I decided to start this thread in response to Merc and PP's insistence that people only believe in God because they're frightened and irrational beings who are terrified of death and unable to think on their own. I think that's utter BS, and I decided to write why it is that I personally believe in God. I believe in God because I believe that I have been kept. Kept is a very special word in Christianity, it holds a special meaning. It is also something to ponder when you look at the world and see so much suffering. In light of all that I have been through, and in light of what I've seen other go through my theory on the world, evil, and suffering is this: Yes, I believe in God. You don't like that, here's my asscrack, you can lick it'. Sorry, but good Christian girl went to sleep about three hours ago, and the real GIMR is awake right now.
I believe that God gave us all the right to choose. Some have chosen to act upon others, act selfishly. We have enough on this planet to feed and house everybody, and yet so many suffer and starve. *Insert the righteous anti-theists: well, what about natural disasters, you f*cking idiot!!!!* Um, we're also making the choice not to take care of this earth we call home, either. But I also look at that from a spiritual point of view, I see humans as stewards, not conquerors of the earth. I think we've caused the problems we have, not God. But why won't God stop it, you say? I cannot answer that question. For some of you, that's enough for you to fold your arms, sit back, and declare victory. Go get yourself some ice cream, because that's about all the sweet your gonna get from that victory, seriously. My theory is that the game isn't over.
I think we're all vital threads in a tapestry, and we can't see the big picture. But I'm not trying to answer all of life's questions. I'm also not frightened. I have been. But I'm not now. Why do I believe in God? Because I see a pattern in my life, situations in which I'm pulled to safety by no one and nothing, situations in which people try to do me harm and they cannot. I'm no angel, I'm not special. So why?
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Like I said to Coffee, I was born into a war. My parents got married because they were grown enough to screw in the back of a car, but not grown enough to ask the pharmacist for condoms. Eight years after brother came, I came. They hated each other by that time, and really didn't want me. Dad didn't claim me until the day I was born, and that was only because I looked just like him. He showed up after the fact. I grew up hearing how my mom dreaded my coming and how I ruined her attempts to go back to college. She would later repay me for that by refusing to sign my FAFSA forms, making me wait 7 years after high school for a college education.
My earliest memories are of my parents fighting. I recall one situation in which I was sitting on the steps watching them go at it in the living room. I looked up at my brother who was sitting a few steps up, and we just kept listening. Finally dad left, and when that door slammed, the silence was so thick, you could cut it like a knife. Eventually dad started sleeping downstairs. I was too young to know at that time that my dad was a deadbeat, a womanizer, and a man who would bring diseases home to my mom. He just wanted to do what he wanted, and he wanted my mom to take care of him. Mom wasn't having that.
They divorced when I was 7.
I remember that day, the sky was yellow, it was overcast, and we were parked in front of my paternal grandmother's house when they broke the news. It was as if the foundation of my life and all I saw myself to be had split from underneath me and fallen away. I felt like I was nothing and nowhere. And the clincher was that my parents had brilliantly decided that they needed to get in touch with all they had lost in getting married, and since my brother Larry was 15 and had his sports and popularity, he would cope. It was assumed that I would too.
I did not.
My mom went f*cking crazy after the divorce. Turns out that dad was sleeping with yet another woman, another woman who would become THE other woman in my life, my stepmother. Eventually I learned to love her, and I mourned her when she died, but for years I hated her. People have often asked me if I have ever cheated, and I've always said "no, it doesn't make sense to me". The reason why is because one day at a basketball game, out of hateful spite, my mom tells me that I have a little brother. No warning, just blurts it out. She's angry at my dad who is sitting a few feet away. I go and ask him if it's true, he does his usual, bows his head and looks sad, doesn't answer. A few days later I'm taken to a house all but a block away (that was pitiful, he had such a hard time coming to see me, and I could have walked to his house), and I'm introduced to a strange woman and a fat chinese-looking child. I'm told to call them "brother" and "step-mother". I did. I did what I was told. I was nine.
No one ever asked me how I felt about that, and from that day forward, it woud be twelve years before I ever got a moment alone with my father again, and when I finally did once again, time was running down, I didn't even know it, in a matter of months my father would be dead. During those first few years that my little brother existed, he made my life miserable. He was the most manipulative lying little brat, and I got in so much trouble for nothing. I was accused of trying to harm him, trying to kill him. His mother and our father spoiled him, gave him everything he wanted. I was always pushed aside.
At home with my mom, she was always taking her frustrations out on me. I was not allowed to so much as look like I disagreed with anything she said, or I would be slapped across the face. I was not a bad child, Mom was God in my house, I feared her as such. If she had a bad day, and I so much as spilled a drop of milk on the floor, she would strip me naked and beat me.
cont.
Imaginary Friends, Indeed
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_Sam Harris
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Imaginary Friends, Indeed
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. -Ghandi
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_Polygamy Porter
- _Emeritus
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- Joined: Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:04 am
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_Sam Harris
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- Posts: 2261
- Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:35 am
When mom got it into her head that I needed a beating, she would make my brother get a belt from his closet, or she would get a switch from outside, ones as long as my arm and as thick as my pinky (I'm a grown woman now...tree branches, anyone?). She'd make me take off all my clothes, saying that "her father didn't beat clothes, so neither would she". Then she'd make me wait. Then she'd shut all the windows in the house if it was spring, so all of Alexandria wouldn't hear me scream. Then she'd lay welts on me from the neck down that would stay for days. She even broke my skin once.
