Living As All of Me

[HannahOne]

NK, dollyvee, SanMagic7, thank you for reading!

[HannahOne]

SO, thank you for reading and commenting. Thank you for mentioning Bedrick, didn't know of him.
TW religion
Yes a lot of religious abuse, abuse in the context of religion, abuse justified and explained by religion, abuse called "good" by religion, the religion itself was high control and full of terror and fear. I took what was useful of the religion, that idea that one could be loved, could improve, and ran with it. But....

The belief that we can become lovable and thus aren't, is at the heart of the survival strategy of a relationally traumatized child. There's a fundamental violence against ourselves in it,

That's it. The idea that I could become lovable was useful then, as it helped me find a different way to live, but it's long past useful now. In the last five years the energy of trying to become lovable was exhausted. With no energy left for my project, I looked deeply depressed. I think I was just exhausted and had no other motivation, no other way to "be." Raising my children taught me a lot, gave me the experience of being on the other side of it, and I got to see how the kids responded to good love. How easy it was actually not to abuse. And how they felt perfectly safe without religion. They didn't have a crisis of meaning without it. They were kind and good without it. They were BETTER OFF without it.

I thought I would feel meaningless, sad, or lost without it but all I felt was nothing, and the nothing felt GREAT. Space, room for me to be, and a very heavy weight off my shoulders.

I thought I never fully believed what I was told, that it was my fault for being female like Eve, it was my role, my place to be abused, the abuse was a just punishment for.... being female. But clearly some parts of me did believe those things, or some parts of me were still trying to redeem those things and make them right. But that's not my job either. Somehow it just filtered through. Whatever happens to me, it's not a punishment. It just is.

 

[HannahOne]

I might be offline for a week or two. I might pop back on but if I'm not, no worries.

[TheBigBlue]

 

[NarcKiddo]

 

[Blueberry]

Take care Hannah We'll be here when you get back