I am Doing It For Myself

I am working on a whole post with this theme but it is something I want to point out.  Sometimes the most effective way of completing or starting something or even believing something is to do it just for you and no one else.  Taking care of my depression is entirely for myself.  It benefits me the most, not some other person though others may benefit.  Sometimes we have to do things for ourselves because at the end of the day we are the ones that have to live with ourselves not others.  Yes, it sounds selfish but it isn’t.  It’s actually very selfless and mature but it takes time and experience to understand this.

And now I really need to go to sleep.

Some People

In this case, I mean traditionalists.  They just make me so angry especially when they accuse those that attend the OF as being judgmental and closeminded when I find that it is the traditionalists that are so judgemental and arrogant and judge others by their very untenable and unrealistic standards.  If you don’t fit into a very narrow definition of who they define as Catholic, they call that person a modernist and evil and a heretic.  How is that not judgemental?  Or saying that someone that prefets the OF to the EF is stupid and that if you were really Catholic you would only attend the “real” Mass in Latin.  I won’t get into how they think women are the cause of all men’s sins or how women need be dressed in burqas or that all women need to be slaves to their husbands (women are not to be educated by the way; women are only good for being stay at home wives and mothers with no personality or dreams or talents whatsoever).

I’ve heard that if something makes you angry that it means it’s something you need to give into it because you are rebeling and it is something you need to be doing because you know that you need to be doing it but are rebeling and being angry because you want your way instead of God’s way.  For example if being forced to wear a veil causes you to be angry, then you need to be wearing a veil and give in otherwise you are sinning.  This isn’t true.  Anger is a sign that something is wrong, most of the time.  Yes, there are times when feeling anger is inappropriate but that has more to do with the person than the cause of the anger.

I want to go more into this but it is very late and I need sleep.

Oh, To Be So …

I’m not sure what.  I had been meaning to write a whole post on compliance and obedience but here it is Good Friday and all I want is Lent to be over.  It’s not about being able to eat meat again or being done with fasting.  I just don’t want to deal with Christ dying and the emotions that go along with it.  I just want to flee, to run away.  To not have to deal with the fact that even though I believe I don’t seem to have any faith, that I don’t feel anything.

I read the post that Elizabeth Esther wrote today and it brought up that all I feel is that I’m being pushed away, that I’m holding on and Jesus is pulling my fingers off one by one so that I’ll fall away, that I’m not wanted, that I’m not loved.

Even though Good Friday service is optional, I feel bad if I don’t go, like last year and feel like I have to go because if I don’t it means I’m not really believing, that I don’t love Jesus enough to go, that I’m not doing enough, that I’m not loving enough, that wanting to feel something about my faith is evil and sinful, that I don’t exist to Jesus unless I do everything right. 

I feel like if I go I’ll be reminded how lost and unlovable I really am and everyone will know about it, that I’ll be kicked out of church and told to never come back.

For writing so much about how I feel I really don’t feel anything about my Catholic faith.  I hear all the time that you shouldn’t feel anything about your faith and if you do feel anything that you might as well be the devil.  You have to be stoic and somber and serious and have no feelings to be a good Catholic and never enjoy anything and don’t have a personality at all.  Maybe I’m not meant to be Catholic if this is what being a Catholic involves. 

Certainly this is what traditionalists think.  They just want automatons that spout off their rhetoric about Latin Masses, modernism, feminism, and how the Church went to hell in a handbasket because of Vatican II. 

Depression doesn’t help but it isn’t the cause of this either.  It’s just a symptom in this case. 

Jesus died for me and I don’t want to deal with.  That hurts because I’m not lovable like that.  None should love me like that.  I’m not worthy like that.  I don’t do anything even close enough to be worthy of that.  I have to do things to be worthy of love.  That’s what I’ve always be told and taught.  And I’ve never been worthy of love.  I’ve never done enough to be worhy of anybody’s love, not my parents, not anybody.  I’ve always been a loser and a failure and a disgrace and I’ve never amounted to anything.  I shouldn’t be loved at all.  I’ve never felt loved only hated.  So why would would someone go and do something like that even before I was born?

I don’t get it and I don’t really want to deal with it.

Depression and God

Dealing with depression is not easy.  Add faith and it gets much harder especially when some of my triggers come from supposed Catholics and my own rearing in the faith.  Right now I find it hard to get out of bed to go to Mass on Sunday mornings.  I didn’t go today though I did manage to go to Confession. 

