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rotzaprachim · 4 years ago

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be gentle with the people who were not made from The Fall

- Gen, Declan Lynch & Mór Ó Corra

2k ao3 here

She passed Declan a blank manilla envelope. He ran his fingers gingerly over the edges, life having long ago built up a healthy suspicion of anything from the channels of the Fairy Market. He couldn’t feel anything, but he’d also never had the touch for it. At some point he’d always ended up having to hold his breath and jump in in order to get the rough work done.

He slit it open with the knife in his pocket.

There were answers he’d had before he even knew what the questions were. Firstborn, Niall told Declan. My All-American son, Niall told Declan. When you were born the rivers dried up and all the cows in Rockingham County cried blood, Niall told Ronan. When you were born, I wasn’t here, Niall told Declan.

The silence swallowed his voice for a long time.

“Ó Corra?”

She gave him a look that said, you can’t pronounce your own name. Finally she said, “You have my name. It’s what they did when the father couldn’t be found.”

He studied the certificate in the small crescents of yellow light that bounced in through the tinted windows of her sports car from the streetlight outside. The Births and Deaths Registation (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, Article 34. Registered in the District of Belfast. 24 July 1997. Declan James Ó Corra.

There was a box that asked for Name and Surname and Dwelling Place of Father (6). It was blank. There was another box that asked for Rank or Profession of Father. On that one, someone had gona back with a red pen at some later point, scrawled angrily, messily, bleeding jaggedly out from the neat black boxes, GONE.

It made sense, in a strange sort of way that Declan’s brain dimly seemed to recognise in the same way that the drowning man thinks the sun streaming through the surface looks quite nice even when he’s being pulled under. Niall Lynch’s sons. The dreamer son of a dream and the dream of the dreamer the son of a dream. And here now was the odd one out, the liar the son of a lie.

“I was two years younger than you.” The woman finally said. He couldn’t think of her as anything other than the vague idea digging at the back of his eye turned hard, angry secret when he started to shift through his father’s boxes of crap after death. He’d left a fuckton of a lot of loose threads, although Declan hadn’t thought he’d be one of them. Letters and phone bills from a far-away woman, even a photo or two, all the vitriol and anger he’d carried around bubbling up again acridly through a mirror. Collected in an old file box next to IOU’s and pay me bastard or i’ll fuck you ups in seven different languages, three of which Niall didn’t know how to read. Collected, and never returned. Even some photos of him as a kiddo in a tiny knit sweater.

“No explanations.” Declan finally said. His voice sounded like when he’d had the lights punched out of him by one of the goons his dad owed rubles, or rupees, or riyals, in the parking lot of a Fairy Market. It could have been all three. “You don’t have to give me one.” I don’t know if I want one, he didn’t say.

“I’m a very dangerous woman to find, Declan. You wouldn’t have found me if you hadn’t been looking.”

He didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted safety, although he’d ruled out that as a possibility years ago. He wanted the ones the world had left him to care for to be safe, and he’d jeapordised all that on a wild goose chase to find the woman in one of his father’s fucking dream objects on a hunch of a hunch. He’d done exactly what he’d warned Ronan not to do, relied on himself to be smarter, sharper, more careful. All attributes hard won on his own, like learning from imitation from a mirror. You see what this who looks like you does? Now do the opposite.

He sighed. The air bristled, and he realised he sounded a lot like Mór Ó Corra.

“Maybe I-”

Maybe he hadn’t been angry, almost, to find out. Maybe he’d almost been relieved. A voice to his darkest thoughts saying, you did not dream this up. The part of himself that’d been forced through seven years of Catholic school and then forced himself through a few months of therapy where he couldn’t tell the therapist about any of the things that had most profoundly fucked him up said a good man should have loved any child, regardless. He was about fifteen years past thinking Niall to be a good man.

“Maybe I spent so many years dealing with all the fucking dreaming, the dreamers and the dreams and every fucking thing that’s come to kill us because Dad couldn’t fix any of his own shit and the fact that none, none of it was ever part of me that I thought I wanted some kind of fucking explanation for it all. I wanted some- some explanation for it all. Why I was different. WHy dad- … WHy dad. I wanted some part of a past that was mine.” Selfish, maybe. Learned. If you spent a lifetime you were different from other people, eventually you came to a wanting a reason for them to be different from you.

“And you think I’m going to be the dear old Mam who darns your socks and calls to remind you to bring a good girl home to the family?”

“No. I didn’t ask for that. You know what I asked for.”

The second Manilla envelope she gave him was far thicker. This time, he could feel the slightest trace of- something. Not a buzzing, not a mist, a- something. He slid it into his briefcase. No expectations. Nothing more. A deal that was a deal, only a birth certificate instead of a handshake.

“I was two years younger than you. Sometimes life doesn’t hand you many choices. I’d say you didn’t understand, and you don’t, but I’ll also say you’ve been a hell of a lot more of a father than Niall ever was. All the more so since the world’s made you be one.”

Niall was drunk off some kind of spiked slivovitz when he’d come round to it the first time. Retrospectively, he was probably scared shitless, and rightly so. “Anything happens,” he’d slurred into the hotel couch. “You’re the man of the house. Take ‘em to church. Make ‘em proper. Make ‘em fear God. There’s money in the bank, anything happens.” And Declan had almost said, you know it’s my number Matthew’s school’s had down on the books for a year now? You know the priest there already thinks we’re orphans?

“You’ve got a number and an adress. You’re a smart boy. You know if you use it my women’ll kill you just as likely as the dreamkillers.”

“Everything has a price. At least you’re up front on it.”

“I’m not a good woman, Declan. Don’t make your father’s mistake. Don’t dream me into being one.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

---

He didn’t open the package until he’d driven two hours, switched lisence plates and then cars, moved a state line, and walked two miles out to a sublet Jordan knew from a friend of a friend of an enemy in the art underground, where two dreams were now. It came with two dozen forged Miró’s in the living room, all done with a variety of blue paint with a distinctly incriminating synthetic binding agent manufactured solely post 1986, and even in the palest strands of morning light it made the living room into a riot of psychedelic stick-figure Catalan sunshine. He opened the door carefully, walked gingerly past the still-sleeping Matthew, TV still flickering from where he’d probably been watching it far later than Declan would have let him. Flicked the kitchen light on and made himself a cup of instant coffee, and more than anything else resisted the urge to upstairs and collapse next to Jordan in the bed that was for the moment theirs and sleep till noon. But if there was a lesson he’d learned by know it was that he couldn’t do any of the things he wanted to in life. So he downed the shitty instant coffee and he opened Mór Ó Corra’s folder and he got to work. You do what you gotta do for your family, Niall had told him. A deal had gone south and they’d made it out with their lives and stacks of money shoved in their pockets. One day you’ll have yourself a wife and some kids and then you’ll know. And he’d swallowed what he now knew was his rage.

“Ready to make a deal with the devil?” The voice on the other end of the number had said when he’d dialed it, and he said, only the devil can help me now, and he’d been right. No one with their head above the water could know the things he wanted to know about the Moderators. I have two dreamers and two dreams to keep out of the reach of a shadowy intergovernmental agency who’s whole M.O is about killing every dreamer they can find to stop the end of the world. Only a shadow knows its kind. And for her part, Mór Ó Corra had been thorough. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust her and he didn’t even know if he trusted the birth certificate. When you were the lying son of a lie, another one would be more natural than anything. He wouldn’t act on any of her information until he could put some feelers out, a few red herrings, get ahold of some of Nialls’ other bullshit to run cross checks. It was a start. At some he’d always ended up having to hold his breath and jump in in order to get the rough work done. At some point, he’d always just been shoved in.

He didnt’ realise he’d fallen asleep until he was woken up. By Matthew, prodding his neck with the tines of a fork.

“You said to wake you up if you slept past noon.” Jordan set down a massive plate of something exactly an inch from his eardrum with a loud clatter.

“It’s 12:02,” Matthew added generously.

He looked down. He hadn’t gotten through the pile. There was still more-

Jordan’s eyes flicked notably towards the floor tiles. Declan followed them. In his early morning haze he’d somehow missed a second, smaller envelope within the envelope. He slipped it into his jacket before Matthew could see. He slid all of the papers back into the envelope before Matthew could see more.

“Two whole extra minutes? Well, that’s where’s where the rest of my day went.”

“You looked like you needed it. Like, you definitely looked like you needed it.” She handed him the day’s second mug of instant coffee and it hit him again that he loved her a not, which would have felt all new and electric even in circumstances that were not the current ones and when and if this was all over with hopefully no more deaths she deserved a really really nice vacation to somewhere sunny. Which he would not promise until he knew he could actually pull it off, because Declan Lynch was a liar but he was not a man who broke promises.

He didn’t open up the other envelope until he was in the bathroom with the door firmly locked. Magical all female mafias ran on the power of the sticky stuff at the top of a Manilla envelope, apparently. Only a few sheets inside. A surprisingly blurry print-out map with a building circled, a clipping from the Belfast Telegraph about the NHS’s most recent warnings on the loneliness epidemic among young adults and seniors, and new local projects for seniors to form new connections through knitting circles, classes in French and Irish, and mentorship opportunities with Sixth-Form students. “Former school teacher Anne Ó Corra recounts feelings of isolation after the untimely death of her only daughter in 1999. She says that mentorship opportunities with Saint Mary’s Compre-” Declan scanned the article. On the back the same hand that had scrawled, GONE, wrote, THink the old bat’d be happy to see you.

#my writings #call down the hawk #declan lynch #Mór Ó Corra #the dreamer trilogy #the raven cycle #the raven cycle fic #i don't remember a lot of hte details of TRC so if there's issues- please let me know! with canon or whatnot #also some of these details are based on a real birth certificate i found to copy the details off from belfast but it was from the 70's

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youknow-i-loveit · 4 years ago

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Why I Still Feel Like I Need To Ask Permission Before I Do Anything Ever

Randomly hit with the realization that my parents are still holding me back because they never taught me how to act with autonomy.

They never taught me how to be assertive or how to tell people things.

(They also wrecked my self-esteem, which was pretty horrible to begin with.)

My parents were very “do this because I told you to” authoritarian types who didn’t like to answer questions, and especially hated it when you questioned them. Questioning other authority figures was okay sometimes, depending on who the authority figure was, but my parents wanted to reign over their children with absolute power.

They generally had issues with needing to feel in-control. They didn’t have great role models for what it means to be an authority figure- my mom was the youngest, doted upon and spoiled for being the only girly-girl in the family, and by the time her parents had her (the eighth child), they were exhausted and distant, permissive, laissez-faire parents- and my dad grew up under an abusive military man who routinely beat his children, who used his voice as a weapon, and when he was at work, his wife ruled through manipulation, primarily guilt-tripping. Since my dad was the second of his six brothers, he was considered to have a better idea about how to deal with children, so my mom generally deferred to him, partly because of that, and partly because if my dad didn’t feel like he was in charge, he would make sure everybody felt miserable.

