Up till this week, it had been years since I had any sort of suicidal thoughts but this weeks brought about those thoughts.  Thankfully, I didn’t have them long or act on them but they were still there and they still happened.   That’s a really fucked up week.

We have a real ass at work.  I already have to deal with chauvinistic pig (a “man” who sees women as objects to please him sexually) and a misogynistic pig ( “man” that sees women as less than and worthless than men and as property and not people) at work, now I’ve got another pig who is a misogynistic pig that is also a bully and a tattle tale.  I have to give this “man” a break in the morning but he refuses to leave (which is against state law, I think, and our post orders), talks down to me, treats me like I’m an idiot, and tells me how to do my job when I’ve worked there longer and know more than he does.  But I’m not the only one he does this to.  He’s also been a bully to other coworkers (male) and harasses our supervisors (though the one doesn’t care) but until he does something really egriguous he won’t be fired.  He’s taken the tactic of wearing us down so that it gets to the point that we are so tired of dealing with him that we won’t say anything so that he gets away with all this since all we want to do is do what we have to and then leave.

Thursday I got so fed up with his attitude that I told him that he needed to leave for his break (like I said this is the rule) and that if he didn’t leave then I was going to leave and he wasn’t going to get a break.  He whined at me that it was cold out.  Well, duh but if I have to work out in it and in much worse weather, he can walk out in it for a few minutes.  He has his jacket on but no, he whined.  I told him he needed to leave.  He told me I could call the supervisor and tell him that he wouldn’t leave.  I told him again that he needed to leave otherwise he wouldn’t get a break and I would leave.   He told me he wasn’t leaving and I told him fine, then he wasn’t getting a break and then left.  He then calls the supervisor to whine about me.  The supervisor then talks to me that I needed to give this asshole a break, in the future, and that if he didn’t want to leave that was okay.  He also said that if he didn’t want a break that was okay but I still needed to write it down in my log that he took one  (which is illegal since our logs are legal documents and that would be perjury and fraud and against the law because he legally has to take a break).  I felt that this asshole was being given all the consideration and I was the one being punished.  I hate how bad coworkers are rewarded and good coworkers are ignored or punished for their bad coworkers bad behavior.  I know all this will turn into something really bad but I’ll be the one hurt and the asshole will get off scot free.

Then there was this thread at CAF and all I wanted to do was give voice to the narcissistic, self-righteous, wrathful asshole that has become a voice in my head.  I wanted to log in under a fake handle and tell her that yes, her daughter is immodest, should be learning how to be a wife and mother not involved in worldly concerns and that these people were right in breaking off the friendship because not only was the daughter bad but the mother is horrible as well. That nasty voice wanted to tell her that her daughter needed to be in dresses all the time as well as her while wearing veils, that Facebook was of the devil, that they both needed to understand that being a wife and mother was the only thing a girl was good for, that they needed to stick permanently to the EF parish because OF parishes are hotbeds of immorality and heresy, and that her and her husband needed to find their daughter a husband fast and have her married as soon as she turned 18.  They also needed to spank her (so what if she is 16) and restrict all her outside access to just Mass and Adoration.  She should not be allowed friends at all.  Her family was all the friends she needed.  She was already in the devil’s clutches and that meant she was leading men and her friends into sin.  They needed to get back on the real Catholic track and things would be right.  Homeschooling wasn’t enough.  They needed to be completely cuff off from all evil influences.

I hate that voice but that voice is now there from the traditionalists, the whole quiverfull/patriarchy garbage that I have read and come in contact with.  What’s worse is that the quiverfull/patriarchy garbage has seeped into Catholic circles especially homeschool and traditionalist circles.  You can see some of it in these friends of the thread’s OP and in other threads on CAF.  I don’t know why this garbage is so exciting and enticing but it is.

This garbage promises control and power and the right path to God and holiness and being better and truly Catholic than Catholics.  You see it every time a new Michael Voris video comes out.  The traditionalists support his rhetoric and name calling and condemning of fellow Catholics and definitely priests and those that see Voris what his video and rhetoric really are are shot down, called heretics and liars and Protestants, and  doing all the same stuff that make Voris problematic to say the least.  Traditionalists don’t crave truth, they crave being right and public adulation for being right and true “Catholics” all the while demeaning and even hurting other Catholics for not agreeing with them.  This thread talks about this pretty well.  Traditionalists are extremely focused on the external thinking this is all that matters when it comes to determining the real Catholic from the Protestant.  They don’t care that the Church Herself allows a lot of variety in prayer and worship.  To traditionalists, external reality determines not only internal reality (which it rarely, if ever, does) it also determines the need for everyone to conform and  who is really a REAL CATHOLIC and who is not.  Actually, traditionalists want conforming and uniformity not unity.  They don’t understand that unity and uniformity don’t mean the same thing.  They don’t want them to be separate things.

For unity and uniformity to be separate things, then they would have to accept that there is more than the EF, more than prayers in Latin, more than living in 1960 with every family like that in Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best.  They are so stuck on externals that they don’t see the trees for the forest.  Uniformity means that everything is going the way they want it and doing what they want.  They want clones and automatons not real individuals.  Individuals are to be despised and forced into conformity not appreciated and grateful for being made individuals by God.  Traditionalists are trying to dictate to the Church and to God on how they want to run the Church, which is funny since this is what they accuse other Catholics of doing.

Reading how the rod verse means understanding and developing the child’s abilities and talents from this post by Elizabeth Esther had me in tears.  When all you were taught was fear and terror and pain, having your abilities and talents recognized is hard to handle or consider because that would mean that you were seen as a person worthy of love and respect not an object to be reviled and punished.  I have a hard time understanding or even accepting or even considering that I have talents and abilities.  I wasn’t encouraged to have dreams and the dreams I had very squashed and reviled.  Even right now I have no dreams for the future because the one dream I had and nurtured was dashed repeatedly.  What’s the point in having dreams when all they are going to be is destroyed.  I don’t have dreams.  All I care about now is surviving and getting through the work week.  I have no future.  No possibility of advancement or achievement, no possibility of doing anything useful with my life.

I was raised to fear everything which colors my life so much today.  I look at the things I’ve done like graduate with two different bachelor’s degrees or travel abroad and wonder how I even achieved those kinds of things because all I ever heard was that I was a failure and that I wouldn’t amount to anything.  I did everything to please my parents especially my mother but it was never enough.  I was never smart enough, pretty enough, athletic enough, good enough, helpful enough, etc.  I didn’t act exactly as she wanted.  I wasn’t a boy.  I wasn’t perfect though I certainly acted that way thinking it would help.  I was always afraid.  Always afraid to set her off.  Always afraid of doing something wrong and I would be punished and screamed at.  The spanking wasn’t nearly as bad as the screaming.  My mother loved to scream at me.  She loved to shame me and make me feel guilty for every little thing. I still feel that shame today.  I still heap that shame on myself.

I mess up and I blame myself, telling myself I am a failure, that I should have done better, that I knew better and shouldn’t have done it, that I shouldn’t eat that or I needed to lose weight because I am so fucking fat, that I am going to Hell for not being good enough, that God hates me and can’t love me because I’m such a screw up and that if I wasn’t such a horribly evil person things would be so much better, that all the bad stuff that happens like traffic are punishment for my screws up like getting up late and getting to work on time rather than twenty minutes early.  Any more I feel like I need to be punished.  That if I was punished then everything would be better.  That my mother would finally love me.  That I would have friends.  That God would finally love me.  That I would be acceptable as a person.

But I am not punished and I think that I so far gone that I can’t be saved, can’t be helped.  I feel that I need to be punished for God to really love me since that’s how my mother worked.  She spanked me and screamed at me therefore she loved me, right?  I ruined her life when I was sick as the age of six but she didn’t get rid of me like she always threatened.  She kept saying I was going to hell for being a bad girl but I’m already in hell so I’ll never be a good girl even though I was very much the good girl for a very long time.  I thought being the good girl would keep me safe from punishment but it didn’t.  I expect to be punished for every little screw up and sin so even as an adult I have to see bad things as punishments for my very bad decisions (I’m not capable of making good decisions) by God.  I only learned about a God who punishes, not a God loves, well a God who loves everyone else but me.  I’m not lovable.  I’m only good for being punished.  I need to be punished.  Why doesn’t God really punish me like I deserve?  Give me a terrible, incurable disease.  Cause me to be a horrible accident where I lose all physical function.  Kill me.  Punish me. That’s all I deserve.  Love is only for good people.  I am not a good person.  Never have been.  I deserve to die not to live.  Isn’t that what everybody wants?