I used to lie there and think that no one in the world would ever love me after those beatings. But strangely enough, I never imagined any pretend friends to get me through this. I had a little brown bear my father gave me (one of the only things he ever gave me, that's why I kept it...kept it until I was 21), but I had enough things in my head, didn't need anymore. The nightmares were enough.
My mother controlled my world. I had no friends for a long time, there were few who came into my life who stayed long-term. No one stayed overnight at my house until my 13th birthday. I didn't spend much time with anyone else, it was as if she didn't want me to see normalcy. My best female friend she didn't like at first because of that.
I had nightmares every night of my life where I would wake up screaming for years until I turned 20. And what was worse, I could never remember what terrorized me so much, only that I was up, screaming, and running for my life. I would wake up, and not be in my bed.
The few people in my life who seemed to look past mom's lies, who supported me all died. Her father, a great aunt, the man she was supposed to marry. By the time I was 12 I was a cutter and suicidal. Did I believe in God at this time? Hell no! Not really. I went to church to get away from home, and since one grandmother was Jewish and the other Christian, there went my entire weekend. But I didn't really do anything other than see the doctrinal differences, and notice how unwelcome I felt at times.
I spent 19 years of my life depressed. At age 5 I was looking at my peers as if they were children and I was an adult. I finally put myself in therapy at 14, because I knew something was wrong. By that time I was in Europe, mom had done the stupidly unthinkable and married a drunk stranger, took me with her to a foreign land, and once again made me her scapegoat. She eventually sent me back stateside with a bunch of lies because I had learned German in six months time, was planning on going to German school and college, and standed too good of a chance of succeeding and escaping her. I do not know what she told her family, but it has been over ten years and even though my life has been the most successful, they still treat me like crap.
Mom sent me from Europe into abject poverty. She sent me to Dad. We ate the same thing every night for weeks because it was the cheapest thing. My stepmother resented my presence because it took away from the attention her son got (this is when the murder plot accusations started). Her son broke my crap, took my crap, followed me everywhere when all I wanted was to be alone, and annoyed me like little brothers do. I could not ask him to leave me be, I got yelled at in chorus for "being a bad sister". People were talking about how crazy I was, I felt like I had been kicked out of one family who didn't want me into one who wanted me even less.
Before I had left Germany I had hung with a friend named Jeanette. Her family was Christian. I spent a lot of time with them, and went to church with them. Her father ended up buying me my first Bible, and he mailed it to me in America. Their family life was so different than the one I had grown up with, there was love there, and when I attended church with them, I felt welcome, I felt peace. I began to want that, and I started asking questions. They answered them for me through letters in that first year I was back home.
Still, I was very depressed. At age 16 I had my first suicide attempt. My dumbass mother decided it was smart to tell me that I could come back to Germany to live, knowing that I wanted that more than anything else. I still dream about that place, and it's been ten years. She put all these restrictions on me, I couldn't see my friends, I had to go to school and come home, get a job, do everything she said, but I said ok to it all, because I knew that one day I'd turn 18 and I could tell her to suck me, and it'd be alright. Well, she called in March, all gleeful, saying she was coming home, acting all "hurt", because she thought I wanted to come back to Germany to be with her. The thought of going to my eighth school (the current school had kids who threw trash at me and threatened me, half the time I refused to go), and doing the new kid thing for my senior year, the thought of more upheaval (juvenile now that I think back on it) was too much, and I went and OD'd on the 14 different prescriptions I'd been sent home with. You see, I was very ill when I came home, skinny as a wraith, with migraines, unable to eat, barely able to walk. They tested me for everything from AIDS to Cancer, but the docs were too damn dumb to just diagnose me with depression. Stupid pricks. But hey, my mom was in denial, so I guess they had to be too.
It was my dad who found me. He first told me I should be ashamed of myself, and then he called the ambulance. All my kin who lived on our 10-acre plot of land plodded nosily out to see me, and I went to the ER. They pumped my stomach and I had my petty little drama. And I walked out of the hospital six hours later....
And realized that life had gone on without me. Wake-up call #1.
I had been cutting a great deal before, which had landed me into therapy, which helped, because I needed someone to vent to, but the desire to die was still strong. Realizing that folks weren't crowded around the ER doors wondering about me did something to my selfish little ego, but I still didn't have the strength to live yet. It would take another six years.
There was one spiritual experience in the midst of this, I'll just link to it, it's on another site. I had to write for English class, and I posted it on another message board for some friends.
http://www.grokutah.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=16272&highlight=#16272
Ok, I'm tired, and all these prescription pills they're making me take are doing wonders on my tummy. I'm going to sleep. I'll continue tomorrow, but I have not by any means made my point. It's a long ass story, and I'm sorry, but despite what you read on the other thread, it doesn't contain any pretend friends, and wasn't chemically induced.
'Night! Or rather morning. I'm going to try to make it to the 11:30 service. Hope I can stay awake. If they have the youth choir again, I dunno.... :P
I used to lie there and think that no one in the world would ever love me after those beatings. But strangely enough, I never imagined any pretend friends to get me through this. I had a little brown bear my father gave me (one of the only things he ever gave me, that's why I kept it...kept it until I was 21), but I had enough things in my head, didn't need anymore. The nightmares were enough.
