. . . is how long I’ve been blogging! I completely missed my 2 year anniversary yesterday. Here is my very first post! I started out wanting to blog about my thoughts on religion and parenthood and life in general, and this blog used to be known as My Life in the Blender (it was mylifeintheblender.wordpress.com, but I deleted it after moving over here). When I decided  liked this blogging thing in February 2009, I changed to redheadedskeptic.wordpress.com. It’s only been since last December that I’ve had my own domain. If you read my earliest (mostly boring!) posts, you can see that I wrote about a conglomeration of things, hence the title “My Life in the Blender.” Which is kind of dumb. Anyways, I started noticing that I liked writing about religion the most, and started writing more about religion. Then I started reading other atheist blogs and saw that everyone else had already come to the same conclusions, and had expressed them even better! It was a difficult time for me, and I started scouring those atheist blogs for support in leaving religion. However, they all primarily focused on the reasons why they left. So I decided to write about how it impacted me personally. It’s been hard, and it’s a little creepy to meet someone who reads my blog, and therefore knows a lot about me when I don’t even know their name, but it’s worth it. I definitely express myself through writing, and it’s great to receive emails and comments about how helpful it is. My theory is that many people go through the same things, but nobody wants to admit it because it’s very personal, and it can be very hard to talk about feelings. But if you do take that risk and open up, then you usually find support from somewhere. Not everyone will support you, but lots of people will. Of course, you do need dissent occasionally, too, and some good honest feedback whether you like it or not! So constructively critical comments have never bothered me–I may respond further with my side, but I actually appreciate them. I’m kind of without a “grown up” support system to tell me where I’m wrong, so it leaves me flying in the wind sometimes.

Anyways, it’s been fun, rocky, crazy, and I still have a ways to go, but I’ve come a long way, too. Where will it go from here? Who knows?! Maybe there’s a happily ever after in there for me somewhere yet!

The truth of the matter is, I hate drama. Here’s how my blog works: I say here what I’ve either said without success elsewhere, or what I can’t say elsewhere for whatever reason. It’s how I deal. I am a very external person when it comes to conflict: I don’t like to ignore it or pretend it’s not there; I’ll just get angrier. So I’ll say what I think here, and that helps me let it go. If I can work it out, no need to write! I certainly don’t write about every conflict, and I can’t think of any conflict I’ve written about that I resolved before writing. I don’t stomp around all day (usually!) after posting, and I get good feedback. Through writing, I support others going through the same things, and the emails I get saying so support me. For 99.99% of what I’ve written, I say what I need to say and let it go (at least for the moment), and go back to being funny and focusing on other things (like career goals, housework, parenting, and being a wife). I am hardly angry all the time! I would not consider myself an “angry person” in everyday life. I do have problems and there’s plenty that makes me angry, but like I said, I don’t usually let it cloud my entire day or color my every interaction with people, though there are those who like to view me through that lens and assume that everything I say or do is because I am just an angry person. I am a very passionate person, however, and I think sometimes what I write can be construed as anger when it’s not really. I just feel strongly about things many people don’t really care about.

But there comes a point when I say, “Enough drama.”  The thing is, if  I can have a reasonable conversation with a person, anyone, and they tell me I did something wrong, I can and do own it and apologize. In real conversations, there is give and take with me. Usually, I err on the side of deferential because relationships are normally more important to me than the conflict at hand. So how abrasive I may occasionally sound on here is just my way of dealing with it: sometimes, I will even change my mind about something later, but I don’t change it in my post later because I like to see how much I’ve grown. But if I tell someone they’ve hurt me, and their reaction is to brush over it and tell me I am being overly sensitive or what have you, eventually, I have to say enough. I wasn’t going to blog about this, because it is very painful for me. But I do feel like writing, and I am not in a good mood to write my Revelation post, so here it is. I cannot do anymore with my parents. So today was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I told my mother that I no longer wished to receive communications from her. The issue itself wasn’t one I would have cut off contact for on its own. Though I don’t feel like discussing the details because I am too drained to rehash it, it was a small thing that had much, much bigger implications for me: I saw the very beginnings of treating Julieanne the way I have been treated, and I said “No more.”

