Gothard, again

You blamed me and some supposed, hidden sin in my life rather than the blatant woeful treatment I’d been receiving.
 Once again, you held me responsible for the abuses of others.
~Heather

I wrote a long letter to most of the members of my family about two weeks ago because I know that they are still keeping Gothard materials in their homes and even using them for their own "enrichment" or for teaching my siblings.

  I told them about how I got the famed "personal interview" with Got-hard and how he immediately closed down the conversation and the time when I said that our missionary family had not been able to afford to purchase and ship his homeschooling and other materials overseas.
  I told them about the second time we talked when I came to him with a special request from my mother.  Desperate for "godly" solutions to our increasing home trauma, she asked me to ask G to call and counsel my father.  As she put it, G was one of the last teachers on earth who my father respected and would listen to.

Instead of listening to me he attached the blame to me.  He said I must be bitter and had me do a writing assignment.  Then he left for a long period of time ostensibly to talk to some delegate in mexico on a "gospel-spreading mission."  When he finally deigned to come back and speak with me, he looked quickly over my pages of writing and again ordered me to asses myself on my own time, and write further because obviously the first draft was half-heartedly done and did not really reach the depths of my bitter, hardened heart.  Why else would I dare question the behavior of my father, no matter how many times I attempted to reiterate that it was my mother's request with which she entrusted me.
After both times I left his office sobbing deeply and felt not only valueless, but dirty and shamed.  How could this great "seer" (as my Journey Leader Libby called him) have possibly gotten my situation wrong?  He was the one who was the leader and I was one of the inductees.

I told them in the email about how one girl who was largely deaf, but with golden hair and big blue eyes was asked to stay.  Another girl, one of a twin, was asked to stay the last day.  Her other twin was more loud, "tomboyish" (in the most feminine sense of the word), and had darker hair and more makeup was left protesting.  She was told that she had to go home and finish school, while her mostly identical twin got showered with the honor of being asked to stay at HQ. (Her school was somehow able to be completed via distance at OakBrook)


When I contacted my mother by phone (a twice-a-year-if-that-occurrence) a week or so after, I mentioned the email to her and she voiced extreme reticence to not only believe the accusations, but to see G's horrendous teachings for what they were.  She felt that the testimonies were hearsay and few and far between and did not compromise his lectures and seminars.
  She did not discount my story, but she apologized for putting such an expectation on a 19-year old.  I told her that I felt proud to be her emissary and was deeply disappointed that I was not able to help my family.  And then I told her something that nagged at me then like a mosquito bite and was obvious to me now: I KNEW that I WAS NOT THE REASON that there were problems in our family.  Yet I was made to feel responsible because of how G acted and the very pointed things he said, almost in those exact words, that I was.

Making children responsible for the sins of their families is heresy.  In fact, it is also abusive, cruel, and harmful to the children/adults themselves.
I think this is something that has yet to be fully addressed by places that focus more on g's theology.  But I know that it has been a constant thread for those of us with family.

Gaslighting and Repression

  Just this afternoon I was told by someone who will be the main focus of this post not to talk about them on my "unhelpful" and "problematic" and "lying, attention-seeking" blog.

I had a very emotional and heart-wrenching truth-telling session with my mother over the phone last week.  I told her, honestly, things that I had felt for a long time but NEVER intended to say to her.  Brutally honest things.  Things that she definitely got defensive about but things that she also cried with me over and listened to.

One of those was self-harming behaviors by "the-one-who-shall-not-be-named."

Then, this afternoon when asking a question within the one's area of expertise, I was chastised for mentioning "them" on my blog (something I have not done) and for telling my mother about their self-harm.
I acknowledged that they and I had never had a conversation about self-harm, but that I had seen the self-harming with my own eyes in public and I had only told my mother exactly that.

They immediately professed shock at the notion of ever having done so as a younger child and when I brought up a vivid, particularly bad time, I was told in a ferocious roar that such a thing never happened.  They had no memory of that and therefore I was making up things.  They told me that I needed to stop blaming "everyone else" for my problems and that "seeing a shrink" would not help me with this chronic blame-shifting that I am apparently engaged in.