My mother controlled my world. I had no friends for a long time, there were few who came into my life who stayed long-term. No one stayed overnight at my house until my 13th birthday. I didn't spend much time with anyone else, it was as if she didn't want me to see normalcy. My best female friend she didn't like at first because of that.
I had nightmares every night of my life where I would wake up screaming for years until I turned 20. And what was worse, I could never remember what terrorized me so much, only that I was up, screaming, and running for my life. I would wake up, and not be in my bed.
The few people in my life who seemed to look past mom's lies, who supported me all died. Her father, a great aunt, the man she was supposed to marry. By the time I was 12 I was a cutter and suicidal. Did I believe in God at this time? Hell no! Not really. I went to church to get away from home, and since one grandmother was Jewish and the other Christian, there went my entire weekend. But I didn't really do anything other than see the doctrinal differences, and notice how unwelcome I felt at times.
I spent 19 years of my life depressed. At age 5 I was looking at my peers as if they were children and I was an adult. I finally put myself in therapy at 14, because I knew something was wrong. By that time I was in Europe, mom had done the stupidly unthinkable and married a drunk stranger, took me with her to a foreign land, and once again made me her scapegoat. She eventually sent me back stateside with a bunch of lies because I had learned German in six months time, was planning on going to German school and college, and standed too good of a chance of succeeding and escaping her. I do not know what she told her family, but it has been over ten years and even though my life has been the most successful, they still treat me like crap.
Mom sent me from Europe into abject poverty. She sent me to Dad. We ate the same thing every night for weeks because it was the cheapest thing. My stepmother resented my presence because it took away from the attention her son got (this is when the murder plot accusations started). Her son broke my crap, took my crap, followed me everywhere when all I wanted was to be alone, and annoyed me like little brothers do. I could not ask him to leave me be, I got yelled at in chorus for "being a bad sister". People were talking about how crazy I was, I felt like I had been kicked out of one family who didn't want me into one who wanted me even less.
Before I had left Germany I had hung with a friend named Jeanette. Her family was Christian. I spent a lot of time with them, and went to church with them. Her father ended up buying me my first Bible, and he mailed it to me in America. Their family life was so different than the one I had grown up with, there was love there, and when I attended church with them, I felt welcome, I felt peace. I began to want that, and I started asking questions. They answered them for me through letters in that first year I was back home.
Still, I was very depressed. At age 16 I had my first suicide attempt. My dumbass mother decided it was smart to tell me that I could come back to Germany to live, knowing that I wanted that more than anything else. I still dream about that place, and it's been ten years. She put all these restrictions on me, I couldn't see my friends, I had to go to school and come home, get a job, do everything she said, but I said ok to it all, because I knew that one day I'd turn 18 and I could tell her to suck me, and it'd be alright. Well, she called in March, all gleeful, saying she was coming home, acting all "hurt", because she thought I wanted to come back to Germany to be with her. The thought of going to my eighth school (the current school had kids who threw trash at me and threatened me, half the time I refused to go), and doing the new kid thing for my senior year, the thought of more upheaval (juvenile now that I think back on it) was too much, and I went and OD'd on the 14 different prescriptions I'd been sent home with. You see, I was very ill when I came home, skinny as a wraith, with migraines, unable to eat, barely able to walk. They tested me for everything from AIDS to Cancer, but the docs were too damn dumb to just diagnose me with depression. Stupid pricks. But hey, my mom was in denial, so I guess they had to be too.
It was my dad who found me. He first told me I should be ashamed of myself, and then he called the ambulance. All my kin who lived on our 10-acre plot of land plodded nosily out to see me, and I went to the ER. They pumped my stomach and I had my petty little drama. And I walked out of the hospital six hours later....
And realized that life had gone on without me. Wake-up call #1.
I had been cutting a great deal before, which had landed me into therapy, which helped, because I needed someone to vent to, but the desire to die was still strong. Realizing that folks weren't crowded around the ER doors wondering about me did something to my selfish little ego, but I still didn't have the strength to live yet. It would take another six years.
There was one spiritual experience in the midst of this, I'll just link to it, it's on another site. I had to write for English class, and I posted it on another message board for some friends.
http://www.grokutah.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=16272&highlight=#16272
Ok, I'm tired, and all these prescription pills they're making me take are doing wonders on my tummy. I'm going to sleep. I'll continue tomorrow, but I have not by any means made my point. It's a long ass story, and I'm sorry, but despite what you read on the other thread, it doesn't contain any pretend friends, and wasn't chemically induced.
'Night! Or rather morning. I'm going to try to make it to the 11:30 service. Hope I can stay awake. If they have the youth choir again, I dunno.... :P
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. -Ghandi
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_Sam Harris
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 2261
- Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:35 am
Polygamy Porter wrote:Sounds like you need this belief system. What ever it takes I suppose.
Some don't need it. I don't.
Seriously, shut the “F” up until I finish. We know your pitiful story, PP. Okay? You like to bully Mormons and people who have religious belief because you had a bad experience. Good for you. Now go back to your regularly scheduled wanking.
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. -Ghandi
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_Sam Harris
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 2261
- Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:35 am
PP,
Why is it that if you have no need for faith, and you have all these answers for the people who you say do, you have not one iota of kindness to give? You and Merc are two of the most vicious people on here, Ray and Cog being your Mormon counterparts.
