religion

i keep starting this post and erasing it and starting it over. i guess the problem is that there are several things i want to blog about, and i can't get them in order. or maybe there is more than one part trying to get something said? that might be why i'm thinking four or five separate things at the same time.

so what's the point of this post about religion? i guess to just write about some of what's going on for me right now.

first, there's the whole RA thing. i am relatively certain i didn't experience ritual abuse. but this is a hard time for people who did, and there's this... backlash, i guess. where i feel guilty talking about the things i enjoy about this season, because i know that some of it is really triggering to other people.

so i get mad--that there are these jerks in the world who do what they can to pervert and ruin holidays for little kids. i mean, what the hell? (um, sorry, i'll address that later....)

and the thing is, spiritually, i'm most comfortable as a pagan. and here we are, with the spring equinox falling on a full moon. this should be a happy, positive thing. i should be able to feel free to talk about rebirth and all of that. i should be able to feel comfortable with writing about my pagan experiences.

but because of those a$$holes who do things and abuse kids on a seasonal calendar, i feel like i need to be super-careful talking about pagan holidays, because even more so than the christian ones, the pagan ones got taken over by those jerks who are using them for really evil purposes. this is more of an issue for me around samhain/halloween/pagan new year. and even MORE so around winter solstice/christmas/yule. i'm generally more casual about the spring holidays (well, more on that later, too). but there's the whole ritual abuse thing, and i really don't want to go around doing the equivalent of kicking people where they're already bruised, so i don't write about it.

so there's that part.

and then there's where i am, religiously. i was raised christian. i was raised christian in the kinds of churches that just weren't really... uplifting. the kind where your experience of christianity is a whole lot of judging and shaming and all of that. the kind of churches that justify what i can now recognize as child abuse, but which they insisted was just parents trying to raise "godly" children. the kind of churches that say to stay in an abusive marriage because it's god's will, and the woman's duty to behave in a way that will "save" her husband, rather than to cut her losses and protect herself and her kids.

the kind of churches that discourage people from doing anything "worldly" like reading books the church hasn't approved, or listening to music the church hasn't approved, or really, doing anything that gives evidence of really enjoying the world, or thinking outside of the incredibly narrow little box the church defines for them. i don't just mean "don't drink, smoke, or chew, or run with those who do." i'm talking about "christian rock is evil because it's too worldly. you should only listen to music *we* say is ok." and "don't read anything ungodly, like (i kid you not!) c.s. lewis, madeleine l'engle, susan cooper, or, heaven FORBID, j.r.r. tolkien." (for those who haven't read them, these are all deeply christian writers of pretty darned christian fantasy novels.) i mean, seriously, my churches when i was growing up thought these books would lead us into sin.

the kind of churches where they spend weeks in sunday school teaching little eight year olds about the book of revelations, and how good christians will have to suffer and starve because they won't be raptured until after the tribulation, but they won't be able to buy food or anything because to do that you'll have to get the mark of the beast, so you and your family will starve to death and not be able to have anything, and go through a whole lot of terror and suffering, just to prove you're worthy of god's love.

now, don't get me wrong. it's not that the people were evil or bad. i totally get that they thought they were doing the right thing. i mean, if you really believe all of that, and you honestly believe that there is only one way to get to heaven, and it involves a lot of pain and suffering, then maybe you are doing the right thing, by your beliefs, if you push other people to follow impossible rules. i don't know. i guess if i believed that the only way to be saved was to go through pain and misery, and i wanted my children saved, maybe i would do that too. i just don't know. because i can't bring myself to believe in a god who aims for all of the "true believers" to be in pain and suffering. i mean, what would be the point?

but anyhow. what it ends with is that, even though i know there are a lot of devout christians in the world who don't have that worldview, it's hard for me to hear people doing a lot of talking about christianity without all of this being triggered. and so i just kind of shy away from the god-talk, because i feel like my own religion isn't gonna be accepted. (i describe myself religiously as culturally christian, spiritually pagan. and that gets thrown off because in terms of actual practice and religious observance, i'm closer to jewish, because i do that with my partner.)