And as they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. My dad very much took after his father. He thought he was being toned-down and “gentle,” and bragged all the time about how he had it worse, making it sound like he was going easy on us. He often threatened to act more like his dad. But while I feel bad for him and his brothers and the abuse they endured, that gave him no excuse to abuse us the ways he did.

I could go on and on, but the point is, my parents didn’t know how to be in charge, but they felt that it was their god-given right to be in charge-- literally, they kept throwing “Honor Your Mother And Father” at us from the Ten Commandments.

My parents never admitted to being wrong. In fact, my dad hammered it in that being wrong was shameful and something that none of us should ever, ever do- ignorance was considered shameful, and if we ever dared utter the sentence “I didn’t know,” he would mock us, roar at us, and quite often, make references to that moment for the rest of the day, if not the rest of the week. It took me years to be okay with admitting that I don’t know things. To teach myself that learning should be fun and exciting, and that teaching others new information should be seen as an opportunity, not as a burden.

So my parents are proudly ignorant control freaks with an abusive streak, who want to rule with absolute authority; so far so great right?

My parents were strict Catholics who wanted us to follow their faith. They took us to church every Sunday. They enrolled all of us in Catholic school until they couldn’t afford the tuition anymore. They insulted anyone non-Catholic- even other Christians- calling them stupid and sinners and sometimes even “evil,” and considered anyone who attended Catholic church but didn’t adhere to their beliefs “not true Catholics,” so they were lumped in with the rest of the riffraff who were apparently going to hell.

We were allowed to question authority figures that didn’t adhere to their strict beliefs, and even encouraged to make fun of them, but if we ever dared to question someone who did, my parents informed us with cold, cutting certainty that we were making the wrong choice and were in danger of going to hell ourselves.

We grew up pretty sheltered. Our parents wouldn’t let us participate in most of the fads that swept up everyone else in our peer groups. It didn’t even matter when those peers were all Catholic kids attending our same Catholic school- my parents still thought their parents were making the wrong decisions, and we were effectively isolated from socializing with our peers. For a window into this, consider that I was forbidden from watching or playing Pokemon during the late 1990s. At recess, literally everyone else in my class would “play Pokemon,” whether that meant they were actually playing the trading-card game or whether they were pretending to be characters from the show. Since I wasn’t allowed to participate, I was left alone on the swings, accompanied only by one of the lunch moms who took pity on me. (Her name was Mrs. Stevenson. She was funny. I liked her. For Halloween, she wore an ugly holiday sweater with Froot Loops glued all over it and said she was a ‘cereal killer.’)

We weren’t allowed to watch Sailor Moon, or Rugrats, or Dragon Ball Z. We weren’t allowed to play with Furbies. We were allowed to accept Beanie Babies as gifts, but our parents were too poor to buy us any, so I think the most I had was about six.

We were also (wrongly) informed that people different from us were all stupid. I questioned this from a young age, asking why people were different, but instead of actually answering me, my mom would go “Exactly!” as though that settled that.

So when I asked why African Americans spoke differently or dressed differently or said things like “black pride,” I was told it was because they were entitled and because they thought they were special, but that they were foolish and wrong. It was only later, on my own, that I learned they don’t do these things to set themselves apart from the rest of society out of some weird petty desire to be special and different, but because we stole their culture from them, and they need to reclaim an identity that they can be proud of. The system is stacked against them, so every act of embracing their blackness is an act of rebellion against the system that tries to crush them every day. They speak differently because of where they live, because of history and culture that have shaped their words that way, and if their grammar is improper, that’s most likely due to underfunded school districts, but it could also be code-switching so they fit in with their peers.

And when I asked why anyone would be anything other than Christian if the Bible really was the word of God, and God was real, I was told it was because they’re too stupid or jaded to see the truth. So when my uncle came out as Muslim when I was a teenager, our family ostracized him, berated him, and made fun of him relentlessly behind his back, because we all thought he was stupid. It was years later that I became an atheist and I realized the questioning process he must have gone through, the philosophy he must have studied, the books upon books he must have read, the agonizing introspection he must have endured, all while living under his parents’ roof...

We were told that we were smart. That we were important and special.

But we were also taught that we were constantly on the razor’s edge of being undeserving of love or redemption.

Naturally, this caused me to form strong attachments to characters like Loki, Bucky, and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast- characters who others saw as monstrous, but who seemed worthy of redemption, who didn’t seem to deserve everything that was done to them, even as much as they blamed themselves or got down on themselves sometimes.

The constant messages of “you need to be perfect or else” and “you are a disappointment,” accompanied by my dad’s ridiculously high standards, made me desperate for approval.

I sought favor with my parents nearly every day, but was so often disappointed- especially by my dad. Even when I’d done something I was really proud of, he’d find ways to poke holes in it, talk down to me, call me stupid, and ask something to the effect of why I’d made such a horrible decision.

So I started looking elsewhere.

Friends. Partners. Teachers. Professors. Therapists. Co-workers. Bosses. Other people’s moms. Members of groups I joined. Anywhere I could get it, I was (and still am) constantly thirsty for validation, praise, and approval.

My parents probably weren’t trying to do this, but they taught me to constantly second-guess myself. They taught me that I needed to ask for permission to exist.

One of the things that was brought up over and over again whenever one of us would upset Mom was that “she gave birth to you.” On one memorable occasion, my dad went into graphic detail about how exactly the birthing process worked. He made it sound like some sort of accomplishment, or personal favor, that I should be forever grateful and reverent towards. But I never asked for this. Giving birth was something she couldn’t avoid. I should have never been guilt tripped into feeling like I owed her something for it.

Whenever my dad was a certain flavor of upset, he’d bark “Get out of my sight!” We would flee to some far corner of the house, behind some closed door, and cry where no one could see. In that moment, he had ceased to give permission to exist in his presence.

So when I first came out as trans, I struggled a lot, because I felt like I constantly had to ask everyone around me for permission to be myself.

It’s tragic that, in retrospect, everyone would have respected me a lot more if instead of asking, I had simply told them who I am and then been myself. I should never have felt so timid, so cowed. I should never have felt like I owed anyone an apology for asking them to use my name and my pronouns.

I should have been free to be me.

But when I lived under my parents’ roof, I wasn’t free. I was forced to hide, to pretend. I was forced to let them deadname and misgender me. I was still forced to attend church until I moved out-- I got out of attending weekly mass by pleading that it was detrimental to my mental health, after being forced to attend masses as an atheist for over a year. But in order to keep a roof over my head, I was still forced to attend Christmas and Easter mass every year, and badgered to attend more masses at nearly every opportunity.

I had to lie about who I was dating too. I had to hide all the ups and downs- the euphoria of new crushes and new relationships, the agony and heartbreak of breakups or bumps in the road. I couldn’t ask my parents for advice navigating this extremely important part of my life. Instead I had to figure it all out on my own, and lie, and pretend they were my “friends.”

My parents made me feel as though I couldn’t do anything on my own.

So to this day, I still often feel like I have to ask for help or for moral support in order to get things done. Not everything, but anything that my partner could feasibly be involved in or have any opinion on whatsoever. Filling out forms, looking things up, buying food, scheduling our week.

And anything that I’m not 1000% sure my friends would invite me to, or anything I’m not 1000% sure they want me to do, I’ll hang back on or stay silent. Any sort of physical affection that I’m not 1000% sure is welcome, I’ll hold back on or I won’t even offer, because I’m so scared of rejection or retaliation. Any complaints that I have, I’ll run by someone else first, and sit on for often weeks or months before I bring it up, if I ever bring it up, because I’m so worried that someone’s temper will flare, or that they will grow cold and distant and cut me off from their affection/ attention/ presence.

My parents never taught me how to ask for things.

They never taught me how to tell people things, simple things, like “I’m going to the store,” or “I’m a guy actually,” or say “Oh, you’re going to meet up with a bunch of people I know? Can I come?”

I’m self-taught in a lot of things, but socializing is one of them.

And as I’m sitting here typing this, I’m waiting for my partner, because we have to get through a lot of paperwork and beaurocratic nonsense this week, and even though not all of it strictly needs to involve her, I still feel like I can’t do it on my own.

It’s okay to ask for help. That’s something I’ve had to get used to too.

But sometimes I worry if I ask for too much help. >_<

#personal #abusive parents #hi i'm trans #and bi #and my parents do not like that

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daphner20 · 4 years ago

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Justice Browne

Restoration

Prologue

My name is Justice Fritzgerald Browne, and ' Truly God is good to me!” My father wanted to name me John Fritzgerald, but my mom said , “ not a day like it!”

I met the love of my life Alicia Leah (nee Dean) at a Catholic Retreat for young adults called T.E.C ( To Encounter Christ), 25 years ago. She was 19, and I was 24. We were married 6 months later. And that union has blessed us with two sons. Joshua, 20 and Jamie 18.

Joshua is a Senior at Notre Dame University, he is a bio/chemistry major, his next step is med school. Jamie is a sophomore, at Notre Dame as well, but they are on different campuses. Jamie is studying accounting. Both of my sons, graduated from High School at 16.

I am so proud of my sons, they are truly one of the joys of my life.

Almighty God, has also prospered the work of my hands. I am one of the largest grocers in The Bahamas. With 4 grocery stores in Nassau, 2 in Grand Bahama, and 1 in Abaco. I own substantial shares in a local bank and insurance company.

I am also on the Economic Council for The Bahamas. I am also the past president of the Chamber of Commerce.

When I was in CCD, as a child, I remembered Sister Cecilia, teaching us the 10 commandments, the sermon on the mount, and corporal acts of mercy. I have spent my entire life, living as closely as possible to these teachings.

My parents, were the greatest in the world. I was the product of their old age. They were married for 18 years, before I came along. My mom was forty, and my dad was 47. My mom told me that she had never stop trusting and believing that God, will bless her womb. She lived to cradle my sons in her arms. She died 10 years ago, and Daddy followed 2 years later.

As, I lit a candle after mass. I am thankful and grateful to the Lord, who has bless my family, my work, my health, and my faith all these years. I also lit a special candle for my boys, just in case they didn’t go to mass this morning, and asked God to forgive their sins.

Chapter 1

“ So you don’t have any classes today,” said Justice

“ No, they are cancel until further,” said Jaime.

“ I suggest, you go and stay with Joshua,' said Justice.

“Daddy,” said Jaime, “it’s just a tropical storm!”

“ Jamie, tropical storms can be dangerous as well,” said Justice.

“ The school has taken all precautions, we will be fine. Further more, Josh, campus is on lockdown as well,” said Jaime.

“Ok,' said Justice, reluctantly, he knew how strong will Jamie is.

'Love you Daddy,” said Jamie, laughingly, he knew his father normally gives in.

“ Love you kiddo, said Justice. ‘Youth’ muttered Justice, they think they are invincible.

5 minutes later.

“ Hello Josh” said Justice.

“ Hi Pops” said Josh animatedly.

“ I heard, about the storm, are you taking precautions.

“ Yes sir, we will be fine, you are aware, that we have been through storms before said Joshua.