It was one of those things that happens, and you know it is the right thing for yourself and your children, but you feel horrible about anyways. But I feel like now, maybe I can heal instead of letting old wounds getting ripped open constantly. I really don’t want or need this kind of toxicity in my life: I have plenty on my plate as is. And I think for me, in order to become healthy and whole, this is how it’s going to have to be, at least for now. This kind of thing isn’t always forever, but I am prepared for it to be if necessary to keep myself from getting sucked into others’ dysfunction. I know there are plenty of you who do not talk to your families, and here is how it feels day 1 after the final battle: awful. I am wondering if I am exaggerating, crazy, or wrong on everything. Did I do the right thing? Was there anything else that could have been done to repair the relationship? In the end, I know I did what was right for my family and me, but it still feels like I’ve been ripped to shreds. I know they don’t think so, but I do desperately want my parents’ approval, and I do want a close relationship, but I have come to terms with the fact that it simply isn’t going to happen no matter what I do. I sought advice from two people I trusted, and they told me the same thing: what I want isn’t what I’m going to get (though I only talked to one of them before sending that email).

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I know I am not perfect. I know I am not 100% right on everything, and everyone I discuss on here has a side, too, and sometimes they are right and I am wrong. But if nobody will rationally discuss it with you, what are you to do? If a relationship causes nothing but pain, it’s time to let it go. Nobody has a right to be part of your life except children who are not fully grown. So no, I am sure I have some things wrong, but I am not 100% wrong anymore than I am 100% right. And until I am not the only one who can face that fact, this is the way it’s going to have to be.

Not everything has  happy ending, but my life still can. So now, it’s time to grieve and move on so I can start stepping into the sunshine again.

Everyone else can ignore this post, but I am posting this on the site instead of sending out a mass email in case anyone signs up in the future and has this problem.

I am having problems with the unsubscribe button on the right side. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications, just reply to any email with “unsubscribe”, and that should fix it. I am looking for a fix for the button, but haven’t found one yet. It is certainly not my intention to send anyone spam! Frankly, I do not like receiving emails for sites and such, so it does not hurt my feelings if people unsbscribe. If you are having problems, feel free to email me at redheadedskeptic@gmail.com. I certainly won’t take it personally!

Also, in fixing the problem for someone, I saw that there are a few people who are signed up multiple times. If you are receiving multiple emails, let me know, and I am pretty sure I can fix that for you.

Whew, it was a busy weekend! Nate is out of the hospital, yay! He came over last night, which was quite fun. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to really hang out with him since we became adults because we’ve lived so far apart. Now that we live in the next major town over, I am quite happy that we can see each other more.

I had a really good weekend! I went to Atlanta to visit some relatives, and it was a great visit. I’ve never traveled more than 5 or 6 hours by myself, and I’ve never visited family by myself. I realized this weekend that everyone kind of lumps everyone into the same family group, not really recognizing each family member’s individuality unless you visit them independently. Like, one of my cousins told me “I thought you were just like your mom!” Well, in some ways, but in other ways, not so much. And I do the exact same thing. It was pretty enlightening. Now, I am trying to catch up on laundry, groceries, blogging, some other personal errands, and emails (which I am very behind on, so my apologies for taking several days to respond!). That will be today and tomorrow. Hopefully, I will have my Revelation post up tonight!

Most of this stuff can be applied to anybody, but I have found the non-Christian community to be more supportive than non-supportive. That probably says more about my audience than the general population: most people don’t really know what to say when something bad happens, I think. And it is hard; I struggle with it myself. You know there is nothing you can say or do that will make it better (even though there is a myriad of things we can say or do that makes things worse–not really fair, is it? ), and if feels awkward to recite platitudes, especially online when there really isn’t anything physical you can do at all. But I am aiming this at a Christian audience, just because I am pretty vocal about how incredibly non-supportive and judgmental the kind of Christians I grew up with can be, and I usually get some kind of “Well, what am I supposed to do?!”  in response.

