Impressions of Shame and Fear on My Young Mind

I remember the time when my parents first “found” religion. They had known religion growing up, I’m sure. But this was the early seventies, a time of new-found awareness of religion and religious expression. My mother’s family was and is mostly Methodist. The Methodist church is like Catholic-Lite. Lots of standing and sitting and repeating call-outs from the pulpit. I don’t really know in what religion my dad was raised. I assume he was raised with at least a cursory knowledge of the christian god. Some of my cousins on my Dad’s side are Methodist, others are Presbyterian. But the religion my parents found was what is known today as Evangelical. Damn near a cult. I mean, extreme stuff. But then the christian bible is full of extremism. LOTS of restrictions, mostly for females. A big old book of misogyny.

My earliest memory of this was when we lived in Washington, North Carolina. Or as it is commonly known, “Little” Washington. Washington sits on the Pamlico River, just off the coast. How we ended up there, I have no idea. I think my parents were buying a house there. I remember we moved suddenly when the pipes froze and burst, melting the wallpaper and plaster off the walls. The neighborhood had two-story houses, with porches and porch swings. The American dream right? Porch swings.

My Mom’s cousin lived next door. The cousin was a “pastor”. Now that I think about it, I suppose I have him to thank since he was the one who introduced my already troubled mother to something that would eventually trouble me as well. It’s funny how something so random can haunt us forever, but there it is. I remember when my parents were first acquainting themselves with the cousin-pastor. My mother and father and I went to the drive in one night. It was a double feature, and Daddy had put the footstool in the back seat for me to sit on so I could see. But the second movie that night? I was supposed to be asleep, and they kept trying to make me lay down, but I saw what would later serve as the basis of a particular sexual fantasy of mine as an adult. This was before the time of babysitters, so they were really counting on me being passed out after the first movie. Now days, you can’t go into a theater with a child to see a movie like this. Nor should you. I just know I was told to NOT say anything to the cousin-pastor that we had been to the movies at all. Movies were a sin. That one most certainly was sinful.

I also have a memory of a little two-piece outfit I wore during the time we lived there. The fabric had little road signs on it, and was red and white and yellow. It was cute. But it was shorts and a halter top. At age six I insisted on wearing a sweater with it.

I learned to be ashamed from my mother. She thought she was teaching me modesty. I remember her chastising me for letting my daddy see me in my slip. Should a little girl be fearful of her daddy seeing her in a slip? No, and I would not have been either if my mother hadn’t told me it was something I should feel. I can remember even now how she’d say “aren’t you ashamed?”. I got asked that a lot.

My daddy was the most gentle soul. He was tender and quiet. My daddy said I was his heartbeat, his baby. After my brother died as an infant, the doctor suggested that my parents try to have another child. Chances were it might be a girl, after four boys. Five years after Craig died, I was born. Not once, not even for a second until the day he died, did my daddy ever make me feel uncomfortable. Not once did he ever say or do anything that would make a little girl not trust him. He wasn’t the one who shamed me.

I suppose since most child rearing is left to the mother, she is the one who makes or breaks us. At least that was true for me. Whatever fears my mother had, whatever worry or anxiety she felt, she bestowed upon me. It came only from her. All of it damaged me.

• “Don’t let your daddy see you in your slip”
• “Don’t go in the water, or else you’ll drown”
• “Don’t do flips or hang from the monkey bars, because your liver will flip over and you’ll die”
• “We must lie down/not use scissors/not be near a window or mirror during the thunderstorms”

That last one was a real doozy. She told me about a girl who looked at herself in her hand mirror during a thunderstorm. Lightning struck her mirror and she evaporated into thin air. Poof, just vanished.

It is a parent’s job to teach their children certain things, and that you never stop being a parent, even when your kids become adults. But it is not ok to lie to them, especially before they can reason for themselves. Straight out, bald-faced lies. Terrifying a child is not a good parenting strategy.