I hate that I am in this place.  These last few weeks have been hell and this past week pure hell, so bad that I have considered suicide.  Depression is no fun.  I don’t think it will ever get better.  This hell is where I will always live.  That’s what it feels like.

I am going to be a Bad Catholic in that I am going to be honest and do the best I can.  I will trust the Church.  I will listen to Her and Her Groom, Jesus.

I am going to follow what the Church teaches.  I am going to be me which is what God wants.  He created me to be me not some automaton that goes through the motions.  He wants me to be me and live the faith the best I can with His grace.  I will pick the spirituality that best fits me rather than have one imposed on me.  I will attend the OF and not worry about attending the EF.  I will be grateful that I can have preferences in how I worship and pray and that the Church is far wiser in these matters than I am.  When I go to Confession, I will confess my sins and not worry about doing it perfectly precise but honestly and with contrition however imperfect it may be.  I will take my medication to help with my depression because I need it to help combat the bad thoughts and the pain.

This video has been helpful.

All I want to do is hide.  To run away.

The bad thoughts are back.

The ones that tell me that I am not a good Catholic because I haven’t been to Mass, that I don’t pray in Latin and attend the EF while zealously promoting it.

That being a woman means I can’t be educated, that I have to hide and not feel my emotions, that I need to wrap myself up in a burqa, that I am stupid and ugly.

That by not being married and having kids I am going to Hell since I am not a real Catholic women.

That women need to be in abusive relationships as punishment for being born women.

That spanking, actually beating kids is a good idea and that women should be to.

That women should be locked up in the home never to leave.

That women are property.

That I can’t have any likes or dislikes because that means having a self and I have to die to self to be a good Catholic.

That I am unlovable.

That my parents were right about me not amounting to anything.

That having dreams was stupid and I should have just settled, actually should just settle for the lousy job I have now and not look for anything else.

That I deserve to be punished.

That crying is pointless and that I need to suppress my emotions and feelings and show happiness all the time.

That I need to jump on the traditionalist bandwagon.

That I need to wear skirts and veil all the time.

That I need to suppress any individuality.

That I deserve to be treated badly, to be abused as punishment for my depression, for being a woman.

That I am going to Hell for not going to Mass even when I need to sleep and for when I couldn’t go because I couldn’t handle it.

That I will be rejected by God for not hanging on even when I can’t handle it.

That I am already lost because I have depression.

That I need to pray the Rosary all the time even though I feel no connection to it.

That everyone is silently laughing behind my back at all the stupid stuff I do.

That I am going to be fired from my job for no apparent reason.

That I am going to lose all my money because the company I work for decides it wants it all back.

That I am useless, worthless, unlovable, ugly, in need of punishment, stupid, not wanted, and damaged.

That trust is never going to happen.

That I will never be loved.

That I will have to get married even though I don’t want to and that I will have to become a stay at home mother and have a dozen kids.

That everyone will think that I am making this all up.

That people will abandon me for having depression.

That people will abandon me for not being what they want.

That I will never have a dream come true.

That I am evil.

That I can never be loved by God.

That everything I do right now is pointless and useless.

I hate this and I hate myself.  I want my medication back and that truly scares me because it means I am more broken than I can fix and I don’t want to be that broken that I can never be fixed.  I didn’t want to go on medication but I did and now I need it just to survive.  I feel like such a loser.

Here I am in tears again and the only place I can talk about all this is here because I don’t have anybody in real life to talk about all this with.  I hate being me.

This is also day two after finishing my first prescription of my medication.  I won’t be able to to get another till I see my doctor next month which means I have to get through a major holiday (Thanksgiving) without something.  This is a bad time of year for me.  From now until about Easter is a major bad time for me.  Holidays are not good things, not the way they were dealt with in my family.  Too much backstabbing gossiping, the put downs, the verbal abuse, the silent treatment, the need to be better and more successful, the comparing to my sisters, etc.  There was no love in the holidays only abuse and negativity.

Today was a bad day.  Not so bad that I want to run away but bad enough that I wanted to stay in bed and not do anything.  I don’t even want to go to work tomorrow but I will because I need the money.  I hate depression.

First, the medication I am on now does actually seem to be working.  However, switching from being a graveyard shift to a dayshift is causing havoc on my body.  It’ll be several months before everything settles down. With the new schedule, I have managed to get away from one of the biggest work problems and that’s a good thing for me.  My body and mind still haven’t realized it yet but they will and things will be much better.  Another good thing about being on dayshift is that I am doing a lot more so my energy level goes up.  It also means I’m more tired at the end of the day but I also feel like I accomplished things and actually did something.

Second, I am and am not sure I can handle going back to Mass.  I was able to finally attend an All Saints day vigil Mass Monday night.  Yet, I am having problems with the thoughts in my head.  Reading the stupid crap traditionalists have written on CAF and whatnot have really screwed me up.  I still have thoughts about how to bash on women (they worthless, useless, always causing men to sin, should be stay at home mothers and wives, women are property, never to be educated, etc) which is really bad since I’m a woman.  I hate that I’ve learned to hate myself because of my sex.  My own family didn’t acknowledge the fact that I was a woman.  I had to figure that out on my own.  I was made to hate and ignore my own body because I was a woman and because I wasn’t what my parents wanted.  Now in my attempts to get away from that I’m running right back into it from so called traditionalists and faithful Catholics.  I won’t even get into the whole Quiverfull/Patriarchy/Vision Forum fringe garbage.  It’s like any advancements women have made are forgotten or ignored or labeled satanic and that if women just went back to being their husbands’ slaves then everything would be perfect.  No it wouldn’t.  Denying who you are and what you like and squashing all that down and stuffing it into a box is bad but that’s what many want.  They think of women as children and property not as people.  And many of the people with this attitude are WOMEN.  Why do women fear other women so much that they have to strike out and hurt them?

Third, I’m still stuck on the idea that other people get to do things that I am not allowed to do.  Like, they get to be happy and I have to be miserable.  They get to have dreams and lives they want and all I get is a dead end job with no possibility of advancement and stuck for the next thirty years.  Or they get to live their faith however they want (with in reason) and I have to follow a strict regime of rules and prayers and still not be a good Catholic.  Or that they get to spank and I don’t.  Now, I don’t advocate spanking but this is where this all stems from.  I got spanked, largely for anything and everything, especially for stuff my sisters did, while my sisters got rarely spanked if at all.  At least, growing up, I figured on some level that eventually I would be able to spank someone smaller and weaker than me and my rage and anger would be satisfied.  I feel like this got taken away from me, that my ability to spank and punish and hurt and let out the rage and anger were taken away from me and all I’m left with is this feeling of being told to suck it up this is the way things are going to be from now.  That’s it.  But wait, nobody else had these things taken from them because they never had them in the first place.  My sisters never had the rage or the anger or the pointless blaming for other people’s wrongs.  I got all that but they got away with murder and it hurts.  It hurts that they had my mother’s love and all I had was my mother’s anger and rage.  That’s the legacy she left me.  She never showed me love.  It was either rage, anger, neglect, or indifference.  Very little praise and never any love.

I think this is why I have a hard time making women friends (plus, I’ve been “betrayed” by several girl friends in the past) and look for someone to take her place.  I never had a mother in the emotional sense.  I physically have a mother but we have no emotional connection.   She doesn’t love me and I don’t love her.  What little love she did have she gave to my sisters.  Now I’m not saying my mother is evil or bad.  I realize, after reading several psychology books, that she was raised this way and didn’t make the choices to break free of this parenting.  It wasn’t largely her fault, it’s just the failings of past generations that have continued on down to mine.  My dad’s family wasn’t much better but his was also much larger and much different.  There was affection but my dad didn’t really know how to relate to having all girls.  They still are guilty of some things but not everything.

So I have a hard time with the concept of a loving God.  Distant, sure.  Occasionally there for a special moment, definitely.  But unconditional love is not something I’ve ever know or experienced so it’s not something I can fathom.  It’s too difficult.  It’s not real.  It can’t be real.  Someone love me for me?  You have to be kidding me.  I’m used to conditional love.  Being loved only for what I can do and not being loved when I can’t.  Only being “loved” when I make someone else look good.  I understand unconditional love in an intellectual sense but not in a heart/emotional sense because like I’ve said, I’ve never experienced it.  Yet I am asked to believe something I cannot wrap my mind around, that I am loved.  Actually, it’s more like I don’t want to believe.  When you’ve been unlovable as long as I have, being loved really screws things up.