First, how people shouldn’t react. These things tend to make the situation worse and give atheists lots of blog fodder for how some Christians can be terrible people:

1. Starting a theological debate or arguing over the content of how a person feels or even what they say during a very emotional time.
2. Saying, “I’ll pray for you” if the person is an atheist. Most atheists aren’t bothered by this per se, but “I’ll be thinking of you” tends to mean more, just because if you know a person is an atheist, it feels a little bit like the Christian is rubbing the atheist’s nose in it.
3. Relating said misfortune in any way to the spiritual status of the person.
4. Trying to use something terrible to teach someone a lesson. (From the sounds of my writings on my blog, I am doing the same thing, but it’s important to note I am not saying these things to my parents, nor will I, because I have the social skills to know that now is not the time. If they read it, that’s their choice, but I have told them to not read here and I have not given them the blog address, and they have not told me that they do. You can think what you want, but there is a time and place for everything, and the middle of a crisis is NOT the time to try to get someone to see your point of view.)
5. Don’t go to someone’s hospital room and distribute Christian literature, like someone who gave my brother a copy of a book on biblical manhood did. It is incredibly disrespectful to try to use someone’s misfortunes as a springboard to get them to agree with your personal beliefs. How would you feel if I marched into your intensive care unit room and gave you a copy of The God Delusion and asked you if I could hope out loud that you would turn away from God? What kind of person would that make me? So how does it make you a good person to do the same? When someone is sick, you give them a gift they would want. If you can’t find a book you can give them in good conscience, try flowers.
6. Don’t turn it into how you feel and how you have so much to deal with, and isn’t your life just hard and aren’t you just a little martyr going through so many trials for Jesus. How utterly selfish. Again, from the sounds of things on my blog, I am doing the same thing, but again, it is important to note my intended audience is not the people who need support. I don’t have a problem with people turning to their church families for support, but when you carry that attitude (even if you don’t carry the words) back with you, that’s wrong. It lacks compassion, and it’s not supportive to sigh and talk about how you don’t want to be there or making sure you let others know what a sacrifice you’re making to help out. Making it about you is one of the worst things you can do.

Finally, here are a list of things that are good responses:

1. I’ll be there for you.
2. I’m thinking of you.
3. Give hugs.
4. Bring food.
5. Keep me updated.
6. I care.
7. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
8. Let me take you out for coffee, and you can tell me all about it.
9. How can I help?
10. I just want you to know I’m here for you.
11. Compassion, Respect, and Acceptance

My mother-in-law has her faults like anyone, but I love her to pieces and we get along great. She is almost as conservative as my parents, and it doesn’t matter. Religion, even conservative religion, doesn’t have to divide. I’m an atheist, she’s a Christian. I am sure she probably prays for us, and I don’t care because she doesn’t make a big show of it, or act condescending with it (you know, the whole, “Well, you can have your wittle feelings hurt, and you can run away from God, but I will always pray for you!” attitude). She has a great capacity to love other people. Agreeing with her is not a pre-requisite for love: she knows that we are adults and she respects our ability to think things through for ourselves, and she accepts us as we are, with our faults and different beliefs and all. She does this because she has compassion. She hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be young and struggle. She remembers what it’s like to go through what she’s been through, and she meets people where they are emotionally instead of tearing them down because they aren’t as spiritual as she thinks they should be. If I am such an angry, bitter person toward religion, then I wouldn’t be able to have a good relationship with her. But like I said, our relationship is that of mutual respect. She listens what we have to say without freaking out that we are going to go to hell, and she really cares to know what we think. I couldn’t ask for a better mother in law, I don’t care how religious she is. At the end of the day, we want to be loved, and it doesn’t matter what someone is politically, religiously, sexually,  or anything. Love is like light and we are like moths: we go toward the love, as hippy as that sounds.

It’s pretty much the same as you would for anyone else, and not that hard to figure out if you really try. Be sure to scrub any self-righteousness from your tone, because people will pick up on it. If you need a concrete example, look at Grace’s comments: We don’t always agree, but when it comes to crises and matters of the heart, she completely ignores anything I said that may have offended her, and gets to the heart of the matter. She picked up on how I was feeling, and didn’t try to “save” me. Steve re-tweeted some stuff I posted about my brother, and one of his Christian followers we know in person acted with nothing but care and concern. It was very thoughtful and appreciated as much as my secular affirmations of support.