“ I know, said Justice, “but it has always been with me and your mother.”

“ We will be fine, I will check on Jamie every day, don’t worry.”

“ I love you Joshua, you are a good son and great brother,” said Justice, holding back tears.

“I love you too Pops,” said Joshua, smiling, “ and turn of the water works, your too old for that.”

As Justice, hung up the phone, he realized, that he wasn’t trusting God to protect his sons.

A few days later, the weather channel, said the storm had been upgraded to a category 3. It will bring lots of rain and high gusty winds.

“I will go by church, this evening to light a candle for my boys,” said Justice in his heart.

When I got home, it was late breaking news on all the stations, that Hurricane David, had come ashore as a Category 5, and there were wide devastation.

“ Have you heard from the boys today,” I asked Alicia.

“ I spoke to them, yesterday, but they told me, that the power company was shutting down the power. They said they will call me, as soon as the power comes back on.

It’s been two days now, and still no communication from our sons. I told Alicia, that I was going to North Carolina tomorrow.

Finally, the phone rang, it was Jaime's number.

“ Jaime, thank God, son how are you? Shouted Justice.

“ This is Dr. Matthew, from Raleigh General, is this Mr. Browne? We regret to inform you that your son, Jaime Browne died two days ago. We finally charged his cellphone, and we found your number. Also, we regret to inform you that your other son Joshua Browne died this morning.

Chapter 2

“The Lord giveth, and the Lord take it away, blessed be the name of the Lord,” said Justice.

It was a bright and sunny morning, three weeks later, when I buried my boys. How could a day be so beautiful, when my children will never see it again! It’s like the world is mocking me. I am numb, I am on autopilot. I am doing everything that needs to be done, without any emotions.

I flew to North Carolina, to officially identify the boys. I had to make arrangements, to bring them home. I had to pick out the coffins. I had to decide their burial clothes. I had to choose the photos and songs for the obituary. My boys were altar boys and a part of the youth group, so every body wanted to play a role in the funeral service. There were such an outpouring of sympathy, I had to make sure they were acknowledged. Instead of two individual plots, I chose one. Joshua at the bottom, and Jaime on top.

Because, they were inseparable, growing up, they were together when they died. Joshua roommate told us, that when the storm got upgraded, Joshua decided to go and stay with Jaime. However, the storm had produced several tornadoes, and one of them had flatten Jaime’s dormitory. Jamie, the coroner believed died instantly, and Joshua died three days later.

Alicia grief is inconsolable, she is heavily medicated, I don’t know what to do. I just have to be strong, for her and my sons. My head says there are gone, my heart says they are here, and there is no reconciliation. As an accountant, this should be easy.

Just as the sun rises each morning, I must do the same. Everyone is remarking on my strength. I told them, it’s not me, but the Lord. His strength is made perfect in my weakness.

A month later, I returned to work full time, Alicia is turning the corner, she is off the sedatives. She is still profoundly sad, but that is to be expected, and she has me.

“ Mr. Browne, here are the papers, you wanted,” said Sheila my secretary.

“ Mr. Browne, Mr. Browne,” Sheila is frantic now. The last thing I heard her screaming was Call an ambulance!!

Chapter 3

Two weeks later, I woke up in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

I had suffered a massive stroke, I was totally paralyzed on my left side The doctors told Alicia, that my recovery will be long. Not only will I need a physical therapist, but a speech therapist as well. Another, prognosis, was that I may never fully recovered, and be a shell of a man. All of my physicians were in agreement with that!

Alicia, brought me home three weeks later. The house was completely transformed. There were ramps for my wheelchair. My study, became my hospital room. Because, I couldn’t swallow on my own, I had a drip in my arm, I was also feed intravenously, I also had to use a catheter. My care also included 3 private nurses on shifts.

Alicia had spared no expense.

My first visitor, was my oldest and dearest friend Greg Henfield, he was also my boys godfather.

“ I am sorry Justice, first the boys, now this, I have known you all my life, I can’t believe this is happening to you, you were a Saint living amongst us! What did you do, to make God so angry,” he said.

Thank God, I couldn’t speak or move, I would have kicked him out.

Next, visitor, was my lawyer, Charles Powell, “ I think you should sell your business, seeing that you have no longer have heirs, and you and Alicia can live a comfortable life, with the proceeds,”he said.

Blood in the water, thought Justice, the sharks are circling.

Finally, my father-in-law, Wilfred Dean, came. I loved him like a father. “ My daughter, can’t take anymore, first her children, now you, this is to much for her. I told her to sell your businesses and shares, and put you in a nursing home and take care of herself,” he said.

“What about our vows?” I wanted to scream, “ for better or worse, sickness and in health.”

Alicia, took his advice, she sold everything, but she didn’t leave me.

Laying in that bed day in and out, with only my thoughts. Why God, I am a good person, you took my boys, my health, my work, my friends and family. Why me?

I wish I never was born, I wish I was like a stillborn child, who never saw light. Why did you bless and then take away. I pour out my complaint and bitterness day unto day.

Until one day, The Lord Spoke!

Chapter 4

“ Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

“ Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.“ Where were you, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who determined it’s measurements? Surely you know!

Then Justice answered ,” I know that you can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from you. I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see You, therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.

Justice didn’t realized, that he was speaking. He had gotten, his speech back. Praise the Lord.

Over, the next few months, with the help of his therapists, he regained the strength and the mobilty of his limbs. Justice Fritzgerald Browne made a full recovery and discovery.

“ Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him!” Justice said.

Alicia, had kept the life insurance benefits of the boys. With that money, he was able to purchase 10 grocery stores. And the a year later, Alicia gave birth to twin girls, Hannah, and Annah. Double grace and favor!

Justice, lived to see his children’s children.

And God bless Justice's latter, greater than his former!

The End

“

#spiritual #god #faith #hope #story #religion

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puzzen · 6 years ago

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Rika Behind Story Plot Summary

I spent 2 hours summarising Rika’s behind story so you don’t have to. I tried my best to write down everything objectively, and anything in quotations is directly lifted from the text in the game. (Long post, TLDR at the bottom )

TW: Mentions of CSA. Please don’t read if it triggers you!

Episode 1: Three year old Mina (Rika's real name) has a close bond with another girl older than her, called Mika, who acts a older sister to her in the adoption center. Mika is growing too old and risk being sent to an orphanage, and is desperate to find foster parents. Mina/Rika is upset and doesn't want Mika to leave the orphanage. Both of them promise to be adopted together.

Episode 2: A hyper religious lady goes into the adoption center to look for a child who is as devout as her. She is impressed by Mika, who is diligent in her studies. Mika reveals that she has some radical beliefs, that children should be raised by bad parents to learn how to survive in a cruel world.

Time jump back to adult Rika, where she is telling the story of her childhood to a therapist. The Therapist contemplates whether she is in need of being hospitalised. Back at V's house, Rika laments to V that he is too much of a yes man but V says he loves Rika for her weaknesses? (They start talking with those sun and darkness metaphors again, so it gets confusing) Through Rika's monologue, she admits that V reminds her of Mika's love and how she is afraid she might hurt V.

Episode 3: Rika is given the name Serena by her adoptive mother. Her mother obviously hates her, viewing her as an evil girl in the eyes of God. Her mother constantly calls for the Pastor to visit Rika to 'exorcise Satan' out of her, and when the mother leaves Rika to be alone with the pastor, Rika begs for her mother to not leave. Because of the idea that Rika is from the devil or something, kids avoid her and she has no friends.

One day, when the pastor brings Rika to the hospital (to try to convert her adoptive father?) she spots Mika lying in a nearby hospital bed.When Mika asks Rika how she has been, Rika lies about her life, as it is revealed the Mika has failed to be adopted and still lives in the orphanage, Mika reveals that she plans to become a nurse and to take care of orphans in the future, and Rika feels that happy that she is reunited with her long lost friend.

Episode 4: Rika learns from her father (who works in the hospital) that Mika has cancer in her eyes. She tries to find Mika, but the address of the orphanage she gave Rika was fake. Bitter, Rika begins to blame parents and herself. Back to the present, V suggest to Rika about getting a new puppy to replace Sally. Rika rejects this, saying that she only kept her dog Sally because she was abandoned and she does not want a new puppy. She reveals what she needs is something that allows her to 'save more forsaken people' and that the RFA is not enough. V enquires about Saeran, and Rika says that they should separate the brothers in the long term as Saeran is 'weak at heart', with Saeyong under V and Saeran under her. She then tells V to not talk about the Choi twins anymore, even though V protests that they had promised to look after them together.

Flashback to the past, and it is revealed that although Rika's adopted mother wanted to adopt Mika at first, the paster decided to adopt Rika instead when she begs to take Mika's place. It also shows Rika adopting an abandoned dog, who she names Sally, despite her mother's disapproval. (TW: Mentions of CSA) Rika then mentions how the Paster touches her when they are alone and have done hundreds of bad things to her. but her mother dismisses it as "a ritual to condemn Satan out of her". As an act of defiance, Rika runs to the church during a sermon and yells at the Pastor about how a God and parents who forsake their children are bad, essentially calls him out. This convinces Rika that the only thing that can protect her is the "devil inside her". As her mother threatens to throw Sally out for the outburst, Rika threatens she would unleash Satan on the church, which scares her mother. This made Rika realise that she could secure her security through words that stir fear.

Episode 5: Rika joins and helps out in a catholic church, and is praised by the Nuns for her service. Rika suggest to the Nuns to help out in an elderly home next time as she can't help watching someone being abandoned. At this time, She adopted the name Rika, as she hated the name that her cruel adoptive mother gave her. Rika questions what loving parents are like but prayed for a sign to one day understand that. When Rika turned 18, Rika admits she felt incompatible with "people that shone" as she could not get close to those who don't need her help. She felt intimidated by such people as she believed that they could "see her darkness"

When Rika is visiting an exhibition, she found herself drawn to one of V's photos, which she believes she can feel the pure love of a parent from it. For a year, Rika became enamoured with V's photos and constantly hunted down any of his exhibitions. Rika eventually meets child Saeyong outside the cathedral, where Saeyong mentions he wants to sing for his little brother. Rika notes from his build and clothing that he is most likely neglected, and Saeyong starts to occasionally pop in at the cathedral. Rika starts tutoring him subjects, and Saeyong's talent of math is revealed. Rika becomes attached to Saeyong as she sees Mika and herself in him. The episode ends with her adoptive mother threatening to kick Rika out.

Episode 6: Rika explains how she met Yoosung, and how he reminded her of a child who was raised in his parent's love. She feels nervous around Yoosung, fearing that he would one day "learn that there is a devil inside her". As Yoosung and Rika talk, Rika is jealous of Yoosung's upbringing and believes that he would be ruined if he stays close to her. Yoosung reveals that he wants to be like Rika, and admires her passion and sincerity in helping others. Rika assures him that he will be a good person, while thinking to herself that unlike him, she will never be one. As Yoosung follows Rika around, Rika notes that she had no idea how to handle him and tried to look confident, but it ultimately made her uncomfortable which made her avoid him at times. Meanwhile, she found herself drawn towards Saeyong, a boy "full of wounds".