You're not making a very good case for yourself. Why should I believe you? Because you say so?
Why is it that if you have no need for faith, and you have all these answers for the people who you say do, you have not one iota of kindness to give? You and Merc are two of the most vicious people on here, Ray and Cog being your Mormon counterparts.
You're not making a very good case for yourself. Why should I believe you? Because you say so?
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. -Ghandi
-
_Sam Harris
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 2261
- Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:35 am
Thank you, Mok. I had a most lovely birthday. It was nice to spend time with my girlfriends, and see people I haven't seen in a while.
Did go to church today, and they had the under 13 choir. MUCH BETTER than the teen youth choir, they're actually into what they do.
I had gone up to join this church back in april, actually three days before my stroke. Well, I went up again today, and bore my testimony (not the Mormon EDIT: TBM - Iknowthischurchistrue kind) of the goodness of God.
And those damn, evil fundamentalist Christians and their pretend friend God!
They poured out of the woodwork, hugging me, two actually gave me money, which was exactly the amount needed to pay a bill that's been plaguing me for months. Some offered to help me find a job, others just cried.
I told them about how I had come up for membership back in april, and what had happened three days later. I told them how despite the fact that every temporal thing in my life was amuck, I was the happiest I'd ever been.
I have a new church family. These people are kind and welcoming, and it seems strange to me that they're all doing this because they're these irrational, fearful, unintelligent beings. :-)
I'm taking a nap, I'm still low on sleep. I'm sorry, but bad life experiences aren't enough to convince me there is no God.
There are people on here who have chosen not to focus on a diety, and to me those people have kind of transcended the "need" for the interaction, it's almost like they've graduated to a higher plane or something. They're no better than anyone else, but there's something about them that is definitely more at peace. Then there's PP and Merc. No futher comment.
Faith makes some people get up in the morning. What is wrong with that? It most defnitely gets me up, and these days with a big grin and a spring in my step instead of a groan.
Did go to church today, and they had the under 13 choir. MUCH BETTER than the teen youth choir, they're actually into what they do.
I had gone up to join this church back in april, actually three days before my stroke. Well, I went up again today, and bore my testimony (not the Mormon EDIT: TBM - Iknowthischurchistrue kind) of the goodness of God.
And those damn, evil fundamentalist Christians and their pretend friend God!
They poured out of the woodwork, hugging me, two actually gave me money, which was exactly the amount needed to pay a bill that's been plaguing me for months. Some offered to help me find a job, others just cried.
I told them about how I had come up for membership back in april, and what had happened three days later. I told them how despite the fact that every temporal thing in my life was amuck, I was the happiest I'd ever been.
I have a new church family. These people are kind and welcoming, and it seems strange to me that they're all doing this because they're these irrational, fearful, unintelligent beings. :-)
I'm taking a nap, I'm still low on sleep. I'm sorry, but bad life experiences aren't enough to convince me there is no God.
There are people on here who have chosen not to focus on a diety, and to me those people have kind of transcended the "need" for the interaction, it's almost like they've graduated to a higher plane or something. They're no better than anyone else, but there's something about them that is definitely more at peace. Then there's PP and Merc. No futher comment.
Faith makes some people get up in the morning. What is wrong with that? It most defnitely gets me up, and these days with a big grin and a spring in my step instead of a groan.
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. -Ghandi
-
_Sam Harris
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 2261
- Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:35 am
Okay, I'm gonna continue, and backtrack a bit. I'd better not go to sleep, because if I do, I might not sleep tonight. And my toes are cold (terrible circulation, old lady me LOL), so they keep me up anyways).
Mom had sent me to Mayberry to live with Dad from Germany. Culture shock. She had also sent me back with a whole bunch of lies, which had random aunts and my stepmother yelling at me, "I know what you did to your mother, you're not going to do it to me!". I still don't know what the hell "it" is, and my aunts still treat me like crap all these years later.
Germany was paradise for me. For the first time in my life I had an identity, and at the time when I should be starting to form one. I was known by my name, not as someone's child or sister. That was how I was known back home, and I always felt so insignifigant. If I wasn't being bullied, I was being pointed out by some stranger to me as some relation to someone else. I always felt invisible.
Like I said before, I learned German in six months. Completely pissed off Mom, because she couldn't keep a leash on me if I could navigate the country better than she could. Not only that, I looked AfroDeutsch, or half Black, half German. I melted right in. I made friends with the local kids, and had a wonderful teenage experience there for a while.
But things got dark again really quick.
My best friend there was named Jessi. She lived in my apartment building a few floors up. We were always at each other's houses. Mom was always insanely jealous of anyone I was friends with. My closest female friend she didn't even like at first. Mom really didn't want me to see what normal life was like at other people's houses, she didn't want me to see that other parent's didn't beat their kids and call them names all the time. And maybe this wasn't conscious, but I know this was her intention. She began to create problems for me with regards to Jessi, putting me on punishment for no reason, screaming at Jessi. Once on my 15th birthday, she came home and just started hollering at me. I looked up, and my room full of friends was empty. They had fled, and were soon forbidden to come to my house because of Mom. I had no idea why Mom was being so volatile, she should be happy, she'd just remarried, we were in a beautiful new country, we were wealthy...
Stepdad was a drunk. Mom married him a month after meeting him (fool), and he was a cheat and abusive. They're still married, and now they get along, but it's more a marriage of convenience than anything.
