My Journey: An Update

I have been neglecting my blog.

But I promise, the reasons are mostly good. I have been getting better. So much better. The suffocating blanket of uncertainty has almost completely disappeared. So many of my fears have been replaced with confidence and peace. I don’t feel so raw all the time anymore. I don’t always feel the need to pour my emotions out on “paper” to get them out of my system. I think I know who I am now. As an individual. And most days that means I feel peaceful, and happy.

None of things happened over night. And I’m sure I’ll change and have new questions all over again. But for once, I am not afraid of the future, because I finally trust myself to navigate it with authenticity. If I change, I change, and that’s okay. Because human beings are fluid. We are meant to change and grow, and rejecting that fact is unhealthy. P/QF folks will tell you that there’s a solid, biblical answer for every question, and if you don’t get it you need to try harder. But that kind of mindset removes us from our consciences, and from the opportunity to change and grow, which is what makes us human to begin with.

Letting go of belief in “right answers” is scary.
Letting go of the walls that you were always told would protect you is terrifying.
Letting go of the personality pajamas your parents swaddled you in at birth leaves you feeling naked and without identity.
Waking up in your twenties with no sense of self seems unbearable.

But I let go. And I started from scratch. And I trusted my conscience, and as cheesy as it sounds, I trusted my heart. It’s been over 2 years now, of slowly putting myself together, piece by piece. This is not the end of my journey. But I am happy to say that I know who I am today. I know what I want today. And that is more than enough for me.

I would love to talk more about my journey. I know how helpful it was to hear stories like mine when I was first beginning my journey. The tips and tricks and encouragements of others were invaluable to me. Please feel free to email me, or leave a comment about what you need to hear about. What will help you on your journey? If I get any responses I will write on those subjects.

Self

I am a member of the family
I am a member of the housework crew
I am my parent’s possession
I am their trophy
I am a representative for Christ
I am a future mother in a future family preparing to serve a future husband

I am not an individual.

Feelings are superfluous, needs are selfishness, I do not know the vocabulary of self.

I am depressed overly dramatic
I am hungry gluttonous
I am tired and overworked lazy
I am sick weak
I have anxiety lack faith
I need affirmation whine too much
I need privacy am selfish
I need to be respected punished

I do not deserve to have needs.

So I take tweezers and tear a blade out of my father’s razor. And I keep the razor in a tiny jewelry box that my grandma gave me, under the cotton, because nobody can see it, because using it is selfish, and I am ashamed. But nothing compares to the relief of sliding the blade across the soft parts of my thighs, my calves, my ankles, my wrists.

Simultaneously punishing myself and expressing my hurt.

People deserve love
people deserve support
people deserve respect
But I don’t know these things

 Because I am not an individual
I am not a person
I do not know the vocabulary of self.



(I wrote this post as an entry for the Homeschoolers Anonymous blog. You can see the Original Post here)

The Magical Third Strand

When I got married two and a half years ago, I had a lot of pre-conceived opinions. I knew marriage wasn’t going to be easy, but I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were going to make it. My confidence came from the belief that my fiancé and I had a special secret weapon against the trials of marriage: we had God. God was the third strand that would keep our marriage together, no matter what. I believed that my marriage was inherently stronger than those of non-believers. After all, God gave us superior insight and patience. God had gifted us with stronger and more powerful feelings of commitment. God had promised us that our cord of three strands would not be easily broken. I knew that my marriage was better than your marriage because God was supernaturally holding us together.

Imagine my surprise when I faced reality for the first time. We had been married for about 6 months. I was deep in post-patriarchy depression and I cried myself to sleep almost every night. My husband and I prayed together every day, but still I could see the toll my struggles were taking our marriage. I didn’t know how to feel better, and he didn’t know how to help me. I often thought of how much better off he would be without me. As I began facing my childhood for the first time, I developed a visceral reaction to anything that felt restrictive to me. I remember the exact moment when I first realized the magnitude of my “till death do us part” commitment.