They continued in a loud voice over the phone to berate me for taking medications (a "band-aid" that would make my delusions worse) and for doing other things like talking about my story and seeking professional help.  I was crying and attempting to defend myself and suddenly I realized that I could hang up and that is what I did!!

Like my hero "Shade" says: +5 points!

It shook my self-confidence much more than I expected and left me on the side of the road sobbing for about 15 minutes.  It is one thing to praise Cynthia Jeub for voicing her story, it is another to be called a liar by people you know/knew and do/did respect.

I mentioned in a previous post how I am anonymous because of this very reason.  I dont have Cynthia's courage to face my attackers with my own name.  I write posts about them anonymously, taunting at them to find me in the chasm of the internet, daring never to come near the light.
The pain is too much for me.

I dont know if "they" have repressed these memories and called old scars "bicycle accidents" or if they really did not happen.  But I have more stories and clear memories that I would be glad to share with them and with the people who I KNOW where witnesses.  I am sure eventually someone will remember and the pieces will fall into place.
Repression and Stockholm syndrome all on one: someday I will be here for you, sweetheart.

This is How We Do

HEY Homeschooling Parents!!



Did you know that Katy Perry was the daughter of a pastor?

How do you think her father/mother raised her was any different from how you raised your kids?

(Whatever you are thinking, its probably wrong)

Her message in this catchy dance-song is that life for the new generation of young adults (that she is one of) is a lot different from other lifestyles that came before.  But this different life is normal and works for them.  Its just what they DO.


Do you remember how you raised us?

Your arrows in your quiver?

Your future warriors?

Your young Joshua generation?




Yet some of us are speaking out and you arent very happy about it.  There are closet-skeletons being laid out to air.  There are great leaders toppling left and right.  There are rugs being pulled back and all the grime under them being exposed to the light.



And the question that most parents I hear from ask is this: "Why are you chipping away at the very movement that created you?"



Because.

THIS. IS. HOW. WE. DO



We were raised to change the culture for the better.

We were raised to have loud voices against evil.

We were raised to not back down and to never stop

FIGHTING for what is right.

We were trained to not be ashamed of our youth.

We were trained to stand up to authorities without fear.

We were required to use and work with logic and truth daily.

We had to be of sound and strong mind.

We needed to go out and challenge the status quo...



At least that is what YOU TAUGHT US.



This is how we do, straight pulling down ivory

towers of the home school elite.

This is how we do, do, do, do, do

This is how we do.



Standing up for truth and openness.

Fighting against sin and hidden evil.

Exposing the liars and the dirty, dirty cheats.

Refusing to stop on our quest for change.



Because you taught us well.

And this is how we do.  Our kind of life is different, but to us, it is normal and just something we were raised to DO.

Emotional Expose

I have been changed for good, and I love you guys with all my heart.

Dear people who were once on a path to being family:

  I know it has been some time since you have heard from me, and I doubt that even yet enough time has passed for it to be a pleasant surprise.  To be most plain, I understand if you refuse to read this and do not wish to hear my side of the story, but nevertheless I wanted to see if something of this sort might make amends for the devastation that has been wreaked on our relationship.

I am sorry.  I apologize for my actions and the consequences that they brought upon your family and life for an extended period.  Truly, if I could go back in time I think I would remove myself and my influence from all of your lives completely, but the good times would be a shame to lose.  In apologizing, I apologize the most for my ignorance.  And, for those who would rather not read on, I will continue without minding for your squeamishness, I will be frank. 

My ignorance in this whole situation was perhaps the chief cause of the pain, misunderstanding, and perhaps mostly, for the eventual lies and betrayal.  I was raised ignorant of love and sex and had no relationship experience to speak of, a fact which I told him most often.  I equated my mental intelligence with that of a pre-teen and made no promises at being easy to integrate.  However, your grace as a family and abounding joy and love made me long to be one of you.  I was accepted and enjoyed; thus I thrived like the withered plant that I was given the invigorating fertilizer of your family. 

Yet I was still strange, an alien creature to you and one that had to be his.  Under steady insistence I decided to give him a chance.  I felt like it was owed for the love and grace shown by his family, and for the constant affection shown by him and sister.  There is the malignant root that eventually rotted this thing, but I foreshadow.  I initiated the words of affection and I sought out a relationship I had no business entering, in the state I was in.  Finally being granted one of his long-sought-after desires, he jumped in head over heels and was willing to do and say almost anything for me.