I have no emotional attachment to the Catholic faith, at least it doesn’t engender an emotional response in me.  I almost feel burned out, numb even.  I don’t want to go to Mass. Confession, sure.  It’s the first step in going back but yet, it’s easier and harder as well.  I believe everything the Church teaches but the people make it hard.  The people and Jesus.  I don’t connect with any of them.  Being emotionally damaged, it is hard.  Right now, I’m not sure I can handle Mass.  I need to go but my body and my emotions can’t handle it.  Not right now.

I have had these feelings before.  This time I don’t know if they are a part of the effects of the new medication or not and won’t know for at least another week or two.  I still don’t want to go to work tonight.  I just want to stay home and do nothing.  I am not one to play hooky.  I have worked this job for over two years without a real day off beyond the weekend I get.  I am bored.  I am numb.  I feel useless.  I feel like I should be doing something more.  I feel like I’ve been pigeon-holed and that I’ve settled and nothing is going to change at all from now one.  That this is my life for the rest of my life.

I don’t really have friends and the friends I do have I wouldn’t tell them about my depression.  They wouldn’t understand.  Telling my family isn’t going to happen.  They definitely wouldn’t understand and say I’m making things up, as usual.  (Considering all the garbage that goes along with my depression and healing from my abuse is all largely the result of my family, this isn’t all that surprising.)

Sorry this isn’t one of my longer posts but it’s just a bad time for me.

Dulce de Leche has two great posts about spanking: one how it’s not just about spanking and I spanked my dog and he turned out fine which deal with the reality that spanking is abuse and there are great effects on the one spanked.

While Michael Pearls teaching hasn’t made inroads into Catholic circles (yet!), the mentality of the parent winning at all costs has in parenting.  It’s sad and disheartening that this garbage is making it’s way into any Christian believer’s life especially the Catholic believer who has access to the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church.  Yet, between the advocating for spanking (excuse me, corporal punishment. bite me.) and seeing another thread about why aren’t there more big Catholic families (can anyone say Quiverfull?)  the dangerous fringe elements of Protestantism are making their way into  Catholic families.  I have a problem with that.

Abuse is abuse no matter how you dress it up in pretty packaging and call it good parenting.  These kids who have to live with these parents are going to have to deal with consequences of their parents’ actions as adults and they may have no idea that what was done to them was abuse.  They may even spank their children because they say that they were spanked and it didn’t hurt them one bit.  They believe gentle parenting is bad because it doesn’t teach proper boundaries.  If the parent can’t teach boundaries, that’s the parent’s problem, not the child’s.

The fundamental problem with most parenting books is that it sees children as mini adults that just need to be trained right and then everything will be fine.  That’s so wrong.  Children are unique individuals that will eventually grow up to be adults but are currently people who are worthy of respect and love.  They are not rebellious demons that need to have their will broken.

Young Mom has a good post on why she no longer spanks along with other posts she has made about gentle parenting.

EDIT: Apparently, Pearl has made into Catholic circles.  I found this thread on CAF from 2006.  And this one mentions him as well.  And apparently, there is a “catholic” version of Pearl as well.  There is also this, this, and this.

These week in my depression: new medication.  The first one didn’t work at all.  It kept me wired instead of helping me sleep which not good for my mental health.  I need sleep to even remotely be on an even emotional keel.  So the one medication is out and a new one is in.  Hopefully, this one will work much better.

The last month has been difficult with all the changes at work. Dealing with the good supervisor leaving, being targeted by the bad supervisor, and having to deal with a misogynist jerk who refuses to work unless he is being watched by the supervisor.  Add another jerk who refuses to work and you have a disaster just waiting to explode.  The only consolation (and I know I’m bad for feeling this way) is that these idiots are on the bad supervisors shift.  They can deal with them.  There are some other issues at work that I can’t get into here but one that I can get into is the poor pay scale.  I top out at my next eval which is in December.  I will make the maximum amount for my position unless they give me a cost of living increase or I make supervisor which doesn’t seem likely since they keep hiring men.  At least I have the opportunity to switch to a day shift with the two individuals who got promoted to supervisor leaving their shifts.

Apparently, tonight is going to be one of my bad nights.  I think some of it is lack of sleep (doctor’s appointment yesterday morning threw off my sleep schedule), hormones (I should be getting my period in about the next 24 hours) and the depression.  I am in tears right now and I don’t know why.  But if I don’t continue writing, even in tears, I won’t get this post finished.

This post from And Sometime Tea (another Catholic blog) has a post on Blaming Women.  Some highlights:

A third thing also needs to be said: the reason for including the story out of Phoenix with the second piece is not because of the story itself, but because of the jubilant reaction to the story which I’ve seen in some corners of the internet. I don’t want to cite any specific comments because I’m not out to start a blog/FB/etc. war, but there have been more than a few of which the tone has been something like “It’s about time they kicked those blankety-blank girls off of the altar–they’ve ruined everything.” 

And that brings me to my point.

When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, the first thing he did was run off and leave Eve alone to deal with the serpent (which, according to Dr. Scott Hahn, was a fearsome dragon-like beast, not merely a little garter snake). The second thing he did was let Eve convince him to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit. And the third thing he did, when God asked him about it, was to point the finger of blame at the woman who was of his own flesh and say, “Hey, it was her fault! She made me do it.”

Given how longstanding a tradition it is, then, for men to tend to blame women for things that go wrong, it shouldn’t be surprising to encounter that attitude in regard to such things as female altar servers, immodestly dressed churchgoers, and (if we may be honest) tons of other church-related issues, from issues dealing with women who have the audacity to show up with the noisy, wiggly products of their fertility in tow (and who, gasp, sometimes even nurse them while still on church property!) to women who sing at you to women who get up and do some of the readings to women who respond when Father asks people to help out as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. All of this, if you have a certain male mindset, is the fault of the women. It is not the fault of men who gave permission (however it was granted) for female altar servers; it is not the fault of men who let their daughters out their front doors dressed for Mass as if they hoped to solicit in the parking lot afterward (if, indeed, things are really that bad; I’ve never encountered anything quite so horrible as the writer of the second piece describes, but then, I’m female, and tend to see in unfortunately-revealing clothing nothing but a fashion mistake that the woman will hopefully correct when she becomes aware of the problem); it is the fault of women for having children and expecting those children to attend Mass–or for not arranging for babysitting etc. so the children don’t have to bother anyone until they’re old enough to be altar servers; it is the fault of women that women tend to outnumber male singers in the average parish choir by a ratio of at least three or four to one; it is the fault of women that women also outnumber the men who are willing to lector at Mass; and it is clearly the fault of women that male priests ask for Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and that, once again, far more women than men show up in response.

I’ve seen and read comments made by men and women who say much worse than what the blogger posts.  I mean much worse, to the point that it is advocated that women be locked up and they are going straight to hell.  Because of these things I think these kinds of horrible thoughts, that I am evil, that I am at fault for men’s sins, that I am not loved by God and that God doesn’t even concern Himself with me.  Traddies are the worst because they use “tradition” as defined by them to execute this kind of oppression of women and no, I’m not talking about altar servers or readers.  They want women to be stay at home daughters who become stay at home mothers who have twenty children, who wait on their husband hand and foot, and are so useless and sinful that they will never get to heaven.  Actually, they are not unlike the Quiverfull/patriarchy movement in fundamentalist evangelical Protestantism.  They just dress it up with things like “tradition” and pull quotes out of context from papal documents saying, “See, even previous popes said women are evil and need to stay at home.”  Which is entirely untrue when you read the WHOLE document in context.

I hate that people still hate women and make women hate themselves while convincing themselves that this is a “holy, Catholic” thing to do.  It’s not.

Michael Pearl’s work is back in the news again due to a third child death.  Hana Williams is the third reported victim of Pearl’s “child training” ideology.  Why Not Train a Child? has several good posts about this latest little victim.  I suggest reading all the links in the posts.

Reactions to Hana Williams Story

A Closer Look at Pearl’s Teachings and their Relations to three deaths

The Parents of Hana Williams plead not guilty (several news accounts are listed)

The Pearls’ Official Response (I suggest having a bucket near by when reading this spew of lies)

A Closer Look at the Pearls’ Teaching and Adoption  (Hana was a child that had been adopted from Ethiopia by the Williams and had several medical and mental health issues)

A link from Why Not about older adoption which I link here just because it needed to stand on it’s own

This post about children and the myth of my happiness is a good example of the culture of death/culture of me first, always first

I had “Depression: In the Trenches” for a post on how I’m dealing with my depression.  One word: horribly.  I’m miserable, crying a lot more, very fed up with work (and with the three idiots I work with), dealing with the fact that not only was I abused emotionally and verbally I was also physically abused through spanking.  I’m not sure I can leave out sexual abuse but most of that stems from not being allowed to have any boundaries.  I wasn’t allowed to bathe alone (my mother was forever coming in and using the toilet when I was showering), not allowed any privacy (my mother was forever going through my things but never my sisters; even as an adult home during summer break from college she would go through my things as would my sisters and they were never punished), and told I was fat and ugly and bought clothes several sizes too big to cover my fat, ugly body.  There was the not being allowed to be sick (getting a cold was tantaumount to sending my mother to hell because I was ruining her life)  which left me seeing getting sick as being weak and useless and learning not to take care of myself.  Then there was the whole “bad girls like me go to Hell” and you better believe that I was on the fast track to hell just because I was me.

