Thursday, November 30, 2017
Questions On Questioning
I was listening to a book yesterday and a scene occurred where there was a tent revival and it astounded me once again how people are conned into giving money to those who promise salvation with promises which can never be proven. By playing on their emotions and gathering them into frenzies of desire to feel that they, too, have souls and lives which a heavenly god cherishes and loves and demands much from.
By a long and winding thought process, this led me to thinking about how, as children, we are told things with words and with unsaid but incredibly strong silent communication that we either recognize then or early on, are not true and in fact, bullshit. These words and messages may come from a place of belief in the adult who transmits them or, they may be used as a means of control and intimidation.
I am not speaking of things like the santa myth or the tooth fairy.
I suppose I am thinking more about religious beliefs and the necessity of keeping secrets within the home as well, I suppose, as cultural assumptions like racist or sexist beliefs. And I am very curious- did you experience anything like this? Would you share it? Would you speak a little of it, what you were told or what was starkly implied and how it made you feel? Did the trust you held for the adults in your life convince you of the truths of which they were speaking or showing you? What made you begin to question these things? Did this make you less likely to trust what you were told by authority figures? How did it affect your relationship with the adults who perhaps believed these things themselves or were in fact, simply lying? If they were cultural, did they make you begin to look at everything differently? Did you feel disdainful, condescended to, angry, distrustful, lost?
I would really appreciate any feedback here. For some reason, this is something I am really thinking about right now and I would like to know if others have ever thought about this subject in a way that relates to the experience and how it changed or formed their lives.
Thank you.
Love...Ms. Moon
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I was raised on, immersed in and spoon fed this type of horseshit. And the teachings of the Church were the very least of it. The secrecy, the blind loyalty to family, a family that was steeped in incest and dysfunction that persists today. The spoken and unspoken message that your brothers were more important and more valuable than you were, telegraphed by the expectation that you perform all the thankless, mindless, unvalued work while they did just what they wanted. The idea that as a girl you were only as attractive and as valuable and some man said you were, whether father, brothers, boyfriends or husbands. The idea that if you were a girl who was not conventionally attractive, meaning petite, quiet, compliant and dainty you were worthless. Worse if you had a mouth and a brain and were in the habit of using both liberally. Being told openly by your father that boys don't like girls who are smarter than they are so you better tone it down.
ReplyDeleteOh to think of it, it's a wonder I survived at all intact.
-invisigal
There you go. And it would seem that perhaps you are still a bit bitter? AS WELL YOU SHOULD BE! Ugh.
DeleteHonestly, it makes me want to be 300 lbs, shave my head and clomp around in army boots on my size 10 feet.
ReplyDelete-still invisigal
Also- did you just absolutely know inherently that all of this was completely wrong?
DeleteYes, I did, but I don't think it made it any easier or less painful. It is wrong that I was assaulted by my brother a few months ago, just weeks after cancer surgery, for speaking what must never be spoken. We are practically senior citizens FFS. It was wrong, it is wrong now but it is still happening. And yes, bitter, unlike my sisters who went along with it all and still do. They are happy as clams and seemingly loved by all. Unlike me, the outcast. I am shunned, which of course, is a form of social violence and bullying in its own right.
DeleteSorry to be such a ray of evil sunshine here. But seriously, WTF?
And bitter, yes, but also distrustful, now more than ever, of any authority figures or institutions. I don't trust doctors, hospitals, governments, police, employers, or even my husband, son, God or myself as I should. It's quite a thing, perhaps the biggest most lasting harm that has crippled my functioning. I am one step from the crazy cat lady in the tinfoil hat but how can you not be? I think that once they realize that you aren't buying what they are selling, they convince you that you are that conspiracy theorist just to discredit you and make you doubt what you know to be true. Gaslighting.
DeleteSorry if I sound a little crazy.
Look- we all have our days when we need the tinfoil hat. And I think that many of us have had our ability to trust crippled if not broken. Your brother should be shut up in a facility.
DeleteI was raised without any religious dogma, and am very grateful to my parents for this.
ReplyDeleteMy mother believed in and discussed a range of things from nutrition to spirituality to health to her own abilities to do things scientific people consider woo today.
To answer your question, I accepted a lot of that as read, but now I wonder about some of it, obviously, though I essentially live similar ways, but with less commitment/will power. None of it was a tenet she lived her life by, though, in the way that people do with indoctrinated religion. I don't feel harmed by being breastfed long term, allowed to have illnesses in my early childhood, or treated with homoeopathy or being given a fair amount of autonomy as an adolescent, for example. I think my mother was the opposite of wht you're talking about, really.
And that is lovely, Jo. No, I can see that you wouldn't have thought your mother's beliefs were bullshit.
DeleteSomething I only fully realized as an adult is just how well my parents raised us. They were a terrible match and fought constantly, but that is literally the only negative I have. Both were raised in tough situations with little love in their immediate homes, and with violence. I think they both subconsciously made a decision to do differently. And I know they were both raised in homes that were hateful and bigoted and again they did the opposite. I stand in awe of it often. So I have no tales of be but I guess of hope. And now I feel the need to once again thank my parents :)
ReplyDeleteThat is beautiful Jill and a very fine example that people can overcome their own upbringings and do their best even if the situation isn't perfect. Sounds like they kept their children foremost in their home and that is not as often the case as it should be.