One day, she takes Saeyong to visit V's exhibition, where she finally meets the photographer. She tells V that his photos make her feel the warmth of a loving mother and V gives one of his photos to her as a gift. Rika says she can't accept such a gift for free, and V offers that in exchange, they meet for coffee after the exhibition.

Episode 7: During their coffee date, Rika is perplexed by V, as instead of seeing him as light or dark, she sees him as a " White blank container" and is drawn to him. Rika asks him if he thinks that she could ever bask in such love like in his photos, where V answers that she deserved to be loved, and that he would help her believe it. This is when Rika believes that they were fated, and became V's model and visited his home regularly. However, as his model, they did not talk much, with V merely observing Rika and taking photos. This confuses Rika, and she decides to keep her darkness from him by pretending to be a bright person who was raised with lots of love.

2 months of being V's model, Rika is expelled from her house by her mother, and Rika finds a temporary home at the cathedral. She begins to lament that the people who have not forsaken her are people like her, broken, and how she can not get close to V or Yoosung as they are nothing like her. Despite this, Rika wishes to be loved and "wants to get close to the light", even though she thinks she does not deserve it.She decides to stop visiting V's studio, as she believes that if she ever asks him to love her, that he would "treat her like made and forsake her".

Due to Rika's disappearance, V goes to Rika's adoptive home to look for her, where he runs into her adoptive mother, who reveals that she views Rika as a heathen to V. V finds Rika at the cathedral (via Jumin's connections), and Rika tells him that they live in "two different worlds that can never combine" and tells him that she is a dark tragic person. Rika admits to him that she is scared that she would be abandoned, and asks V if he could embrace her. V does, and promises that he would be her sun. In tears, Rika begs V to never leave her even if she makes a mistake or does something he doesn't like. As V agrees, she asks how V can prove himself, and V tells her that he would marry her if she wanted. This made Rika happy as V is like her, "who is far from the ordinary sort"

Episode 8: V and Rika become engaged in the year they met. In that year, she meets Jumin, and with both V and Jumin's influences and connections, Rika believes that she can finally achieve her dream of "making forsaken people happy". However, Rika still felt like she had to escape from V at times because of her darkness, and thus created her apartment. (The one that MC stays at during the common and deep routes) Behind V's back, Rika plans the layout of the cameras of the apartment and sends them to Saeyong.

It is revealed that Rika is in cahoots with Mika (who isn't dead, but eyes are damaged permanently). Mika does not trust V, and offered a plan to protect Rika from being forsaken. Mika's plan is to use Saeran and make the RFA believe that all the information from RFA that was stolen by a hacker. Rika is reluctant to follow the plan, saying that "she must save him" and questions whether she should tell V about the plan. However, Mika convinces Rika that she can "save him by using him" and that she must never ever tell V the plan. Rika agrees, and through her monologue, admits that although she knows that both her and Mika are abnormal, "devils cannot forsake each other". Both Mika and Rika come up with the idea of Mint eye together before Mika's death. Time jump to the first RFA party, where Rika gives a speech about the sun and how it represents the unconditional love of the mother. She ends her speech by saying "V, I love you. Please stay with me forever and be my sun"

Tldr:

Rika had a close friend in her orphanage called Mika --> Rika gets adopted by a hyper religious mother who believes there is a devil inside her --> A priest gets sent to ‘cleanse’ her, but uses this opportunity to sexually abuse Rika --> Rika meets Mika in the hospital, who has eye cancer --> Rika adopts an abandoned dog and after threatening to unleash the devil on the church in order to keep the dog, she realises the power of inciting fear in people -->She helps out at a cathedral and meets Saeyong there. Rika meets Yoosung and is intimidated by his loving upbringing --> Rika falls in love with V’s photos as she can sense a mother’s love from it and becomes V’s model when they meet --> Rika is kicked out of her house, and where V finds her residing in the cathedral, he promises to love her despite her flaws and her future actions --> The RFA is created, but it is revealed that Mika is residing in Rika’s apartment, and together they formulate what would become Mint Eye, using Saeran as part of the plan.

#mystic messenger #mysme #rika behind story #plot summary #mm rika #mm mika #jihyun kim #yoosung kim #cheritz dlc #so these are the two hours i can never take back

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silenthillmutual · 5 years ago

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I don't know if you're the right person to tell this to but I think my mom's emotionally abusive. She gets mad whenever I get upset at her and gaslights me(probably??) whenever I call her out. I tried to tell her that she never apologized for hurting my feelings and she responded with, "I don't have to apologize to you" and it just made me feel worse. My family's Christian and all but I'm scared to tell the pastor(or anyone) because I don't want her to get mad at me. Do you have any advice?

I guess I’m a decent source for that, and I’ve got enough spoons today to answer this!

I’ll be honest with you, a parent reacting with anger whenever you get upset with them is never a good sign. The “I don’t have to apologize to you” response is definitely emotionally abusive, especially if it’s not a reaction in a vacuum; anything as an isolated incident is understandable since we all make mistakes, but this doesn’t sound like a one-off thing.

I had a couple of friends help me through being gaslit myself; here are a few articles on the topic, all of which are pretty brief:

Were You Born Under the Gaslight?

11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting

a resource post from r/RaisedByNarcissists

I’m not a psychologist in any capacity, but having been through it myself and having sat down and watched a film adaptation from where the term hails, here’s a sort of brief rundown of some things gaslighters will do to their victims:

making attempts to isolate you (from friends, from family members, etc; ex, excessive monitoring of your communications with friends to the point of taking your phone or computer so you can’t contact them, although this may be done subtly)

telling you that you have traits or attributes that do not feel or sound like things you do (ex, telling you that you are “forgetful” or “tend to lose things” even when you are not a forgetful person)

accusing you of lying, whether directly or indirectly (ex. asking, “what did you do with x thing?”, not believing you when you say you haven’t seen it; then when you find it, saying something to the effect of, “so you did know where it was”)

saying things with emotion and then denying there is any emotion behind their words (ex. if they say something to you in an angry way and when you say, “don’t be angry,” they say, “i’m not angry” and look at you like you’re crazy)

making you look bad in front of others (this can be making you look like a jerk, making you look inconsiderate, making you look foolish, like a buzzkill, etc.)

taking on a tone to imply that you are scaring them, even when you have not done or said anything out of the ordinary (if you’re thinking to yourself, “i didn’t even have any emotion behind this, i didn’t even sound angry” and they’re reacting like they’re afraid you’re going to hit you? that’s gaslighting)

whiplash mood swings and honeymooning - quickly going from being angry at you to putting on a convincing happy act in front of others; “honeymooning” is when, after a period of abuse, they start to act really nice and considerate towards you, making you think that they’ve changed, or maybe they do one really nice thing for you as a way to “make up” for their behavior (this never lasts, don’t buy it.)

turning themselves into the victim of every situation (guilt tripping you, especially in situations where you are telling them that they have hurt you. parents really love this one; it’s the “oh so i’m a horrible parent” comeback to any time you’ve ever said “this really hurt my feelings”)

infantalizing you (another parental favorite)

upsetting you in public, covertly, so that only you are aware of what they have said/done

threatening you with institutionalization

Another big one that I don’t think I mentioned here because it’s not one that came up in the film is outright denying that something ever happened. We tend to assume that’s something we’d be able to catch outright, but the truth of the matter is that their lies start out small and they do all of these things above & more for the sake of putting you off balance and confusing you so that by the time their lies get to the level of things you should be able to look at and say plainly, “that’s not true,” you’ve gotten to the point where you feel like you can’t trust your own memory or judgement of things.

I’ll give a couple examples because the list of potential things they could lie about goes between fairly small stuff to extreme stuff:

my mother claimed once that she was never on her phone during dinner

my mother claiming she’d never seen movies that not only did i remember her commentary on, but i’m pretty sure one of them we actually saw in theatres

her claiming i’d never told her things that i most definitely had told her before

combined with that one: lying about the last time we’d had contact; right before i cut off all contact with her i was able to actually screenshot the dates and times of the last time we’d spoken and send them to her

lying about actual historical facts; in my mother’s case: refusing to acknowledge that ABA had, since its inception, used aversives and was abusive in practices, was the foundation of the conversion therapy movement. i sent her screenshot and link proofs of this as well and she did not appreciate it

she also claimed that she never threatened to kick me out of the house and claimed that i promised her i would start therapy before starting HRT - neither of which are accurate or even remotely believable (you really think i’d up and move w two weeks notice halfway across the country if i hadn’t been kicked out? i have to laugh.)

Another one that did not really get shown well in the film but that I believe i’ve read somewhere and have personal experience with, is that they like to keep you traumatized. It keeps you in a state of like... uncertainty, I guess you could say. It keeps you from feeling completely lucid or in control of things, and more likely to need help and depend on them for continued support. They may also be likely to mess with your head in other ways, like with the use of drugs - and I don’t just mean illegal ones; parents who have control over your medication and make sure you take it do have to potential to keep you up on medications you don’t actually need as a method of control. (Both of these can actually be seen in use in the film Midsommar w/ the suicide ritual being a method of continued trauma and the constant drug use being...obvious. I’m sure it gets used in other places too but that was the first one to come to mind, and Aster does a really good job of showing how effective that shit is.)

I don’t really know what other religions rules are like when it comes to confidentiality. I was raised Catholic, and there was a certain understanding about priests and ethics that pretty much went that unless you had a warrant (and on top of that, a damn good reason; iirc there have been plenty who don’t even testify under oath) they weren’t to tell anyone what you told them in confidence. If you know anything about their ethics regarding that or even feel that you can ask them safely about it, it could be a good place to start if you feel that church community is one where you feel safe.

The biggest roadblock tbh is age and...idk how else to put this other than status? If you’re a minor there is, unfortunately, not a lot you can do to get away from her or get her to stop - especially if you’re in a situation where she’s really your only parent. Which is sort of what I meant by status; do you have another parent or step-parent, sibling, uncle, aunt, cousin, etc you feel you could talk to about it?

I really wish I could recommend school guidance counselors, but I’m not altogether sure they’re equipped with the right materials to help you out there. That being said, if you have a family member that you can trust to help you find a therapist outside of school, that would also be a really good resource; whether you’re an adult still living within that contact or a minor who can’t get away at the moment, a therapist can help you come up with some coping techniques to deal with it until you can safely get away. I’d suggest looking for one who specializes in trauma or in PTSD, esp if they have c-PTSD listed (the ‘c’ is for complex, which is a proposed addition(??) to PTSD that would separate a singular traumatic event from an ongoing traumatic situation like living in war zones, being a POW, domestic violence, etc). PsychologyToday has a search function for finding accredited therapists in your area that should list their specialties, credentials, and insurance plans they take. (And if you’re asked why you need one, honestly, extrapolate on a minor issue. Like tbh you could just say body image issues.) Therapists are bound by license-revoking ethics not to tell anyone what you discuss in therapy unless you are going to hurt yourself or someone else.