That’s how I see religion. You tell a kid lies. You tell a kid things that cannot be proven, in the hope that they will obey without questioning. Fuck that. Question everything.

There was a corner store across the street from this house. I remember getting an ice cream there once, a sherbet. It was in a plastic, cone-shaped cup. At the bottom of the cup was a gum ball. Only I didn’t know it was a gum ball. I thought it was something dangerous. I was naive, and my mother didn’t help me understand, or teach me basic stuff like it’s ok to eat that.

Instead, she taught me to be afraid and ashamed. I suppose her reasoning was that if I was afraid I would never venture away from her, and therefore she could make sure I would not die like my brother did.

Rather than Gerber selling life insurance for new parents, how about a pre-therapy savings fund. I can see the ads now. A young man or woman on a couch looks wistfully at their therapist. “If only my parents had saved their pennies for my pre-therapy fund instead of  a 529 college fund”.

Not that I had a college fund mind you. You don’t go to college when all your life you’ve been told “you can’t do that” or  “you don’t know how” or “it’s too hard for you”.  You settle for something easy, like getting married too young and having babies. And you stay close, because that’s all you know. Don’t spread your wings. Don’t fly away from her.

A healthy parent would want you to go and see and do. Even if it means leaving them. That’s what you want for your kids. You want them to reach and succeed beyond anything and everything you are. Children should be more than us, as each generation gets better and better and learns more and achieves more. Or maybe that’s just my romanticized view of it. But I honestly want these things for my kids. A nice home that they can afford, a safe place, friends, a loving and faithful spouse. Vacations. Nice cars. Savings, and maybe a diversified portfolio. But thing I want most for them? I want them to be happy, well-rounded people who love and are loved in return. Without shame or fear.

 

Anxiety is a Seven-Letter Word

Anxiety. What a deceptive word. Seven letters, comprising a word with a thousand meanings. Anxiety is described as “a general term for several disorders that cause nervousness, fear, apprehension, and worrying. These disorders affect how we feel and behave and can cause physical symptoms.” Boy is that an understatement.

I think I have been anxious my entire life. I often wonder, had my childhood been stable and secure, would I have been so anxious? Probably not. Anxiety is to upheaval as a fever is to the flu. It’s just a symptom. When your family moves so often that you attend three or four different schools in a single school year it can make you anxious. Butterflies in your stomach at the thought of being the new kid, again.

Mama would always wait until the school day had begun and then go to enroll me. Sometimes I’d be so sick on my stomach she’d stop at a convenience store and get me a coke. That helped a little. Not as much as staying in one place would have. But you deal with your current situation and call it a win.

Once a teacher commented to me that we “sure did move around a lot”, as if a nine-year old has any say in the matter. Sometimes we’d move back to a town and I’d re-enroll in a school I had attended the year before. Once we even moved into a rental house we’d lived in ten years earlier.

My mom was the queen of convincing a landlord to let her repaint the inside of the house in exchange for charging a deposit. I grew up thinking you couldn’t move into a place unless you painted the bedrooms and kitchen first. I just thought that was what people did. And I learned to make sure my paint job covered all the roach droppings.

Living in so many different places makes it hard to make friends. To this day, I have maybe two people I can trust as “my own”, and I’m married to one of them. Moving a lot means you either become withdrawn or you learn to become outgoing. I have a big mouth, so I talked a lot. In fact the only time I ever had a negative comment on my report card was about my mouth: “…she is a joy to have in the classroom, if only she didn’t talk so much”. Talking a lot can mean you’re popular, and everyone wants to hear what you have to say. It can also mean you’re anxious. Anxious to be liked and accepted. Anxious to fit in. Kinda hard to fit in when you don’t stay put. I was lonely and awkward.

I confess I have always been jealous of those people who were best girlfriends in school, college roommates and stood in as bridesmaids for everyone in their circle. But I told myself their ritualistic inclusion in each other’s lives meant they were silly. Who needs girlfriends to go get pedicures with (not that I did that until I became an adult), go shopping with, or go to the beach with? Is that what you are supposed to do? Who needs to flip through photo albums or a yearbook and see themselves entwined in other people’s lives/happiness/existence?