I was sitting on my bed in our tiny apartment folding clothes. I started to think about the rest of my life. I was 19, and already the biggest decisions of my life were behind me. I would be folding these same socks and underwear every week for the rest. Of. My. Life.  I suddenly felt trapped, claustrophobic in my own life. I had committed to this marriage before God, and now I couldn’t leave. Ever. My chest constricted and my breath came faster. “I can’t do this.” I thought. “I can’t do this.”  

I imagined packing my things and leaving right then. My heart swelled with hope at the idea of being truly free for the first time in my life. Those thoughts terrified me, and in that moment I felt betrayed by God. “You promised that I wouldn’t have to feel this way!” I prayed through the tears. “You promised you would hold us together!” I felt cold and naked as I realized that there was no supernatural power keeping me here in this apartment with this man. There was no safety net protecting our marriage. There was nothing but our own desires, and I didn’t even know what I wanted.

What first felt like betrayal, turned out to be the most freeing realization of my married life. I examined my heart and gave myself permission to think about what I wanted. I gave myself permission to pursue the things that made me happy. I made a lot of changes in my life, like going back to school and moving to a new state. The biggest breakthrough of all was realizing that I wanted to be with my spouse. He makes me laugh, his personality compliments mine. He believes in me even when I don’t believe in myself. He does not “complete me,” but I cannot imagine my life without him. The life that I have is the life that I want.

The love we have for each other, and the commitment we made to each other is stronger and more profound than it has ever been. Many people question the strength and validity of our marriage because we are “unequally yoked” or too egalitarian. I used to do the same thing. The idea of stepping into a lifelong commitment is substantially less terrifying when you think you have a supernatural shield around you and your spouse. But how much more beautiful is a wedding where two flawed humans commit to one another, fully aware of the challenges they will face? How much more powerful is a marriage where two people stay together because they want to?

There is no magical third strand holding my marriage together, it’s just us. We promised each other that no matter what happens, we will never stop working on our marriage. We promised that no matter how our feelings change, we will never give up on our love. I mean it, and know that he does too. And that’s good enough for me.

Imaginary Friend

I sometimes hear my non-religious friends making jokes about Christians and mocking them for their “imaginary friend,” god. The implication is that Christians are foolish, weak, or childish for their beliefs.

I do not call myself a Christian. The idea of a Deity that human beings can understand seems impossible to me. But my spouse is a Christian, many of my close friends are Christians. To them, faith means the security of knowing they are loved and accepted by someone, even when their lives and their hearts are in chaos. Their faith isn't about politics or perfection, it's about purpose and inner peace.

Everybody needs to be loved.

So why should we mock somebody who chooses to believe that they are unconditionally and eternally loved by a higher power?

I am lucky enough to have a loving and supportive spouse, family, and community, but that doesn’t make it okay for me to ridicule those who choose to seek out love and support from a god and a church.

We live in a world full of questions; let’s not mock each other’s answers.

Dear Diary: Losing My Pure Heart

Context: When I was thirteen I fell really hard for the only boy I'd ever spent any time with. He was a friend of the family. We held hands twice before the adults caught on and shut it all down. I wrote this is my diary shortly after that incident.

Dear Diary,                                            August 18
Oh I feel so horrible! How could I do this? I've preached to my friends but I'm just a hypocrite. I'm so confused and ashamed. If I can't say "he's my first love" on my wedding day, why does it even matter how many there have been. I'm a used napkin now. I know God used this to teach me, but why did he have to steal the gift of a pure heart? Why did I let this happen? It's not fair. My life is a mess. I wish I had a different life. I wish God put me somewhere else. I wish i could stop wishing! I don't want to be a worldy girl. I hate them. I hate how they gossip. I hate thier flirty clothes. I hate thier cakey makeup and nail polish. I hate how they always seem so happy... I hate that I want to be one of them, and I hate how it shows.
-Sarah

Dear Diary: Fundamentalism Through the Eyes of a Child

I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel guilty for leaving fundamentalism  It's not logical obviously, but somewhere deep down I still have this built in self-doubt. "It wasn't that bad," I tell myself, "you're exaggerating " I think about the things I've written on my blog and wonder if maybe I've somehow made them all up. Maybe my memories are flawed, maybe I'm victimizing myself.