[If you feel you’re being monitored too closely at home and don’t have a way to get this information at school, I suggest asking a reference librarian to help you out. A lot of public libraries will have community resource information, and if they don’t have flyers or brochures out, reference librarians’ entire jobs are to help you access information whether that’s in the library or in the community! That’s why I work in LIS, lol.]

Other than that the two big pieces of advice I have are:

Build up a support network outside your family. If you feel you can’t trust them with this, or even if you’re worried about putting them in the middle of a difficult situation - and even if those aren’t concerns for you - it’s always good to have a support network that isn’t connected to the situation in some way. Most of my support network came from friends, a bulk of whom I knew from online, and from coworkers. The first person to tell me I was being gaslit was actually a coworker, who I talked to when I got kicked out and was shaken up about it. I had a p good relationship w my boss and all my coworkers there, so when I had to put in my two weeks’ notice I actually got an offer to stay with my boss in the event that the situation escalated, and also knew I could go and stay with my one of my best friends with their grandad, or their sister. In fact, right when that happened, my friends already had a kind of escape plan half-formed because things had just kind of been getting worse, and for almost a year now I’ve been living with my other best friend. Even if things never get to the point of you having to leave the house, just having people that you can rely on who will be on your side entirely is crucial to dealing with that kind of stress.

If you think or feel you may be getting gaslit - even if you’re thinking to yourself that you’re just blowing things out of proportion or that it’s “not that bad” (a lot of us go through that) - start keeping a journal of things your mother says to you. You don’t have to show anyone. Just keep it for yourself. It doesn’t even have to be anything important; like I said earlier, it can be as simple as off-handed comments about movies you’ve watched or appointments you’ve made or what have you. Write them down when they happen, date them, and then when she says something that you feel contradicts what you’ve already heard - you can fact-check it. You can also do this with screenshots if it’s over text or something, and if you think you can get away with secretly recording her on your phone that might help too. I don’t recommend telling her you’re doing this or pointing out when she’s been lying; in the event she doesn’t outright deny it she could flip it around to make herself the victim or spiral out of control and get worse - this is just for your peace of mind. The goal of gaslighting, to quote the movie, is to “systematically [drive] you out of your mind”. This would just be a way to reassure yourself that you’re not making it up, you didn’t forget, you’re not blowing things out of proportion.

If you need anything more specific, feel free to let me know! I’m so sorry you’re going through this, it really just fucking sucks. But I believe you can make it! And there is an it - there’s an out, even if it’s hard to get to or takes long.

#advice #links #long post #abuse ment #gaslighting #ok to rb #ask to tag #plato posts #[redacted] asks #answers.txt

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yourclonazepamgeneric-blog · 5 years ago

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You Are Going to Do Bad Things to Children

I watch her. I watch her. Advise my sibling and sister to watch out of the other vehicle window. I think they are playing some game. I believe that they think this is a game. They're too youthful to even consider understanding. My mom is on a crucial. She is searching for my dad. She thinks he is having an unsanctioned romance. She faces him in the parking area. He says nothing. It isn't as though he doesn't have a clue where to look yet I realize that it isn't valid. Not father. Not my dad. She is shouting at Clonazepam Generic him now. I don't realize whether individuals are looking presently, taking a gander at both of them, at this scene being happened before their eyes or turning away. I pulverize my youth journal when we get at home. I am a youngster. I am injured now forever. I don't have a clue what to do. So this is my main event. I remove page by page. I fix passages. You don't see the amount I cherished this book, this diary however I don't see yet how to communicate my sentiments, my creative mind. My dad gave me this book. Consistently he has given me a journal in January. 'This is yours. This is your diary.' And I grin up at him, and with this book in my grasp I can compose anything I need. Who do I accept? I am my dad's girl. I appear as though him. I don't look anything like her, my mom. I realize she despises me. Maybe they will isolate. Maybe they will get a separation. They commute home in isolated vehicles. I am numb, struck stupid. I don't utter a word. My mom is driving excessively quick. It is not normal for her. Her dress is over her knees. Is this what love is? Human instinct is human instinct. 'Daddy,' I state later. 'I don't believe she's your perfect partner. I don't believe you're intended for one another.' But he says nothing, he just winks.

Sex, that exchange, lovemaking for me was constantly messy. I needed to stay a virgin everlastingly, unadulterated. I needed to be a sister. I realized I must be rebuffed since the beginning, make penances, consistently sport dark, and bow when I needed to supplicate however I was not Catholic. Be that as it may, my mom set that thought on the right track out of my head. She revealed to me that there were no nuns any longer and afterward I needed to be a cleric however everyone knows how degenerate church pioneers are. I realized that I felt harmed, deprived, and forlorn even as a youngster so I discovered solace in books. In any event, when I became more established and watched films where young ladies would evacuate their pieces of clothing viewed by a stirred more seasoned man I would feel nothing. Literally nothing. Possibly it originated from adolescence. The climax in both the male and the female disturbed me possibly it originated from the way that I despised my mom who I thought had been so off-base, so inconsistent with my dad (whatever had they spoken about when he charmed her I surely don't have a clue. He was refined and taught, he had a degree and she could type thirty-five words per moment and she had a confirmation) yet I cherished my dad and venerated him. What's more, for my entire life I have needed an ideal love and not a physical love. For my entire life I have needed to be shielded from the entirety of life's tempests, other ladies, more youthful ladies, young ladies, I needed to be given a haven to compose and as a grown-up I would watch the glinting pictures of erotic entertainment quietly shouting with chuckling inside. So this is the thing that people would do to consider kids, their brilliant holy messengers, and beneficiaries to positions of authority of fixation, substance misuse and abusive behavior at home. There would be practically zero exchange. I would get either madly envious of their idiotic voices despite the fact that I knew each seemingly insignificant detail from the props to the bed was phony. For what reason would I be able? What was so amiss with me? After all they were just on-screen characters acting, doing what they were advised to do, presented, coordinated, and anticipating. I was exhausted with everything and pondered where my head was at. Of affection and sex I knew literally nothing by any stretch of the imagination. It exhausted me however not the romantic tale, not the misfortune, the reject or dismissal, the darling male or female leaving. Little skank, little prostitute, those weren't words that exhausted me, that annoyed me. What's more, as I grew up the young lady in me kicked the bucket when my mom mentioned to me what occurs right now, is said right now in the house. I grew up rapidly. Misuse will do that to you. Maltreatment on account of your mom, aunties (her sisters, her sister-in-law) the Johannesburg individuals, menaces on the play area, pompous male educators, and your first sweetheart when you are away from home, ten years more seasoned than you. Did he drive me to do things I would not like to do? It hurt. They state it generally does the first run through round. I kept in touch with him letters however I was not in affection with him. The picture I had of my folks watching two exposed young ladies swimming, kissing with tongue, feeling each astonishingly out of the water, contacting one another, finishing each other here and there, stroking their arms, their bodies. They sunbathed naked. It was the first occasion when I had seen bosoms, the curve of a lady's figure and full frontal nakedness. What's more, something within me, a little voice said that my future life as a girl who adored both her mom and father and a future life as spouse, darling and mother had not exclusively been disrupted at the end of the day decimated until the end of time. I was only a kid who ought to have been sleeping in bed dreaming. Endeavored suicide is finished with the two eyes shut. This isn't my time. No passage of white light. Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. The confession booth writers. Sylvia, Abigail the invigorated crazies. Take a gander at me. The South African repulsiveness story. A scene made of bars at the window, specialists, and therapists.

The mental meltdown, bipolar, dysfunctional behavior, insane, crazy, lunacy isn't composed on the body except if you tattoo it on your arm with an extremely sharp edge or cutting. You can be the ideal kid yet can your mom splendidly love you in an imperfect world, in her defective world. She didn't need me with my easy merits, my stage plays and practices, my accounts, God help us, she particularly would not like to peruse my accounts. 'Leave it alongside my bed.' She said. 'I'll peruse it before I nod off.' And I did yet she had progressively significant work to do. Shower, dress, make morning meals, and go to work. 'Gracious, I'll read it later.' She said at whatever point I stood up to her about it. She was doing even considerably more significant work at that point. Watching her drama with her stockinged feet up on the couch seat, her impact points by it with her eyes half-shut, marvelous, Hitler however without the mustache and the mass of oppression. 'Kiss me.' She requested from my asthmatic sibling wearing his cowhand cap pulling his wagon around the family room. Also, I made unlimited cups of tea. Also, as I made each cup my heart would load up with trust that she would state, 'My shrewd young lady. You're growing up so quick.' But obviously she never did. We were foragers. We ate what we could discover in the kitchen and if daddy wasn't meditative he would go out and get us something to eat for dinner. My dad would cry a great deal and I would put my arm around his shoulder, scarcely arrive at it however and ask him, 'Would you like to discuss it?' yet that simply made him cry more diligently and it was much increasingly hard to make him stop. I was constantly close to the highest point of my group however there were issues, harms. They were continually battling.

'Great night mummy. Rest tight. Sweet dreams. I love you.' No answer consequently and it skips off dividers. I am turning thirty-five verging on thirty-six. It will be my birthday in two months. Valium close by (in every case close), Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke beside my bed, Poems by Sylvia Plath Chosen via Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate. Untainted in a grown-up world. The main world where I have a place is media, that and the nearby Olympic-sized pool. Stopped up in a confined youth proceeded, sentences butchered by chuckling, hacking, a closeted assortment of books (course books, verse and short story compilations, a string of J.M. Coetzee's books line a rack, The Childhood of Jesus the most recent), obscurity, traffic fills within me that was consistently the trade. I can just nod off with a bunch of resting pills. I take long snoozes toward the evening and wake up in close murkiness. Pills. Pills. Pills. Pax. Epilizine. Eltroxin. Melatonin. Clonazepam Generic. Ativan. I have no tendency to go to Paris. Rilke abhorred it there however then again Hemingway appeared to have taken to it like water away from a duck. In any case I experience the ill effects of vertigo. For the most part individuals go to Paris since it is sentimental. Isn't the Eiffel tower sentimental? You won't get me up there. I am a masochist and become restless as damnation when I am acquainted with novel individuals and spots. It alarms me. What a snicker? Did she applaud? Is it true that she was applauding? Is it accurate to say that she is glad for the way that I am a storyteller and an artist, not a government official, not a legislator's significant other or anyone's better half so far as that is concerned and not the writer or narrative movie producer I needed to be in secondary school? At the point when she sat down in the auditorium was she pleased, was she radiating from ear to ear like the Cheshire feline. Gloom is exhausting. Be that as it may, I'm utilized to it now. Like clockwork I'm transported off for a week or so to a clinic to recuperate from psychosis, mind flights. What an outing for my conscience? I can't rest. I can't eat. My sister never drops by. She doesn't live here right now, this hellhole any longer. She lives in Johannesburg. My magnificence days are finished. I'm apprehensive they've gone dead simply like all the men throughout my life. The main thing that is waited is my continuous flow composing, my journaling and my easy chair voyaging and the individuals that I love the most on the planet kicking the bucket on me when I wouldn't dare hoping anymore disregarding me to now hit the dance floor with the bold, swim with the fishes, eat dangerous sardines on toast that have an aftertaste like salt and light. The rooms are vaporous in the house. I need to make sure to take in when I return home from the emergency clinic. There's not a lot of they can accomplish for me there but rather hang tight for the fantasies, the psychosis to pass however the a sleeping disorder remains with me, winter's unresolved issue me home. I'm a claustrophobe in the word related room. They leave m

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jo-the-schmo · 5 years ago

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I’ve been looking into phobias again

So, recently I discovered that I have a little something called Genophobia.