I’ve been feeling so bad lately, especially when I work, that I try to focus on getting sleep instead of doing anything else.  At this point, even going to Mass is difficult.  I had been going to a different parish because my geographical parish was just too different from what I needed and I had been there for over ten years.  They’ve gone in a different direction and I wasn’t taken along for the ride.  Granted, I wouldn’t have been taken along anyways because I’m not married or have kids, don’t have family in the parish, and am a single working woman who wants more than just to settle or be pushed to the background though that’s exactly what’s happened.  The “new” parish (I’d been going there for the occasional Mass and for Reconciliation) was good: good homilies, quality music, people understood that babies needed a moment in the narthex to pull themselves together (as much as babies can do that but you get what I mean I hope) and that children were to behave.  Then I went on Sunday after not going the week before (which I needed the sleep since that night the supervisor decided to target me and tried to pull a ship load of crap on me) and wish I hadn’t.  I didn’t sleep well, Mass was hard to sit through (there have been many times that for the first half hour of Mass it takes all my will power not to walk out in tears because I’m trembling and hurting and in tears because I just can’t handle it.  There are probably times when I should have walked out just to preserve my sanity but I didn’t thinking that I was going to end up in Hell for leaving and that there was no valid reason to miss Mass.  I was actually taught that there was no reason AT ALL to miss Mass.  Not even being in the hospital and deathly ill was a good reason.  Since missing Mass was a mortal sin, there was no good reason not to go or to be late (there have been several times when I arrived in the middle of the reading, even once being as late as the Gospel).

I’m not sure I should go to Mass for a while.  I know that I have a moral obligation to attend Mass but when I end up sleep deprived and mentally ill does that matter or am I not allowed to take care of myself?  I’m not allowed to take care of myself, having being taught that others are so much more important than me that if I have to sacrifice my time and health then so be it.  So now that I think taking care of myself is important am I sinning by getting the sleep I need even if it means I have to miss Mass?  I know that in my mental state and upbringing and others would say yes.  God is more important than my health or my job.  Yes, that is the mental thinking I have.  I was taught/learned not to value myself, especially not as a person and not as a woman.  I think, as much as it hurts to write this, that I need to take care of myself and if that means missing Mass for a while, then so be it.  I will suffer the consequences but I need sleep especially working a twelve hour graveyard shift and to help treat my depression.

Then the traddies have been at it again.  At least the thread on what women should wear is gone (yes, there was a whole thread and oh so definitely not the first on the matter on how women needed to dress like an Amish women but in a burqa because men are pigs and if they saw skin they would be led into heinous sin and even rape and beat women even though it’s their fault anyways.  I see a movement even among non-traddies to marginalize and even demonize women.  The Phoenix Cathedral has decided to limit altar serving to boys again.  I don’t have a problem with that.  The problem I DO have is that there are so many people who go “look, see, if they hadn’t allowed girls to serve in the first place we wouldn’t have had to deal with feminism, the sex abuse scandals, few priestly vocations, the OF, Protestants, and Donald Trump’s hair.”  They see women and girls as evil and as the cause of everything that is wrong in the world and in the Church.  They think they are the arbiters of all things Catholic and can dictate what the Church does and does not allow.  They act more Catholic than the Pope.

This post by Br. JR highlights something extremely important about the issue:

There is certainly nothing immoral about female altar servers. Those who claim that it is immoral, scandalous, sacriligeous or evil are sadly mistaken. The Church never endorses evil. It is allowed and therefore, this is not a moral question. It’s a question about liturgical roles, not about morality. It is not a social justice question either. Social justice would mean that someone is being deprived a right. Serving at the altar is not a right.

We have to be very careful not to make it a moral issue or a social justice issue. It is neither. When children hear adults talking about this as a moral issue or a social justice issue, it sends the wrong message to them. It tells them that the Church is wrong, cruel and uncaring, because she does not allow women servers. On the flip side, if children hear us calling female servers a scandal, we’re telling them that the Church endorses scandal and sacrilge. That’s horrible too.

I’m tired of being told that being a woman is bad and that I am the cause of all the problems in the world and if I just dressed in a burqa, was submissive all the time, and permanently pregnant then all the world’s and Church’s ills would be cured.  That’s not how the world will be cured.  It will be by Christ and not us that the world has been saved.  The world isn’t a horrible, evil place that we must avoid at all cost.  It is good but fallen place that contains people who choose to do evil things and to sin rather than to love God.  But people and especially Christians would rather pigeonhole God and others than understand that that doesn’t work.  God doesn’t obey people, people are to obey God.  People would rather make God in their own image rather than be made in God’s own image.

Why do Christians (and yes I include Catholics in this) demonize people who self-identify as homosexual?  They think that homosexual are all about sex and molesting children.  It’s like homosexuals can’t be people, that they are only their sexual organ being used for the wrong purpose.  I’ve seen people (not talking about Westboro Baptist, though they are uniquely fringe and yet there are people who think WB are right) say that homosexuals can’t be saved, that they are really heterosexuals that just need to be “cured,” they are always having sex with multiple partners at a time, that they are going to molest children no matter what, that they should be locked up, that they should even be executed all for having a disordered sexual orientation.  Christians and yes, even Catholics, have advocated these things.  Homosexuals, transgender, transsexual, bisexual, queer are PEOPLE.  They just have an incurable disorder that they have to live with (I know this really simplifies a really complicated issue but I’m trying to point out that they are people not an orientation/self-identification).  They are God’s children as well not just heterosexual people who have sex only to have babies.  Too many Christians, too many Catholics refuse to see that.  I bet if they met a real life LGBTQ person they would act differently (maybe) than what they spout on the Internet though I highly doubt it.

I mention all this because I work with a LGBTQ and that person is extremely professional and good at their job.  I like working with this person.  They don’t talk about their personal, private life or make waves about their lifestyle.  They do the job they were hired for.  I can respect that.  Yet, there are people that think this person shouldn’t even be allowed to work because they might lead somebody into their horribly evil lifestyle and away from Jesus and that all they want is sex.   I don’t get it.  I’ve worked with three LGBTQ people over the years and the only issues I’ve had have been with either their lack of professionalism (they didn’t put very much effort into the job they were doing if they even bothered to show up) or they didn’t take care of their self (one had diabetes and never seemed to care that just a few little things meant they could live a long, healthy life) not their sexual orientation.  They weren’t and aren’t evil people.  Sinners, yes, just like me, but not evil and yes living a sinful lifestyle that had long term consequences but not completely evil minions of Satan (I think Justin Bieber and Katy Perry are more likely).

A song that seems to describe parts of how I’m feeling right now:

(Ignore the fact that it is a NUMB3RS video)

And some Casting Crowns:

In anthropology and in sociology there is the concept of us-vs.-them.  Us-vs.-them is the idea that one group is pitted against another for survival or in anthropology/sociology, one group holds another group’s differences to be so anathema to the first group’s beliefs that the second group has to be discriminated against or even eliminated.  This us-vs.-them mentality is also apparent in Michael Pearl’s child rearing manuals such as To Train Up a Child and his and his wife’s website No Greater Joy.  He argues that a parent is in a battle against the child’s will hence the us-vs.-them where the child is the “them” while the parent is the “us.”  This mentality is dangerous and damaging to not only the child but to the parent as well.  While I mention Pearl and his work, this isn’t a post about his work and my mother, to my knowledge, has never heard or read anything by Michael Pearl.  However, this mentality of us-vs.-them still exists in spanking and other means of corporal punishment.