In one of these moments of self-doubt, I turned to my childhood journal for affirmation. What I found startled me even more than my memories. Every page is swimming with self-hatred. Half the journal entries read like a suicide note. It's horrifying.

Fundamentalism teaches children that they are sinners. It teaches them to deny themselves, despise their needs, sterilize their personality, and strangle their sexuality. It teaches girls that they are stupid, insignificant, and purposeless without a man. The things you believe about yourself during your formative years shape the way you think, feel, and behave for the rest of your life. Nothing can be more crippling than self-hatred.

To illustrate how deeply fundamentalism destroys a child's self-worth, I am considering publishing some of the entries from my childhood/teenage journals. This will not be a commentary on my family or the things that happened in my home. It will be a glimpse into the mind and heart of a little girl who believed she did not deserve to live. My hope would be that people will see the dangers of fundamentalist Christianity and think twice about the things they teach (or allow to be thought) to their children.

Would anyone find this helpful or interesting? Would you be interested in sharing bits from your childhood journal to add to the illustration?

UPDATE: Many people experienced similar self-hatred stemming from psychological abuse that was not necessarily religious in nature. I welcome journal entries from those children as well as they offer a clear example of how religious fundamentalism is a form of psychological abuse.

Anti-Birth Control or Anti-Women?

During my engagement, my fiancé and I received a call from another young couple we knew. They had been married for about 5 years and already had 4 small children. I had mentioned in a previous conversation that I was considering some kind of IUD to prevent pregnancy for our first year of marriage, so I was not surprised when they revealed that they wanted to talk to us about birth control. “Any birth control besides a barrier method is basically an abortion” they told us. “We will come visit you tonight (it was a 15 hour drive) if you’re really serious about using BC, we feel that strongly about it.”

I took their passionate response as a sign from God: birth control is murder. They gave me the same argument I grew up hearing, but in more detail. If you haven’t heard the argument, it goes something like this: Birth control pills work by thinning the lining of the uterus. If your birth control fails to prevent ovulation (this happens in 2-10% of cases) and an egg becomes fertilized, the uterus will reject the egg, thus causing the “baby” to die and be expelled from the body. The argument continues by saying that millions of babies are murdered by birth control every year.

Some of you may have seen this video circulating on the Internet. It’s the one that claims birth control is responsible for adultery, homosexuality, divorce, murder, and a slew of other “evils.” I won’t even begin to address the dozens of lies and misleading statistics in the video. I just want to address the issue at the core of the anti-birth control. Namely, that birth control is murder.

  

Now, this whole position is ridiculous if you don’t believe that a zygote is a baby. Most people hear the anti-birth control argument and shrug it off. There are some, however, that believe life begins at conception. For those people, hormonal birth control seems to be completely out of the question. However, the anti-birth control crowd leaves out one very important fact: a woman’s body naturally rejects at least 18% of fertilized eggs. This means that if you have unprotected sex that leads to the fertilization of an egg (30% chance or successful fertilization), the resulting zygote has an 18% chance of being rejected by the uterus. The human body naturally performs “abortions” almost 20% of the time. So does taking birth control actually increase the chances of zygote abortion, or does birth control actually reduce the chances of this occurring? Let’s do the math.

Without Birth Control:

Out of 100 fertile women on birth control, 100 of them will ovulate in any given month.

Out of those 100 released eggs, 33 will become fertilized.

Out of those 33, 18% will be rejected by the uterus.

In a group of 100 women not on birth control: 6 zygotes will “die”

With Birth Control:

Out of 100 fertile women on birth control, around 6 of them will ovulate in any given month.

Out of those 6 released eggs, only 2 will become fertilized.

