Category Archives: Personal Development

Personal Development, Religion

Musings Leaving Christianity and Still Relating to Christians: Inspired by Trey Ferguson’s book.

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The following is a compilation of a Thread I posted. The book I mention can be found here.

So I had a few thoughts while reading Chapter 7 (“We Gotta Have a Talk about Deconstruction”) from @pastortrey05‘s book. It’s the chapter I got this quote from:

“Liberation lies in the community of testimonies. It is not in shouting down the stories of others that we become more whole. It is in putting those stories in conversation. Not debate. Actual conversations for the sake of learning about our neighbors, not convincing nor converting them.”

@pastortrey05, “Theologizin’ Bigger”

Note that this thread is not a direct response @pastortrey05 or specifically what he said. Instead, they are my own thoughts that came up while reading. But I felt that sharing those seemed very in line with the above quote and the book in general, so here we go.

I’m one of the people whose deconstruction (which started before most of us even knew that such a process would become commonly called “deconstruction”) led them out of Christianity completely. And I have to admit, i sometimes wonder why I spend so many books about theology in a religion I don’t follow anymore. But hey, some Christians have some interesting theologies (or theologizin’, if you prefer) that deserve a good look.

So here’s a glimpse into my perspective(s) on my exit from Christianity and my thoughts on the various Christianities out there as someone who has since become a total “outsider.”

I will note that the Christianity I left was specifically white evangelical Christianity. I was raised in an American Baptist (the denomination the SBC split off from) church. I’ll note that my congregation was still pretty conservative for that denomination. So theologically, we were still pretty close to the Southern Baptists.

In college, I got involved in a Full Gospel (basically charismatic or Pentecostal) church. So my journey from being a low-key cessationist to a tongues-speaking spiritual warrior type who did Jericho walks and prayed against literal demons would probably make an interesting thread in its own right. But for now, I just wanted to note that I had some exposure to a small diversity of Christian teachings even within white evangelicalism.

But I definitely stayed within white evangelicalism. Even when I first came out as gay, I spent a couple years trying to remain within my evangelical faith. Basically, I tried to keep everything else while saying it was okay if I dated and had sex with other men. I think a lot of LGBTQIA+ Christians from that background try that route for at least a while, to be honest. Some even seem to stick with it.

(See my criticisms of organizations like The Reformation Project that, in my opinion, merely seek to “the queer wing of the purity culture movement.”)In the long run, I couldn’t do it. In the long run, I realized that the Christianity I was raised in did not allow myself to see myself in a positive light. I decided then that if I wanted to be able to see myself as anything other than slime that relied on the grace of another to “love me in spite of myself,” I had to leave.

I will note that I didn’t know Christians like @josh_a_scott, @pastortrey05, @thequirkypastor back then. Had I known such Christians back then, I might have had access to Christianities that recognized the inherent dignity and worth (what I call the sacredness) of every human being just because each human being existed. I sometimes wonder how my story might differ if I had.

(I’ve similarly wondered how my story might have been different if I’d been surrounded by Jewish friends and acquaintances at that time of my life rather than atheists and Pagans. There’s much about Judaism I find admirable these days as well.)

But instead, I found myself among Wiccans and other Pagans, and that led me to my new and current spiritual home. It led to me to one of my favorite sayings:Jesus loved me. Freyja taught me to love myself.

That statement is central to my story. It’s also the central reason why I will probably be a witch and devotee of Freyja for the rest of my life. You just don’t walk away from that kind of gift. But even so, I can appreciate the stories (and yes, I’m falling into much the same language of @pastortrey05 here) of others who might have found a home in some new (to that person) Christianity.

I find a great deal to admire about how the Christians I mentioned up-thread interpret and share the stories of Jesus and other stories int he Bible. They’re just not MY stories anymore. But I appreciate that I share many values with these Christians even if we might express them through radically different stories.