When a child learns that it is okay to hit as long as you are an adult i.e. spanking, it sets up the foundation for this us.-vs.-them thinking.  A child learns that as long as he/she is bigger and stronger that it is okay to hit/punish while it is wrong (read “bad”) for a child to do any of these things.  A child become angry but has to hide that anger because a child isn’t allowed to feel or show his/her anger while it is okay for a parent to show anger and to even use that anger as a means of expression.  Beyond the us-vs.-them mentality, the child learns to split his/her thinking especially if that child is the main object of punishment, that is, the parents punish one child more or blame one child more than the others.  The child learns that she must be bad and unlovable and to live by a special set of rules just for her.  Add in a heavy dose of religion especially saying things like, “Bad girls like you go to Hell,” or “Godly girls know how to be good girls,” or “I have to beat the sin out of you,” then it gets really bad.  The child learns that not only does mom and dad not love them very much but that God is out to get them as well.  There is nowhere safe for them.  They are afraid almost all the time.  They realize they have to live by one set of rules otherwise mom and dad and God will be upset.  They learn that other children are more special and more loved than they are.  They learn that they are at the bottom of the heap and that the good things that happen to other people will never happen to them.  They believe that they are so bad that nothing good can happen to them or will happen to them.  They learn that the only thing that will happen to them is being punished.  They come to believe that they deserve that punishment or the very least learn to accept that they can do nothing to stop the spanking.

Growing up like this and seeing no way to change things leads to what psychology calls learned helplessness.  Learned helpless is the condition of a human person or an animal in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance to which it has been subjected (Wikipedia).  When a child has learned to suppress their feelings and to suppress any hope of things changing though the situation (spanking) later changes they have learned to be helpless.  This learned helplessness also plays into the changed/split thinking.  A child learns that not only are there special rules that she has to follow she also learns that nothing she does will prevent her from being spanked and while she tried her hardest to follow the rules perfectly she realizes that nothing will change.  After a while, she won’t try to change and she definitely won’t try to leave because she believes (without evidence to the contrary especially if she is sheltered and/or has limited contact with the outside world) that it is the same everywhere.  When the situation does change, that is the parents stop spanking because they are tired of it or they realize that yelling and screaming and just threatening spanking works just as well, the child won’t resist because she doesn’t know how to any more.  Yet, this is what Michael Pearl and even parents who don’t follow his teachings want: submissive children who obey.  Except it really isn’t obedience, it’s fear.  Actually, more like terrified.

What am I getting at?  While I’m not sure I explained the split/double thinking very well, I believe I did show that thinking does change when one spanks. We know that a child that was spanked and had to repress their anger and rage at being spanked learned that hitting was okay as long as an adult does it.  So when that child grows up they take the anger and rage they couldn’t show and couldn’t feel as a child and possibly take it out on their children.  They may justify this spanking as necessary discipline or even as commanded by the Bible.

In my case, this split thinking let me to believe that others could have and do things I wasn’t allowed to.  That I was cut off because of my badness.  That others could have things but I couldn’t because they were good and lovable and liked by God.  I was just a bad girl and that I needed to keep up this kind of thinking otherwise I wasn’t being good and holy enough even though I was bad (how’s that for a contradiction?).  I had to keep thinking that I was a bad person, that I was totally unlovable, I was completely unworthy of help or respect or of anything, that nobody could want me around.  That this kinds of thinking was good.  That I had to keep punishing myself otherwise I really was so bad that I deserve to go to Hell this very minute.  And my mother loved to reinforce this kind of thinking, saying things like “bad girls like you go to hell;”  ”you’re too slow;” “why can’t you be more like your sisters?” “you’re too fat;”  ”you’ll never amount to anything.”  This kind of thinking and belief is very unhealthy.  And you wonder why I have depression.  I tried not to have dreams because I believed I couldn’t achieve them.  I repressed my feelings and hopes to make other people happy.  I did things I regret believing they would make things better not realizing that they wouldn’t even touch the symptoms let alone the problem.  I forgot my childhood so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the abuse and anger and the fact that my mother just couldn’t be the mother I needed.  I squashed “me” because I didn’t know the real me and thought that if I did everything others wanted then I would be a “good me” rather than a “bad me.”  I denied who I was because I believed that the me I was told I was wasn’t good enough or smart enough or strong enough or pretty enough or athletic enough or Catholic enough.

I had a hard time  now because now I know this kind of thinking is wrong.  Really wrong.  Some people might consider this negativity very holy, actually, I know there are people who think this kind of negative thinking is holy but it isn’t.  It’s a sin.  God doesn’t make junk and He is the only one that will love us.  People put conditions on love.  God doesn’t.  If God is love, and He is, then He can’t put conditions on himself.  He doesn’t expect us to be perfect before we come to him.  We are to come as we are: broken, afraid, unloved, worthless, useless, sinner.  He doesn’t place unrealistic expectations on us and then punish us for not meeting them.  He has no desire to crush us into little pieces.  Only people want to do that.

Now I have no idea if what I wrote is what I really meant to write (considering I wrote about a four page essay in about 45 minutes) but it is what it is.  I’m just trying to work on my own depression and this was something I believed effected it.

I was not allowed to be angry.  Anger was bad.  Only Mommy could be angry and when Mommy got angry I was in deep trouble.  When Mommy was angry, I was scared.  Even when Mommy wasn’t angry, I was scared because I didn’t know what would set her off.  It didn’t matter if I did or didn’t do something, if one of my sisters did something, I was the one that got in trouble, got screamed and yelled at, got spanked.  I was the Bad Girl.  I couldn’t do anything right and Mommy didn’t love me when I was bad.  I was almost always bad.  Bad Girls like me go to Hell.

Now I have a lot of anger and rage that boils under the surface and it wants out.  But I’m not allowed to be angry or have rage.  As a woman, we are taught that we are to be nice and happy and cheerful and never feel anything bad.  As a victim of abuse, I was taught that my anger was bad.  That my feelings were bad.  That I was bad.  When I was being abused, I didn’t know that I was being abused.  I thought everyone went through the same thing.  Everyone got yelled and screamed and spanked by their mother.

Now I know I have anger and rage and it sits there.  Sometimes it’s pretty quiet and I don’t have to worry about it coming out.  Then there are other times (like reading garbage by traddies) that it just wants to burst out and beat the crap out of somebody.  But I’m not allowed to have anger or emotions.  Feelings are bad.  Other people can have them.  I can’t.  I have to hide, squash the anger and the rage and deny it’s existence if I want to be even remotely acceptable as a person.  Other people are allowed to feel and express anger.  I am not.  I am expected to keep quite and be nice and happy.  But I can’t.  I just want to pound the stuffing out of something.  I feel like if I don’t get the anger and rage out then it will consume me, that I’ll end up in jail (not because of what I did but because of me) or locked up in a mental hospital because I am not socially acceptable to my family (which I already am not) or to society (which I pretty much am not anyways).  I feel like there are rules and expectations and freedoms for everyone and that those rules and expectations and freedoms are different or are not allowed for me at all.  Other people get to have fun and have friends and be loved.  I am not allowed to have fun or have friends or be loved.  I am not worthy of those things.  I am BAD.  Therefore, I must be so horrible that a whole set of rules apply just to me.  I am not allowed to have anger while everyone else is.  They are allowed to express their anger and there are not consequences while I am not allowed to have anger at all and if I showed that anger in anyway or even just felt it then I would need to be harshly punished.  Remember, I am BAD.  I deserve to be punished.

That mentality led me to doing some very harsh things to myself because I believed that if I was punished enough then everything would be alright, that I would be good enough, that I would be finally lovable, that I would be worthy, that I wouldn’t be arrested and thrown in jail for the rest of my life (still not sure where this came from but it was a major fear for many years; I still get anxious any time I see a police car even though I have never committed a crime and have had mostly positive interactions with the police).  I am not the only one.  I also call myself names, hit myself in the thighs ( I didn’t want anybody to see or know how bad I really was).  While I wasn’t raised in a patriarchal/quiverful/fundamentalist/traditionalist household I was raised in a household that had a mother that believed in corporal punishment and kept a paddle in the kitchen in open view and was very willing to use it. I felt by punishing myself I could stop my mother from punishing and abusing me.  Granted, a lot of what I did I didn’t do until I was in my teens.

I remember once (I don’t remember what I did) that I believed I had been so bad that I couldn’t sleep in my own bed but rather had to sleep on the floor in the downstairs bathroom (which had a shower stall, a toilet and sink so it was quite small and it was off the laundry room).  I remember being in tears not wanting to be sleeping in the bathroom but knowing that I had to sleep there because I was so bad.  I was in there for some time.  I even lay on the floor, so much in tears, thinking this was the only way to make things better.  Eventually, I left the bathroom and slept in my own bed.  The thing is, nobody knew what I had done.  It was the middle of the night and everyone but I was asleep.  I didn’t know that at the time I was depressed.  I just thought I was worthless and needed to be punished.