Mom needed a scapegoat for her misery. So she concocted a story (part of it) that Jessi was a bad influence on me and sent me to Dad. So I ended up in Mayberry with my whole family disappointed in me for nothing. I was so depressed, no one believed a word I said. My kin would speak of me as if I wasn't there, call me crazy, my father would talk about me, say terrible things, my mom would do the same. I had not a soul to confide in. And all I wanted to do was die.
School was horrid. I made the mistake of telling the teachers I'd lived overseas (and at the time spoke French as well as German), and they made such a huge fuss over it that my peers never accepted me. I would get on the bus each morning and if they weren't throwing garbage at me, they were threatening to beat me up before I got to school. The driver never did anything to stop them. Some of the kids were even distant cousins, who acted like angels when our parents were around.
My grades were never good, but they plummeted my junior year. I missed 45 days of school that year (how I escaped the truant officer I do not know), refusing to face those kids. I used to look at my dad's rifles and dream of shooting at those kids from the woods, I hated them so much.
God didn't play a big part in my life outside of me begging to die at this point. I corresponded with Jeanette, and it helped to feel like I still had a link with the world outside that little town (which is really called Chatham). But I didn't really think that God cared about me, in fact I thought God was sadistic, and thought all I was going through was funny. Still, I kept trying to find some sense in what I was dealing with. Neither of my parents were ever religious, so I didn't have them to turn to. My dad's family is about as fundamentalist as they come, and they make me retch. I've never gone to church with them and I never will.
For the most part, during that time at dad's I spent an average of 17 hours a day in my room, the full 24 if I could on weekends. I came out to pee and to eat. If I had a chance I went to a friend's house, but usually I was in that room. It felt like a prison sentence, but the alternative was fighting with my excuse for a family over nothing, if my brother decided to lie and say I hit him, or something stupid like that. So I just stayed to myself and read, or prayed, or cried.
When things got heated (and they often did), my dad and stepmom would light into me. They'd call me crazy (the most hurtful thing because I really did feel that way), and I'd go numb. I'd cut to actually see if I could feel pain, which I could not. I'd often cry myself to sleep. Waking up each morning was the hardest thing at that time, I cursed God every morning I woke up, because I just didn't see the point.
I think the hardest thing for me growing up was not hearing the words "I love you". I had to rationalize the love of my parents into my life. I had to say to myself, "well, they must love me". And my dad did, his last words to me were just that. My mom does, she shows me when she decides not to be so ass backwards. But I would have given anything to hear them say it. But they did not. And it scarred me deeply. And it hurts to even say that. I can count on one hand the number of times that I can remember that my parents told me that they loved me.
-con't.
Mom had sent me to Mayberry to live with Dad from Germany. Culture shock. She had also sent me back with a whole bunch of lies, which had random aunts and my stepmother yelling at me, "I know what you did to your mother, you're not going to do it to me!". I still don't know what the hell "it" is, and my aunts still treat me like crap all these years later.
Germany was paradise for me. For the first time in my life I had an identity, and at the time when I should be starting to form one. I was known by my name, not as someone's child or sister. That was how I was known back home, and I always felt so insignifigant. If I wasn't being bullied, I was being pointed out by some stranger to me as some relation to someone else. I always felt invisible.
Like I said before, I learned German in six months. Completely pissed off Mom, because she couldn't keep a leash on me if I could navigate the country better than she could. Not only that, I looked AfroDeutsch, or half Black, half German. I melted right in. I made friends with the local kids, and had a wonderful teenage experience there for a while.
But things got dark again really quick.
My best friend there was named Jessi. She lived in my apartment building a few floors up. We were always at each other's houses. Mom was always insanely jealous of anyone I was friends with. My closest female friend she didn't even like at first. Mom really didn't want me to see what normal life was like at other people's houses, she didn't want me to see that other parent's didn't beat their kids and call them names all the time. And maybe this wasn't conscious, but I know this was her intention. She began to create problems for me with regards to Jessi, putting me on punishment for no reason, screaming at Jessi. Once on my 15th birthday, she came home and just started hollering at me. I looked up, and my room full of friends was empty. They had fled, and were soon forbidden to come to my house because of Mom. I had no idea why Mom was being so volatile, she should be happy, she'd just remarried, we were in a beautiful new country, we were wealthy...
Stepdad was a drunk. Mom married him a month after meeting him (fool), and he was a cheat and abusive. They're still married, and now they get along, but it's more a marriage of convenience than anything.
Mom needed a scapegoat for her misery. So she concocted a story (part of it) that Jessi was a bad influence on me and sent me to Dad. So I ended up in Mayberry with my whole family disappointed in me for nothing. I was so depressed, no one believed a word I said. My kin would speak of me as if I wasn't there, call me crazy, my father would talk about me, say terrible things, my mom would do the same. I had not a soul to confide in. And all I wanted to do was die.
School was horrid. I made the mistake of telling the teachers I'd lived overseas (and at the time spoke French as well as German), and they made such a huge fuss over it that my peers never accepted me. I would get on the bus each morning and if they weren't throwing garbage at me, they were threatening to beat me up before I got to school. The driver never did anything to stop them. Some of the kids were even distant cousins, who acted like angels when our parents were around.