In closing, I note that I think one of the things I find funny is that the biggest thing I and the Christians I mentioned might disagree with on is actually the nature of the Divine (for example, monotheism and a “Three O compliant” deity just don’t make sense to me anymore). But rather than spending a lot of time arguing over that, we can find shared values and common cause. And that’s something I love.

Memories, Personal Development, Witchcraft

Witchy Questions: What got you interested in witchcraft?

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This post was inspired by Question #26 from this list.

I have written at least two posts about my journey into the Craft and what led to me to it. In those, I talk about how the idea of magic and energy really resonated with me, as it confirmed an idea about the world that I had always imagined and wished to be true. Also, i was interested in the idea that my psychic abilities — most notably my empathy — could be better controlled, as other people’s emotions were almost literally driving me up the wall at a time. And I have talked about how I found in witchcraft a system of morality that allowed me to better love and encourage myself to become a better person by believing that it was actually possible to do exactly that.

There’s another part to that last one. One I’ve never really talked about. When I first started out, i saw witchcraft as a way to get forgiveness. Not from a deity, mind you, but from two people who I had deeply hurt, to the point that they both chose to leave my life. At the time, I thought i couldn’t live without them in my life, and witchcraft was a way to get them back.

I wasn’t looking to cast a spell on them — I understood immediately that such an act would be unethical — but was engaging in magical thinking of the kind that psychologists like to talk about. I had this weird idea that by getting into witchcraft, I could work on being a better person and eventually earn the opportunity to get both of them back in my life.

Fortunately for me, I eventually wised up. I realized that there was no way to “earn” their love and presence in my life. I came to understand that the best thing I could do for both them and myself is silently wish them wellness and healing from the hurt I caused and let them be. I also learned that I actually could live without having them in my life and allowed myself to heal as well.

I’ve thought about this recently due to listening to some witches complain about new witches and auditing some of their reasons for getting into witchcraft. Well, I had at least one shitty motive of my own for getting started, and yet I grew and here I am. So once again, I find myself wondering if we should just let those with less-than-perfect reasons continue their journey and trust both them and the universe to work it all out.

Magic/Magick, Paganism, Personal Development, Podcast, Psychic Stuff, Religion, Spiritual Development, Tarot, Witchcraft

Pagan Podcast: Divination for Self Empowerment

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It’s the end of July and that means it’s time for episode to of my podcast, The Bed and The Blade. In this episode, I talk about divination as a tool for self-empowerment. I include advice on how to start exploring the world of divination and discuss some of the tools available. I tried to find a great balance between information, suggestions, strong opinions, and the acknowledgement that other points of views exist and are legitimate. As always, you can listen here or check it out through any of the distributors listed below. I’ve also included links to the tools I mentioned and other resources you might find useful in this post.

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The music used to introduce and conclude this podcast is from “Outdated Time” by Esther Garcia. It was provided by Jamendo and licensed to me for use with this podcast.

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Paganism, Personal Development, Sexuality

My Journey from Christianity to Witchdom

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While talking with Stephen Bradford Long over at his blog, he expressed an interest in hearing my story about how I left Christianity and came to a Pagan path. I realized that while I’ve occasionally talked about it, I’ve never fully written out the story or tried to capture the various factors that contributed in a single post. I thought it might be good to do exactly that.

As I think is true for so many queer people, my journey out of Christianity started with coming to terms with my sexuality, a topic that I have covered quite extensively elsewhere. While I left my church and Christianity in 1998, the first step in that direction occurred in April 1996, when I decided to quit trying to deny or change the fact that I was attracted to other men — a decision I literally made for the sake of my own survival at the time.

Like so many young evangelical people, at the time I came out, my circle of friends almost exclusively consisted of other Christians, most of whom had the same evangelical leanings that I did. And while a few of my friends were probably sympathetic to LGBT people and possibly even affirming or on their way to being affirming, I felt that I needed to find new friends to support and affirm me as well. So a month before graduation, I started reaching out to another group on my college campus, a volunteer group dedicated to helping students with computer problems. It happened that a lot of people involved with this organization happened to be Pagan, into New Age spirituality, and Pagan-friendly. They were also very welcoming and encouraging of me. Some of them even ran a Telnet-based BBS, which I become involved with (and eventually the main programmer for) when I managed to get Internet access at home.

