Afraid of the dark

 A year ago, I wrote a post about how as a kid I was convinced that I was possessed by the devil. I talked about the very first moment that I became afraid.

One of my earliest memories is of playing hide-and-seek at Grandma and Grandpa’s trailer. I was lying in the dark under the bed with my face pressed down into the red shag carpet. Waiting. There were dusty shoe boxes and plastic-wrapped blankets stacked all around me. I felt like they were waiting too, for the sunlight, for someone to open them again. Like most children, I was patient only when it came to hiding games, and I was willing to lie there all night, if need be, for someone to find me. I put my hands over my eyes and pushed down on my eye balls. When I lifted the pressure, the space in front of me exploded with imaginary fireworks. I pressed down harder, and harder, until suddenly I thought that maybe I could see a set of eyes. They were big and round and silver and stared right back at me unblinking, like an owl. Completely forgetting the game, I wriggled out from under the bed and went charging down the hall into the kitchen.

“Gramma! When I hide under the bed, I can see an owl’s eyes looking at me!”

Grandma looked up from the dishes with concern on her face. Grandpa, who was sitting at the kitchen table while Grandma cleaned, ordered me to come and stand before him.

 “What did you see?”

“Owl Eyes!” I laughed. “Big round silver ones! Under the bed when I close my eyes!”

I don’t remember what he said next, but I remember my excitement went suddenly cold. Grandpa was not happy. He asked me lots of questions, and before long, Grandma dried off her hands and came to sit with us at the table. They laid their hands on my head and prayed. Grandpa rebuked Satan in the name of Jesus and Grandma whispered “yes Lord” under her breath again and again.

I used to look back on that day as the moment when Satan entered my body.

 

I am sometimes afraid that if I ever become a parent I wont know how to address situations like this. When someone talks about seeing things in the dark, my automatic thought is that it MUST be demons. (Which is ridiculous since I don’t believe in demons.)  But I get uncomfortable and nervous none the less. I was wondering what I would do if my hypothetical child came to me about seeing things in the dark. As I browsed the comments, I came across one from Shadowspring that brought a huge smile to my face.

“Horrifying. You poor princess. I just want to pick up that little girl that saw owl eyes and go rewrite that whole story.

Would I be smart enough to figure out exactly what you had experienced? Probably not, but we could've put treats out for the owl, gone to library for owl books (including Winnie the Pooh), made up a series of owl adventures and/or even had a field trip to the raptor center. That's the kind of grandma I want to be.

I bet your grandparents would cry if they knew that religious freak-out was the beginning of so much pain for you. At least, I hope they would.

Hugs, SS”

 

 As an agnostic, I no longer believe in dark, powerful demons that can harm and hurt you at will. I have no reason to be afraid for myself or my hypothetical children. Thanks, SS for the sweet comment. I know someday I'll think of you when my children come to me afraid of the dark. I know i will honestly be able to say "there is nothing to fear."

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.

Confessions of a Bad Mother

This post is from a reader named Jane B. Thank you for your courage in sharing your story Jane!
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 Let me just get it out of the way and say I was a BAD MOMMY who did not know any better. I yelled at her, brushed off her thoughts and feelings,called her all kinds of names, put hot sauce in her mouth, spanked her, and worst of all thought children should be told what to do and not really listened to.
 When my daughter was 10 years old I was putting away some of her clothes and saw her diary on top of the dresser  so I grabbed it and started crying at some of the stuff I read. In her diary she wrote stuff like I am scared of mom and dad, that she did not trust us, thought she was stupid, thought she was a Disappointment to the both of us,  thoughts that her feelings did not matter, thought she was a bad kid, and worst off all thought our love was conditional. 
 Later that day went to the bookstore and bought a book called P.E.T (Parent Effectiveness Training) by Dr Thomas Gordon and since then my little girl my baby has been more confident,happier,well behaved,loving, caring, compassionate, and best of all she shares her thoughts feeling fear and concerns problems with us because she know we are gonna try and teach/guide her and not punish/hurt her any more.

And to those who spank or who are considering it I ask of two humble requests. First please look at scientific research that shows all the negative effects of corpal punishment. And  second I ask that you please look at other more peaceful loving effective methods to raise your children. And to my hunni bunni( daughter childhood nick name) I know you have forgiven me and I have said it a bunch of time but I am sorry for all the pain I have caused you. I will always love you unconditionally no matter what you do.