It seems like now that I’m treating my depression things are worse not better especially with regards to faith.  I can handle work which is weird but Mass is hard though it’s less to do or deal with than work. 

Then I feel guilty though not going seems to be better for me right now, at least in dealing with unknown crowds.  When I wasn’t dealing with my depression, I made it to Mass every week.  Now I can only seem to manage every other week. 

Add in Catholics who have never had to deal with depression and it gets worse.  They don’t understand that you don’t choose to feel or act this way.  They think that depression is a sin or unconfessed sin.  They think praying one specific prayer once will automatically cure you immediately.  They don’t understand and all they do is cause more hurt, more guilt, more pain, and drive us further from God because when you feel like us you want the quick cure and when it doesn’t happen you think there must be something really wrong with you or that you are being punished or that God hates you.  You are the failure and you are going to stay that way because you are so repulsive that you are ignored by God.

So right now I’m surviving and making it to Mass when I can.  I’m a bad Catholic and I know it.  God have mercy on us all.

Women Are the “Ebal”

Yes, that’s what I said.  Women are evil, well, according to certain people.  Mainly traddie Catholics and disgustingly, a lot of women.  Especially ones in the traddie camp.  Or ones in the quiverful/patriarchy sects.  And they’re still stuck in my head, give voice to a really nasty element that hates women and is working on making me hate myself for not subscribing and living the way they dictate.  And I want to listen to them because maybe by listening to them life will be better.  My mother will finally love me.  I’ll finally be successful at something.  I’ll be making everybody happy.  What if that is what God really wants for me and I’m disobeying, sinning even by not listening?  I won’t be happy but that doesn’t matter.  I don’t matter.  But the horrible voice is still there.

I finally start therapy in a few weeks after finally making an appointment.  That was scary.  It still is.  What if I that say I’m not sick and that I don’t need help?  What if they say I’m too sick and lock me up for the rest of my life?  The medication only helps a little.  What if I lose my job over this?

I found a WordPress app that finally updates here.  I
wasn’t dead, just not near a computer nor had an app to use.  Plus, work has been really bad. 

The idiot I complained about in the last post is gone but now the idiot I work with opposite grave has turned into an ass.  I believe the asshole is trying to get me fired.  He’s certainly bullying me into doing what he wants by lying about me.  He’s even lied to our boss right in front of me when our boss talked to both of us two weeks ago.  But this ass now has me needing to call into the supervisor when I arrive at work AND making sure that my radio check is a minute before my shift starts even though I don’t get paid for any of it.  Bullied because I’m a woman.  He gets his way and I get punished.  I hate him and I hate how I’m treated.  There’s a lot more going on than I’ve mentioned here but I don’t want that asshole in my head any more than he already is which is way too much.

Anger, Rage, and Abuse

This post at Why Not Train a Child? really highlights some of the issues I have today.  The anger that I was not allowed to acknowledge or express when I was a child when my mother spanked me usually for something I didn’t do (my mother just preferred to spank me).

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.

Taking the Next Step

As I’ve posted on here before, I have depression.  Until yesterday, I  hadn’t done anything about it.  Saying I had depression was one thing.  It didn’t mean it was real.  It didn’t mean it was real or that I was really broken.  That I didn’t have all my shit together.

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.

Depression Sucks

As the title says, depression sucks.  I’m stuck in a spiral, out of control, everything is getting worse world where no one even notices that I’m hurting or refuses to acknowledge it or want me to hide everything I feel because making them feel bad is the unforgivable sin.

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.

 

 

 

Triduum

The three holiest days on the Catholic calendar told in pictures (with passages from the Gospel of Matthew):

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.

A Couple of Things

First, after serious consideration, I am deleting the link to Patty Bonds’ blog.  I don’t agree with some of the content she posts (I find some of it deliberately inflammatory and irresponsible on the part of the the content creator and not Patty Bonds) though I will continue to have a link to her conversion story.  If you want to continue to read her blog, go on ahead.  I have serious issues and reservations about some of the content and their creators that Patty posts.  It’s her blog and she is allowed to post it.  However, I don’t consider it truly representative of what I understand Catholicism  is and what it truly represents and I think some of it is dangerous.  Like I said, it’s her blog and if you want to read it, go ahead.  I can’t make you stop.