I missed all those things, because we never stayed put long enough for me to live out those experiences. Not that I would have anyway. I was odd. A freak. Naive and ill-informed about the world, popular culture, music, clothes – anything and everything, really. And also, I was weird. I was the kid whose parents were older. Parents who never went to school functions, concerts, plays or PTA meetings. Sure lots of kid’s parents skip those things. But probably not because their mothers were hospitalized, either for surgery or a mental breakdown.

Then there was church. You stick out like a sore thumb when you can’t go to the movies or skating with classmates. The reason I couldn’t go, you ask? Because there were sinners in those places. The one time I pointed out that there were also sinners in the produce section of the Pak-a-Sak, I got slapped across the face.

Ever wonder how hard it is to run track and do sit ups in a skirt? I bet not. Why did I have to wear a skirt? Because dressing out in shorts for gym class might make a man think impure thoughts and I would cause him to sin. I learned about not wearing shorts when I was nine. I learned, but didn’t understand, that I was going to be held responsible for male sexual arousal because I wore shorts. It was my fault if he sinned. I could make him go to hell.

My fear of hell was strong and ever-present. I didn’t stop fearing it until I became a non-believer a couple of years ago. I am middle-aged and a grandmother. Sheesh. As a child, there was about a two-year period from age nine to eleven that I could not even sleep by myself. I was terrified that god would take my parents while I slept. During this time my psychiatrist suggested putting me in a group home. You know, for some structure. My mother said no. I was actually rooting for the group home.

My brothers and I had two different mothers growing up. The same woman, but two different mothers. I’ll explain.

In 1961 my parents had four sons, ages 12 years to eighteen months. One Friday, the baby came down with a fever. On Saturday he died. My mother dropped her basket.

When will we say “Enough” and mean it?

I know I haven’t written in a while. Pardon me, but I’ve been sad. The orange buffoon has shattered my vision of humanity, and I’m struggling to break through the darkness that is despair.

So, another school shooting today. I have to ask – what’s the big deal? I mean, it’s not like we really want to do anything about it, right? Who cares anymore? Certainly not our lawmakers, certainly not the members of the gun cult. It’s just dead kids, right? We have to accept this as an inconvenience of American life, like taxes and traffic jams.

I hate to admit this, but I’ve become blase’ about the whole gun thing. I used to get angry, heartbroken, scared, and would participate in one-sided maniacal shouting sessions at TV news coverage of dead children and murdered-at-the-hands-of-the-police Black People. It was exhausting for me, a middle-aged white grandmother, to care so deeply and oppose so vehemently, death by firearms. Now I just feel hopelessness.

Do not misunderstand me. My husband has an arsenal scattered amongst my tchotchkes in our home. He is responsible enough to put away the easily accessible ones when the Grands visit.  The rest are locked away, inventoried and waiting for the day that he is gone and I will make rid of them. But I have traveled this country, often alone, and have never felt the need to be armed. I guess that is because of my privilege. I mock him when he slides a pistol into the storage compartment of the car door. He says he’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. I guess. I just don’t think I need a gun.

What makes a person who is so sensitive – so insecure, become emboldened when they wrap their fingers around the trigger of a weapon? What makes a person (I really should use the male pronouns here, because women do not commit mass shootings) think they can fill in the hole in their confidence, psyche, masculinity or need for attention by killing innocents with a weapon of war? Blame the unfulfilled need for power and control? Blame the patriarchy? You betcha!

Those of you reading who say in order to value life we need to get back to god/read the bible in school/arm teachers…bite me. What we lack in this country is moral guidance, not religion. We need little boys to be taught that it is not OK to lash out aggressively towards their female classmates. We need them to be able to understand the meaning of “No” and not be shattered by it. And we need little girls to be taught that male aggression does not mean “he likes you”.