Out of those 2, 100% will be rejected by the uterus.

In a group of 100 women on birth control: 2 zygotes will “die”

So let’s get this straight, taking birth control makes a woman’s body LESS likely to dispel fertilized eggs. If you believe that life begins at conception, shouldn’t it be your moral duty to reduce the number of zygote “abortions?” If you believe that a zygote is a human, you actually kill more babies by refusing to take birth control.

How has such a massive flaw gone unnoticed all this time? Did anti-birth control advocates really just “miss” these obvious facts, or could it be that they like the result of this misconception? Denying women rights to their own reproduction is the oldest weapon in the war on women. Even if you believe that a zygote deserves the same rights as a full grown human, there is still no reason to oppose birth control other than to control women.

 I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of the “personhood” smokescreen. Let’s call the anti-birth control message by its real name: anti-woman.

Probably Not

Do you remember when I couldn’t breathe? Probably not. But I do.

 I remember the sensation of weight on my chest, weight on my eyelids, weight on my heart. Expectations were heavy, Responsibilities were unrealistic, Burdens were unbearable. You thought I was strong, you thought I was fine. But it’s only because you never asked. Were you too caught up in your own pain to see mine? Was your baggage so binding that you did notice the bags you strapped to my back every day?

When I think about that life, about those days in the big brick house, I feel the air slip out of my lungs. My chest tightens, and I feel heavy. I know there were so many good times. So many hugs and smiles. Christmas cookies, and back scratches. I wish those memories were sharper, and clearer, and brighter. But when I look back, everything is covered in fog. Heavy fog.

Do you remember when I hated myself? Probably not. I never told you.

 Sometimes I wonder if you noticed the blood through my sleeve and chose not to speak up. It’s easier to believe you never saw. Was your pain so raw that you never noticed me crying myself to sleep? Would you have been surprised to find me dead at last, my arm submerged in a bathtub full of blood, just like I fantasized a thousand times?

You try to tell me how beautiful I am now. But the part of me that needed to hear that grew up and moved out a long time ago.

Do you remember the day I learned I was evil? Probably not. But I do.

 I remember your words, immortalized in the pages of my diary, came to life and stood before my eyes like living demons. Liar, untrustworthy, lazy, selfish. You taught me to ask God for forgiveness. You promised me that He would make me perfect. But he didn’t, and that’s when I knew I was evil, wrong, bad, lost. Were you proud of me? Of all the time I spent on my knees hating my own guts? Did you mistake my self-deprecation for humility? Or was this your desired result?

I already forgave you for the things you did, on accident or otherwise. I have taken responsibility for my life and my feelings. But the marks remain, like sunspots from the glare of your unrelenting righteousness.  I don’t want to blame you for the depression, for the years I spent swimming against the current, trying to break away from the darkness. I don’t want to hate you for the anxiety I’ve experienced over every small decision.

 But some day I’d like to hear you admit that you were wrong, and mean it. If that’s selfish of me, I’m sorry.

You remember the laughter and the warmth. You remember your ups and downs. Maybe you even have regrets. But do you remember my daily struggle to be perfect for you? Do you remember how I felt when I failed every single day? Probably not. But I do, and I wish with all my heart that I could forget.

Sick-Fil-A

Chick-fil-A's homophobia doesn’t really surprise, nor does it necessarily bother me. Companies donate their money and build their products wherever and however they want all the time. If I was going to boycott CFA I’d have to boycott lots of other things, like gasoline and tennis shoes.

What surprises and frustrates me, are all the people that are using this as an opportunity to spread hatred. Whether you agree or disagree with chick-fil-a and their choices, it makes no difference. They will go on spending their money how they please. By declaring a "chick-fil-a Wednesday" you are not supporting anything or anyone, you are simply seizing an opportunity to express hatred towards an entire group of people.

I'll be staying as far away from Chick-Fil-A as possible tomorrow. Not because I dislike their menu or their business model, but because I can't stomach the idea of hundreds of people getting together to celebrate homophobia over chicken and fries.