My grades were never good, but they plummeted my junior year. I missed 45 days of school that year (how I escaped the truant officer I do not know), refusing to face those kids. I used to look at my dad's rifles and dream of shooting at those kids from the woods, I hated them so much.
God didn't play a big part in my life outside of me begging to die at this point. I corresponded with Jeanette, and it helped to feel like I still had a link with the world outside that little town (which is really called Chatham). But I didn't really think that God cared about me, in fact I thought God was sadistic, and thought all I was going through was funny. Still, I kept trying to find some sense in what I was dealing with. Neither of my parents were ever religious, so I didn't have them to turn to. My dad's family is about as fundamentalist as they come, and they make me retch. I've never gone to church with them and I never will.
For the most part, during that time at dad's I spent an average of 17 hours a day in my room, the full 24 if I could on weekends. I came out to pee and to eat. If I had a chance I went to a friend's house, but usually I was in that room. It felt like a prison sentence, but the alternative was fighting with my excuse for a family over nothing, if my brother decided to lie and say I hit him, or something stupid like that. So I just stayed to myself and read, or prayed, or cried.
When things got heated (and they often did), my dad and stepmom would light into me. They'd call me crazy (the most hurtful thing because I really did feel that way), and I'd go numb. I'd cut to actually see if I could feel pain, which I could not. I'd often cry myself to sleep. Waking up each morning was the hardest thing at that time, I cursed God every morning I woke up, because I just didn't see the point.
I think the hardest thing for me growing up was not hearing the words "I love you". I had to rationalize the love of my parents into my life. I had to say to myself, "well, they must love me". And my dad did, his last words to me were just that. My mom does, she shows me when she decides not to be so ass backwards. But I would have given anything to hear them say it. But they did not. And it scarred me deeply. And it hurts to even say that. I can count on one hand the number of times that I can remember that my parents told me that they loved me.
-con't.
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. -Ghandi
-
_Sam Harris
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 2261
- Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 2:35 am
Mom comes home in '98, senior year passes by in a relatively pleasant blur. It's the only year of school I actually liked. I attended one year of college (and passed only music and German) of which mom paid for before she took me out and refused to pay for or sign anything to let me go further. I was still depressed and suicidal, she wasn't cooperating with trying to get me healed or whole. How the hell can I concentrate when all I can think about is jumping out of the window I'm sitting next to? Hello?
I had been in constant therapy since 14, and was with a new lady. She suggested I bring mom. So I did. Mom turned on her acting skills, and told this lady how much she wanted for me, how much she cared....and left. Next session, therapist tells me that she deals with kids with missing limbs and terminal diseases and that all I had to do was listen to my mom and I'd be fine. Well that was the end of that.
With regards to God, Jeanette and I had reached a roadblock. I had asked her what happened to all the people in the world who were not Christian, who I KNEW were far better people than me? She happily wrote back that they would simply go to hell when they died. I wrote her and told her that I wanted nothing to do with such a God. And God and I were enemies until the Mormons knocked on my door about two years later. I used to say that "I had a beef with God".
I still remember the day the elders knocked on my door. It was in June. It was a beautiful day, I was sitting in the room I'm in now, and I don't remember what I was doing, but my mom, stepdad, and godmother/aunt were in the backyard having dinner. The doorbell rang, and I gleefully thought, "pizza!" (the local Papa John's man had a tendre for me, and would bring me free pizza hoping to get my number. I took the pizza....never gave the number...he was like, 40!).
I open the door, and there were two white boys in white shirts with ties. They introduced themselves and said they had a message about Jesus. I told a half-lie and said I was raised Jewish. I also added that I had problems with organized religion (I'd been to a few other churches, and had never felt welcome, that too had not set well with me). They said "well, we do too" (crafty little bastards). I let them in.
We talked about the problems within organized religion, and I brought forth all my "beefs", RACISM (go figure!), lack of hospitality, the hell issue. They just agreed. Then they taught the first discussion, and I was all excited. I thought I had finally hit the jackpot. When they left, I felt like a new person. I believe they came once more before the sisters came. Of course, I was baptized after the sixth discussion.
I'm not going to get into all my gripes about the church. I was a member for five years. I had issues with culture and race. I had issues with feeling ashamed of myself and my past, and I needed to be free of myself. But what the church did do for me that I am grateful for is make me curious about the figure of Jesus.
My one good experience in the church came when I moved with my father for the final time before he died. I was connected with a very kind and humble branch in Gretna, VA. Those are some godly people, and I dare anyone to say otherwise. They fed me; they kept me sane in the midst of that unnecessary squalor.
In April of 2001 my Daddy asked me to come live with him. I agreed only if he promised to get a job and sign my financial aid forms so I could go to college. Mom’s husband was feeling on me, and I was just tired of it. She didn’t want to face the truth of the matter. I haven’t even bothered asking why, back then I was just glad to get away. I used to walk home from work, praying for God to protect me from the evil in that house. I was so afraid to be alone with my stepdad in that house, I was afraid he would rape me. In the mornings when I would leave for work, sometimes he would appear naked just before I walked out the door, looking like he was almost “hungry”. What a sight to take with you throughout your day.
I ran away from my mother’s home, hoping for better. I took so much hope with me. I even took seeds with me, determined to buy chickens and plant seeds, because if we were going to be poor, at least we would have fruit, vegetables, and eggs (how naïve I was), we could always scrape some pennies together and get some bread, we wouldn’t starve.