I don’t know anymore what it will take to solve this problem. I just don’t know. Call me a coward, a quitter. But for today, I’m gonna sit here in my comfortable privilege and not give a damn. I am doing this to shield my emotions from the terror that is all around us.  I’m tired of the Marches. I’m tired of calling and writing Congress.

Tots and Pears people.

Religious Extremism

An acquaintance on social media posted the following: “If you believe your religion is worth killing for I’d like to suggest you start with yourself! How many bombings, be-headings and shootings do we have to put up with to realize religious extremism is really the problem? And No I’m not just talking about one particular […]

via Condoning Religious Extremism — the Beachwitch

Condoning Religious Extremism

An acquaintance on social media posted the following: “If you believe your religion is worth killing for I’d like to suggest you start with yourself!
How many bombings, be-headings and shootings do we have to put up with to realize religious extremism is really the problem? And No I’m not just talking about one particular religion, I’m talking about all religions.”

The argument I always hear about this is “those are just radicals, extremists”. My answer to this comment is that as a supporter of your religion, you are guilty of condoning these actions simply by belonging to this same religion. And of course, your ‘good book’ tells you how to subjugate women, beat your kids and slaves, and kill your enemies. So, if your book tells you how to do this, you’re not a ‘better’ person just because you decide to ignore your book.

Listen to us please

The tragedy in Manchester yesterday was a strategy explicitly targeting an audience filled with girls. Disenfranchised young men enabled by misogyny and toxic masculinity are being recruited by radical extremists who see it as their calling to rein in females and put us in our place. It’s also pertinent to note that the entertainer (Grande) has a large gay following. There is little doubt that misogyny and homophobia were two of the reasons behind this attack. The talking heads seem to be missing this.

Attempts to address the threats represented by all kinds of extremist violence, including white-christian-male-supremacist violence in the US, fall on deaf ears. Just like our outrage about pussy-grabbing, we are dismissed as being overly sensitive and alarmist in our concerns.

 

The internet is full of people offering prayers (the least effective thing one can do) and posting memes. To these people, only their religion matters, and they are blind to the fact that not everyone shares their views. Personally, I reply to their posts that the people affected by this shocking act of violence are in my thoughts and their fate weighs heavy on my heart. I end my comments by saying that our leaders must be vigilant in bringing these extremists to justice, and we must not be distracted by anyone attempting to call on a deity that believers insist can intervene after the fact, yet did nothing to prevent it.

When the privileged feel threatened

I submitted this letter to the editor yesterday (once I calmed down enough to write it).

My response to the letter “Christians are stopped from serving the Lord”.

Dear Editor,
I read this letter today and immediately knew I had to respond. I am human, so please understand when I tell you this hurt me. Deeply. Let’s get something straight. Christians are not being “stopped from serving the lord” as they please. I think what the writer actually means is that she feels threatened.
For much of our history America has been dominated by Christianity. Everywhere you turn there are symbols of the Christian faith. Christian churches are in every community in America. Hospitals funded by Christian organizations provide health care in every state. Schools and Universities named for Christian leaders teach America’s youth. Americans are free to wear symbols of their faith on chains around their necks and on their clothing. They can read religious books in public, and say grace openly in restaurants.
I never hear my Jewish and Muslim friends complain that they are unable to worship as they please in our country. I wonder why that is, especially since throughout history they have been victimized, tortured and killed (by Christians) for merely existing, much less practicing their faith.
Because others are using their voice to assert themselves in our culture, Christians are feeling offended. I think they have confused the rights of others with their own. In America, you can have an abortion or marry a same-sex partner if you want to, because it is legal to do so. If you don’t believe in abortion, then don’t have one. If you don’t want to marry someone of the same sex, you don’t have to. No one is forcing Christians to have abortions or get ‘gay married’. But, you do not have the right to tell others they cannot.
What happens when privilege is threatened? Remember what the wealthy plantation owners did when they faced losing all that free slave labor? Remember what kings and queens throughout history did to people who opposed them? Remember lynching in the south during the Jim Crow era? These kinds of things occurred because a class of privileged people felt threatened.
Since today is Sunday I assume many of you are worshiping in the church of your choosing, praying to the god you believe in, wearing the clothing you selected from your closet which I assume you bought with your hard-earned money. That is your right. But you don’t get to tell the rest of us that we must do the same, because hooray, we’re in America.