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”

 

 

Another Week in the Healing Process

If I thought last week was bad, this week was tough.  I had one of my worst crying jags Sunday night/Monday morning at work.  At least the coworker who heard part of it brushed it off as lack of sleep.  (I had chewed him out over something that was not his fault.)  My shift supervisor has issues with me and I have major issues with her.  She decided not to tell me several key things Sunday including a coworker going home sick (the coworker told me and I had to pick up a few of his duties which was wasn’t a big deal but the whole not telling me was), that the coworker I chewed out was doing something she told him to do (I think she made something up just to get him to do some work), and lied to me.  I had every intention of talking to her Monday night but that didn’t work out because she decided to deal with an issue and then hang out with one of my coworkers.

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.

 

 

The Healing Process

Everyone wants to heal.  But they never really tell you that it’s difficult.  Oh they say it, but you don’t quite believe them.  Right now I’m going through a really rough, tough patch in my healing process and there are times when I wish I wasn’t.  My emotions are all over the place.  I cry too easily.  I fall back into depression.  I feel like there is no future, that I can’t get any farther, that where I am at now (especially in regards to career) is where I will always be.  It doesn’t help that my abuser doesn’t recognize, refuses to admit that she abused me and that her choices affected me and affected me deeply.  Some days are so bad that I honestly don’t want to get out of bed, don’t want to go to work or do anything.

It’s tough and it isn’t fun.  But, once I get through this, I hope that I will be better than I am now.  That is the only thing that makes it worth it.  Pain without purpose seems pointless especially when you are trying to heal.  It doesn’t help that I can’t really explain or talk about this with people largely because they won’t/don’t/can’t understand or I’ve tried in the past to talk about my abuse and haven’t been believed or I’m just comfortable discussing this with some people.

Where the Hell is Matt?

While the video has been around for a while, he does have a blog and I’ve decided to add it to my list of blogs.

Here’s the video if you haven’t seen it: 

And the blog: Where the Hell is Matt?

 

Signs/Symptoms of a Radical Traditionalist

Having come across so many radical traditionalists in my time on CAF and even one or two in real life, I thought I’d come up with a set of diagnostic criteria for a radical traditionalist, not unlike the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV for psychologists and psychiatrists.  This isn’t perfect and I know I probably forgot things but this is what I have so far.

For a diagnosis of Radical Traditionalist, three or more of the following criteria may be met (OB is obscure):

-Believes the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, usually referred to as the Tridentine Latin Mass (TLM) is the only valid form of the Mass.  Everything else is inferior, heretical, or Protestant.

-Holds the 1917 Code of Canon Law above the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

-Believes Latin in the only language of the Catholic Church.  All prayers, private or public, are to be said in Latin.

-Believes God only understands Latin.

-Believes Palestrina and Gregorian chant that is sung by an all male choir is the only form of music, esclesial or secular, allowed.

-Believes the Rosary is the supreme and highest devotion.  It is the only prayer, besides the Mass, that is necessary for salvation.  Believes anyone who does not pray the Rosary is not a Catholic.

-Believes the Ordinary Form of the Mass, normally referred to the Novus Ordo and refuses to use the forms of the Church, in the vernacular is inefficacious, is invalid, does not present a valid Eucharist, is inferior, and Protestant.  Believe people who attend the OF are either Protestants or heretics.

-Believes communion on the tongue while kneeling at a communion rail is the only way to receive the Eucharist.  People who are unable to kneel are deemed irreverent.  Communion in the hand is considered heretic and pagan.

-Believes the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima is the only Marian apparition or at least the highest.   Believed to be the best Marian devotion and the only one worthy of belief.  Believe Catholics who do not believe it, follow what was said, or refuse to acknowledge it are heretics.  Requires automatic believe in this apparition as a criteria as to being a real Catholic.

-Believe Confession is required every week.

-Believe most things are a mortal sin, especially if they say so.

-Believe no woman is allowed anywhere near the sanctuary.  This even means the first pew unless they are a nun/sister praying the Rosary.

-Believe there is a strict dress code for every occasion.  This only applies to women and children.

-Believes women are required to veil at all times.  Mantillas only.  Hats and other forms of headcovering are not allowed.  No hair is allowed to show otherwise a woman will be inciting a man to sin.  She is at fault if a mans sees even one strand of hair.

-Believes women are required to wear dresses or skirts (dresses are the preferred option) down to the floor with full length sleeves and extreme high collars.  The prefered style is fundamentalist Mormon.

-Believes women who dress in pants or skirts above the toe are inciting men to lust and other sexual sins and just asking to be raped.

-Believes women are responsible for men’s sins, especially sexual sins.

-Believes the Church does not go far enough is legislating modesty and dress.  Believes the Church should dictate a strict dress code for everyone that must be strictly adhered to at all times.