Even on my own as an adult I’ve felt that I needed to be punished.  I remember cooking one of those pasta dinners in a box.  I hadn’t been watching it and a lot of it stuck to the bottom of the pan and parts were burned.  I have to step back a moment and add that I struggle with my weight and how I view my body.  Even though I was never overweight till very recently, I was never a size 2 either.  I was healthy.  Yet my mother saw me as fat and called me fat and stupid to my face.  Even when I was a size 6 and had actually lost weight (when you live somewhere where you have to walk everywhere to do anything you lose weight) my mother still called me fat to my face.  She also didn’t like the fact that I was a vegetarian at that time (though it was fine when K decided to be a one) Well, I saw that burned food and while regular people would probably throw it out and/or salvaged the part that wasn’t burned, I decided that since I had screwed up so badly and that I couldn’t waste food because that would be a sin, that I had to eat the burned part and then starve myself to lose weight.  And yes, I am in tears at this point.  I was forced to eat a lot of food I didn’t like or couldn’t eat (there are foods due to texture or the digestive reaction that I have that I can’t eat certain food) growing up.  I think I ate three bites of it, in tears (which is what I am right now, in tears), and eventually threw it away even though I believed that I would be going to hell for wasting food like that.  As you can tell, I still have problems with food even as an adult who can cook and eat anything she wants.

At this point, I am going to have to stop.  I am getting too upset.  And I don’t want to make my depression worse.

My depression was ephemeral, out of sight, out of mind in many ways.  I said the word depression to differentiate me from everybody else but I still wasn’t different.

Being mentally ill is not, was not something I wanted to be.

Aren’t most people who are depressed not really depressed at all but just not handling things very well?  I’ve heard that, read that.

Heard that people with depression or any mental illness aren’t really sick, they’re just looking for attention.

Mental illness is complete poppycock and totally made up.

If you have a mental illness, you really have unconfessed mortal sin, most likely unconfessed sexual sin on your soul.

No one who is a real Christian has a mental illness.  Only unbelievers and atheists get mental illnesses since they don’t have Jesus as the center of their lives.

If I was just married, stayed at home, and hat kids I would be happier.

If I dressed like Mary and never had an education and let a man run my life, I wouldn’t be this way.

If I was best friends with my parents and called them every day I wouldn’t be depresses.

I’ve heard or read or thought pretty much all of that.  But that’s not true.  None of that is true.

I have depression.  I was abused.  These are facts.  These things are real and true for me and they impact my life.  So what if it makes me a bad Catholic?  So what if I don’t have my shit together?  So what if I’m not married?  These things wouldn’t cure my depression.  Dealing with the abuse and neglect caused by my mother that led to the depression I have now will treat it, not waving some magic wand and waving it all away like so many Christians/Catholics do.  They ignore mental illness or say it is all made up and put down, belittle, ignore, and down right abuse those who have mental illnesses.  WHY?  Because they feel and believe their opinion that mental illness is against the Catholic faith is held by the Church and has to be enforced by them.

So if I get kicked out of my parish because of my depression, it’s because people refuse to understand that people are broken and hurt and that that burt and brokenness was caused by supposedly good and faithful Catholics and supposedly good and caring parents.

I took the first step and got help.  I now have medication.  I will get better even if it means I have to lose my job and my parish. I am important and I need to take care of myself.  I don’t care if people think that I am being selfish and unCatholic and disobeying the Church by not praying the Rosary fifty times a day as a magic cure.  I am tired of thinking of myself as a damned worthless, useless, unlovable person just because I am a woman, because I heard that growing up, and that that’s what I am supposed to tell myself to be considered a “good Catholic woman.”

I am taking care of me and I don’t give a shit what the world thinks about.  Remember, I am getting in touch with my inner bitch and she wants me to take care of myself and to love me for who I am.

The next step is to get counseling.

Actually, traditionalists have had such an impact on me that my thoughts go towards thinking

-I am horrible just for being born a woman (not true) (what’s worse is hearing this kind of claptrap from women who hate themselves) God made me woman.  God doesn’t make junk therefore I am not horrible for being born a woman

-not wearing skirt/dresses all time means I’m not dressing right (I’ve gained so much weight due to my depression that I only fit into my pants)

-that I need to be a stay at home mom (I’m not married nor do I feel called to marriage and I have to stipulate that this thought is along the lines of I have to be a stay at home mom but everyone else that is other women can have careers and hobbies and such while I have to stay home and never go out except to Mass) ( it goes along with my depression and the thought processes that I learned/fell into growing up) I was taught/learned that I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t athletic enough, wasn’t pretty enough so the only thing I was good for was being a mother and staying home.  Yes, my mother used to tell me I was stupid, that I wouldn’t amount to anything, and that I was going to Hell.  Can we say screwed up?  Oh, she loved to tell me I was fat when I was a size 6.

-that I am going to Hell because I’m not getting it, not living the Catholic faith “right”, not praying the Rosary 24/7 (I actually pray three decades of it on the way home from work because the local Catholic radio station airs it when I get off in the morning but I have issues with the concept to mother and Mary as my mother when my own mother abused me.  Plus, I want a mother all to myself and not one I have to share.  I know that’s selfish but that’s where I’m at emotionally when it comes to healing from the mother’s abuse.  Again, this comes from the traditionalists who want conformity and uniformity and not the universality that is the Church.  Traditionalists are so focused on the external that Jesus and God are practically forgotten except as a hammer to beat people over the head with to force people to follow the “traditionalist’ way of doing things.

There are more and they are usually worse at work (I work graveyard security and the radio doesn’t work in my patrol vehicle so I’m left with my thoughts).  Suffice it to say, I need to get in touch with my inner bitch.  What I mean by that is accepting and being pleased with the fact that I am a woman, that I have power as woman, and that I can and do make things happen.  That I can and should stand up for myself.  That taking care of myself is okay.  That I matter as a person.  That I am worthy of love and respect, not because of what I do but because of who I am.

I am me and that is Good.

I do not need to be afraid of me as I was taught.  I am not a bad person because my mother said so or because I don’t adhere to some anonymous traditionalist’s ideal.

I am me and God is okay with that.  He loves me for me.  He created me.  Like I said,  He doesn’t make junk.

I’m too fat.  Jeans I only bought two months ago have become too small.  I seem to gain weight even though I don’t eat bad food full of sugar.

I’m so bad that I deserve to go to Hell just like my mother and the traditionalists always say.  I starting to really believe it.  I must not be lovable or likable and I certainly don’t have any talents or gifts.  I’m just a useless, worthless, waste of space that deserves to die.  People would be much happier if I was gone.   I’m not even a person.  I don;t matter.  No one notices or cares if I’m here or not.  People say God does but it He cares about everyone so I’m not even a blip on the radar.  People say they at I’m doing this for attention, that I stay this way because I like being a victim.  No I fucking to do not want to be this way.

I want to be loved,  I want to be good at something.  I want to be a person.  I want to be cared for.  I want to be noticed and remember.  I want to go to Heaven not be damned to Hell.  I want to be special.  I want to be the go to person.  I want to be perfect.  I want to be more than a stupid mental illness. I want not to cry anymore.  I want to have actual dreams that actually come true rather than having to squash them in order to make everyone else happy or because I always make bad decisions.  I want to make good decisions.  I want to be thin.  I want to be pretty instead of the real ugly idiot that I am.  I want to be more.  I don’t want to have to settle for scraps.  I want to be free.  I don’t want to be like my mother.  I want to be me whoever that is.  I want to be a real woman not the fake woman everyone else wants me to be.  I don’t want to be the boy my parents wanted and so when they were disappointed that I wasn’t they abused and neglected me.  I don’t want to be abused or hurt.  I want to be accepted for who I am.  I want traditionalists to shut up and get lost.  I want to be something.  I want to be a federal agent.  I want people to take me seriously.  I want people to stop ignoring me.  I want people to acknowledge that a single woman is not a heresy or bad person or a failure or not a person because she isn’t married or has kids or what not.  I don’t want to keep eating emotionally.  I don’t want to be fat.  I want to be real.

I did have a problem with people who claimed the Rosary was a “magic cure-all” and that just praying it once would fix all the problems in your life and you would be so holy and perfect afterwards.  I am not a big fan of the Rosary and it is nice that it is a private devotion that is not demanded of us.