DeleteThere was always the unspoken sense of entitlement, of us naturally better, more intelligent and proper in all respects. No religion involved. My parents' and grandparents' "religion" was status and especially academic status. We were obviously better in everything and it was expected that you excelled - never mind if you didn't because there were always bad teachers, low quality tools or someone's poorly tuned puano to blame, while we so gallantly looked down on the world.
ReplyDeleteAs a teenager I tried a couple of shock treatment attempts incl. drugs and the "wrong" kind of friends, I even went to a Baptist summer camp but my father thought I was preparing for a career in anthropology and approved.
It was tedious and ugly and stifling. But my parents were raised that way as were theirs and I can trace back generations of class superiority until I am ready to puke.
What a waste.
There were a couple of people who put me right, who told me in no uncertain terms to get down from that high horse or rock and roll was not for me.
I remember every one of these people, every instance with great clarity as if it happened yesterday. I can still feel how it stung me to realise how fake and how hollow my family's world view was.
Wow! But you DID realize it and you listened to what others around you had to say and I'm impressed. And from what you say about your father, he is still exactly the same to the extent that even his children do not merit his high-and-mightiness. You are a beautiful person and I think you have done very well.
DeleteThere was always the unspoken sense of entitlement, of us naturally better, more intelligent and proper in all respects. No religion involved. My parents' and grandparents' "religion" was status and especially academic status. We were obviously better in everything and it was expected that you excelled - never mind if you didn't because there were always bad teachers, low quality tools or someone's poorly tuned puano to blame, while we so gallantly looked down on the world.
ReplyDeleteAs a teenager I tried a couple of shock treatment attempts incl. drugs and the "wrong" kind of friends, I even went to a Baptist summer camp but my father thought I was preparing for a career in anthropology and approved.
It was tedious and ugly and stifling. But my parents were raised that way as were theirs and I can trace back generations of class superiority until I am ready to puke.
What a waste.
There were a couple of people who put me right, who told me in no uncertain terms to get down from that high horse or rock and roll was not for me.
I remember every one of these people, every instance with great clarity as if it happened yesterday. I can still feel how it stung me to realise how fake and how hollow my family's world view was.
Yes and will speak Anger hurt and more but 2am UK and gin imbibed so a different hour and sober voice better l think. Love ya mrs moon as the moon gets rounder maggi the moonstruck Brit x
ReplyDeleteOh, Maggi. I am so sorry you had to grow up in such circumstances.
DeleteI think I have been forever imprinted by the experience of living and going to school in London as a 5 year old and knowing that I was not accepted, that everything that could be wrong with a 5 year old was wrong with me. At least in the eyes of my classmates and the teacher too. And then the landlord’s 28 year old son who took me riding on his motorcycle and other things and I never told my parents because at age 5 I already knew it would destroy them. And they might destroy him. Somehow the choice I made seemed easier. How would I have been different today if I hadn’t chosen to swallow the thing that happened. To bury it inside myself instead of allowing it light and air.
ReplyDeleteThe one good thing was I learned I could survive.
DeleteAnd once again, it smacks me upside the head how alike we are. I, too, was a preternaturally wise child who kept things from my elders because I knew they could not handle it. I wonder what would have happened had we spoken up? But it's a moot point. Five year olds just don't and neither do nine or ten year olds. At least they didn't. I hope that's changed.
DeleteFUCK the people who make children learn that they can survive. FUCK THEM AND AND DAMN THEM.
I am so sorry. I love you.
My spirit was a bit broken, in some senses, at an early age. I think that contributed significantly to my eating up religion with a spoon. I reckon some are able to find solace and assurance in it, but I always fell for the biblical fear-mongering tactics, rather than the more enlivening tenets. Internally, my mind struggled down slippery slope of guilt and self-flagellation. Outwardly, i was a holier-than-thou, self-righteous, priggedy bitch. I was a Christian camp counselor, the girl who spear-headed the "Meet at the Flagpole" prayer events in Jr. High, i mean, in it, and on my own volition. (My parents planted the seed, and well, it sprouted, to say the least.)
ReplyDeleteThen, in college i dated a Buddhist for a few years, an amazing dude. I realized if he isn't going to heaven for not eating up the Jesus cookie, then i don't want any part in that place.
My dad's side of the family, in contrast, are a bunch of Pagan hippies. They're pretty damn open and accepting. That said, on both sides, i was lead to believe fat-shaming is acceptable. (Not to people's faces, but still.) And even my incredibly open-minded dad was fine if people were gay, but *none of that 'bi' nonsense*. I remember him saying, Pick a team! and I was like, Yeah! Ha. At this point i've dated, and been totally smitten, by both men and women. Haven't the slightest clue which team. (Sea cucumbers, probably!) :D
And Ajax, again your writing slays me. Boy. Am I glad you met that Buddhist. I had a brief streak of Christianity around Jr. high age. Once my hormones turned on and I read a few books, though, it took off, never to be seen again. It wasn't nearly as strong as what I hear you talking about.