Jane B

(Please show your support and leave comments for the authors if you can. Remember, this is an open ended series! Please consider writing something yourself, or sharing the project with your friends and followers. The guidelines are listed here, but feel free to write in whatever format is easiest for you)

Still Crying: Pieces of Pipe

This post is from a reader named Rae. It's not too late to submit your story as well!
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I was spanked as a child. My parents tried to keep it a secret. They kept pieces of pipe hidden in the most obscure corners of our house, and were careful to find excuses for us to miss our swim lessons if we had a suspicious bruise. They warned us not to mention it, saying the government hated Christians and homeschoolers, that we would be taken away from them and put into homes where we would get abused if anyone found out.

Then, when I was twelve, my mom threatened to spank me for the last time.

I responded by threatening to call child and family services. I knew that it was illegal to spank foster children. I was waiting for her reaction, weighing the risks and rewards, ready to calculate whether my odds of not getting abused might not truly be better in foster care.

The pieces of pipe disappeared the next day. They're probably still out in those woods, somewhere.

My parents say that we "turned out fine". That we're "perfectly normal". Maybe my siblings are. I don't know. But I do know that I've been conditioned to expect violence from other people. Especially men.

Like the time that I was so scared at a guy suddenly touching my shoulder that I literally ran away, only to later discover that he had simply been trying to return the wallet that had fallen out of my purse.

Or that time my best friend tried to tickle me, and I couldn't prevent myself from fighting back hard enough to injure her.

Or every time that one of my male friends tried to give me a high-five, and I flinched away, and they just laughed. "What? Ohmigod, I'm not going to hit you, you don't have to duck." Like it's some sort of silly idiosyncrasy.

And I have to wonder if any of those people, any of my friends or classmates or roommates or dates, have ever realized that there's a part of me that's instinct by now that really does think they'll hit me.

(Please show your support and leave comments for the authors if you can. Remember, this is an open ended series! Please consider writing something yourself, or sharing the project with your friends and followers. The guidelines are listed here, but feel free to write in whatever format is easiest for you)

Superhero



I look nothing like this when i work out



Every morning I wake up at 5:45am. I go to the gym and work out for 30-45 minutes. Throughout the day I eat lots of healthy snacks like veggies, fruits, and nuts and drink lots of water. My meals are low in fats and sugars. I eat around 1200 calories a day and I’m never really hungry.  Basically, I do everything right.

But every time I get on the scale, I’m still the exact same weight. According to the internet, my BMI is like 26. I’m in the “overweight” category. I need to lose almost 10 pounds before I’ll be considered healthy.

WTF?

You can literally see my abs. well, three of them at least.

Most people would say I have a slow metabolism. I prefer to think it is just madly efficient. It would keep me alive for months without hardly any food or water. My Irish genes are designed to withstand cold, starvation, and probably virus’s, which means I will be the one saving the world during the zombie apocalypse when the rest of you are enjoying brains for dinner. So really, I’m not chubby and awkward; I’m a super hero. Why didn’t I figure this out sooner?

I’m pretty sure superhero’s don’t change their bodies to fit into their clothes. Hell No. Super hero’s have clothes made especially to fit their super awesome bodies. I think it’s time I threw out my old size 8 pants and got myself some new 10’s and 11’s. I guess I’ll just always have giant, well-muscled thighs and broad shoulders. That’s not a bad thing.



I like Wonder Woman's hips. They're giant. Like mine

What does your body do that makes you special? Are your arms just the right size to reach through half closed car windows and unlock the door, thereby rescuing the person who locked their keys inside? I have news for you, you have a superhero body too. Are you super awesome at moving your hips, to the point where you rock every dance floor you stand on? Superhero. Are you so awesomely hairy that you could survive an Alaskan blizzard because of your extra warmth? Superhero. Does your extra layer of fat make treading water incredibly easy? Super. Hero.

Why do we spend so much time focusing on what our bodies look like, instead of what our bodies can do? Why do we think about our hips and double chins when we plan what to eat? Shouldn’t we be eating out of respect and love for our bodies instead of hatred and mistrust?

So, here’s some advice I should really take myself. Do you own a scale? I suggest that you go and throw it out. Or at least take out the batteries. Stop looking at charts and graphs that measure numbers instead of value. Our bodies are awesome machines that perform extremely complex and impressive tasks every day. Find some things about your body that rock, and celebrate them!