and because all the god-talk is just triggering to me. but i feel guilty about not reading blogs, because i just can't cope. and i feel alienated from some forums, because even when they call it "spirituality" (or even on totally unrelated threads) lately, it seems like it just turns into this whole christianity thing.

i keep losing track of where i was going. i suppose i could've made an outline and stuff, but i'm just not feeling it.

right. the whole being triggered by christianity thing. i mean, i know that people aren't meaning to be triggering. but there's a level where i feel like... why is it ok to be spouting all of this stuff that is really immensely triggering to me, that brings up all of that guilt and shame and fear and pain.... but i can't even say a little bit about my *own* positive religious experience, because it's too close to things that people are triggered by?

i know i can't be the only person who was abused in a fundamentalist christian context. i can't be the only person who was scarred by the people who did all the god-talk, and were always doing something that i've considered the true meaning of "taking the lord's name in vain" where they bring god into discussions of things that are totally unrelated (like, "i got this toilet paper at 75% off, praise be to god!" ok, that's a *slight* exaggeration. but only slight.)

and i can't explain how it is that *some* people talk about god, and it's not triggering, and other people do, and i want to run out of the room and start screaming.

and then it's even weirder, cause it's not like a bunch of us in this system find nothing of value in christianity.

i mean, i guess religion is like sex. no, really. there are some parts who need to avoid it totally, and there are some parts that have learned it can be a healthy thing, done in a caring and respectful way. and there isn't any one true way.

maybe that's it... some of the people who have been bugging me write in a way that reminds me of the christians who insisted there was one true way (theirs) and no one else was going to get to heaven, and actually, anyone who didn't do it their way was basically either uninformed, or a deliberate sinner.

i really hate the whole attitude of "one true way" pretty much anywhere it shows up. because, honestly, there ISN'T one true way. there are different ways that work for different people, and there's nothing that says any one of them is better than the others.

ok. not sure what my point was, or anything like that, but that's some of what i wanted to write about.

Read More......

moments of grace

one of the problems with having DID is that there is only one body, and all of those who want to do something that requires a body have to try to share it. that's a though to preface what may wind up being a really confused/confusing post, because even though i have things i want to write, i'm not 100% certain that i will be able to hear myself think through all the things the *others* are thinking, or that i will be the only one writing things down.

aimlessly finding an entry point to what i was thinking when i decided i wanted to write.... i (we? someone?) have noticed something. the more each of us in this system is able to differentiate ourselves from the others, the more we are able to integrate *ourselves*. which seems kind of backwards--achieving self-knowledge by separating more thoroughly from other parts who live in the same body? but hey, it's all in the name of greater mental health, right?

so, about me. recently, i got a "real" name, as opposed to something the others (or even i) used to refer to myself. my name is grace. i chose it in part because for a while, when i talked to our therapist, and she asked for a name, and i couldn't think of one, and she suggested just naming a color, and i knew for sure the color that fits me, the color pretty much all of us think of when we think of me... gray. anyhow, we were using the color gray to refer to me in therapy, but for a lot of reasons, particularly because of the reasons that i feel surrounded by grayness, i didn't want that to be my name, and the others in the system didn't, either.

so in part, the name "grace" is because it sounds pretty close to the word "gray."

but there's also the thought of moments of grace. i know how they feel, but i don't have words for them, not exactly. moments of grace... those points when because of something or someone or just random chance, when things get better. they don't last long, but i guess they don't need to. it's that feel of a spring wind in the middle of winter, that beam of light that reminds you that maybe the sun really is planning on coming back again. or it's that second when you look up, and there is a gorgeous moon, and you had forgotten how beautiful the world can be. or that morning when you bend over to put on your shoes, and find that for some reason, your back and hands aren't hurting so badly, and you can do this without pain. those moments that come out of nowhere, and then go right back into nowhere.

there's the religious thing, too. you are saved not by works, but by grace. like, no matter how much effort you put in, no matter how good you are, how well you follow the rules, it's something else that saves you. or it doesn't. and there have been a lot of times in my life where it's been pretty clear that i've gone solely by grace. because it's not like anything else was stepping in to save me, some of those times.