Well, Daddy didn’t keep his promise, he never worked. I used my last dime to keep up that house, and for about two months we scrounged, and then I begged. My branch president fed us for the last two months that Daddy was alive. Daddy took sick the day before he was supposed to bring me back home (and I had to grovel and beg mom and my stepdad to come back), and I guess it was because of the timing that I didn’t see what was coming. He was dead five days later.
Because he didn’t have insurance, the hospital did what they do to most all poor people here in VA that don’t look like they’re dying immediately. They gave him painkillers and sent him home. Had they taken blood or even urine, my father would be alive today. He was having kidney failure, he had an infection. But they ignored it, and it started in his prostate, spread to his liver, his kidneys, and his heart. He suffered terribly before it finally took his life, and he was only in the hospital for two days before he died. Danville regional is lucky the statute of limitations has passed and that I never had a chance to get his records or I would have owned that place.
I had an experience that occurred on what would have been his 52nd birthday, it was a dream that gave me much comfort. I will not relay it here given the make-up of the board. Let it suffice to say that it halted my grief. I still cry over my father sometimes, but I do not let it cripple me. That dream came just after my final suicide attempt.
Mom had forced me back to work early, knowing I wasn’t emotionally ready, and knowing it really wasn’t necessary. I was working in a place with someone who felt the need to jeopardize my job (why, I don’t know, she got promoted). I couldn’t take the stress, and kept begging mom to let me quit and find something else. Mom kept saying no, because “you have to PAY ME”. Finally one day, after yet another letter written to the managing partner saying I wasn’t doing my job, I left on lunch and didn’t come back. I went home and did something I should not have.
They threatened to keep me against my will, and as I sat in the hospital, I realized that I had to pull from somewhere the will to live. So I went home and tried to keep going. A few weeks later, I had that dream. It gave me much comfort. And I know it was him, from the stubble on his cheek to the smell of him. I do not own anything that smells like my father. I’m sure that one can come up with a scientific explanation of the brain duplicating a smell in a dream, but it was real to me.
In 2004 I moved to Atlanta to take on a nanny position for a cute little infant girl. I was excited but a bit lonely. I was glad to be so far away from my mother and her influence. I was also hurting inside. There was a part of me that felt like something had come and bitten a great big chunk off, and left a gaping, festering wound. Because of the whole focus on virginity and chastity in the church, I often walked around feeling like the Great Whore. I hung my head. I was still in the church at that time, and I strived to be this pure and perfect girl. I even submitted myself to a bishop's interview for something I had done a year before, because I thought it would put me at rest and make me clean...it put me through anxiety and made me feel worse. I always felt like I would never add up to my fellow LDS women, I was convinced I'd never marry. For a minute when I left the church and went to my new church I struggled with that, but I've let that go. I'm a daughter of God, and my past is my past. So my hymen is broken. Probably half the female congregation's is too. And? My heart is still pure. I have learned the meaning of grace, and it is beautiful. I love myself for the very first time in my life. The phrase "the joy of the Lord" is not just some random Bible verse it is real to me now. And it came from a life shattering event, no less. That's insane!
What started the turning point for me was a book that I'd read called Woman, Thou Art Loosed, By Bishop T.D. Jakes. I recommend it for any woman who is struggling with self-esteem, or for any woman who has been abused in her life. All I wanted was to feel clean inside, to feel like I could hold my head up as a Christian woman. I wanted to be a “good girl”. I really did. But I had it wrong back then. I thought that in order to be a good girl, I had to have a “Christian demeanor”, and I had to dress and act a certain way. My expectations were all external. The internal work was not being done. But when I started reading works by Bishop Jakes and works by another individual called Joyce Meyer, gradual change started.
-con't
I had been in constant therapy since 14, and was with a new lady. She suggested I bring mom. So I did. Mom turned on her acting skills, and told this lady how much she wanted for me, how much she cared....and left. Next session, therapist tells me that she deals with kids with missing limbs and terminal diseases and that all I had to do was listen to my mom and I'd be fine. Well that was the end of that.
With regards to God, Jeanette and I had reached a roadblock. I had asked her what happened to all the people in the world who were not Christian, who I KNEW were far better people than me? She happily wrote back that they would simply go to hell when they died. I wrote her and told her that I wanted nothing to do with such a God. And God and I were enemies until the Mormons knocked on my door about two years later. I used to say that "I had a beef with God".
I still remember the day the elders knocked on my door. It was in June. It was a beautiful day, I was sitting in the room I'm in now, and I don't remember what I was doing, but my mom, stepdad, and godmother/aunt were in the backyard having dinner. The doorbell rang, and I gleefully thought, "pizza!" (the local Papa John's man had a tendre for me, and would bring me free pizza hoping to get my number. I took the pizza....never gave the number...he was like, 40!).
I open the door, and there were two white boys in white shirts with ties. They introduced themselves and said they had a message about Jesus. I told a half-lie and said I was raised Jewish. I also added that I had problems with organized religion (I'd been to a few other churches, and had never felt welcome, that too had not set well with me). They said "well, we do too" (crafty little bastards). I let them in.
We talked about the problems within organized religion, and I brought forth all my "beefs", RACISM (go figure!), lack of hospitality, the hell issue. They just agreed. Then they taught the first discussion, and I was all excited. I thought I had finally hit the jackpot. When they left, I felt like a new person. I believe they came once more before the sisters came. Of course, I was baptized after the sixth discussion.