Genophobia is the fear of sexual acts, more specifically sex itself. I have also discovered that I could potentially have Haphephobia.

Haphephobia is the fear of being touched. I’ve dealt with this specific phobia for a lot longer than my Genophobia and I am surprised I never found a word for it.

My therapist and I have also discussed how I exhibit signs of fearing intimacy. Which I have always believed I’ve had so that’s no surprise there.

It’s very relieving to know that what I experience isn’t strange. That enough people have had this to where a name needed to be given.

What’s interesting to me though is what they stem from. Obviously, my several instances of sexual abuse are ample enough reasons. But I never considered the possibility that growing up Catholic and now considering myself an agnostic would play into it as well.

Well, some part of me knew but it wasn’t quite like this. I was raised Catholic. Baptized and Confirmed as a member of the church. There have been instances where I’ve seen my born into religion as a burden on my existence.

And I would be lying if I said that being surrounded by Catholic teachings all the time didn’t make me feel shame for what happened to me in the past. Factually, it did. But for some reason I never considered that those instances had a hand in my recoil at human touch.

It’s strange how that works out. Of course, it would be foolish to blame religion or any one thing for me having this. The human mind is complicated and a lot of steps or not many at all can be taken to totally alter its perception.

Idk. I’ve just been thinking about that.

#jo rants

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buckyscrystalqueen · 6 years ago

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Seriously, WTF is wrong wit u that u support that racist pig?!

WTF is wrong with me? You know, I was gunna just ignore this but the ignorance is just…. It’s just fucking mind blowing. So much so, that I can’t even focus on getting any writing done. So, I guess we’re doing this. It’s long (1.5k), so buckle up.

When I was a kid, I was either always angry or always sad. And yea, some people think that’s normal for some kids, but this was not the case for me. I would wake up for school every day and force myself to be sick or hold a heating pad to my forehead just so I didn’t have to go to school because I was so miserable with life. I was the girl that couldn’t take care of myself to the point where I literally showered MAYBE once a week and usually, my mother had to barge into the bathroom while I was in the shower to forcefully wash my hair because I refused. I sometimes wore the clothes (straight down to the underwear) for multiple days in a row, deodorant was not something I cared to remember to put on when I got to that age, and forget me putting on a bra until almost 8th grade no matter how madly I needed it.

And the anger. God, I was a monster! As a 28 year old woman, I can honestly say that yes, I was very abusive and I used to think it was because I was the only adopted sibling out of four kids. I broke the mirror on the back of my sisters door one time because she closed me out of her room when I was raging. I threw the door open so hard, it hit her in the face, and gave her a bloody nose. I felt zero remorse. I would swear at my father, tell him he was the biggest piece of shit in the world, and let him know nearly every day that I would be the one daughter he would never speak to again. I used to tell him, the man that raised me and loved me, that I wished he died and that he would never walk me down the isle.

When I was twelve, my parents decided it was time to start seeking outside help other than the Catholic church I was raised in. (Because praying to God that I’d get better wasn’t helping the chemical imbalance in my head.) I was taken to a therapist who diagnosed me as simply ‘depressed with anger issues.’ The most generic diagnosis possible. And so began the medications. I was put on everything; Zoloft, Prozac, Wellbutrin, Paxil, Lexapro, Sinequain, even some homeopathic shit… they did nothing but make me more angry.

I was so angry that when I was 17, I stole my fathers car (that I drove every day so it was, in my mind, my car), changed my license plate with a random truck’s, took off my bumper stickers, and drove to North Carolina. I turned off my cell phone, called a friend of mine that had moved to Raleigh via pay phones, and fully intended on emancipating myself from my family. I was obviously cut off because my parents called my phone company, got the last call I made from home before I ‘left for work’ and sent cops to my friend’s house before I made it out of the state of Florida. So I came home. A week later, after my parents tried to tighten the reigns to get control, I tried to run away again but this time, my brother jumped on the back of my car. I actually drove two blocks, blazing through stop signs at forty miles an hour with my brother hanging on to my car for dear life. I should have gone to jail for that… I was very lucky. And it is something I think about quite often even to this day because I could have killed him.

Now, at this point, I was 17 years old and I was sent to yet another new doctor. This man literally changed my life. After sitting with me for almost two hours, he diagnosed me with bi-polar 2 that manifested in severe depression and anger, and anxiety, both general and social. He put me on a medication called Lamictal which I like to call ‘the miracle med’. This drug changed my fucking life. I was able to start functioning as a normal human being, I started taking care of myself. I could handle going to school, finally and managed to get my CNA license because of it. I had friends for the first time in my life. It was the greatest thing in the entire world. At one point, I tried the generic equivalent of the name brand (twice!) and found that, for me, it did not work. So, we stuck with the name brand. Why fix what’s not broken, right?

I have been on that medication for eleven years, and was taking the working name brand of it until Obamacare happened. The day I signed up to have that health care, (which before hand I had been on my parents or had health care through work) the day I signed up was the day they stopped paying for name brand because “there was a generic equivalent that worked just as well”. For months, I fought to get that ruling over turned. I had my doctors call my insurance (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida which I had been using for my entire life) and say that it was medically necessary, I paid for and brought stacks upon stacks of paper work with my ENTIRE medical history showing everything I had been through with medications, I cried, I screamed, I did everything… but they didn’t care. Because they didn’t have to anymore thanks to Obamacare. So I was forced to take the generic (since name brand was costing me $654.31 a month with insurance) and I have been on that not good enough for me generic for three years. And I have been a half functioning, shell of a human being ever since.

When Donald Trump ran for president, he said that one of the first things he was going to try to do was over turn Obamacare. I devoured every single article I could find and realized that, by him doing that, I would be allowed to get my name brand medications again for the $70 I used to pay before Obamacare. I was so excited! This news meant that I didn’t have to wonder if I was still going to have bouts of anger even though I was on medication that was supposed to be just as good as what I was taking. That meant that I was no longer going to have thoughts of self hatred so bad that I can’t get out of bed even though I was on medication. That meant, I could be ‘normal’ again, a concept I knew long ago that had been so lost on me thanks to Obamacare.

So, yes. I absolutely, 100%, no questions asked voted for Trump. I would do it a million times over. I’m not ashamed, I’m not embarrassed; I voted for Donald Trump. And every single morning, I wake up and hope and pray that today will be the day that the democrats let him over turn Obamacare. I pray every God in every religion to have my fucking life back because I can’t take being this shell another day. I BEG anyone and anything to be able to afford my medications again so I can go back to enjoying my life instead of spending all day, every day on my couch, staring at my laptop screen.

In the past three years alone, I have put on over 80 pounds thanks to the depression the generic version of Lamictal doesn’t completely help. I have more days than not where the idea of killing myself floats through my consciousness, even if it’s just for a moment. Thankfully for me, it’s not something I would ever act on, but I’m lucky. A similar situation happened to my best friend, a man I considered my brother, and he died two years ago from side affects to the generic medications he was forced to take for Obamacare.

I have lost countless amounts of jobs thanks to this medication fiasco, I have lost friends, and I called off an engagement. I got pregnant thanks to a one night stand (one of so many because sex was obviously going to help) and had to experience the pain of a miscarriage which isn’t a direct link to medication, but I believe being on the generic had a big part of my promiscuity. My life has been turned upside down… and Trump is the only person that could offer a smidgin of hope for me.

So there, dear dick head anon. That’s what’s wrong with me. That is the reason I am a Trump supporter. Is that a good enough reason for you?

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supermannqfan · 3 years ago

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My story

My story – (warning; possible triggers).

I am broken. It begins with my mother. She herself had a rotten childhood and people who are hurt often hurt the people around them. She was told by her mother, my grandmother, that she wasn’t wanted, that her birth was an accident. Her father died at when she was eleven and my mother became pretty much a servant. Because she could never please my grandmother, there is no pleasing my mother. My father admitted that. Our dominant parent in your childhood, their voice becomes the voice in your head. So, because she could never be pleased, she could never be happy. As a result of this and a twisted Catholic upbringing, I began to believe that being happy was a sin, only good people could be happy. As a result I believe that I have to pay a heavy price for every error I have ever made. Also, if I made a mistake, she hit me, hard. So I feared making any mistake out of fear of being hit, and being condemned to a horrible punishment.

Because of this I became a clown; a jester, you see, no one hurts the clown. So, I had no childhood; avoiding being hurt and making others laugh left me with no time to learn who I am. I was a character, a twisted, weird person, a twisted, strange thing, acting all the time as my mind began to make me believe that EVERYONE knew my sins, my mistakes and if I made a mistake I would be brutally punished. Not talking to people led me to develop a speech impediment and I became so afraid of my mother that I did nothing but study, so that I could answer a question in school because I believed that my teachers would tell my mother and she would beat me. There is no pleasing my mother. Her eyes are everywhere.

And worse of all, I was exposed to pornography at the age of six. This made me believe that that is how people expressed love. So, my idea of love was twisted, thus I was twisted. Why would I ever want this type of affection? And of course, the church considers this sin the worst of all so every time I had inappropriate thoughts, I thought I was going to hell right then and there. I considered that accidently touching a girl was horrible, equal to rape. Yay for the Catholic Church.

I am broken. I have been a character for 30 years. And because I have been made to believe that I can’t be happy, I had sabotaged every good thing that has happened to me -grades, university, jobs, relationships, and friendships. When you do things you think others want you to do, you do nothing for yourself. I have to force myself to buy something new if I can’t find it second hand. Fear of happiness have crushed me; living a life without joy, getting angry with rage that other people were allowed to be happy and I wasn’t. As if they are without sin and watching me waiting for me to stuff up and tell my mother who would then beat me. Hard.

My brother can’t work, but I believe he can but just chooses not to, due to a skin condition. He’s a germaphobe and looks at me as if I am plague ridden and refuses to be within ten feet of me. He uses his feet to open draw/doors, doesn’t lower the toilet seat and eats a weird diet. He hates me but refuses to get help. My condition is worse than his, but he thinks I am faking it. All of it. He has dammed himself not getting help; no income, no future. He blames my parents for his condition, told me he doesn’t love them, and has no plan on how he will survive when my parents are gone.