-Believes women are to be minimally educated.

-Believes women should never work outside the home.

-Believes no one should go swimming do to the immoral form of dress required.

-Believes women are meant only to be wives and mothers, and occasionally sisters but nothing else.

-Believe Natural Family Planning (NFP) is contraception and goes against God’s will.

-Believes the number of children a couple will have is should be entirely left up to the providence of God.  Any abstinence, NFP, or any other method is contraception and a mortal sin.  A mother’s health, a family’s finances, etc. are irrelevant to family size and having children.

-Believes all children should be homeschooled.  All other forms of schooling are tools of the devil.

-Believes colleges, universities, high schools, elementary schools, public and Catholic are bastions of radical feminism, secular humanism, and atheism.

-Believes sheltering children from every interaction with the world and especially other people will make them strong Catholics.

-Believes TV, radio, movies, computers, and any other media that is not explicitly Catholics is immoral, a tool of the Devil, and never allowed in the home.

-Believes EWTN doesn’t go far enough.

-Believes most Bishops, priests, and Catholics to be outright heretics and have no knowledge of the faith.

-Believe Michael Voris is the second coming and like his in the face style and name calling of bishops and fellow Catholics.

-Believe Colleen Hammond is the go to authority for dress and follow her rules exactly.

-Believes if the book is not the Bible, the Early Church fathers, or one of  a select few writers then the books are immoral and advocating devil worship.

-Believe only young earth creationism.

-Believes they must call all behavior not exactly like theirs a sin and everyone who does not believe like them a heretic.

-Believes they are the only one on the right path to Heaven.  Everyone else, except for a select few, is going to Hell.

-Believes having fun is a sin.

-Believes contemporary music is immoral regardless of the lyrics.  Some classical music by some Catholics composers is acceptable.

-Believes the organ is the only instrument.  All other instruments, regardless of use, is profane.

-Believes that quoting documents from Vatican II is sinful and will only cite pre-Vatican II documents to support their arguments, even if they are off topic or have nothing to do with a topic or are out dated.

-Will ignore, put down, or trash Vatican II.

-Believes happiness and joy are useless and pointless especially in the spiritual life.

-Believes it is necessary to point out every little flaw and mistake a priest makes as necessary to stop liturgical abuse.

-Believes liturgical abuse is extremely rampant in OF/NO parishes and have never existed in EF/TLM parishes.

-Believes the Baltimore Catechism is the only necessary catechism.

-Believe the 1950s were the Golden Era of Catholicism in America.

-Believes the 1960s were the end of the Catholic Church in America.

-Believes Council of Trent trumps Vatican II.

-Wants all Catholics to be exactly like them.

-Believe unity is the sam thing as uniformity.

-Believe the EF/TLM would solve all the problems in the Church, including but not limited to sex abuse by priests, lack of vocations.

-Believe a college education is worthless unless you are going to be a lawyer or a doctor.

-Believe they are the only true Catholics and everyone else is a Protestant heretic.

(OB)-Believe women who dress in pants or in skirts above the toe are guilty for their own rape.

(OB)-Believes all Protestants are going to Hell.

(OB)-Believes Jews were abandoned or are ignored by God.

(OB)-Believe Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox are to be Latinized.

(OB)-Believe that is a person receives any sort of spiritual consolation, you are doing something wrong or are possessed by a demon.

 

This is not an exhaustive list but it does include what I have seen, read, and heard.

You Do Not Have Authority (But You Certainly Act Like a Nut)

There are people out there (i.e. the Internet) that think they have the authority to dictate how other people live their lives.  I find this especially true on CAF (Catholic Answers Forums in the Traditional Catholicism forum and in the Liturgy forum and the Spirituality forum).  Since almost all of the posters are LAY people (meaning they are just people who have no faculties granted them through ordination to the diaconate, priesthood, or bishopric or theologians and are just regular people that sit in the pews) they have NO AUTHORITY to tell people how to live their lives or what prayers they have to pray or what not to say or eat to be considered a “real” Catholic.  Remember that when some nobody gets on their stupid soapbox and screams that those who attend the Ordinary Form of the Mass are not worshipping God and that everyone must pray in Latin and the women must be in burqas.

Remember they have no authority.

Only the Church Herself can say if she wants the Mass to be entirely said in Latin (or Greek or Russian or whatever language) and that BOTH forms are valid.  Only the Church Herself can say if she wants women to veil (She says it is a private devotion just like the Rosary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet, etc.) and since she hasn’t said anything it is a private devotion that cannot be foisted on women.  Trust the Church not some random poster on the Internet.