Honestly, this stuff is kind of a no-brainer. I don’t think people are malicious, but they sure are thoughtless. It’s super simple: Just treat people the way you would want to be treated. And no, that doesn’t mean that you want to have prayers and verses recited at you so you do the same for others. Turn it into what it is at its core: you want to be treated with love and respect where you are, not where everyone else is. So do the same for others. It’s just part of being a decent human being.

I saw my brother tonight. He and Steve taught me how to play poker. Score another corrupted point.

My brother freaking rocks, and I know he’s going to make it through all this because he has a lot going for him. I don’t visit him because I feel obligated to; I genuinely enjoy seeing him and wish visiting hours were longer. Of course, I would rather have him visit me in my apartment than for me to see him at the hospital, but you know what I mean: I genuinely like him and get along with him, and would even if he weren’t my brother. We were there tonight when the doctor came in and told him everything was healing, so that is really good news. He is expected to make a complete recovery!

I am leaving for the next few days, and I don’t know what my internet access will be like. I’ll probably have some, but not as much as I’m used to. So I may or may not have my Sunday Sermon up until Tuesday or Wednesday, and it will probably be Wednesday or Thursday before I’m entirely caught up on emails, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me (and my “real life” friends who read here, feel free to call–I won’t be busy, just not here.).

Anyways, I truly appreciate the support. The emails, tweets, and comments, both from my Christian and non-Christian readers. Everyone has been very kind. It’s why I put “real life” in quotes: it’s hard to say you guys aren’t real life friends, because you have shown more friendship and support than many real life friends do. (Not to me personally–I just moved, so I don’t have very many “real life” friends. That is a statement about the population in general.) This is why blogging can be so wonderful: you get friends and support you couldn’t get outside of cyber world.

Okay, enough of the mushy stuff. You guys are awesome, and I am being serious when I say every comment/tweet/email  I received was meaningful to me. Things have been a little chaotic, and I think I’m caught up on emails, but if I left you hanging in mid-conversation, it was simply an oversight and feel free to re-send. I’m out of my normal routine, and it is quite probable that I forgot something. Hope you all have a great weekend! I’ve got at least one post that will go up in the morning before I head out, so until then!

So now that you know what all my family drama is, here are some ideas I came up with on how to deal with it:

1. There is a time and place for everything, but if something gets said, roll with it. It probably needed to be said anyways, and it’s better to just deal with it then than to tiptoe around everyone feeling resentful.

2. Let it go: On my “Fuck You” post, commenter Lori said,

These are not people, parents or not, that deserve any inroads into MY life. They’re like a poison that slowly erodes all life and causes everything around them to become corroded. And THEY are supposed to be the salt of the earth?? Well…we all know that over salting things makes them taste nasty. That applies to the earth as well as casseroles, I’d say.

(Brilliant!) I think there comes a time where you have to cut your losses and let it go; toss that casserole in the garbage. Someone I trust who has known my family since I was a baby told me that I was unfortunately correct: I will never get to be close to my family now that I’ve jumped off the merry go round. And I have to learn how to let that part go.

Joel noted, “More lessons from the LGBT community: focus on the relationships that sustain and appreciate you, and let the haters hate. Even if the haters are your own family.” The hard part for me has always been “how do you let it go?” I am a pretty external person: it’s why I blog so much. I deal with things externally: ideally through talking it out with the person, but if that doesn’t work, then through talking about it with people who care about me and/or writing about it and receiving feedback.

I think my difficulty in letting certain things go is one of my biggest faults (I don’t usually have this trouble on my blog; just in real life relationships); this is what I’ve struggled with the most. I finally found something that helped, though. After I wrote my Fuck You post, I realized these people would be riding their twisted merry go round no matter how many times they vomited until the day they die. I won’t. I got off the ride, and I am quite happy. I didn’t waste my life destroying the relationships around me and making myself miserable. Again, I’m not perfect, and I have to deal with the consequences of my imperfections in those relationships, but my life pattern won’t be that of self-centered destruction. I am not going to be miserable. I’m not miserable now. Hear that? I have problems, and I am very open about them, but no matter how bad things have gotten, I have been a much happier atheist than I ever was as a Christian. And not “happy the feeling”, but “happy, the life attitude that comes when one can accept themselves and their circumstances”–Christians would probably call it “joy” vs happiness. I am going to get to be proud of my own daughter and support her no matter who she is or what she believes. I can say quite confidently that I will love and accept her, even if she becomes a fundamentalist nutjob, even though that is not my first choice for her. So every time someone says something to me, I will just smile because I know something they don’t: that I am happy and almost healthy, and I’m not stuck in a system based on performance and fear: my system is that of respect and determination.