But the ignorance still crept out of the shadows, leaving the fear and uncomfortableness that poisoned our friendship.  Do you remember, Sir, a conversation had with you, sister, and brother?  I was discussing the lack of education in some homeschool situations, particularly the lessons of sex education.  When you queried me, I acknowledged a personal anecdote about pubic hair and not knowing that it was a natural thing for women, much less for men.  You seemed most confused as to why that was a fact that an 18 or 19 year old woman would need to know and did not seem convinced by my frail attempts to explain something not even I had a comprehensive grasp on.  I was ignorant of that most basic human urge and purposely kept pre-pubescent in soul and mind that it ruined the relationship. 

He often told me he liked the size of my chest, but despite my verbal invitations (in the sunset of our time), he refused to touch them.  I offered services to him that he also turned down, taught as he was by you, his parents, and by his culture and religion to keep “sacred.”  But how can the carnal be kept sacred?  Such an idea is preposterous, as were my attempts to convince my adult body to regress into my mind’s ignorance.  See, I was ready for more than a friendship but at the same time I did not want to be anybody’s stay-at-home wife.  The system we were both brought up in, and he was still stuck in under your roof, made that an oxymoron and an impossibility.  I could not have married him, or gotten engaged, or gone any further with our relationship and gone to school and pursued a career.  There is no way that could have happened.

  Also, I had no physical connection to him.  It took nearly two years into our relationship to do more than hold hands and even so he felt guilt and shame for moving forward in that way.  He had wanted to kiss upon engagement, but I was not looking for a commitment so fast, so he compromised for me.  It was as far as he ever went.  In my ignorance I assumed that a bland “passionate” kiss only meant that I was not someone who “liked” to kiss.  I assumed he enjoyed it, but I felt nothing, and in my ignorance and confusion I did not know how to voice it.  Thus, when I happened upon an individual whose very presence and scent lit me up, I felt ashamed and confused and hid that under a façade of “everything is fine.”  It grew to include fear and eventually engulfed my limited emotional capabilities.  Pursued by this chemical passion, I broke the assumed promises I had made and went in a different direction. 

All this time he was repeatedly mentioning his desire to seal our relationship with a ring and a promise.  Every time he mentioned it I would rebuff him with strongly negative words about my mental, emotional, and personal fitness, or even telling him that he deserved someone better.  As much as I was pushing him away from myself, I was attempting to see if forcing myself emotionally would result in a connection.  In an extreme state of cognitive dissonance, I went on our last “family” vacation together.  Remember how upset you were, Sir and Ma’am, at the levels of affection we were showing eachother?  Before I ever met the other person who tore our pseudo-family asunder, I was consciously forcing myself to be affectionate, hoping that through mental force or through prolonged experience, a physical affection would blossom as the emotional and mental connections had. 

Remember our last night, dear one, when I showed you the things I had written about you and about how you had kept me alive for much of that time?  About how your calls and friendship had given me the strength to survive?  Despite our differing religious convictions and the problems that you knew I would inevitably have with your parents’ worldview, you continued loving me.  I believe that everything you did and said was honest; and I can only wish that what I felt for you had been more than a zombified friendship.  I introduced you to freedom, to alcohol, to kissing, and to relationships with the opposite sex in general.  I wish to someday be friends again, but I doubt that is possible with our complicated and painful past.  Like nuclear fallout, it will take more than time to heal.

Sister, I loved you with all my heart.  You withdrew from me, and in fact began hurting me when you changed.  Instead of acknowledging your own struggles, you painted me as loud, abrasive, and impossible to live with.  I still treasure our good times and when you messaged me last year it meant the world to me.  If you ever need anything, I will always be your friend.

Brother, I know that our acquaintance began in a bad place, and I attempted throughout the rest of our time together to repair that.  Being the youngest I identified with you and I hope that you find your best place in the world.

