and that he wished I'd never been born.
I can't recall how that felt. I can imagine, of course, but I can't remember feeling it. I know it was totally unexpected, and that it was devastating. Some shred of self-respect and sanity floated up to my awareness, and I clung to it like I was drowning. I remember thinking "But I'm adopted. You don't accidentally adopt a baby." Now I know that I dissociated hardcore.
Recently I had the opportunity to watch Gone With the Wind on the big screen. Yes, it's a romanticized version of a racist narrative that was never, ever true. And yet, Scarlett O'Hara's "Well. I can't think about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow." reminded me so much of myself. I stumbled out of my father's room. I scrubbed off my tinted chapstick. I read a book while I waited. Dreamy Mike picked me up and I went to that party. And while I never forgot my father's outburst, I put it aside. I can't think about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow. But tomorrow never really came.
Oh, sure, it took me twenty, thirty years to be able to put on red lipstick and see myself as anything other than a slut. Sure, it took the same amount of time for me to be able to wear nail polish without scrubbing it off in fear that some man would get the wrong idea. And sure I never managed to think of myself as pretty without feeling like I was in some way dirty, flawed, sinful, needy, or otherwise broken and deserving of punishment. But think about it? No, that never really happened. I ran away from those feelings until I couldn't run any more.
To be continued.
* Dreamy Mike McDreamypants is a pseudonym. OBVIOUSLY.
It was Valentine's Day and I was over the moon excited. Dreamy Mike McDreamypants*, the middle son of our Pentecostal minister was coming to pick me up for the church youth group's party. I had a serious crush on Dreamy Mike. So serious, in fact, that I was COMPLETELY OVER John Schneider as Bo Duke. I had the locking diary with several pages covered with our names doodled together surrounded by curly hearts to prove it. My mission was to find SOMETHING to wear that would show Dreamy Mike that I was totally pretty enough to be noticed. Challenge accepted!
Now, being a "Good Girl(TM)" (read: totally brainwashed fundamentalist Christian growing up in the little shiny worn off spot on the buckle of the Bible Belt) I didn't want to dress like "Those Girls(TM)" that I'd heard about in Sunday sermons my whole life. You know, the ones that were brazen hussies who only existed to lure men into sin. No, I wanted to be someone he could consider in the role of "Future Wife". So, I had to go through my closet very, very carefully.
After trying on and discarding almost everything, I came up with something I was proud of. I wore a black long sleeved body suit with black slacks. Over the top of the plunging neckline of the body suit, I wore a cowl neck sweater dress in turquoise and green. I had a turquoise necklace and a ring that matched, and I braided my requisite ass-length brown hair into two long braids secured with matching turquoise and green ribbons tied into bows. Going into the bathroom, I daringly applied cherry flavored tinted chapstick, looked in the mirror, and nodded in approval. No skin showing below the neck, except for my hands, and everything matched. I was ready.
Believe it or not, thirteen-year-old fundamentalist Christian girls don't exactly have the healthiest self-esteem. So, being ready nearly two hours early left me plenty of time to fret. My mother was out with my older brother shopping for a new refrigerator, so I went to show my Daddy how I looked.
Later, in college, as the owner of a boa constrictor and the one responsible for feeding it live mice, I would reflect on how naively, and innocently I walked into my father's room hoping, no, LONGING, for his approval. I showed off my outfit and I'm sure I babbled about the party, Dreamy Mike, and L-rd only knows what else. I may have even pirouetted.
My father was an evil, psychotic man. I can say that now with the perspective of thirty some odd years of space and time between us. But at the time, he was my Daddy, the closest thing I had to G-d on earth. And I loved him. His words had the weight of authority and of truth. And they fell on me harder than the belt he used to whip me with when I was even younger.
"You are a dirty whore." he told me. He called me boy crazy. He told me that I was no good, and that I was of the devil. He tore into me with absolute rage. He said that I had ruined he and my mother's lives, and that he wished I'd never been born.
I can't recall how that felt. I can imagine, of course, but I can't remember feeling it. I know it was totally unexpected, and that it was devastating. Some shred of self-respect and sanity floated up to my awareness, and I clung to it like I was drowning. I remember thinking "But I'm adopted. You don't accidentally adopt a baby." Now I know that I dissociated hardcore.
Recently I had the opportunity to watch Gone With the Wind on the big screen. Yes, it's a romanticized version of a racist narrative that was never, ever true. And yet, Scarlett O'Hara's "Well. I can't think about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow." reminded me so much of myself. I stumbled out of my father's room. I scrubbed off my tinted chapstick. I read a book while I waited. Dreamy Mike picked me up and I went to that party. And while I never forgot my father's outburst, I put it aside. I can't think about that today. I'll think about that tomorrow. But tomorrow never really came.
Oh, sure, it took me twenty, thirty years to be able to put on red lipstick and see myself as anything other than a slut. Sure, it took the same amount of time for me to be able to wear nail polish without scrubbing it off in fear that some man would get the wrong idea. And sure I never managed to think of myself as pretty without feeling like I was in some way dirty, flawed, sinful, needy, or otherwise broken and deserving of punishment. But think about it? No, that never really happened. I ran away from those feelings until I couldn't run any more.
To be continued.
* Dreamy Mike McDreamypants is a pseudonym. OBVIOUSLY.
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