So I moved back to the rural part of Pennsylvania that my parents lived with (and I lived with them for most of the time until I was 31, moving into my own place for roughly two years starting in 1998). My new friends online and back on the college campus (many of them graduated after me) became my lifeline for the first several years I was stuck in rural conservative-land, having to hide myself. I often made many trips back to school during the next two years.

During this time, I also found myself re-examining my faith. After all, here were these friends who were helping to keep me from feeling completely lost and isolated, and I had been taught to believe that they were going to hell and deserved it. I could not reconcile these two things. Surely my friends deserved better than this. So i started to re-evaluate more in my faith than just what I believed about my own sexuality.

At this time, I was also starting to deal with a lot of emotional turmoil — repressing my sexual feelings as well as going through the cycle of guilt and shame when I gave in and allowed myself to find sexual release by myself messed me up — and lingering doubt and guilt over my sexuality. In 1998, I met someone through a friend and we had a complicated and less than ideal relationship. To be blunt, it wasn’t really a healthy relationship and that was mostly my fault.

The relationship ended abruptly and painfully when i made some hurtful choices, costing me my first relationship and the friendship of the person who introduced us in the first place. It’s perfectly understandable, mind you. I hurt them deeply and it’s one of the few things in my life that I will unequivocally state that I regret.

This caused another huge wave of guilt and shame — a spiral of it no less. Partly because of the hurtful choices I had made and partly because I was still in a purity culture mentality at the time. Sure I had accepted that it was okay to be gay at the time, but I still had this notion that I should save myself for that one person I would spend my life with. Like so many people, I foolishly had believed that my first boyfriend would be the one I would spend my life with and had had sex with him. This meant that I felt like a failure, because now that wasn’t going to happen. I had “given myself away” to the wrong person. And what’s worse, it was all my fault that we weren’t together anymore.

Eventually, I realized I couldn’t go on living with all this guilt and shame and keep spiraling. I realized I was headed to that same dark place I had come out of the closet in order to escape from back in 1996. So it was time for another change.

I don’t rightfully remember if I actually intended to leave Christianity in November of 1998, when I asked one of my online Wiccan friends what book she would recommend I read to learn more about her beliefs. I just knew that I asked her and she recommended that I read Scott Cunningham’s “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner.” So I bought it and started reading it. Then I devoured it. Figuratively speaking.

The book a balm to my soul. Here was a religion that told me that I was okay. It told me that I could and should improve myself as a person, but it ultimately believed that it was possible for me to improve and become a better person because I had it in me. Compared to a faith that essentially told me that I had to try, but was guaranteed to fail and would have to grovel for mercy, it was a thing of beauty.

And Cunningham’s description of energy and magic spoke to me on a deep, visceral level. I always felt like such things existed, but was not permitted to truly believe in them in a faith that insisted such things were “of the devil.” So after reading the book and thinking about it deeply, I actually prayed a tear-filled goodbye to Jesus, telling him that I loved him, but I needed to find another way, one that lifted me up and allowed me to live a healthy life. And then I reached out to the (nameless and nebulous at the time) God and Goddess and began a new journey.

That journey has also been long, complicated, and filled with many twists and turns. But that will have to wait for another day.

Paganism, Personal Development, Spiritual Development

Musings on Gaining Understanding

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The first step to gaining wisdom is admitting ignorance.

Several years ago, I frequented a number of online message forums that centered around discussing Witchcraft and Paganism.  On one of my favorites, I included the above statement in all of my posts. What most of the other posters did not realize was that I included the line as a reminder and comfort to myself, because it was a reality in my life I was struggling with at the time.

This was back when I was still relatively new to the Pagan paths.  I had a lot to learn (of course I still do and always will, as that’s the nature of any spiritual journey).  In many ways, this was frustrating to me.  Particularly because of my Christian background, which left me brimming with a great deal of knowledge about that religion and culture.  I could tell all of the major Bible stories, quote and explain several different verses in the Bible, and was even knowledgeable enough that I ended up preaching a number of sermons over the years before I eventually left my church and the faith I was raised in.