The Past

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here but I am a survivor of abuse.  Emotional/psychological and verbal abuse.  Not much physical abuse and to my knowledge, not sexual abuse thought there was abuse by my mother that could be considered if not sexual abuse then boundary abuse.  And yes, my mother was my abuser.  That went on for nearly the first twenty years of my life.

Then I went off to college at 18 while still carrying all that baggage/garbage, etc.  It wasn’t until I was 21 that I was able to start drawing lines and when I was 22 realize my parents didn’t care all that much about me.  My mother was abusive, my dad neglectful.  And I thought that this was all normal.

It wasn’t until I was forced into counseling my senior year of college (I had gone to my advisor to get an extension for a paper and was in tears because I was so exhausted but she thought I was depressed and made me make an appointment with the counseling center) that I had someone outside the situation actually say what happened to me was abuse and neglect.  I tried to say that to people while in the last year or so of high school but no one believed me.  From hearing things like I must be making things up to my parents weren’t really like that I doubted what really happened to me and even believed that I was making it up.  There are still times I think I made up what happened to me and then I remind myself that, no, it really happened.  Why would I be as messed up as I am if I hadn’t been abused?

I recently read a book about daughters and their mothers.  I really shouldn’t have read past the first few pages and returned it immediately to the library.  It was the absolutely the worst book to read.  This women advocates that all women and I mean all women need to be best friends with their mothers regardless of how their mothers treated them in the past and that the only friendship a women needs in one with her mother.  Actually, the author advocates that the only relationship a women needs is the friendship she has with her mother and that her mother should be the center of her universe.  That a women being a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend to other people is considered unimportant and even blasphemous to this whole mother-daughter friendship the author advocates.  That’s such a load of BS it isn’t even funny.  There are many of us that can’t even have a civil relationship with our mothers let alone a mother-daughter relationship and a friendship is completely out of the questions.  Yet this author can’t see that.  It upset me to read the book and I really shouldn’t have read it.

But this mentality hurts because I’m also getting it from a supervisor at work.  Now, this supervisor at work doesn’t know that I was abused and I’m not going to tell her.  But she can’t conceive that parents might abuse their children and that those children can’t have anything to do with those abusers as adults as a means of protecting themselves from getting hurt.  My supervisor lives in a very unrealistic and a very self-selective world that’s definitely out of touch with reality.  She gets along great with her mother but then her mother loved her.  My mother wasn’t capable of loving me.

Another effect of my mother’s abuse (from all her screaming) is that I don’t handle loud noises really well.  If I’m aware that there is going to be loud noise, I can prepare myself to handle it but there are times when that’s just not possible.  Part of my job in security deals with responding to alarms (there’s actually more to alarms to than that but that’s all I can get into).  Many of these alarms are loud and extremely obnoxious.  Enough, even after my time working there, the sound stresses me out.  A lot.  I cringe and want to run away which isn’t possible.

The cringing and running away when I feel I really can’t also happens with regards to personal space.  If I feel someone is sitting too close to me (which has happened a lot at Mass recently) I start to cry and want to run away but have this overwhelming feeling that I just have to stay there and let the bad things happen, that I have to let the hurt happen.  Because leaving and running away is not an option.  It is for everyone else but not for me.  I can understand how screwed up that is but that’s what’s going through my mind when someone sits so close that it feels like they are sitting in my lap and I can’t move and that this person is going to hurt me and I have to keep silent and let it happen.

So this has been a bad week for me.

Rant of the Week

I’ve been meaning to update here but life got in the way.

Why do people have to denigrate someone to support their position?  If Person A doesn’t agree with Person B, do so charitable, don’t resort to name calling the person or the position the person has taken.  Person A is quite able to disagree with Person B’s position on Position X  but Person A should do so in a way that does not resort to calling Person B names or saying that Positions X is stupid or pointless or even inferior.  You can demonstrate that someone’s position is ill-thought out through logic and well supported reasoning.

“Traditionalists” and I qualify that, denigrate those who do not worship the EF  (Extraordinary Form) and attend the OF (Ordinary Form) solely.  And yes I mean, worship the form and not in the form.  They name call those that who attend the OF liberals and heretics and stupid and refer to the OF, a valid form of the Mass, as an inferior product that comes from the Devil and Protestants.  I have yet to see a “Traditionalist” say anything positive about the OF and practically condemn them to Hell those that don’t agree with them or attend the EF solely.  ”Traditionalists” seem to prefer denigrating people rather than sharing in love their love of the EF.  Basically, the only Catholics they will call Catholics are the ones that worship solely in the EF, pray exactly like them in Latin, think their own view in the only view, put down and condemn those that don’t agree or worship exactly like them, want uniformity instead of unity (they want automatons rather than individuals created in the image and likeness of God), and berate people for even thinking the OF is valid.