In the end, I truly feel sorry for them for not having the skills or determination or whatever it was they needed to get out of something that so obviously makes them miserable, and that compassion is a good antidote to anger. So I am no longer angry. I am sure I will be here and there over the years, but their words will no longer have quite so much power over me. I know, and everyone outside them knows, that I did the right thing. I know, and everyone outside me knows, that while perhaps even hopelessly flawed , I am overall a pretty great person. I know that I will never get their approval, but I also know that I no longer need it. I never did. I only thought I did. So in the end, who is going to be the happiest? Not them. Me. I have to deal with it yes, but I am. At the end of the day, it’s me going to sleep happy and free, and it’s hard to be any more angry with them than it is to be angry at a cranky 5-year old when you think about it like that.

Well, it has been a crazy morning. Good news, though. Nate is out of the ICU. I’m really happy about that and can’t wait to see him! And I’ve figured some things out, but of course, now I don’t want to share them. Ironically, it’s not the bad stuff I have a hard time sharing, but the good, because it makes me feel vulnerable. Those who judge my trials will judge my triumphs, and I don’t care about the trials, but I do the triumphs. Which is backwards and weird, but whatever. But let me just say that something really nice happened to me, and if you want to know, email me and I’ll tell you!

PS Just so we’re clear, I have Nate’s permission to post all of this. I didn’t post anything before I talked to him. He told me I could say whatever I wanted, but I chose not to because it’s his story, not mine. So I am posting the bare bones about him, and going into more detail about my family reaction, because that’s part of both our stories.

(I decided to split this up into two posts, because I don’t want to mix the happy with the angry.)

I am having a horrible time letting this go. I usually let stuff on my blog slide right off my back, but what has happened here over the last couple of days lacks compassion and common decency, and when everything else is so crazy, it affects me 100x greater than normal.

So I will say this just because I need to get it off my chest (and my apologies to readers who might be getting tired of the drama), and this goes to everyone who is reading, not just one person–I am not singling out anyone or else I would do this over email: my blog is public, but so are churches. I don’t go to a church and hide behind the altar during prayer request time, then later use that against the people who made themselves vulnerable to a group they trusted (and if you didn’t tell my parents, then I am not referring to you!). How would you feel if I marched into your church wearing an atheist sweatshirt, and handed out a copy of “The God Delusion” every time someone said something I didn’t agree with? How would you feel if every time someone shared a hurt, I told them that if they just let Christianity go, that they would feel better? That would make me a pretty terrible person, wouldn’t it? So why do it to my brother and me? Why come to my place or my brother’s hospital bed and take the attitude of wanting to teach us a lesson? It doesn’t matter that it’s public: it’s still rude. For another situation: I don’t go to a family reunion and hide behind the door and eavesdrop, and then tell everyone what mean thing you said about them. And lord, could I just from walking around not even trying to listen. But that house or restaurant or wherever we are is public so far as anyone can stand outside the door and listen, just like you stand outside my blog door without announcing your presence.