All of that was behind me.  Being the knowledgeable one was in the past. Instead, here I was having to learn everything about my new spiritual journey from step number one. Frustrating indeed.

I realized if I was going to progress on my journey, I needed to make peace with that reality. I realized that I had to accept that I didn’t know everything — or much of anything, really — so that I could get down to changing that.  So I typed up that sentence and started putting it places where I would see it, remember my goals and what’s needed, and even be comforted by the fact that it’s all part of the journey.

I’ve never forgotten that statement, because I realized there was a greater lesson there. Towards the end of my experience with the Christian faith, I had also grown prideful. I had started to think that I knew it all, which made the realization that my knowledge at the time would no longer serve me.  i was forced to eat a double portion of humble pie.  So I also remind myself of the above statement to avoid that trap of pride again. That sentence reminds me that even though it’s been over a decade since the first time I wrote it down and even though I’ve learned a lot over that time, there is still much I don’t know and understand.  That statement serves as a constant reminder to acknowledge where I’m still ignorant so that I can continue to seek out an even greater understanding, and hopefully do so in humility.

 

Emotions, Family, Gender and Sexuality, Personal Development

what do if you have a homophobia brother and your gay

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[Content Note: Homophobia]

The title of today’s blog post is based on a search term that someone used to find my site the other week. Strangely, I had a friend who was offering guidance to a young lesbian facing a similar situation ask me for any advice I might offer her several months ago. As such, I thought it would be good to talk about this subject.

First, I have a great deal of sympathy and empathy for anyone in such a situation. One should not have to deal with homophobia – no matter how minor or subtle – from one’s closest families. It can instill a real sense of betrayal and that you don’t belong. So to anyone who is reading this and is facing anything less than perfect acceptance from their immediately family, know that I would totally give you a hug right now if I were able to and you were comfortable with it.

To address the question, we first have to understand what we can do and what is our responsibility to do. For example, many of us – myself included at times – often think that what we need to do is convince our loved one to stop being homophobic. And in a perfect world, our loved ones would end their homophobia. (Well, in a perfect world, they never would’ve been homophobic in the first place, but hey.) But here’s the thing: we can’t make people change their mind or their behavior. It just doesn’t work that way. And trying to do it will only leave us even more frustrated and possibly (more) depressed and a lot of other things. In the end, we have to give our loved ones the freedom to address (or not) their own prejudices and their own actions in their own time.

So instead, we need to look at what we can do. And the thing I think we most need to focus on is the same thing we really should be focusing on anyway. We can and should focus on doing what it is that we need to do in order to feel good about ourselves. We can and should focus on making sure we like ourselves.

Liking ourselves and finding the good in ourselves can be difficult, especially when we have people saying or implying negative things about us. Doubly so when some of those people happen to be close and dear loved ones who are supposed to embrace, accept, and encourage us. In those cases, we have to struggle even harder to remind ourselves that we’re amazing people. (And if you don’t believe you’re an amazing person, please find someone safe to talk with about that fact as soon as you can!) Look at the things you enjoy and the things you are good at. Do you like to write? Write your heart out and cherish what you write. Treat yourself like you’re the next literary genius in training. Do you like to draw? Draw your heart out and treat your drawings like they’ll be hanging in the Louvre some day. Think of all the great qualities you offer the people in your life and the parts of yourself that you have to share with them. The sting of homophobia will never fully go away – especially when it comes from a loved one – but being able to confidently see yourself as a valuable and wonderful person does help.