DeleteAs to "pick a team" - haha! That's as absolutely wrong-headed as believing that gay people are unnatural. May I say that I love the word "smitten"?
I was raised Catholic, and that was probably the least problematic part of my childhood. I declared my vocation to be a priest to Sister LuAnn in second grade, and she promptly told me I couldn't simply because I was a girl, and I knew from that point forward that it was a load of horseshit. But it was my parents and their utter denial of emotions ("are you okay, Mom?" when she clearly wasn't, and her answer, always, that she was fine, that I was exaggerating, that she was angry because I was asking if she was angry, etc., the denial of her depression, my father's depression, my father's drinking problem, my mother's (and subsequently mine and my sisters') eating disorder--it was a childhood of being gaslighted. By the time I was with my ex husband, who regularly told me I wasn't feeling the way I felt, I was exaggerating, I was crazy, I genuinely THOUGHT i was crazy. I have spent years in therapy trying to figure out what is real, and what I'm making up.
ReplyDeleteSo let me ask you- was it only the fact that women could not become priests that tipped you off that your religion was horseshit? Because that takes a few steps of awareness.
DeleteMy mother denied her emotions too all the well screaming that she was going to kill herself. Very odd. And yes, that makes it hard to have any idea what real feelings are and my god- any healing has to begin with us knowing how we feel. If we can't start there, we can't figure out why and thus- we're stuck in a maelstrom of emotion that we can't put anywhere safe.
Funny how you found a man who went right along with the dance your parents trained you in. As my therapist said, "We all go to relationship school in our parent's house."
Yeah.
Well, know you are loved and that is real. I swear- some day you will know that.
God, your mom did that too? Fuck, i love my mom, but to say that's not a fair thing to intimate to your own children, would be an understatement. (She's come a long way since we were kids, but she still inserts it into conversation now and then. Makes me wonder if *my* brain will ever be ok. [At least from an emotional standpoint. I'm fairly resigned as to the rest of it. :P]) I'm so sorry. I know how awful that feels.
DeleteMarry, I can’t even begin to get my head around just reading this post, never mind actually figuring out why I am a woman gone very wrong. I am not saying that for attention or for you to say I’m not. It’s true. I don’t fit on this planet because of all the “truths” I know/believe about myself. I just know I am sick to death of being fucking kind and nice. I’m not that way because I am a good person. I’m that way because I am a fucking chicken shit and my life is ruled by fear. Being a good and kind and loving person is a benefit to everyone but me. I stay alive for my kids. Or I would be done with all of it long ago. Oh, yeah. I also can’t I’ll myself because I live in terror or gong to hell.
ReplyDeleteAnd fuck autocorrect while I’m at it.
ReplyDeleteI got your meaning, baby doll. And I would NEVER tell you that what you feel is bullshit. Your feelings are as real as dirt which does not mean they are correct but they are very much your feelings.
DeleteYou know what I just thought about? Steel Magnolias. Did you ever see it? Those women were all so different and M'Lynn was so absolutely kind and good and sweet and that was how everyone knew her while Ouiser was so apparently just mean. And yet, of course, Ouiser's heart was as good as M'Lynn's. All of the women's hearts were pure and true in their own ways, some of them were just spicier than others. I wish you felt you could allow yourself to show more of your spice because I love it when you do. "Fuck autocorrect." Hell yes.
Maybe you love the Ungrateful Bastard because he is who you wish you could be sometimes. Loved not for being sweet but for just being himself. Same reason I love Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He says all the things I wish I could.
Anyway, I love you. And if you're going to hell, so am I and we can hang out together. Okay?
I was told that if I dropped my Jewish necklace in the bathroom, God would punish me. I was told that if I ate anything unkosher, I would die. I still have these voices in my head. But the fear is gone for the most part. I got sick the first time I ate shrimp and my sisters laughed at me. I’m over that. I’m very careful if I wear my hand with the Star of David and I walk into a bathroom. My mother gave the reason, “because” for everything. Joanne
ReplyDelete"Because."
DeleteOkay. On one hand, it is so sad that your mother told you that if you dropped your necklace on the bathroom floor you would die and on the other hand it's hysterical.
And isn't it so very, very weird how we can absolutely know an early teaching to be as false as a flat-earth and yet, still have pangs when we break the rules we were given?
Have you ever eaten bacon-wrapped shrimp?
The best.
I love you, Joanne.
No but I will look for a recipe. I love bacon! I love you too!
DeleteI think I'm pretty lucky on this front. I was raised by very practical, academically-oriented parents who didn't go in for much mythology. We went to church, but it was always treated as a big metaphor -- not a literal story to believe but a metaphorical admonition to treat fellow humans with kindness and integrity. (Even though churches themselves often fail on this front!) And although I'm sure there were family stories that needed concealing, they were so well-concealed that for the most part I still don't know what they were!
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting. Are you curious about these family stories?
Delete