   Sir and Ma’am, I cannot imagine what words you might have for me.  I have no idea what other things have happened in your family and in your lives since I unceremoniously dropped out of it.  I hope that in reading this you all can understand somewhat how ignorance is a problem that can destroy not only relationships, but families.  I apologize for the pain, the heartbreak, and for the anger that I have caused all of you.  But take responsibility for your part in continuing the ignorance of your children and potential children-in-law.  See how what you are indoctrinating your children with is neither healthy, nor commendable, and most certainly not feasible in the world that we live in today.  I know that this sounds like a rather unceremonious lecture inserted in what might have otherwise been an apology, but I hold to only apologizing for what is my fault.

I hope that the rest of your lives are unmarred by sadness and that you prosper in whatever you seek.  With all my love,

J.

Keep Your Filthy Hands Away from My Family

  There seems to be a trend, when people come out of the wood work and attempt to change the status quo, of "discrediting" that person in attempt to inhibit or block their work.  Perhaps some of the most insidious examples of this are people who use their life story as an example and a catalyst for change.
  "This happened to me." 
A trend I am seeing, in silencing the voices of homeschoolers or former homeschoolers who have suffered educational neglect and potentially other more serious consequences of isolation and total parental control over every aspect of their lives, is that of using one's siblings to discredit the other sibling.

Stacy McDonald used Hillary McFarland's sister as a method of making Hillary's groundbreaking book seem like the dramatic rendition of a "vivid imagination."  Interestingly enough, her book and blog sparked a fire that is still setting free quiverfull daughters like me. 
As noted in Quivering Daughters not all homeschooling families are quiverfull and patriarchal, but patriarchal and quiverfull homes will most likely be homeschool homes as well.

See, the problem with using siblings (like Josh Powell's sibling) to discredit potential laws and books written in the face of the "homeschooling produces excellent results every time" and "no abuse here" and "homeschooled girls are so great because they are victorian" is that it tears apart families and makes the point about "she-said-she-said" and not: This is a serious issue that cannot continue.  This needs to be addressed and dealt with.

Children being homeschooled have no rights. 
Daughters under strongly religious families are repeatedly beat down into caricatures of what their families think was best about the past, crippled with sub-standard educations and stunted mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Sons are forced to become "entrepreneurs" instead of "wage slaves chained to desks" and bound to a life of poverty with their futures stolen.

I am angry and I am scared.

See, I have multiple younger siblings still living at home, which is the main reason for my anonymity.  I want to protect them and their way of life, even while I try to dismantle it from the outside.  I know that my parents have been reported for educational neglect (by others and neighbors), but the state they live in has not decided to do anything about it.  I have not lived there in over 3 years, or been allowed to see any siblings under the age of 18.  I get only small glimpses from my older brother or my oldest younger brother when he calls me.

IF I WERE TO SPEAK OUT using my own name, how many of my younger siblings could come foreward and say that I was lying? 
Many of them were not spanked like my older brother was, mostly because my parents no longer had the time to individually deal with offenses.  "Creative punishments" like chores, or enforced hugging, or writing verses were used more, or periods of verbal berating. 
Many of them are males, and therefore will not receive the same kind of spiritual abuse I did, being told that God would not speak to me because I was a child (meaning I had a living father) and a woman.
The younger children have no idea what our father did because it is a "hush hush" family secret so that no one knows that he has no integrity.
 Thats the thing about sin, if you hide all of yours and dont let anyone tell, you look perfect. 

They could easily say that I was "being overly dramatic" about leaving the RP and what happened to the former ministry there.
In fact, many people would back them up on that point.  I was dramatic as a child, singing made-up opera songs at the top of my lungs to get attention.
I also was a "perennial liar" because I would often attempt to tweak the truth or get out of a punishment by inventing white lies or using "deception" as my mom would call it often.  "Not telling the WHOLE truth is deception, and therefore a lie and a sin."  SO, if I got the whole house cleaned, but spent some time on the computer as well; telling her that I worked all afternoon is a deception, a sin, and a LIE.  See, I am not to be believed. 

Anyone who knows my name could get my older brother (who still is a fundamentalist patriarch in beliefs) to "discredit" loads of things that are my empirical evidence, based on his empirical evidence.