Another thing that you can do is find the love, support, and encouragement you need. After all, that’s one of the really sucky parts about homophobic loved ones. Loving, supporting, and encouraging you is supposed to be THEIR job, and they’re failing at it in at least some ways. So it’s time to find people – and there are a lot of them out there – who would be happy to take on at least part of that job. Find and focus on other family members who are more supportive. Be honest with them and let them know that you need their support. Focus on friends – and make new ones if you need to – that will give you the support you need. When I came out nearly twenty years ago, I built an entirely new circle of friends. Oh sure, I kept in touch with some of my older friends and even have the occasional contact with some of them to this day. But my new friends were the ones who were both able and willing to walk with me through the process of self-discovery and self-acceptance. They were also the ones who felt safe to go through that process with. Those are the kinds of friends you need.

So if you don’t have them, find them. If you’re in school, see if your school has a GSA. See if there’s an LGBT community center or LGBT social groups in your area. See if there’s an active PFLAG chapter in your area.

Don’t rule out online friendships, either. For the first ten years after I came out, a lot of my friendships were online. Even the close and supportive friends I knew in person were people I mostly stayed in touch with via the Internet. An online friend may not be able to give you hug, but they can listen to you and tell you that you’re okay and that what you’re feeling is okay too. That’s extremely valuable.

You’ll notice that I talked about finding support after talking about learning to love yourself. There’s a couple reasons for that. The first is that while support is important and good, other people ultimately can’t make you feel good about yourself. That’s a gift you give yourself and you need to give it to yourself.

The other reason is because knowing what you like about yourself also helps you think about what you have to offer friends and possibly how to find them. If you’ve figured out you love to write, then finding friends that accept you for who you are and share that love of writing is an excellent plus. Maybe you can find a writing group locally or join a writing site online. The same is true of drawing or any other talent or interest you have. And the bonus is that they’ll encourage you and remind you that your talent or interest is awesome and valuable. Hey, other people can’t make you like yourself, but they sure can remind you of what there is to like about yourself!

The last thing to consider about finding love, encouragement, and support is to consider whether you want to and would benefit from talking to a trained mental health professional. If you have someone who is frequently – or even only slightly frequently – saying and doing things, that can really take a toll on you. It may be helpful to have someone in your corner who is trained to help you sort through that.

The final thing that you can do to take care of yourself in such a situation is try to limit your interactions with said loved one as much as possible. This can be tricky, depending on your circumstances. At 41 living on my own, I can get away and stay away from any homophobic relatives I may have as much as I want. If you’re a younger person who’s still living at home, you may be stuck living with a homophobic parent or sibling. If that’s your situation, you again have my sympathy. That totally sucks. It especially sucks if there’s more than one homophobic person in the house with you, or even if others in the household doesn’t see what the big deal is with the homophobic person’s behavior. Maybe they think you’re overreacting. They’re wrong.

In that situation, you can only do the best that you can do. If you can stay in your bedroom – and the rest of your family will leave you alone rather than barge into your room and try to force conversation on you – that may be what you need to do. You may need to find ways to keep yourself busy. (Again, this is where having those loving and supportive friends may be helpful – as you can go spend time with them whenever possible and get away from the homophobia.)

You may also want to consider calling out the homophobic person’s behavior when they’re being hurtful and disengage. “I feel what you just said or did was hurtful to me and I would like you to leave me alone now.” Then walk away if you can. Be aware that this can be a difficult thing to do. The other person is likely to get offended. They’re likely to try to get you to tell them exactly why you found what they said or did was hurtful – most likely so they can tell you that you were wrong to feel that way. If you decide to go this route, don’t let yourself be drawn into an explanation or an argument over it. Simply say, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I need time to be alone.” Stick to your guns. Go talk to one of your supportive friends or loved ones, someone who will totally understand why you’re hurt and will tell you that it’s okay to feel that way.

At any rate, that’s the best advice I can offer to help anyone going through such a situation. My readers are welcome to offer their own insights in the comments. Maybe some of you found something that helped you. Please feel free and encouraged to share.

Moderation Note: All comments complaining about how “easily” the word homophobia gets thrown around will be deleted. Any commenter trying to open a debate about what does and does not constitute homophobia will be banned. This is not the space to get defensive over how your words and actions are properly labeled. This is a space for you to listen and carefully consider how your words and actions impact the LGBT people in your life. If you try to do the former rather than the latter, than you’re part of the problem, and likely a bigger part than you want to admit.