My traffic comes primarily from the atheist community. I don’t have a problem with lurkers. To me, though, there is somehow a difference between people I don’t know lurking, and people I do know lurking, particularly if they are going to use that to be mad at me or hurt what little is left of my relationship with my parents later. Again, that probably doesn’t make any sense. I don’t normally care. I really don’t. The comments from Christian people I know in real life on this blog haven’t bothered me, even though they are completely devoid of compassion or understanding. (I’m highlighting it to make sure that part gets read.) Sure, I’ll call someone out on their rudeness or say something: if you can dish it, you can take it. It’s the ones I know about who are here and don’t have the courage to say anything to my face or talk to me about something I’ve written before blabbing it to others that bother me so much. And normally, it doesn’t this much. Normally, I say, this is my blog, and it’s me, like it or not. Don’t read here if you don’t like it, and if you do and choose to get angry over the contents, that’s your problem to deal with, not mine. But this has bothered me like nothing before. My theory is that I can’t do much for my brother outside of visiting, but I can deal with my blog, so I channel all the “do” energy to here. I’d rather be somewhere else. I’d rather be the doctor fixing him, but I can’t. I’d rather be there for him supporting him instead of telling everyone on my blog how I feel, but I can only do that during very limited visiting hours. So all of my energy is channeled here. Again, I’d rather be there for my brother, but there is only so much I can do, and I do see this as helping in a roundabout way: through defending myself on my blog, I am also defending him, because the same people who think I’m a bitch of a daughter think he’s a terrible son.

Let me make one thing clear: I left a marriage that turned sexually abusive after 3 years. Where would have I been in 30? Plus, I had all of yours as an example, and I decided I didn’t want to be like you. If you don’t like it or think that makes me less of a good Christian than you, so be it. I could care less. I know I made the right decision, and you will never take that from me. When I made that decision, others filtered it through how happy fundamentalist version of god would be with me, and nobody really cared about how I felt or what I would do or that I had no one and nothing, and the one thing I did have (Steve), they tried to take away. I tried to get my parents to help me, but they refused. They would have allowed me to live at home, but they wouldn’t help me with Julieanne, and I had to choose between living with them 3 hours away from my daughter and staying with my (at the time friend) Steve in Fayetteville. What else was I supposed to do? I had no job and $5 to my name. They cared more about how it affected them and made them feel than what it was doing to me. Know how many times I wanted to kill myself? A bunch. But all I heard from my parents was how hard it was for them to accept. All I heard from the Christian community was that they couldn’t support me unless they knew exactly why I left my husband. The right response isn’t “Poor Tom and Holly who got a few lemons for children.” Just because you know them doesn’t mean you know what it’s like to live with them. Happy, shiny people on the outside do not a happy, healthy family make. Sure, my dad went to church and prayed and was super spiritual. But when we came home, he left welts on our legs when he wasn’t completely ignoring us. Take their side all you want, but you can’t really tell me that you think it’s right that a man say not one word to his daughter about her divorce. What kind of man isn’t furious when he finds out that his son-in-law took a third person into the bedroom and told him to have his way with his daughter? Though, no, I didn’t tell him all that because he never gave me the opportunity, and never really gave a rat’s ass about me one way or the other. He cared more about his own comfort than to reach out to his children, and that is unacceptable adult behavior. My father is a coward, and everything spiritual he puts on is a show. If you can’t see that, you’re just as blind. If you don’t think that’s wrong or abusive, chances are that it’s because you are an abusive person yourself. Here’s the thing: not everything on my blog may be right, but it sure as hell isn’t all wrong, either. What I say and what I think does have validity. I am not a mean, malicious person who seeks to hurt other people, and I am not a child who is pouting that her parents won’t let her have a later curfew. I have tried so hard to fix things with my parents, and it’s their choice to define a good parent/child relationship as one where even adult children take care of their every emotional need and/or give them complete obedience, while ignoring everyone else’s needs. It’s their choice to feel sorry for themselves when something bad happens to one of their kids. It’s their choice to make every crisis about them. It’s their choice to isolate themselves in their religion and make their acceptance and respect of us contingent on how spiritual we are. I am not perfect, but I am kind and funny and smart and strong and the kind of person anyone should want for a daughter.  If they choose to whine about how I don’t believe what they do or play loyal subject, that is their choice and their loss. If they want to make themselves miserable, that’s their choice, but I don’t have to buy into it. Yes, I’m angry, but for me, this is the last stage before letting go. The next stage is “don’t care”, and I am already there in many ways. I know my parents may think they love me, but they refuse to see me as anyone but a rebellious child, and it’s not my fault that they refuse to have more than a surface relationship with me until I learn to behave more like they do. Sorry, but that’s not love. Sorry, but parenthood isn’t about making little clones, it’s about raising happy, healthy people, and it’s not my fault that they see happiness and healthiness as secondary to believing what they believe. This is my blog and my space, and I am going to continue posting and using my online friends for support just like you will continue to pray and use your church friends as support. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Disown me for all I care. It’s not like that would be much different than what it has been for the last few years anyways!

