BRAINZZZZZZZZZ
Yesterday I visited a part of my past best left in my past. Also, I’d like you to know that while I am typing most of this, I’ve been awake for over 24 hours. And under the influence of Tylenol PM because my insomnia just keeps getting worse. If this post seems rambling, that’s why. Or maybe I am just releasing some pent up rage over pieces of my upbringing. Either way, it’s your own fault for reading this as I warned you it is all kinds of fucked up. I am all kinds of fucked up. Well, not in the murderous want to kill you with a sharpened pasta fork kind of way. More in the holy shit this girl has had some weird fucked up shit happen to her in her life and she is amazingly normal-esque in spite of the shit that has happened kind of way. Also, SHE’S A WITCH. Oh my fuck, She. Is. A. Witch.
You know, I told you to turn back in that last paragraph. Carry on if you must. Walking into a place of worship that caused so many scars in my psyche was like being a rape victim being forced to relive her rape at the scene of the crime. (Sounds dramatic, I know. But it is exactly how I feel. Violated by God’s fan club.) It was nerve wracking to say the least. I have been out of the grip of this religious group for about 25 years now and it still burns me up inside to see the way they treat people outside of their accepted parameters. The reason for my being back there was that a wonderful woman who was a part of my life from the very beginning passed away. For her I showed the respect she deserved and faced up to my reluctance to cross that threshold again. She was a rarity among humans, much less the bible thumping humans. Her existence was a gift from whatever source lies in the ether. The building itself once held power over me, just as the people inside it did. Strict doesn’t even begin to cover it. Picture being a 10 year old forced to sit in the school library while other kids ate birthday cake or holiday candy. For a child to be so banished from parties by her own parents in front of her peers is more than emotionally crippling, it is downright cruel. The therapy that followed years later was inevitable. I guess one good thing came from all of those embarrassing trips to the library, I learned to love books. Getting lost in fantasy became a way of life for me that continues to this day. Some of my memories are so tainted with my eventual disgust for what I was forced to endure that I block out a majority of the details. I remember asking questions and getting stock answers that never made any sense to me. The contradictions were apparent before I knew what the word contradiction meant. I’ve touched on my religious upbringing in previous posts so I won’t bore you with an abundance of repeat information. The issue that has been at the tip of my tongue for weeks now (ok, let’s face it, decades now) is the cult mentality of the group. If you know me, you will know the religion I speak of. If you do not, I then you can insert any organized religion you like. Most of them have the same basic shortcomings. The human tendency to judge then lord there beliefs over you as if it makes them superior to you. It becomes even worse if you have been associated with their group previously. Then they take the ‘shun the nonbeliever’ attitude and label you a traitor to their crown of thorns. I think in their minds you become worse than a murderer and must be avoided for fear of contamination of the entire flock. I have discovered that logic equals contamination.What I have witnessed lately is the most unchristian behavior of so called christians. I myself am not a so called christian, but that does not mean that I don’t respect or acknowledge the Christian pantheon. To treat a person like garbage during a time of crisis is not what I read in the teachings of the man they call Christ. I also remember from my Bible reading days that one should not judge without acceptance of being judged oneself. And holding a grudge against someone who sinned as a teenager for 20 years is a bit excessive. Then blaming the person who sinned for not wanting to continue to be brainwashed and emotionally tortured by the religious cult that villainizes you. It is a sick cycle of petty attitude that really boil down to wanting to hold power over everyone else in the false name of Christianity. Who makes good decisions when they are a teenager? Not any that I have ever known, especially not me. Really, I made some after school special sized mistakes when I was an angsty youth. So now here we are 20+ years later, a group of children raised to become the next generation of ‘Go Forth And Preach It Christians’. All finding our own paths in this life, none of them within that original dogma we were force fed. What does that say? That an entire generation found the restrictive judgemental regime to be a mountain of pompous egos systematically set to destroy individuality? Yes I am angry. I have been playing nice for so long because I didn’t want to rock my mothers belief system too harshly. But after crossing that threshold again as a free thinking adult I saw their real faces. The faces of fear. Not of me fearing them. But of them fearing anything different and out of their realm of explanation. These are the faces of the men and women who set about destroying the world through such times as the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch trials. Some are good people being controlled like puppets of a cult-minded society. Others are not so good and are perfect candidates for the misery they inflict on others. I find it hard to face the faces that looked at me with such disdain as they did yesterday. I walked in to that building with my sister and a few others who felt as betrayed by them as I do. We stood together (some of us literally stood together) united in not letting them in to bully our brains. The brainwashing was wiped from me long ago, but pieces still surface. Once in a while a voice that is not my own whispers words from that long ago place. I like to call it our club of disillusionment. We grew up to be part of that scary world we were warned against; a polytheistic witch, a criminal, a lesbian, a bunch of fornicators, a few still searching for their sins, and multiple rejected members of said Christian society. I feel those old resentments rising up in my throat like bile. The taste so acidic that I might choke. But this is me we are talking about, while swallowing down that acrid childhood I noticed that some of the basic canon of this organization seem very much like awaiting to be turned into a zombie. I couldn’t help but get the giggles during the singing one of their songs(hymns to any other organization) talking about God raising the dead to walk again on earth. That sounds exactly like a zombie raising to me. It may not have been the first time I noticed that Jesus was a zombie, but it was the first time I realized that there would eventually be a joyous army of zombies rising after the world ends. Quite a visualization really. So I left that foreboding building a little less traumatised with the knowledge that I will survive that particular zombie apocalypse because I am a lowly sinner. Or should I say zombie Armaggedon.