But guess what: KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!
HSLDA, and the McDonalds, and anyone else who feels like using sibling against sibling in order to keep their money-making, influential empires intact.
I am here to break down your system, and my family is not a pawn in your game.
When I do break out of my anonymity, I will not allow you to use them against me.
And for those who have already done so (specifically those mentioned above): For Shame.

Shame, shame, shame upon you and your name and legacy.
Your hands are tainted with the shame to which you stoop.
Your legacy is smeared by the abuse you defend and allow to continue.
You have no credibility, so you hurt that of those who do, using the few people who might be able to damage them.  And you use a family to do it.  You are not defenders of the family, but wreckers.

Shame.

People over _______.

  I have a new core doctrine for myself.  I grew up with an extremely rigid set of beliefs, and having something solid, something black-and-white that I can claim as a personal core belief has been very good for me as a person.

This doctrine is: People over ALL.
People over money, people over religion, people over social status, people over problems, people over disagreements, people over feuds, people over politics, people over pain, people over misunderstandings, and people over _____ (insert word).

Basically, this ties into my traumatic experience with being cut off from my family for my religious beliefs.  Unless I agreed 100% and walked lock-step with my father in all of his doctrine and religious pursuits, I was not welcome in my family, and I am considered a "prodigal daughter."
HOWEVER, my caveat to this is that people (especially and specifically those who are abusers) do not get to be raised over things like safety, common sense, personal boundaries, and personal mental health.  I will not allow my father to come visit me because even though he is a person, he has not earned the right to my trust and my heart.  He lost those with his actions and will not get them ever again.
  I will, though, support his right to life, liberty, his personal property (not my siblings persons, they are not his property), and his ability to pursue personal happiness in being religious.  I will not support his attempts to prosyletize if other people dont want him around because I support other people's right to not want to be bothered over his desire to convert.

I participated in an even with my community college yesterday MLK day and we went around the room with questions written on paper about a gamut of current issues.  My question was: Is your freedom worth someone else's pain?  Your money?  You place (in society/church/whatever)?
  Is your freedom to own guns without checks or mandatory locks or any "government snooping" worth the death of kids by accidental shooting from their siblings, the Newton shooting, or other shootings that will happen after this is posted?
  Is your freedom to run a business your own personal way more important that labor laws or pollution ordinances or the rights of your workers to humane treatment, "nominal" working hours, and a living wage?
  Is your freedom to pay yourself millions of dollars as a CEO and bonuses (and then hide it in offshore accounts) more important than the well being of people who are STARVING because government assistance doesnt feed them adequately?

I think people, and the welfare of these people, should come before the things that can be put aside.
Leading up to this is my firm belief that America should be a bigger welfare state.  My Comparative Government professor talked a little bit about Germany having a pretty capitalist economy but with a solid welfare state that provides not only working comp, but years of maternity and paternity leave, as well as health care for everyone, and education for everyone up to college!

This level of advances people-care could happen in America if people were less focused on greed and personal gain and more focused on bettering the lives of EVERYONE they can.
People over all.

Fall semester finished!

I think I will be passing with flying colors again this semester.
My teachers love the effort I put in and I even cut back hours working to study more.
I am registered for spring classes and I have run out of solely online classes, so I will be taking three in-class classes this spring.
IF I can take a full load of classes in the summer as well (depending on what is offered) I may be graduating with an Associates in Arts this summer and moving on to a Bachelors in the fall!  64 credits and *whew, what a whirlwind of a year and a half!!
The WyzAnt money means SO much, as I have been able to cut back on saving-for-whole-semester's-tuition and merely saving for books and paying my living expenses.  I have not been an attentive friend or person, focusing too much on my studies and work sometimes, but I figure in 2 more years I will have all the free time in the world. Hopefully with a degree I can even cut back on working hours and get paid more! (yay minimum wage: NOT!)

I was able to take three days off and go visit my older sister (kalipay) over Thanksgiving.  We hadnt seen each other in over a year and half and it was awesome to be around her again.  We had both changed a lot since our teenage years in different ways.  I am quieter and she is more outgoing, but being together always means a lot to me.  I have said in the past that we are all we have.  With family like this, who needs enemies?!?  Having a sister who embodies the concept of "family" makes all the difference.  Hopefully some day some of our younger siblings will also be able to hang out with us and we can really redeem the years that the locust had eaten.

