I guess it's finally time for me to write. I used to do this religiously, eager to get my thoughts out on paper. These past few years though, it's like something has had me by the throat. It took me a long time to look in the face of what had me struggling to breathe. It was betrayal.
For so long I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to believe that there was some secret that wasn't made known to me yet, something that would make all the hell I've lived through make sense. But the truth is, I was born into a family that would rather pretend that you are dead than see you fall out of the lockstep of Christian Fundamentalism and male-oriented behavior.
For those not familiar with the term male-oriented behavior, it's when women consciously choose to allow the men they have relationship with (sons, romantic partners) to behave often immorally, often abusively and completely unscathed by any sort of consequence for their actions. Raped daughters are pressed into silence in the name of Jesus and Not Being An Outcast. Dissention goes against their God. And never spreak against their precious sons, many quite awful. In my community, and many others for that matter, firstborn sons are given a status many do not deserve. For real, most men deserve nothing. At least of the current adult generations. I have faith for the youth, but only if someone catches them and teaches them before they reach adulthood. So many men pretend to not understand sexual assault. The mothers let them off because they provide financially, or the men say they're drunk. It's madness.
I have always known that I wanted out of that prison. That my God was bigger, a woman, and I was meant for other things. I just didn't realize how much the final separation hurt. To know for sure that these people never gave a damn about me. But yet expected me to respect them. To treat them like sage elders, when they usually couldn't even be bothered to call or visit when I was in the hospital.
These were the women who whispered in my ear that my depression, the beatings they help cover, my fear, were all (their) God's judgment of me. If I struggled, it was because there was something within my life (they never seemed to know what) that was displeasing to (their) God.
I keep making the differentiation because I do indeed believe in God....miraculously...still. But the Abrahamic God has never done me any good. I cannot return to a space in which I was almost always othered and condemned. And for the worldliest of reasons, quite often. I got tired of promises of eternal families and eternal salvation, and chose to focus on searching for real happiness. And a family here in this life, since mine is way too deluded for me to be around. It really sucks being the Black Sheep. But the more I think about the things that have been done to me, the history I share with those people, seeing their children who have never met me regard me with the same contempt as their elders (but isn't gossip a sin?), the more I realize that I need to save myself. The ship is sinking, drawing anything near it under the waves as well. I am moving in the opposite direction, in search of a raft.
I guess this is the first part of it.