You know, I told you to turn back in that last paragraph. Carry on if you must. Walking into a place of worship that caused so many scars in my psyche was like being a rape victim being forced to relive her rape at the scene of the crime. (Sounds dramatic, I know. But it is exactly how I feel. Violated by God’s fan club.) It was nerve wracking to say the least. I have been out of the grip of this religious group for about 25 years now and it still burns me up inside to see the way they treat people outside of their accepted parameters. The reason for my being back there was that a wonderful woman who was a part of my life from the very beginning passed away. For her I showed the respect she deserved and faced up to my reluctance to cross that threshold again. She was a rarity among humans, much less the bible thumping humans. Her existence was a gift from whatever source lies in the ether. The building itself once held power over me, just as the people inside it did. Strict doesn’t even begin to cover it. Picture being a 10 year old forced to sit in the school library while other kids ate birthday cake or holiday candy. For a child to be so banished from parties by her own parents in front of her peers is more than emotionally crippling, it is downright cruel. The therapy that followed years later was inevitable. I guess one good thing came from all of those embarrassing trips to the library, I learned to love books. Getting lost in fantasy became a way of life for me that continues to this day. Some of my memories are so tainted with my eventual disgust for what I was forced to endure that I block out a majority of the details. I remember asking questions and getting stock answers that never made any sense to me. The contradictions were apparent before I knew what the word contradiction meant. I’ve touched on my religious upbringing in previous posts so I won’t bore you with an abundance of repeat information. The issue that has been at the tip of my tongue for weeks now (ok, let’s face it, decades now) is the cult mentality of the group. If you know me, you will know the religion I speak of. If you do not, I then you can insert any organized religion you like. Most of them have the same basic shortcomings. The human tendency to judge then lord there beliefs over you as if it makes them superior to you. It becomes even worse if you have been associated with their group previously. Then they take the ‘shun the nonbeliever’ attitude and label you a traitor to their crown of thorns. I think in their minds you become worse than a murderer and must be avoided for fear of contamination of the entire flock. I have discovered that logic equals contamination.What I have witnessed lately is the most unchristian behavior of so called christians. I myself am not a so called christian, but that does not mean that I don’t respect or acknowledge the Christian pantheon. To treat a person like garbage during a time of crisis is not what I read in the teachings of the man they call Christ. I also remember from my Bible reading days that one should not judge without acceptance of being judged oneself. And holding a grudge against someone who sinned as a teenager for 20 years is a bit excessive. Then blaming the person who sinned for not wanting to continue to be brainwashed and emotionally tortured by the religious cult that villainizes you. It is a sick cycle of petty attitude that really boil down to wanting to hold power over everyone else in the false name of Christianity. Who makes good decisions when they are a teenager? Not any that I have ever known, especially not me. Really, I made some after school special sized mistakes when I was an angsty youth. So now here we are 20+ years later, a group of children raised to become the next generation of ‘Go Forth And Preach It Christians’. All finding our own paths in this life, none of them within that original dogma we were force fed. What does that say? That an entire generation found the restrictive judgemental regime to be a mountain of pompous egos systematically set to destroy individuality? Yes I am angry. I have been playing nice for so long because I didn’t want to rock my mothers belief system too harshly. But after crossing that threshold again as a free thinking adult I saw their real faces. The faces of fear. Not of me fearing them. But of them fearing anything different and out of their realm of explanation. These are the faces of the men and women who set about destroying the world through such times as the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch trials. Some are good people being controlled like puppets of a cult-minded society. Others are not so good and are perfect candidates for the misery they inflict on others. I find it hard to face the faces that looked at me with such disdain as they did yesterday. I walked in to that building with my sister and a few others who felt as betrayed by them as I do. We stood together (some of us literally stood together) united in not letting them in to bully our brains. The brainwashing was wiped from me long ago, but pieces still surface. Once in a while a voice that is not my own whispers words from that long ago place. I like to call it our club of disillusionment. We grew up to be part of that scary world we were warned against; a polytheistic witch, a criminal, a lesbian, a bunch of fornicators, a few still searching for their sins, and multiple rejected members of said Christian society. I feel those old resentments rising up in my throat like bile. The taste so acidic that I might choke. But this is me we are talking about, while swallowing down that acrid childhood I noticed that some of the basic canon of this organization seem very much like awaiting to be turned into a zombie. I couldn’t help but get the giggles during the singing one of their songs(hymns to any other organization) talking about God raising the dead to walk again on earth. That sounds exactly like a zombie raising to me. It may not have been the first time I noticed that Jesus was a zombie, but it was the first time I realized that there would eventually be a joyous army of zombies rising after the world ends. Quite a visualization really. So I left that foreboding building a little less traumatised with the knowledge that I will survive that particular zombie apocalypse because I am a lowly sinner. Or should I say zombie Armaggedon.
Later in the the day, I also learned, via autocorrect, that my current state of existence has a name and her name is Myra. So after a few hours of contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that I will call my world Myra and all who want to be a part of my world will now be known as The Fellowship of Myra. Or for short F-Myra. Possibly for shorter FM. Needless to say, Myra is a shiny place where magical creatures abound and stories never end. Glitter, rainbows, and an occasional zombie uprising fill the streets of Myra.
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