On that biblical note, I am still in no-man's-land as far as claiming a belief system.  I have enormous vestiges of Christianity, of course, but I dont feel comfortable or okay with claiming it.  Being unable to reconcile a huge part of oneself causes a lot of dissonance.  I am glad to be able to throw myself into education and work and put it on the shelf to deal with at a later time.

On a positive note: I was mentioned on the Homeschool Apostates piece by Kathryn Joyce in the Prospect.
According to people, some of the discussions that ended in the creation of Homeschoolers Anonymous (HA) began from my short essay in WyzAnt!!!  I had no idea, honestly, and while I have enjoyed reading and contributing a small bit to the work being done, I was greatly honored to be one of the reasons that such a great movement began.
I just keep plugging on with life.  Everything will get better and keep getting better, right?

Also THIS!!!!!

A Resignation that Doesnt Mean Much

Everyone has been talking about Doug Phillips Resignation and the hidden non-resignation he is not doing.
As a daughter of patriarchy, quiverfull, and with a father who had a "collection" of VF lectures on CD, for whom we bought the "200-year plan" for fathers day, who forced us to read So Much More, and Return of the Daughters at least 5 times the month it came out.... I think I have a valid perspective on the "ministering" that DP and VF have been doing for the past decade.

I have gotten cheated on and I have cheated in relationships.  I was never in a "forever" marriage like DP is in (no divorce, according to their interpretation).  I have seen cheating tear apart my own family.  I also have yet to see my cheating parent truly repent and attempt to earn back my respect.  My grandparents even have cheating in their legacy.  "I come from a long line of cheaters..." (to hijack the country song).

My assumptions on this DP/VF ministries debacle is both personal (from experience) and from what I have know about the ministry.

First of all: he is still making money off of the poisonous teaching he has been peddling for decades.  That in and of itself negates his "repentance" in my mind.
Second, his insistence on his families forgiveness and his new dedication to being at home with them sickens me.  My parent's cheating lost us our whole way of life.  The family moved far away, in less than two months after the revealing of the 3+ years of "romantic and emotional" and who-knows-what-else carryings (just made that word up) on.  I, too, was forced to "forgive."  Then I was forced to respect and honor my parents as if nothing had ever happened.  That is not only a false repentance, but a cruel and evil demand for forgiveness and an abuse of us children's emotions, hearts, and minds.  I am assuming that the Phillips children are facing this exact situation right now.  I'll bet they have no choice, not being allowed higher education, moving out, or independence of thought.  Heck, some of them might even be "willingly" and "eagerly" forgiving.  Stockholm Syndrome at its deepest level.  I know, I was there for a while as well.  But somehow, despite the crippling and suicidal depression I found myself in (results of cognitive dissonance and abuse, I am sure), I was able to realize that my parent demanding respect and honor without real change in attitude, behavior, or intent, was wrong on some level.
I credit this realization with my eventual escape from the chains of brainwashing and mental abuse.  Somehow I was able to realize that this was WRONG and that my parent was not an ounce regretful.  I also realized that after 3+ years (and by their own admission) they would not have ever ended the relationship unless the other parent had called them out publicly.  They had no intention of ceasing this "sinful" behavior.  They in fact derided the other spouse for calling them out. 

For these reasons, I feel more grace and forgiveness towards the children of the Phillips family that for the father.  For the mother I have feelings going both ways.  She allowed this to go on for a "lengthy" time and will probably not divorce him, because of her commitment to the abuseful (made that up too) doctrine that he teaches.  The children will still be stuck in his fenced (think the Berlin Wall) in circle of influence and unable to really process this tremendous admission of personal failure.
Weathr or not he is being entirely truthful about the lack of PIV, (seeing how truthful he is being about stepping down from his position as "minister," and how truthful he has been to his circle while this affair has been going on.... he has two strikes) we have yet to see.

 I sincerely hope the whole truth will come out.
A man of his religious rockstar nature does not fall easily.  This huge admission must have been forced or threatened.  He is doing preliminary damage control and probably attempting to use his weight before it disappears.