 

Emotions, Gender and Sexuality, Love, Personal Development

Coming Out Anniversary Post: The Need for a Relationship

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Going to Hell Tee ShirtIt’s April 1st once again.  For those who have been following my blog for a while, you know that this is significant in that it’s the anniversary of my initial coming out.  Eighteen years ago, I quit denying that I was attracted to other men, quit claiming it was “just a phase,” and quit trying to change myself.  (Well, where my sexual orientation is concerned.)

I don’t commemorate or blog about the event every year (See the bottom of this post for links to older anniversary posts), though I decided I wanted to again this year.  This year, I want to consider how my attitude about dating has changed since I came out.

When I came out, dating was extremely important to me.  This is partly because part of the reason I finally came out was because I was tired of being alone.  I was tired of suffering, thinking I may never be able to find — or even allow myself to find — someone I could deeply care about and build a lasting relationship with.  So when I came out, finding someone to love was of grave importance to me.  To put it quite frankly, I was rather desperate at the time.

Consider that I was walking away from years of belief that being gay was bad and that the kind of relationship that appealed to me was strictly prohibited.  Consider that rejecting that belief required me to give up a lot of my identity (being an evangelical Christian — and most evangelicals still insisted that the phrase “gay Christian” was an oxymoron and an abomination at the time — was a huge paart of my existence and idenity) and to strain many freindships and relationships.  So the idea that I’d give all that up and still end up alone was terrifying.  So I ended up putting a lot of energy into the idea that I had to find someone.

It’s a mentality that lasted for years, over a decade and a half in fact.  In time, though, it’s a mentality that began to fade and is now more or less gone.  That’s not to say that I don’t want to find someone to build a life with.  Dating is still important to me.  Having a loving relationship is still important to me.  It’s just not my single-minded obssession anymore.  Now, it’s just something that I’d like to achieve when the time is right and I meet a great guy I’m compatible with and mutually attracted to.

I think I really began to notice this change a few months ago, when I ended my most recent relationship.  I ended it because I just couldn’t see myself being with him long-term, which was something he was definitely looking for.  In general, I’ve found myself far more picky about the guys I date and continue to invest time in, which I think is a positive thing.

I think part of this is due to the fact that once I quit spending so much time and energy figthing with myself over my sexual orientation, I was able to slowly build myself back up.  With the question of how my being gay affects my identity and worth, I was able to more fully explore my identity in all areas of my life.  I was able to build up who I saw myself as, and where I found my sense of worth and emotional strength.  As a result, that idea of a relationship quit being the life-vest I clung to out of desperation.

But that’s something that could only develop once I came out and accepted that one part of myself.

Previous Anniversary Posts

Also, be sure to check out Journey to Queerdom.

Health, Memories, Personal Development

I’m not doing that anymore, Dave

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Given that it’s the last day of 2011, I want to use today’s post to personally reflect on the past year, particularly my recovery with regards to being codependent.  It’s a topic that has been on my mind a lot the past few weeks, and was one of the contributing factors to a recent bad day I mentioned.

This isn’t surprising, as the events that led to me seek therapy and uncover my codependency unfolded around this time last year.  That was when things really began to spin out of control in my friendship/relationship with a young man I will call Dave, and I realized I needed to get professional help for some my own reactions.  Then when things fell apart completely and I threw Dave out of my life, I went into therapy and started to really learned what codependency is and why I’m codependent.

For those who may not know what codependency is, I’d like to start with Melody Beattie’s definition:

A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling the other person’s behavior.

My only problem with Ms. Beattie’s definition of what it means to be codependent is that devoid of any context, it sounds really awful.  That’s because being codependent is awful, in the sense that it’s hell on the person who is codependent and those who are around a codependent person.