As I have posted before, my  mother abused me while I was growing up so I have a problem with mothers and yes, the Blessed Virgin Mary is included in that.  She’s someone else’s mom.  NOT mine.  Yet, I would read and hear about people who supposedly had problems with their mother (I love the ones that compared her having a fight with her mother to the severe emotional, physical, and sexual abuse another poster mentioned and said that after praying to Mary once her relationship with her mother fixed and everything was better and that the abuse victim just needed to pray the Rosary and ask Mary to be her mother and her real life mother would be healed and they would become best friends) (gag me with a spoon) saying that they went to Mary and their own relationships with their mother was fixed or they took on Mary as their mother.  Abuse is hard and it takes an extreme toll on its victims.  We are not healed magically by saying a prayer and asking someone we have no interest or connection to to be our mother and heal all the damage that was done to us by someone who was supposed to love and care for us.  So when people told me that I could have the Blessed Virgin Mary as my mother, all I could think, was no, she’s somebody else’s mother and I’m without a mother who will love me.  People just don’t understand what that means.  It’s not like I can snap my fingers and everything will be fixed and healed and there will no longer be abuse in the world.  It doesn’t work that way.  I want my own mother but I’ll never have one because the one I had didn’t want me and didn’t love me and there is nothing that will change those facts.

Then there is the whole idea that Mary did nothing beyond give birth to Jesus and then led a quite life hidden in the background and was a two-dimensional background character.  Many Catholics, especially traditionalist Catholics, see Mary as someone who was practically invisible and the only model for women. They say that women need to be Mary-like and to them that means: quiet, servile (not in the loving service to others but more like a slave), inferior to men, baby-factory, stay-at-home mother, no emotions, no personal opinions, no education, passive, no personality, does everything that a man tells her to do, basically not even a real person but a robot.

Then there are the posts by Br. JR, a Fransiscan Brother of Life that tell the truth about Mary (and about women in general).  I’ll let his words speak for themselves.

First:

In fact, the Catholic Church was probably the most liberal institution when it came to women. Long before there was a women’s movement, Catholic women were very independent and powerful. It’s just not that noticeable in light of today’s culture. However, if you look at it in light of the world prior to Vatican II, Catholic women rather liberal compared to their Protestant counterparts.

We have a long history of women founders of religious congregations, monasteries and even some orders. Men did not govern these communities. In women’s monasteries, the Abbess ruled and no man ruled over her. In a religious congregation the Mother Superior ruled. In Catholic schools, hospitals, orphanages and other Catholic institutions the sisters ruled.

These women ran their own institutions, managed their own property, had money and budgets, made laws that governed them, traveled around the world without permission and supervision from men. Some abbesses ran dioceses. A few wonderful examples are: Teresa of Avila, Mother Teresa, Frances Xavier Cabrini, Katherine Drexel, and Elizabeth Ann Seton. These women were missionaries, pioneers in their fields of ministry and leaders in the Church. Mother Teresa was the most recent of these powerful women and she began her work in the world circa 1946, during the WW II era, but long before Vatican II.

No one dared to contradict them, not even the bishops. They were a force to be reckoned with. Teresa of Avila had a wit that could outshine any bishop or Jesuit. Mother Teresa made Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II nervous, though they loved her.

Elizabeth Ann Seton gave Archbishop Carroll a run for his money. When he gave her the statutes that St. Vincent de Paul had written for the Daughters of Charity so that she could model her congregation on St. Louise de Marillac, Elizabeth gave them back to the Archbishop and said that she would not lead the new congregation because there was no place for a mother in the statutes. Elizabeth simply told Archbishop Carroll, “I’m a mother first.” Archbishop Carroll had to add to the statutes that those sisters who were mothers could keep their children and raise them. As I understand it, there were two widows with children in the original group.

I’m not sure if I agree with the image that some people paint of being like Mary, because I would never say that Teresa of Avila or Mother Teresa were unlike Mary. I believe the opposite. They were very much like Mary. Like Mary, they conformed to Christ in all things.

If we look at Mary, she was a very strong figure, not a retiring figure at all. We know that she lived in different cities, that she followed the Church as it grew. She did not spend her life in retirement in Nazareth. We see her in Jerusalem when Jesus is crucified. Jerusalem was more than two days away from Nazareth in those days. Why was she there? She did not live there. The only conclusion is that she followed her son and his disciples to Jerusalem. We hear from the Church Fathers that she was in Ephasus after the Ascension. Why? She was with the Church, probably with John, according to Polycarp. Luke tells us that she went to the Hill Country to visit Elizabeth. Scholars believe that this may be the area that we call the Golan Heights, which is quite a distance from Nazareth. Regardless of Elizabeth’s physical address, she did not live in the same city. Mary goes out to her. Back then, women did not travel without their husbands. But tradition does not mention Joseph being present in Elizabeth’s home or at John’s birth. However, it tells us that Mary was present and probably three months pregnant when she returned home and rejoined Joseph.

We also see Mary in Cana. From the wording of the story, one can extrapolate that Jesus was with her, not the other way around. She was the invited guest and Jesus and his friends went with her to the wedding. This is inferred in the familiarity between Mary and the servants. No one approaches Jesus with the concern about the wine, as would have been the proper thing to do. Mary speaks to the servants with authority, “Do whatever he tells you.” It is probable that she died in Ephesus, which is a long way from Nazareth, if not in Jerusalem.

We tend to paint Christian women, especially Mary, as more demure and retiring than is historically true. I’ve often wondered if it may be a cultural influence, more than a Catholic influence. The Orthodox have the same stories about Mary, independent of the Western Church. They also have ancient legends that portray a more dynamic Mary and their nuns are also very independent and very influential in their Churches.

My answer to your question is that this absence of women in the forefront has nothing to do with the Extraordinary Form of the Mass or even with being Catholic. It’s really the culture or preference of a community. If you begin to tell women that they cannot do things that are not prohibited, that’s when you fall into gender discrimination. If women want to assume a more retiring role, of their own free will, there’s no rule that says they cannot do so.

And then there’s:

To understand how St. Therese understood Mary, you may want to read what I wrote in Post 33. St. Therese is identifying with Mary the contemplative, which is very true. She is not implying that Mary lived a hidden life or an inactive life. That is contrary to Carmelite Tradition. Carmelite tradition teaches us the opposite . . . Mary was very involved in the life and ministry of her son and the early Church. At the same time, she was also the contemplative. If we could blend Bl. Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese into one person, we would have a more complete picture of the historical Mary.

We have created an image of Mary that is more consistent with out imagination than with history. Our image of Mary is the quiet woman who is in the background and who is demure, says and does very little because she is humble.

Mary is humble. However, humble means honest. She is certainly that when she says that all generations shall call her Blessed. That’s not a demure woman speaking. That’s a woman who is very confident about herself and her role in Salvation History. She is very active in Jesus ministry. She’s present at many events, times and places outside of Nazareth. History tells us that she did not remain in Nazareth, but traveled with the Church as far as Ephesus. We’re not sure whether her last day on earth was at Ephesus or in Jerusalem, but we know one thing for sure. It was not in Nazareth in the quiet of her home. We also know that the Apostles refered to her as Mother. St. Polycarp gets this from St. John. The early Eastern Christians, who would later become the Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have a long oral tradition of Mary as an active participant in the life of the Church during Apostolic times.

We can see a woman who is very much a contemplative, a woman of intense prayer, silence and dedication to the Lord, but also a woman who was a missionary, an intercessor, and even a source of consolatioin for the early Christians. In other words, she was not hidden as we use that word.

Hidden, as St. Therese uses the word is more like her spiritual mother, St Teresa of Avila who did what she had to do and at the same time tried to do it without calling too much attention to herself. The truth is that she attracted a lot of attention, but Teresa tried very hard not to do so. The same is true for Bl. Mother Teresa and St. Therese. That’s the true meaning of hidden in Christian Mystical Theology.

Plus:

This is Mystical Theology speaking, not history. The Mystical Theologian focusses on the activityof grace on the soul. What was kept hidden from her contemporaries was the nature and scope of the activity of grace on her soul and the anatomy of her soul. God works on Mary in the secret and silence of her soul. Mary does not share that with the world. We can only assume and extrapolate from the bits of information that we have through Christian Tradition. There is the silence of Mary found in the writings of St. Louie and St. Therese.

St. Therese does this very well, because she’s a cloistered nun; therefore, she understands the whole concept of a hidden life, without being in obscurity. I think that many very traditional Catholics believe that being like Mary means being almost anonymous. That is not Mary. That is not the Mary of St. Therese nor St. Louie. Catholics to the other extreme, I hate to call them liberal, because in my book liberal has a very positive meaning, these other folks to the left, believe that Mary was a passive figure who did not do much. That’s not Mary either.

That’s why I said above, if we could blend the three Teresas: Teresa of Avila, Therese of Liseux and Teresa of Calcutta, that’s the real Mary.

