(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.