What doesn’t come across in that definition very well is that “the other person’s behavior” is not minor behavior.  Ms. Beattie is talking about behavior that is truly out of control and usually committed by someone who does not wish to take responsibility for that behavior.  Codependent people end up taking responsibility for that behavior — usually out of a sense of obligation disguised as love — and trying to rescue the other person from their actions and their consequences of those actions.  We seek to control and “reel in” that behavior, to try to keep everything in that person’s life — and our own by extension — from flying apart at the seams.

Dave was the last person[1] I was codependent with before getting help.  He was out of control, not handling his own past well and acting out in ways that were self-destructive and destructive to those of us in his life.  And for the longest time, I made excuses for him and took responsibility — responsibility that Dave refused to take himself — for cleaning up the resulting mess.  As a result, my life fell apart — which is pretty common for codependent people.

So I went into therapy and began to examine my own behavior, why I tended to put other people’s needs before my own, and chose to attempt control other people who were out of control rather than taking care of myself.  I re-examined my self-perceptions, came to understand and appreciate my own boundaries, and learned to put far more of my energy into caring for myself.

Like recovery from most things, recovery from codependency is a process, and usually a never-ending one.  I still have moments where I slip into the old “care-taker” habits that marked my relationship with Dave and others.  In fact, Dave and I started hanging out again — and even started moving toward a relationship again — as I continued my therapy.  At the time, Dave seemed like a changed man, and I decided I wanted to give him another chance.

Unfortunately, I discovered appearances were deceiving toward the end of June, and that Dave was still up to his old games of deceit, manipulation, and using others (including me).[3]  So I eventually told Dave it was over again and told him I would not talk to him until he got help for his problems.

Before the second separation, I had felt the old patterns come back.  I had started to allow my life to center around Dave again.  However, I can proudly say that things hadn’t gotten as bad that time around than it was at the beginning of the year.  Plus, once I saw the truth about Dave’s continuing out-of-control behavior, I quickly cut it off.  For a codependent person, that is a victory.

I’ve heard from Dave since, and my response has been even stronger.  The last time I heard from him, I laid out the rules of what it would take to prove himself to me and convince me to let him back in my life.  Dave didn’t like the answer, said a few nasty things to me, and stormed off. I haven’t heard from him since, and while I’m a bit saddened he hasn’t changed, I will not accept an unchanged Dave.  I cannot change him, and I do not want him back unless he chooses to change himself.

I hope that Dave will be the last person I get into such a rough and out-of-control relationship.  I’d much rather find a great guy who understands and values his own integrity and a sense of responsibility.  But if I do meet another guy like Dave and even start getting involved with him, I now have the sense of self-worth and the tools to recognize it and put the brakes on.  And that is good enough.

Note:
[1]  It’s important to note that my codependency developed over a long period of time and is the cumulative result of taking responsible for many people over the many years of my life.  While Dave was a toxic person[2] and not good for me, it’s important to note that my codependency did not start with him.  Also, I am responsible for my codependency and my recovery from it now.  As Ms. Beattie also says, it may not be my fault that I’m the way I am, but it’s my responsibility to do something about it.

[2]  It’s important to note that toxic people are not worthless or irredeemable.  Saying a person is toxic simply means that they choose to behave in ways that hurt other people and are often unhealthy to be around.

[3]  The final straw for me was that we broke up and agreed to just be friends.  I was crushed by this decision.  While we were out together three days after the decision, a waitress asked if we had considered getting married, and Dave told her that we were actually engaged.  That was the moment that I realized that Dave would tell any lie that suits his purpose, even if his only purpose is to get a little extra attention from a random person in a restaurant.  I didn’t want anyone who had such a low regard of his own integrity.  Someone who can lie so easily for such a pointless reason cannot be trusted to treat others properly.

Books, Personal Development, Religion

Raised Right: Missing Childhood

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Today’s look at Alisa Harris’s book, “Raised Right:  How I Untangle My Faith from Politics” continues to look at chapter seven.  The underlying theme of this chapter — which I did not adequately explain in last week’s post, leaving my criticisms somewhat without the necessary context — is about how Ms. Harris’s conservative upbringing focused so much on politics that it consumed her whole identity and her relationships with other people.  I touched upon a similar phenomenon when I wrote about fundamentalist identity over at Confessions of a Former Conservative[1].  As such, I can identify with a lot of what Ms. Harris talks about in this chapter, though under slightly different conversations.