On Why I Am Certain I Will Never Be Good Enough

I got a text this morning from someone who knew me as a devout evangelical Christian. Our relationship isn’t as close now, mainly because of my faith questions. The text read,

“Praying for you this morning and God asked me to share this with you. ''I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness'' Jer 31:3”

I stared at the text for about 15 minutes before responding. “Thanks, have a great day!” I’m sure this person meant for the text to be uplifting and encouraging. But all it did was bring me down. The verse itself is nice; I like the idea of unshakable, unconditional love. What irked me was the reference to this person’s morning prayers. Apparently, she got a message directly from God in which He guided her to a verse and asked her nicely to share it with me.

Really? Did the invisible, silent, and intangible god of the universe ASK YOU to share a verse with me? Not just a nudge, or a well planted idea, not even a chance breeze that turned the pages of your bible, but GOD himself physically ASKED YOU to share this verse with me?

This is how I know I will never be a good enough Christian. I was a biblical literalist, fundamentalist, God-fearing evangelical Christian for the first 18 years of my life, and never ONCE in all that time did God physically speak to me. I used to plead with my invisible, silent God for some kind of personal guidance. Everyone around me was claiming miracles and clear callings, and I just stayed home, begging “here I am Lord, send me.” And nothing.

My husband says that God doesn’t talk to him either. He gets his comfort and strength from God, he gets his moral compass from God, and then he goes about his business just like everybody else. No supernatural intervention needed. The less time I spend around evangelicals, the better I feel. I start to think that maybe God really is just an enormous force of unexplainable love that cares about people and inspires them to greater joy. I start to think that maybe I don’t need to compete with the God-whisperers. Maybe I can carry on in my quiet hopeful faith, and live side by side with other Christians, no questions asked…

And then I get texts like this one. They remind me of the Christian rat race I used to know. Everyone wants to know about your “walk” with God. Haven’t heard God’s voice lately? You’re doing something wrong. Haven’t seen any miracles lately? You must be letting sin blind you. Pray harder. Live better. YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

The God-box

Are you anything like me? Have you ever stood in front of the mirror, half horrified, and wondered who on earth is staring back at you? Who is that person with dark green eyes and lazy posture? What does she love?

                                                      What does she dream about?

                                                                                                           What does she want?

It used to be that I silenced those questions with the only answer I had ever learned: God. He was all I had been taught to want, all that I was allowed to need. I learned how to fold up my confusion, neatly like a napkin, and tuck it away in a box entitled: God. My hopes and dreams soon lived there too, stacked and dusty, next to ashes of my undeveloped identity. For 19 years they sat there, all the precious parts of me, ignored and forgotten. I walked around as a shell of a person, with the God-box strapped on my shoulders.

How did it happen? How did I come to the place where I was nothing but a shell? It started slowly.

At 8 years old I wanted to be a singer.

                    

Broadway.

My first dream.

“Theatre is not a safe place for a girl. The world is full of evil people. Trust in the Lord, he will show you how to use your talent for His glory!”

From that point on, I knew. God was the only acceptable answer to every question.

Emotions? God. 

Relationships? God.

Self worth? God.

Aspirations? God.

                                  God.

                                              God.

One day, the God-box got too heavy; so I threw it off. As it hit the ground, it shattered into a million pieces, taking part of me with it. I was told that the God-box was the perfect investment. I thought it would make me complete, I thought it would tell me who I was; I thought it would teach me to be happy. I had invested everything in the box, and it had failed me. I do not know who I am apart from God; all I know is that I should know.

And now here I am, standing in front of the mirror again, trying to guess at who is staring back at me. Every day I learn a little more, and the guilt of leaving the God-box lessens. Every day, as I pick through the rubble of my identity, I find old sparks of things that make me smile. I invite you to come along with me as I learn who I am. I am hoping to find that I am worth more than a title.

I am hoping to learn that I don’t belong in a God-box.