Notice, that she’s such a complex person and there is so much richness to her soul that it would take three of our giants to give us a glimpse into the historical Mary. As far as the anatomy of Mary’s soul, you can forget that. Everything that God did there will remain hidden to us until God wishes for us to know it and only as much as he wishes for us to know.

There is a wonderful book about her by a Capuchin Franciscan Friar The Silence of Mary by Ignacio Larañaga. This book and the writings of St. Louie changed my life.

It will cause you to get angry because you start thinking you have been lied to, deceived, and that you aren’t a good enough Catholic.

It will cause you to get depressed because you start thinking you are a bad and horrible Catholic that will never be good enough, that you aren’t being heard or loved by God because you aren’t praying in Latin/veiling/not wearing skirts/homeschooling/praying the Rosary five times a day/attending only the EF and putting down and calling everyone else who attends the OF heretics and horrible Catholics and name calling priests and bishops because they aren’t forcing the EF on everyone and supressing the OF outright.

It will cause you to get angry because only you see how the world will be saved by going back to the EF and destroying the OF because it isn’t pretty enough Mass with horrible translations when you know that praying in Latin is the only way God will hear you and answer your prayers otherwise you are just babbling.

It will cause you to get angry that women have rights, can wear pants, work, drive, etc. when they should be confined to the home, barefoot and pregnant and if they get out of line, beaten to keep them in line because they are second class creatures that God created to serve men entirely and not to be individuals of their own.

It will cause you to start thinking that you are doing everything wrong because you not obeying these “wise and all knowing” “traditionalists” who seem to have it all together and are perfectly holy and even can read the mind of God.

It will cause you to beat yourself up, start starving yourself and calling it fasting since you didn’t go far enough during Lent, saying yes to everyone who asks you for a favor even though it will cause you great harm to agree, and allow everyone to walk all over you and abuse you because you’ve come to believe that this is what a “Good Catholic Woman” looks like.

It will cause you to start looking for all the sin in other people’s lives from not wearing skirts (which lead a man to damnation since it is a woman’s fault he sins), to sending their children to public schools which “traditionalists” all know are bastions of pagan homosexual anti-Catholic propoganda that will lead poor Johnny straight to Hell if you don’t perform an exorcism according the pre-Vatican II rite to using NFP which says that you are distrusting God and his command to be fruitful and multiply to women enjoying sex to talking about sex at all to women not submitting like a slave and doing whatever their husband commands and do it right now or you are going to Hell and taking the whole family with you.

It will cause you to start thinking of seriously beating yourself with a whip  show that you are sorry for all the mortal sins you committed just today (which since you are a woman means you commit more mortal sins and more horrible ones at that then men who are nearly perfect and women are demons from Hell) (women commit a mortal sin just by existing).

It will cause you to get very angry because you realize that no matter what you do or don’t do or dress or pray that you are going to Hell anyway, just like your mother always predicted.

I wish “Tradionalist” Catholics would learn that all they are doing is hurting people and the Church.  NO one wants to be hurt especially not in the name of Jesus.

Holy (Maundy) Thursday

“ And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.  For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.  But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”

Good Friday

“ Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus said to him, “It is as you say.” And while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing.  Then Pilate said to Him, “Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?”  But He answered him not one word, so that the governor marveled greatly.

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to releasing to the multitude one prisoner whom they wished.  And at that time they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. Therefore, when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”  For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy.  While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him, saying, “Have nothing to do with that just Man, for I have suffered many things today in a dream because of Him.”

But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.  The governor answered and said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” They said, “Barabbas!”  Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified!”  Then the governor said, “Why, what evil has He done?” But they cried out all the more, saying, “Let Him be crucified!”

When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.”  And all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.”  Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.

 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him.  And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”  Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head.  And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified.   

Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His cross.  And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull,  they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink.  Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet:
“ They divided My garments among them,
And for My clothing they cast lots.”

Sitting down, they kept watch over Him there. And they put up over His head the accusation written against Him:

THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left.  And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”  Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said,  “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”  Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing.

Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?“ Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, “This Man is calling for Elijah!”  Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink.  The rest said, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.”

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.

Holy Saturday

Well, that one you’ll just have to attend Mass for.

Have a blessed Triduum.

Now, thankfully the CHURCH DOES NOT TEACH that women are inferior or weak or need to stay at home or be uneducated.  Considering the highest example of humanity is a woman (Mary) and that THREE doctors of the Church are women, the Catholic Church is much more welcoming and loving of women.  Many of it’s members are not.  Male and female.  I have met many women who want to go back to having no rights, to not being educated, to having no legal protection, to getting rid of abuse and rape laws, to outlawing divorce, to keeping women at home and under the dictatorship of a man (not a husband that is the spiritual head which is much different).

They think these things are pleasing to God and that the Church has always taught this abuse of women.  She has not.  Yes, there have been men and women who have spoken and written that women are unrepentant seducers, that they are inferior and weak, and not capable of higher learning but they do not speak for the Church.  They Do NOT SPEAK for the Church.  The Church through Pope John Paul II wrote Mulieris Dignitatem that underscored and highlighted the value and dignity that women brought to the Church and to society at large.

The Catholic Church does not teach or endorse the abuse of women, their devaluing as members of the Church and society, or the twisted use of Catholic teaching to hurt women in any way.  By hurting women, you hurt men and you hurt the Church.  If I only knew and met only Traditionalists on my journey in the Catholic faith, I probably wouldn’t want to be Catholic or to remain Catholic if these were the kinds of people I would have to spend my life and eternity with.  They aren’t very happy and they don’t like women and they hate anyone who doesn’t agree with them.  I hate it when people hate women and would do anything to subjugate them or abuse them or even kill them because they don’t fit into their narrow world view.  Sexism is alive and well even in American not just among “Traditionalist.”

Second, I’ve found two really excellent Christian Rock groups that I really like.  One I heard on what used to be our local rock station (it no longer exists as of last Tuesday) and the other I saw on a Protestant Christian music station.  Both are excellent.

Skillet “Awake and Alive”

The Letter Black “Believe”

The big problem is that this supervisor hits all my triggers because she acts just like my abuser.  I have talked to her about a month ago about her behavior but it didn’t last because she honestly believes she is doing nothing wrong and won’t take me seriously.  She says that she has to act the way she does because of the work that needs to get done (which she likes to dump on me instead either doing it herself when it is part of her job description or delegating it to other officers who have the time and ability to do it), that I am her most capable officer (like I said she lies)(yet she treats me like dirt; she treats almost all of the female officers like dirt unless they are married or have children) (she hates the position I work), that I’m smart (but only so far as having completed college; being Catholic is the unforgivable sin to her) (actually, believing or even accepting evolution and using science is the unforgivable sin) but I feel that I’ve been singled out for her abuse.  She hates working there and has said so repeatedly.  She lectures about her religious and political views when those are big no-nos at work and especially as a supervisor to a employee.  She has let certain individuals get away with behavior that should have gotten them fired and plays favorites (even though one of her “favorites” can’t stand her).

Except for this supervisor, the job isn’t that bad.  There are a couple of problematic employees but one is switching to the construction side of things, the one I see for only a few minutes, and the only I only have to deal with for six hours though if he screws up like the stories that go around about his last time here, he won’t be here long.  First half of my week is okay.  I  have an excellent supervisor that appreciated what I do and the position I have.  The other half of the week is the bas supervisor and I dread coming to work the second half of my week because I don’t know what will set her off, what she’ll blame me for, what stupid, insane thing she wants me to do now.  She totally stresses me out.  I’m stressing out just writing this, remembering what she does to me, what emotions she evokes in me.

I hate putting myself in a situation where I can only expect stress and fear.  I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to come up with some imagined slight or mistake on my part and I get fired.  Doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. I wish I had a better job waiting for me.  I wish I didn’t have all the bills to pay that keeps me in this job.  I wish that people who abuse would understand what they are doing and the effect they have on people.  I don’t know what’s going to set her off.  I have to walk on eggshells around her.  It’s just a job but it seems like so much worse than that.

It also doesn’t help that last week I had the fact that my father doesn’t think much of me either.  I was never either of my parents’ favorites but I still has the delusion that my father loved me.  Nope.  My sister K gets all his love and attention.  I got the random backhanded gift out of the blue growing up but K was and is his total favorite.  My sisters S and G are my mother’s favorites though S more because S has a son.  I understand that my mother chose to hurt me and has an undiagnosed mental illness (possibly) but to have consider and possibly accept that my dad chose someone over me still hurts even at 29.  To know that neither parent really loved me really, really hurts and is unimaginable.  I still had that delusion that my dad was on my side, even just a little bit.  Not any more.

This really sucks especially since I don’t have anyone in real life to talk to about all this.