Harris speaks in the first paragraph of how her political leanings set her apart from many of her peers:

And while they were e-mailing one another about boys and fingernail polish, I was assuming the mantle of e-champion, which required two things of me:  an e-mail address to receive daily Bush campaign emails and the indefatigable conviction that I must forward to everyone I knew.

While I talked about how fundamentalist identity can consume one’s entire identity, I had not considered discussing how it echoes Ms. Harris’s own experience as described above.  Not only does such an identity consume a person, but it often becomes something that completely separates them from others.  In many ways, I imagine this is intentional, as fundamentalist and other conservative Christians find it important to identify themselves as separate from other people who are still “of the world.”  As such, this obsession with in-group activities to the detriment to other interests that one might have in common with their peers becomes an important sacrificial act demonstrating one’s “insider” status.

This is particularly troubling when one is young, as Ms. Harris notes that young conservative Christians — and I’d add fundamentalist Christians regardless of political involvement — tend to act like adults and associate more with adults.  There’s a certain sense where “fighting the good fight” becomes so important that simple things like expressing an interest in boys or girls, popular culture, and other things, which ultimately can rob such youth of their childhood.

I’ve often looked back at my own youth — and even my college years — and wished I had them to live them over.  I find that because I was so focused on being the perfect Christian, I put a lot of my personal development — especially emotional development — on hold.

When I finally addressed these areas of my life, I found myself trying to work through things in an adult world.  I found myself learning social skills and emotional coping techniques while holding down a job and acting like a responsible adult, as opposed to having the luxury of working through these things while still being able to rely more on my parents and having far less responsibilities.

This is one of the “holes” or distortions that Ms. Harris alludes to in this chapter of those whose politics become the whole of their identity.  It’s one that I felt she should have explored more.
 
Note:
[1]  As an aside, let me said that I’m quite pleased that Former Conservative has managed to rejoin the ranks of bloggers everywhere.  We missed you while you were silent, guy.

Emotions, Personal Development

We all have our bad days

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Today’s post is going to be somewhat personal, as it’s what I have the energy and mental capacity for today.  I’m still recovering from my FINE[1] day yesterday.  I get them every now and then.[2]

One of the things I’ve found over the past year that it’s actually helpful to acknowledge such days and even indulge in them.  Prior to entering therapy last January, I would fight hard against such days and demand that I “just get over it.”  After all, it was “just a feeling,” and I should be able to control them.[3]  I would seek to diminish my rough days if not outright repress them.

The problem with that approach is that they never really go away.  Things just build up, waiting to get out.  Eventually, when you can’t hold it in any longer, it all boils over, explodes, and makes a huge mess.

Yesterday, I actually had a much better day by acknowledging that I was having a bad day and allowing myself to do so.  I was able to both indulge in a bit of self-pity and make light of it.  It made the whole experience not great, but far more bearable and manageable.

As a society, we tend to encourage people to put on a happy face, to act like nothing’s wrong, and to think of people who “have it worse.”  The problem with this is that while there may be people with worse problems out there than what we are facing, our problems are still very real and we need the freedom to deal with them.  And we can’t do that if we can’t even acknowledge them or feel like we have to downplay them.

Notes:
[1]  FINE is short for “Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.”  An old coworker taught me that.  He learned it when he was in counseling years ago.

[2]  Right now, they seem to be happening every other week or so.  I think it’s the holiday season combined with the fact that a few “major events” happened in my life around this time of year, and my mind tends to gravitate towards the associated memories.

[3]  The need to be in control is a major issue for most codependents.  One of the big wake-up calls I faced when I finally acknowledged my codependency and got help for it was acknowledging just how much I needed to be in control of not only myself, but my circumstances and others in it and how I sought to exert that control.