In all of this I sigh, shake my head, rub my eyes, and say "it has all happened before."
I am not surprised, but then at the same time I didnt see something this huge as the reason his legacy would be tarnished.  I have a lot to say, but I think this about all I should say.
My patriarch-Vision-Forum parents played this play out before my own eyes.  I hate to see it happening to others.

Looking Ahead: Holidays

Holidays are always a difficult time for me, personally.
Everyone is talking about "family" and I have absolutely nothing that is not negative, cynical, or bitter to respond with.  I have one really awesome family member (my sister) and she is treated similarly.

 I have not been able to communicate with anyone but my mother for the longest time.  Of course, communicating with my father is something I would rather have another pap smear than do.

The other kids chose to believe the parents or are too young.  Attempts to get the only other one who got a GED one into community college or trade school have been somewhat successful. 

"Family" hurts me.  The word, the concept, the idea.  I never understood Dobson's insistence on family meals.  By the time all the kids got served the boys were done with firsts and asking for seconds.  With strictly rationed meat portions, they filled up with veggies and rice.  Some of the younger kids had to be fed by older kids and communicating in front of parents was so fake it was painful.  "What did you do today" has no meaning when one has not left the house in a week and everyone else in the house has been there all week as well.  Hearing my father talk was something we just had to put up with living with. (grammar-less much?)
The idea of a family get-together never held much appeal because of the awkwardness.  My father was openly spiteful about and to his mother-in-law.  He argued with his own parents a lot and the two sets of grandparents were so different in personality and style that having them together was always strained.
Having them apart was always fun.  They would play games and provide some break in routine.  And, my grandfather allowed us to have all the condiments we wanted when he was supervising mealtimes. yay!

But most of all, family hurts because my children were torn from me.  I was not able to stay and care for them.  I was not able to take them with me.  I am not able to see or speak to them.  I raised them for about ten years each and then they were gone.  I cannot fathom the lies they hear about me on a daily basis.
Family hurts because when I look into the future I dont have a model for how I want to be.  I dont have anything to look forward too. 
And the holidays hurt because people naturally assume that you go see relatives and family and have fun and enjoy.  Well, being that my family refuses to celebrate "pagan" holidays they wont be celebrating, and seeing them would put me in a mental state that I have no wish to be in.
Can I just say that I am looking forward to partaking again in mental-health visits when I get healthcare next year? Thanks, Congress and Romney and Obama!  My mental health was always a worry to me.  But I have the feeling that maybe a better brain will be my present all next year.  And maybe the 2014 holidays wont be so painful?

Grandchild pt 2

I wrote this post a long time ago when I was upset about my father telling me that God would speak to him and not me because of my gender.

I am having flashbacks to this because the people I babysit for switched their childs daycare to a fundie baptist church/school kindergarden.  I know they are fundie because of the way the women all look like my mom and the younger girls all look like I did.  There are knee-length or longer skirts on every one of them and they have that "meek" attitude about them that drives me insane now that I have given it up.  The men all have that obnoxious "go-getter" attitude and are forced to open the door for women and children (and are wearing ties and collared shirts and/or suits).
  I enjoy wearing pants as I drop the child off and driving into the carpool lane with "I Love This Bar" playing on the country music station.  I enjoy driving off as they shuffle kids to and fro getting paid who knows what (maybe even volunteering their time as a "ministry"). 
I feel a little guilty because a part of my head feels like that should be me doing that (brainwashing kicking in).

But I have figured out what I am going to say to them if they ever dare to strike up a conversation with me:
"No thank you."  Flat out refusal of their values is going to be like a backhand to them.
Because I grew up like that.  And I realized, after years of swallowing the koolaid, when my dad told me that God would not commune with me because of my gender, that all that bullshit about wearing skirts and being the "weaker sex" and guarding men's eyes was just that... bullshit.  None of it was biblical and none of it was supportable in a real-life situation.

Im no grandchild.  If I am a Christian, I am God's child outright and my father is not and never was my "umbrella" or mediator.  If I am religious it is because I find some kind of meaning in it, not because I was raised a culture warrior or taught my Koine Greek or memorized thousands of verses, or know my references by heart.  I am no grandchild, and neither are you.