Chew on that before you judge me. And after all the judgment and rudeness and emotional abandonment I have received over the last several years from my parents and their little circle of friends, if you chew on it and decide that I am still a horrible daughter, then all I can say is fuck you.

I found out how my blog was outed, and I could not be more pissed. It had to do with a friend of a friend sort of thing. That’s fine. But what happened next, and the reason I know about it, is pretty damn lousy: they freaking told my parents what I wrote. I found out because my mom told my brother, and my brother told me. (And in case there was a miscommunication in there, I am leaving names out, but it’s no one anyone on here would know anyways. Well, except the people that I know in person who are now infiltrating my blog!)

First, I have to say in no uncertain terms that these posts are not meant for my family to read. This is absolutely not the time or place to start accusing anyone of anything. I understand that, which is why I am venting here in a place where I can get support for me. I’m not stupid: I know my parents go to their siblings and church when they need support for dealing with me (in fact, they did so through telling their church and god only knows who else that my brother was in the ICU before they told me, thanksalot), so to expect me to not reach out to my support network is unrealistic and hypocritical. So how do you not understand that there is a time or place for everything?  Telling them about it was a shitty thing to do at this point. Seriously, you couldn’t have waited a month? Hell, a week? You had to hop on the phone and tell them right then, when things are so volatile? What were you trying to accomplish? Because “helping” is something you certainly didn’t do, and I can’t imagine that you thought it would. Now, everyone is hurt and angry, so good job on the divisiveness thing you have going on.

Secondly, how we feel is how we feel, and it doesn’t always make logical sense. Once things calm down, we can look at things more rationally, and if there are still grievances, that is when it is a good time to bring them up. My blog is public, but I have told my parents that they probably don’t want to read my blog: that it would hurt their feelings, and it would be better for them not to. In that same conversation, I also declined to give them the address.  So I figured if they dug deeper, found the address, and read it anyways, that was their responsibility, but as far as I knew, they chose not to. To tell them about it is to take that choice from them. This blog is my perspective. I know I am not perfect, and that I probably have a few things wrong. But I can admit that, which is something my parents cannot do, so this becomes my safe place. Up until a major conversation I had with them last summer where I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere talking to them, I said nothing here that I hadn’t said to them. This becomes my place to vent. I do so semi-publicly (as in, I don’t send emails with a link to this blog to all of their friends or co-workers, or anyone else who have any sort of power to hurt them with the content) in order to help others through their own similar situations, and because I receive good support here, which is something that I don’t receive in my family. Sorry, but that’s just how it is. My parents are on the surface, nice people, but they aren’t perfect, and I stand by everything I have said. If there is more to them than what they show, it’s not my fault that they choose to bottle it up inside and take it out on us instead. That they were abused or hurt in no way excuses them for abusing and hurting their own family.

To the person who outed me, my brother told me who, so to you (you know who you are), I have this to say:

I don’t care if you comment on my blog. I don’t care if you tell my parents about my blog. I don’t care if you post nasty things to me or send me hateful emails. But what you did to tell my mom about it at this time of crisis is sick. My brother is in the hospital, and on what planet it’s supposed to be fine to announce to them what I said when I was feeling very emotional? That is a horrible, malicious thing to do. If I had wanted them to know what I said, I would have told them. Yes, I bear some responsibility for posting it where anyone could read, but to spread it around was very immature, and has further cracked what was already crumbling. And because it’s my family, and we are non-communicative type dysfunctional, they won’t say anything: This hurts everyone, because instead of dealing with the issues, they get bottled up, further hurting what was already in trouble.

So everyone, there is your good, fundamentalist Christian witness. Thanks a lot. Way to be supportive and to know when to open your mouth and when to shut up. Good job pouring fuel on the fire, and tearing my family down. I hope it made you feel good about yourself to be such a bitch.