i wouldn't say i'm christian, and i know there are parts who are, and i know there are parts who are pretty badly scarred by our particular experience of christianity, and i know there are parts who just happen to have a more... broad sense of religion. but anyhow, christianity is my first language for religious things, so i'll talk about those moments of grace, with the warning that i don't mean it in a precisely christian way. i mean, it was by the grace of god that i was led to all those fantasy books that opened up my mind about what religion could be, and allowed me to reconcile my own experiences with the religion i was raised with.


okay, another transition. i'm not particularly good with transitions. it's one of those writing things i can't really manage.

for years, well before JA was diagnosed with DID, before any of us had even heard of dissociation, the others still had a name for me. that was "the hopeless one." because, well, that's a very noticeable part of who i am. i know it frustrates some of the others, because they find that things work out better when they can behave as though the positive outcome is going to be there. but oh well. sometimes, things can feel pretty darned hopeless.

the other name for me was "the suicidal one." i wasn't suicidal to begin with. heck, i was even pretty hopeful. i had a plan, and it seemed like such a good plan. i was going to put really strong protections around the part of my mind that was my *self*, and stick it out at home until i turned 18, and then i would leave, escape cleanly, and go to college, and live my happy, successful, fulfilled life. i would get therapy and neatly process through all the stuff that i knew had been problematic when i was growing up. and everything was gonna be ok.

maybe my mistake was not starting therapy as soon as i left home, but that didn't seem like the hugely important part, not to anyone who was out, at least. not that we knew about each other, except how we kind of did. i mean, we're all really used to kind of watching ourselves go around in the world, commenting on it, trying to figure out what's happening.

i can remember some of college, and most of it, the parts where it wasn't clearly me in charge, were weird. "hm, here i go, acting like a college student. i wonder how i know how to do all these things," i'd think. but i was used to that.

but then i guess collective-i started getting flashbacks. definitely started getting a lot of body memories, which none of us had a name for, but that we knew were... something not about how the body was working, you know? something that felt phsyical, but wasn't, and went along with distinctly uncomfortable emotions.

oh, yeah, and there were a whole darned LOT of emotion-memories coming up. flooding with despair and unhappiness and all of that.

so my clever plan had some flaws, and i had absolutely NO idea what to do next. general advice: college counseling centers are not necessarily the place to go if you're highly functional but suffering from a fairly major nervous breakdown. so the counselor i saw somehow missed the nervous breakdown, and saw just this person who was a "little" unhappy (despite being TOLD by my friends--and i admitted it was true--that i hadn't eaten more than a few bites, if that, for about three or four months). so her advice? "decide to be more cheerful."

which, i admit, is advice i'd given myself in high school. to decide what my moods would be, and cause myself to feel that way. well, looking back, to create a part who had the traits that would let her feel that way. but given that the reason i was in counseling was that that had failed to work any more... i felt like i'd given it my best shot, like i'd done absolutely everything i could think to do, and nothing was helping. so that's around when i got completely suicidal.

not sure where i was going with that, but ok. oh, right, moments of grace, and the grace of god. so, by the grace of god, i do have parts who didn't ever want to die. so they are probably the reason that the majority of my suicide plans are things that would be likely to fail.

and it was sheer unadulterated grace from on high that i suffered no physical ill effects from the one time i overdosed except for a lingering gag reflex when presented with the particular brand of medicine. and maybe it's even grace from on high that no one found out about that particular incident until much later, because it meant that instead of getting stuck in a hospital, the other parts could show up and take over, and go on as though nothing had happened. which, given the results, might have been the best outcome for then.

anyhow. the other thing i meant to write about in this post is how, as we parts grow more distinct from each other, we also find our-individual-part-selves growing more integrated.

because it turns out, i'm not just, or only, despairing or suicidal. i never was *only* suicidal. i'm also one of the ones who loves to read. i like to do puzzles. i like to go for walks, or color. i loved to ride my bike.

a lot of the time i am present, but none of us were aware it was me, until we started working on being aware of who we were. and as each of us is able to say, "oh, that's me" or "oh, that's her" we're all learning that there is more to each of us, and always has been more, than the labels we first had.

not sure what my point is. and i know others had things they wanted to say, but i think by this point, we're all tired, or tired of writing, so that's all.

Read More......