I'm not going to get into all my gripes about the church. I was a member for five years. I had issues with culture and race. I had issues with feeling ashamed of myself and my past, and I needed to be free of myself. But what the church did do for me that I am grateful for is make me curious about the figure of Jesus.
My one good experience in the church came when I moved with my father for the final time before he died. I was connected with a very kind and humble branch in Gretna, VA. Those are some godly people, and I dare anyone to say otherwise. They fed me; they kept me sane in the midst of that unnecessary squalor.
In April of 2001 my Daddy asked me to come live with him. I agreed only if he promised to get a job and sign my financial aid forms so I could go to college. Mom’s husband was feeling on me, and I was just tired of it. She didn’t want to face the truth of the matter. I haven’t even bothered asking why, back then I was just glad to get away. I used to walk home from work, praying for God to protect me from the evil in that house. I was so afraid to be alone with my stepdad in that house, I was afraid he would rape me. In the mornings when I would leave for work, sometimes he would appear naked just before I walked out the door, looking like he was almost “hungry”. What a sight to take with you throughout your day.
I ran away from my mother’s home, hoping for better. I took so much hope with me. I even took seeds with me, determined to buy chickens and plant seeds, because if we were going to be poor, at least we would have fruit, vegetables, and eggs (how naïve I was), we could always scrape some pennies together and get some bread, we wouldn’t starve.
Well, Daddy didn’t keep his promise, he never worked. I used my last dime to keep up that house, and for about two months we scrounged, and then I begged. My branch president fed us for the last two months that Daddy was alive. Daddy took sick the day before he was supposed to bring me back home (and I had to grovel and beg mom and my stepdad to come back), and I guess it was because of the timing that I didn’t see what was coming. He was dead five days later.
Because he didn’t have insurance, the hospital did what they do to most all poor people here in VA that don’t look like they’re dying immediately. They gave him painkillers and sent him home. Had they taken blood or even urine, my father would be alive today. He was having kidney failure, he had an infection. But they ignored it, and it started in his prostate, spread to his liver, his kidneys, and his heart. He suffered terribly before it finally took his life, and he was only in the hospital for two days before he died. Danville regional is lucky the statute of limitations has passed and that I never had a chance to get his records or I would have owned that place.
I had an experience that occurred on what would have been his 52nd birthday, it was a dream that gave me much comfort. I will not relay it here given the make-up of the board. Let it suffice to say that it halted my grief. I still cry over my father sometimes, but I do not let it cripple me. That dream came just after my final suicide attempt.
Mom had forced me back to work early, knowing I wasn’t emotionally ready, and knowing it really wasn’t necessary. I was working in a place with someone who felt the need to jeopardize my job (why, I don’t know, she got promoted). I couldn’t take the stress, and kept begging mom to let me quit and find something else. Mom kept saying no, because “you have to PAY ME”. Finally one day, after yet another letter written to the managing partner saying I wasn’t doing my job, I left on lunch and didn’t come back. I went home and did something I should not have.
They threatened to keep me against my will, and as I sat in the hospital, I realized that I had to pull from somewhere the will to live. So I went home and tried to keep going. A few weeks later, I had that dream. It gave me much comfort. And I know it was him, from the stubble on his cheek to the smell of him. I do not own anything that smells like my father. I’m sure that one can come up with a scientific explanation of the brain duplicating a smell in a dream, but it was real to me.
In 2004 I moved to Atlanta to take on a nanny position for a cute little infant girl. I was excited but a bit lonely. I was glad to be so far away from my mother and her influence. I was also hurting inside. There was a part of me that felt like something had come and bitten a great big chunk off, and left a gaping, festering wound. Because of the whole focus on virginity and chastity in the church, I often walked around feeling like the Great Whore. I hung my head. I was still in the church at that time, and I strived to be this pure and perfect girl. I even submitted myself to a bishop's interview for something I had done a year before, because I thought it would put me at rest and make me clean...it put me through anxiety and made me feel worse. I always felt like I would never add up to my fellow LDS women, I was convinced I'd never marry. For a minute when I left the church and went to my new church I struggled with that, but I've let that go. I'm a daughter of God, and my past is my past. So my hymen is broken. Probably half the female congregation's is too. And? My heart is still pure. I have learned the meaning of grace, and it is beautiful. I love myself for the very first time in my life. The phrase "the joy of the Lord" is not just some random Bible verse it is real to me now. And it came from a life shattering event, no less. That's insane!
What started the turning point for me was a book that I'd read called Woman, Thou Art Loosed, By Bishop T.D. Jakes. I recommend it for any woman who is struggling with self-esteem, or for any woman who has been abused in her life. All I wanted was to feel clean inside, to feel like I could hold my head up as a Christian woman. I wanted to be a “good girl”. I really did. But I had it wrong back then. I thought that in order to be a good girl, I had to have a “Christian demeanor”, and I had to dress and act a certain way. My expectations were all external. The internal work was not being done. But when I started reading works by Bishop Jakes and works by another individual called Joyce Meyer, gradual change started.
-con't
Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. -Ghandi
-
_richardMdBorn
- _Emeritus
- Posts: 1639
- Joined: Sat Oct 28, 2006 3:05 am