I am terrified of God, hell and my mother. I have had breakdowns and she believes that I am faking it because after a breakdown I revert to who I am, and to her and everyone else that is not my normal self; a scared young inner child who wants genuine love and be my genuine self. I am fake. I have been committed to a mental hospital three times and recently I had a breakdown four weeks ago realizing that I have been fake for 30 years. I just shut down. I have quit my job.

To handle the years of emotional abuse from my mother, her constant need to make me perfect and make her mother happy, I used daydreaming to escape. This makes my dreams very detailed and real. Due to my repression of anger towards my mother I have horrid dreams of killing her, calling her the most heinous things I can think of.

I have chronic depression, acute anxiety, maladaptive daydreaming, a phobia of being happy, paranoia and imposter syndrome. I have no confidence in myself. I am now me for the first time, and who I am is a scared boy who fears life. I am not suicidal, yet the darkness in my head, the inner voice stopping me from being happy, making any kind of mistake (and I mean any kind – if I press the spacebar twice I am going to hell or my mother will beat me). I am hyper paranoid; I live in a constant state of fear and anticipation. I worry about anything and everything going wrong in anything I do, from making breakfast to driving my car. To avoid pain my mind is programmed to think of EVERY possible scenario that could happen, everything bad. Out of fear of being hurt I have to help everyone I can, even if it costs me money and time. If I don’t help, they have the right to hurt me. I can’t say no. My only source of comfort was my cat. She could absorb all my worries, but she disappeared nearly two years ago. I mourned so much.

I am broken. I am programmed to fear happiness, avoid any kind of transgression (in my mind EVERY transgression is worthy of death), I live in constant anticipation of any kind of attack due to my mother’s abuse, and because everyone alive on this earth knows my sins, my past and if I am ever successful or happy, they will break the dam wall exposing me, my life as a character fraud and every person I have wronged will be allowed to harm we, or kill me. I cannot be successful (I sabotage EVERY good thing I have/get). I am having short term memory issues; I am unfit due to lack of exercise and diet and tired from the constant battle in my mind – the darkness. I am chained, chained by deep, horrible fear. A dark spider captured in its web, gaslighting me. The twisted voice of mother/God keeping me telling me horrible things. I carry the weight of every transgression I have committed. I am afraid that everyone knows my past and is waiting for me to commit a crime and give them the right to kill me. If I do nothing, I am not guilty. So I do nothing.

I have awoken from my 30-year dream, my 30-year acting career. I am like Neo in the Matrix, yet the world around me is beautiful and free. Yet I am so used to the darkness and trauma that I am too scared to venture out of the pod and walk in the sun. Everything I want is on the other side of fear. I am talking to a psychologist (a psychiatrist was amazed that I am still alive) and I am down from nine tablets a day to two. My therapist said it would take about 40 sessions to gain some sense of normality. I am human. I am allowed to be happy and I am allowed to make mistakes. I have a wall of motivational pictures and my mother asked to me if I really need them. My life begins now but I mourn the last 30 years. I need to de-program and that will take time. I need to learn who I am, and I feel like a small child who is still yet to grow up, understanding sexuality and self-identity.

I’d like some help from people who have broken their chains, who have stepped into the sun and if anyone could talk to me at some point, I’d appreciate it.

#depression #anxiety #imposter syndrome #fear

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queertheology · 7 years ago

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Practical next steps on your Christian journey

So you’re a Christian? Now what?

For the past month at Queer Theology, we’ve been taking a look at the fundamentals of Christianity — and of what it means to be an LGBTQ+ person of faith. We’ve sorted through everything from myths and misconceptions to downright toxic theology and we’ve tried to get at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Here’s what we’ve covered so far:

Back to the (queer Christian) basics

What do we do with the Bible?

The Exodus didn’t happen. The Exodus is true.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

The generosity of God

Building a Bible-based faith (that isn’t terrible)

a live webinar on the basics of Christianity (you can get access to it, and our entire webinar archive, in Sanctuary Collective)

But so what? What do you do with all this knowledge?

My junior high youth group director Dave used to tell us, “If you really believe in Jesus, that can’t help but change your life.”

Here are some practical next steps as you continue to pursue a (queer) Christian faith.

Not everyone has to believe the same as you.

Some conservative branches of Christianity are keen on making sure that everyone believes the same thing. There is one way to interpret each and every Bible passage. There is one correct way to relate to Jesus, one correct way to understand salvation, one correct everything.

The math-science nerd in me understands this: there is one law for gravity, 1 plus 1 does equal 2, human reproduction happens in a certain, observable way.

But, even in science, there is so much we don’t know. And so much that varies from person to person, experience to experience. You might work best alone in an office while your neighbor might work best from a crowded coffeeshop. You might be motivated by comfort while your friend might be motivated by fame.

We each experience and understand the world in different ways, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Sometimes it’s helpful to ask “what is right” as best we can know. Sometimes we can look to science for answers (vaccines really will protect your child, comprehensive sexual education really does help keep teenagers safe, the earth really does revolve around the sun).

But sometimes, when it comes to matters of faith or of the heart, “is it right?” doesn’t always have a clear answer (even if it feels so clear to you or me!). In those cases, “is it helpful?” is often a good question to ask. When that is the question, it’s possible to answer “yes” to lots of different questions. They can compliment each other, rather than compete with one another.

When it comes to the nature of God, the resurrection, and even what-happens-after-you-die, Fr. Shay and I often believe differently. But we can look at each of our beliefs, ask “Is it helpful?,” and see that the answer is yes.

Jesus models this in Scripture when he tells his followers to judge the tree of a theology by its fruits. Good theology bears good fruits.

If your theology — or someone else’s theology — is bearing bad fruit … that may be a reason to speak out or act up. But if it’s just different than yours? That’s ok.

Not every problem you face is a spiritual one

We believe in the power of God. A God that parts seas to set oppressed people freeand who defeats death. We believe that the divine dwells in you, too. And that you are capable of remarkable things.

It’s also important that we recognize that not every problem you face is a spiritual one — sometimes you need secular solutions.

Too often we receive messages from folks who have been told that their gender dysphoria is a result of their sin or that their depression or suicidal thoughts can be cured with prayer.

God works through doctors and therapists and nutritionists just as much as God works through priests and pastors.

Sometimes you need a doctor. Or a therapist. Or a nutritionist. You might need medicine or light therapy or daily exercise.

If you come from a conservative religious background, working with a therapist to unpack that experience and develop healthier, more productive ways of moving through the world can be hugely helpful. I cannot recommend it enough. If you think you can’t afford therapy, talk with your local LGBT center… they may be able to connect you with some low- or no-cost options. Also, check out this Twitter thread for options and alternatives.

It’s important that you think through how your faith and beliefs will affect your actions

It’s all well and good to have beliefs but how do those beliefs affect your life—your choices and your actions (and your inactions)? James 2:17 even says, pointedly, “faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity.”

We see throughout the scriptures — and in the example of believers throughout the ages — the importance of putting your faith into action. God asked Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. The divine became incarnate in Jesus and then walked, talked, ate, touched (and led direct action protests).

If we take Jesus at his word that he came to “preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed,” and if we understand that he asked those around him to follow him … then what will faithful actions look like in our lives?

Here are some questions for you think about:

what will I do with my money?

how will I take care of others?

in what ways can I speak truth to powers and principalities that they would take care of their people?

how will I treat others?

where will I worship?

where will I live? (and with whom?)

how will I spend my time?

what will I think about myself?

what will I think about others?

If your Christian faith is important to you, take the time and energy to grow in it

As Christians, we don’t get to download everything that we need to know from The Matrix and be instant experts, even Jesus studied at the temple.

If the Christian faith is important to you, set aside the time and energy to grow in it. Read books, listen to talks, audit classes, speak with experts. You don’t need a seminary degree to be a faithful Christian, of course, but there is something to be said about really studying the theology around your faith if that faith is important to you. (Need somewhere to get started? We have a whole class on how to read the Bible)

I’m a big fan of 1 Thessalonians 5:21 — “test everything; hold fast to that which is good” — it was instrumental in allowing me to question what I’d been taught about “homosexuality and the Bible” … but it doesn’t end there. Test everything. Your beliefs about God, prayer, salvation, about the outsider and the other, about hell, sin, grace, and more. (we take a robust look at 26 different topics over 13 issues of Spit & Spirit — you get a subscription to the magazine with Sanctuary Collective)

Find a community

Where two are more are gathered, there God is (Matthew 18:20). Something divine happens in community: here’s enough to eat (Matthew 14), there are no needy (Acts 2).

Whether your community is online or IRL, it’s important to get connected with a community of folks who believe like you and share your values.

To find community in real life:

GayChurch.org maintains a list of LGBTQ-affirming churches

Connect with the LGBTQ+ organization for a specific denomination for suggestions on where to worship. Those are

More Light Presbyterians

Reconciling Ministries Network

Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists

Dignity (Roman Catholic)

Integrity (Episcopalian)

Affirmation (Latter Day Saints)

Reconciling Works

Room for All (Reform Church of America)

To find community online:

Connect on the #FaithfullyLGBT and #QueerTheology hashtags on Twitter

Search for “gay Christian” on Tumblr or track the gay christian hashtag

Join Sanctuary Collective, an online community of LGBTQ+ Christians and straight, cisngeder supporters from around the world and across denominations (including some seekers and skeptics)

It’s ok to not be a Christian

It’s also possible that you’ll take a hard look at what it means to be a Christian and decide it’s not for you. That you don’t align with its values, that its beliefs are too different from your own, that you don’t want to be associated with the label, or that its caused you too much trauma and it’s just not safe for you. That’s ok.

It is OK to not be a Christian.

You can be a good, righteous, moral person and not be a Christian.

You can love God and not be a Christian (it’s also OK if you’re angry at God! or don’t believe in God).

And as Christian leaders, we’re here to tell you that God doesn’t think any less of you if you never step foot in a church begin because it’s triggering, if you don’t feel God’s presence, if you have major doubts, if you don’t believe.

We find Christianity to be a liberating and life-giving faith and we believe God wants you to be liberated and saved. If you find that somewhere, go with gusto!

What are some ways that you’ve put your faith into action? Reply or reblog!

#queer theology #gay christian #faithfully lgbt #christianity #born again #salvation #god #bible #jesus #christ #jesus christ #lgbtq #lgbt

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adaralondon · 4 years ago

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What’s the Tea Geoffrey: Was the Canterbury Tale Chaucer’s diary?