Now, there are people who prefer the OF solely who also denigrate the EF but those seem to be few and far between compared to the ones that denigrate the OF.  It’s like the only position to qualify as a “Traditionalist” is to hate and especially the OF and to bring up abuses that haven’t happened in 30, 40 years. (I haven’t seen anything that truly qualifies as an abuse in the nearly 30 years I’ve been attending Mass.  I have seen things that were questionable but they didn’t last long.)  Yet people seem to think their preference is set in stone rubrics that must be followed or the Mass isn’t valid and they are going to find another parish.  Wow.  Didn’t know the Mass was about us.  I thought and was taught it was about worshipping God.

We are taught to love our neighbor.  Not love somebody only if they completely agree with us on every little thing.  That’s impossible and dangerous.

A Realization

Why I have problems with certain views espoused by certain types of Catholics:

Your personal preference/opinion is not Church doctrine.

I see this rather frequently especially in regards to topics such as women, the Ordinary Form of the Mass, private devotions, people who don’t bow down and worship at the poster’s feet for their opinion (this one comes up the most), evolution, altar servers, dress code, et al., etc.  At the end of the day, we all need God’s help and grace not our hand smacked away because we are asking for help.  I see so much of the hand smacking and not enough the hand grasping and lifting someone up.

Discussion of the Week: The Saints We Haven’t Met Yet

This week I’d like people to post about saints that people have never heard of ; how a particular saint helped them out; particular devotions to particular saints; saints that inspire you; saints that you just don’t get.  Post about Saints.

The Internet is For Idiots

It’s true.  Consider this my rant of the week.  The Internet is for idiots, well at least for people who come off as idiots.  And CAF is the cause of my rant this week.  I really should ban myself from the Traditional Catholicism forum because it seems chock a block with people who label and malign people who don’t agree with them 100% as damned to Hell or are telling people what to do and advocating their opinion as Church dogma, which it definitely isn’t.

Between the people who malign priests (apparently, priests are supposed to be perfect and holy as soon as they are ordained instead of being the real men in need of a saviour like the rest of us motley sinners) who don’t preach what they want (hellfire and brimstone for everyone but themselves with a sprinkling of ‘you’re a heretic because you don’t eat/sleep/pray Latin 24/7′, veil (not headcover and there is a difference) 24/7, or are a woman who works instead of choosing to be a doormat and stay at home mom who is the slave of her husband and woman are the cause of all the problems in society (yes, there are Catholics and Christians who believe and preach that) and don’t condemn everyone but the one individual to hell, the people who hate woman and blame them for the ills in the world (and plain out misogyny ), and the ones that believe their opinion and view is better than the Church and what Jesus taught, it’s a wonder anybody stays Catholic.  There’s so much hatred and no love for fellow Catholics.  The need to smack people down and take joy in that hurting of people.

There is no honor is maligning priests.  By insulting priests you insult Jesus.  Yet people do it all the time on CAF and think they are being holy and righteous and doing God’s work.  NO, you’re committing mortal sin (calumny and gossip and slander and detraction and not loving you neighbor all come to mind) and being disobedient.  You have no authority to say or advocate such things and you will be held accountable, if not this life then the next.

That’s actually the biggest issue: no authority.  The Internet forum and knowledge of the truth does not give you authority to dictate how other people live.  You cannot give yourself authority.  That’s not how it works.  The Church has authority, given to Her by Christ, and She passes on some of  that authority to Her bishops and priests, and the heads of religious orders/congregations/etc.  But an anonymous poster on the Internet has no authority to claim or to tell someone how to live their live or what devotions to follow or what to believe or disbelieve or even to obey or disobey just because they don’t like something.  I can’t tell anyone how to live their life.  They can ask me for advice or suggestions or what not but they don’t have to take it or even listen to it.  They are their own individual person as I am my individual person.  Someone who needs someone to tell them how to live their life is in serious need of help because they aren’t living their life but letting others control them and that can be dangerous.

God did not create automatons and He doesn’t want automatons but there are sure a lot of people who want everyone to be automatons and clones instead of the individuals God created them to be.