How am I Supposed to Feel?

He’s dying. I wasn’t expecting to hear this news. I always thought I would get a phone call that he was dead, but I did not expect a call telling me that he was sick and dying. And so, today, I am examining my feelings.

Do I care? Doesn’t he deserve this, to suffer? Didn’t he bring this on himself, his choices and lifestyle attributing to his now eminent demise? Am I able to look beyond the pain and suffering he caused me, and most of all my children, and find an emotion not entangled with hatred and resentment?

We were together for nearly ten years, married for the last two. Although not the father of my children, he often spent more time with them than I did. I worked a full time job, and towards the end of it, a second part-time job. Near the end, he would sleep all day.

In my mind I pretended we were still a family, even after my oldest left home at 17. Even when writing 1000 sentences or pulling weeds was used as punishment, I told myself he just wanted to build their character. I didn’t know, but should’ve known, he doled out the more severe punishments when I was away.

I knew we were ending, knew it couldn’t continue the way it was, and that there was no saving it. After years of drug use and mental manipulation, something had to give. The day I came home and my youngest was black and blue was the day I saw reality, saw what was happening right under my nose. I found courage and once I had my wits about me I took action. Changing the locks, the 50B protective order, adding a security notice at the kid’s school – all these actions were steps I needed to take to make us safe.

No words cannot express my regret. I failed to see what was happening right in front of me. For that, I will never forgive myself. My oldest has struggled with life, from addiction to jail to rehab. For years my youngest raged at the world, spending time in a psychiatric facility. I had done the same, for 11 days, some months before it came to this. I should’ve realized then that being with him was poisoning us all. He was an emotional vampire, but also the giver of light. The affect he had on me was blinding. I’m not saying I am not guilty. But I know I was confused.

And now he lays dying, yellow and sick from liver damage. My daughter went to see him and said he did not recognize her. He told her that he and I went for a drive to the lake yesterday. I don’t know if I’m convinced that he believes that, or if he is still playing games, looking for sympathy.

Part of me thinks I should go to the hospital, as my daughter says, for closure. My youngest says he intends to go, not because he forgives him, but just to know he has put the past away. I told him not to expect an apology. He says he wouldn’t accept it anyway.

I turned to Google to decide what it is I am feeling. As someone who was not raised in an emotionally stable environment (my mother suffered from mental illness, but I’ll save that for another day), I have often struggled with my lack of emotional maturity. I have a hard time understanding what it is I am feeling. For most of my life I simply went through the motions, not really feeling a lot of things I should have, could have. I think I have been in survival mode since I was about six years old. I’m also a sensitive, but I was never taught to embrace it. Now I am at the point in my life that I’m digging in my heels, wanting to slow the clock and live in the moment. I need to feel everything, completely. Even if it hurts. I need to feel it.

I feel sorry for him because he squandered what we had, and anger that the family we could’ve been, wasn’t. I feel contempt that he dared to use me like he did. I feel shame that I let him. I feel empathy because he is still a human being, and disdain for him being such a waste of human life. How did he let his life spiral into homelessness and halfway houses? I feel pity for him, but not to the point that I’m willing to help him. I do not forgive him, but I understand that life is not easy for those who are not strong enough. I am strong enough, but I do not forgive myself. I do not wish to see him suffer. I am not that cruel. I do resent that because he is sick, and because my daughter called to tell me he is sick, he is once again in my thoughts. Once again, I must consider him. Only this time it’s to say a final goodbye.

Shelter from the winds of change

French writer Henry de Montherlant says, “If your life ever begins to bore you, risk it.”

Enough!