Known as the father of English literature Chaucer is a man of many words. Not only that, he was a rule breaker using Middle English Vernacular, the slang of peasants, to present his writings to the upper class who preferred the debonair of the Latin and French languages. This was a bold and controversial move for someone who was a member of parliament. Although he used English as his choice language Chaucer still managed to produce over fourteen widely popular books, but his most notable work is The Canterbury Tales. It contains twenty-four tales told by thirty different pilgrims, but he originally planned for it to include 124 stories in total. Unfortunately, all 124 planned stories were unable to be completed due to his untimely death which left many of the tales he had already started incomplete. The Canterbury Tales however is not only interesting because it contains such a vast amount of tales but also because one man was able to write so many stories that gave each character in their respective tale a different personality. However, upon closer inspection the stories may not be as unique as we originally thought. Many details mirror events that happened in Chaucer’s real life. The Wife of Bath’s Tale mirrors several aspects of his raptus accusations or as we know it as in modern day and age: Rape or kidnapping, from Cecily Champagne. The Franklin’s Tale is famously thought to be a tale about his marriage to the Queen’s lady in waiting, Philippa Roet. His close friend John of Gaunt also makes a few appearances yet they are notoriously negative. John was thought to be a usurper of Chaucer’s marriage as reflected in The Merchant’s Tale. Since we have very limited biographical records when it comes to Chaucer’s life this paper can only be taken as speculation but I will support my claims using the evidence I’ve collected from searching through his writings, the limited biographical records we do have, and numerous scholarly sources. Through my paper I will answer the question: Is it possible that Chaucer used The Canterbury Tales as a method of therapy so he could vent about traumatic experiences without being judged, confined, or imprisoned? I will also provide proof as to why I believe my stance in the argument, that he did use The Canterbury tales as some sort of journal, is not as farfetched as it seems.

Therapy in the 14th century was nothing like the services we are provided now. Today you can book an appointment with a licensed therapist and discuss your problems confidentially. The therapist isn’t going to consider you a nutcase for speaking your mind and the only way you will get sent to the asylum is if you threaten to harm yourself, others, or are an immediate danger. People who lived in the 14th century did not have this luxury. According to several sources (Preceden, Schwartz, and Burton) The first mental health symptoms were identified in 500bce and were listed as mania, melancholia, dementia, hysteria, delusions, and hallucinations. These symptoms are even noted in the bible. In 1 Samuel 16:14:23 there is a verse that states: “And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took [a] harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.”(Bible Gateway) showing that these symptoms were not unknown to even the most inspirational of figures.

Although we look at these as signs of mental illness the perception of what is classifies as such has always changed with the century it is identified in. During 500bce scholars like Plato and Socrates considered madness “the gift of heaven, [that] is the channel by which we receive the greatest blessings… madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human.” Suggesting that most creatively talented people dealt with some sort of mental aliment that benefited their work in ways people who are neurotypical could have not imagined. Not every scholar thought that “madness” was a blessing though. Mental health was typically looked at from two different angles. As aforementioned, it could be thought of as a gift that was received from the Gods as many mental illnesses are known to have inspired some of the best modern artistic talents. Van Gough, Beethoven, and Munch were all known to suffer from some sort of affliction yet are still considered some of our greatest artist. The second view of mental illness was more cynical. It was thought of as a divine punishment, demonic possession, or wildly enough “an imbalance of [the] four bodily fluids or humors”. Since there were not what we considered therapist and psychiatrist in those days’ things thought to be caused by religion were often dealt with by religion. Most of the time the cures that dealt with these afflictions often were based in mysticisms: trepanation where a ‘doctor’ would drill a hole into the skull to release the ‘demon’ or ‘sprit’ inside of one’s being or hydrotherapy which would be akin to a Jesus like baptism and often times included crucifixion in its usage.

It was not until a year after Chaucer’s death in 1401 that next thoughts of where trauma and mental illness spawned from were formed: Christianity. In the 1400s Mental health issues were thought to have come from practicing witchcraft which would make converting to Christianity the lesser evil as opposed to being accused of being a witch and burned alive. Two years later though things had started to move away from religion and towards more ‘realistic’ treatments. The first mental health institution was opened in 1403 but during that time treatment would have still been considered inhumane to modern day people. If diagnosed with an aliment the treatment was little more than being restraint in a strayjacket. (Britannica). However inhumane the treatments were they were still vast improvements to what was available during the 13th century. Unfortunately, these things had only become available after Chaucer’s death meaning that he would never be able to experience the improvements in health care.

During the medieval ages those who did not believe in the church or its teachings did not have much to lean on. Chaucer who was a non-believer and whose life contained multiple exiles, kidnapping, the death of his wife & several of his children, and the loss of his position in the royal court did not have many places he could go to relieve stress. Given his circumstances and the effect they would have had on his mien Chaucer would more than likely have been accused of witchcraft or be admitted to an asylum (had these options been available) but since he did not trust the church enough to use the confessionals which at the time were akin to what we considered a modern-day therapist there was not much hope for him. As a practicing Christian or catholic, citizens were supposed to be able to go to the church and confess anything with it being considered 100% confidential. Yet given the way Chaucer writes his characters that play ‘vital’ church roles the confessional did not seem to be the best choice to entrust secrets to. Since the church was not a source of comfort for Chaucer, he was left with one option albeit one familiar, friendly, and that would never betray him: Writing.

Writing has been a therapeutic source for as long as people have had written language. Many writers subconsciously voice their problems to their audience throughout their work. “Self-1 acts as the main character as well as an involved narrator, while Self-2 acts as the narrator, listener, and counselor, and life narratives usually appear as a dialogue between these two selves. Self-1 and Self-2 merge when an epiphany occur in the author’s writing that allows him or her to make sense of life experiences.” (Yu) I can attest to this personally as a three-time published author when writing each of my books I noticed that a lot of my writing seemed to mirror experiences that had happened to me. I was not intentionally incorporating these events into my writing and I had not noticed that I was doing it. Once I started to proofread, I noticed all the topics I was writing about sounded familiar. It was like I was having a conversation with two versions of myself. One person was explaining the things that happened to them and the other person was listening and acting as a counselor. After I had written these experiences down, I felt immensely better as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. “Studies have found that most people feel happier and healthier after writing about deeply traumatic memories.” (Pennebaker) Proving that writing therapy has healing effects and may even be therapeutic for those who have no where else to turn. Although some people may argue Chaucer did not use The Canterbury Tales as a therapist there is no way to explicitly prove this. No one has a complete biographical record of his life and what we do have is fragmented containing only bits and pieces of his life which leaves a lot to speculation. Many writers would argue that writing therapy is often subconscious, and they are not aware most of the time that the therapy session is taking place. Also, as mentioned previously since a substantial amount of Chaucer’s records are missing from history no one can make a case for either side and claim it as completely true. Upon my close inspection though, I have noticed that there are several events in The Canterbury Tales that mirror Chaucer’s life so I can argue that he did use the book as his own personal confessional.

Perhaps one of the most infamous moments of Chaucer’s life was when he was accused of rape by Cecily Champagne. The exact term used is the Latin word raptus which could mean several things such as to seize or to force sexual acts unto someone. (Glosbe) Like most terms not every word translates directly into modern English; words are known to shift meaning quite frequently so there is not any exact way for us to know which version of the act Chaucer was accused of. Even scholars have debated exactly which usage of the word Chaucer was charged with but since it was known to be a common occurrence in legal documentation scholars have narrowed down the argument a lot. “The nature of the offence is made clear by the use of the two words 'rapuerunt et abduxerunt'. When raptus or forms of the verb rapere are used alone, it seems they must mean rape.” (Pearsall). It is unknown if Chaucer kidnapped Cecily Champagne or sexually forced himself on her but given what we can see from the knight in The Wife of Bath’s Tale its highly possible that Chaucer was accused of what we consider to be modern day sexual assault.

In modern times Rape has become trivialized, children yell out that they are being raped when being playfully touched by their classmates and women are villainized based on what they were wearing, drinking, and or where they were located. Rape has also started to become fetishized as seen by television, film, and pornography where women dream of being forced into sexual situations and the media highlighting rape scenes as a basis for the growth of women into a powerful being. However, in Chaucer’s time this was not the case because rape was treated as an extremely serious crime. The punishment for rape was “castration and blinding, and later [hanging].” (Lee) This is seen in The Wife of Bath’s Tale as King Arthur is ready to put the Knight to death: “that dampned was this knyght for to be deed.” (Chaucer L.891) King Arthur was attempting to carry out his duty in order to appease the woman whose maidenhead was stolen by the Knight, but strangely enough it is the women of the town and the queen that beg him not to punish the Knight. The Queen instead sends the knight on a quest to find out what is it that women truly desire to atone for his grievous sin. The woman who is raped is written out of the story and only mentioned once, not by name, and only in tandem with the Knight. The same way Champagne is written out of history after Chaucer pays her off. Also, the way the knight’s rape case is bartered by the women around him mirrors Chaucer’s friends support of him when he was accused. The rape accusations had no effect on Chaucer’s career as such the rape did not have any effect on the knight’s status as a hero of medieval literature as this is not the only instance of knights committing such heinous crimes. Although what makes the tale so interesting is that Chaucer writes this tale so casually given he has personal experience with being accused of rape. That isn’t to say that he wasn’t affected by the accusation mentally though, even though it had no effect on his career and is written so freely, being accused of rape is something that can ruin a person’s life health wise. “The mental health damage caused to wrongly convicted prisoners is similar to that suffered by veterans of war and torture survivors….A 2003 study conducted by the Life After Exoneration Program of sixty [falsely accused prisoners] found that nearly half were burdened by depression, anxiety disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder.” (Hoyle 13) The writing in The Wife of Bath’s Tale mirror the accusation from Cecily Champagne and the way his friends defended his name way too closely to just be coincidental. It is arguable that the accusations did have a substantial effect on his life and mental health especially since he was accused of rape in 1380 and the tales were written in 1400. This would mean he carried that trauma with him for about 20 years before releasing it on paper. In addition to being accused of rape another thing that would have stressed him out was his marriage to Phillipa Roet.

Chaucer’s wife Philippa Roet was of a much higher status then he was. Chaucer was born into a family of vintners meanwhile his wife was a lady in waiting for Elizabeth of Ulster, Queen Philippa, and Constance of Castile. The main characters of The Franklin’s Tale: Dorigen and Arveragus also have differences in class and ranking. Dorigen, like Roet comes from a higher born status and Arveragus must go through a set of tasks to win her love. When he does, they marry, and he agrees with her that they should be equals in private, but he should hold the power when it comes to public appearances. Even though Roet was of higher born status she was still a woman.

Women in the 13th century were thought of as property of their husbands. It is a common thought that women had no rights in their marriages, but this is not true. Women did have “the right to consent to marriage, the right to ask for marital debt or conjugal (sexual) duty, the right to leave a marriage when they either suspected it was invalid or had grounds to sue for separation, and finally the right to choose one's own place of burial, death being the point at which a spouse's ownership of the other spouse's body ceased.” (McDougall). However, these rights did not make them equal to their partners, women were still considered inferior in the eyes of the law and the court. Even if the woman was considered elite according to English law their husbands were still considered above them in terms of martial power. The duty of an upper-class woman was known to be “to obey their spouse, guard their virtue, produce offspring, and to oversee the operation of the household.” (Schaus) So, it is surprising that Arveragus offers Dorigen the opportunity to be equals, although we are not sure what that equality entails, even if it is private. One thing I noticed is that since this tale is perhaps the one that parallels Chaucer’s life the most, it is interesting that he chooses not to have Chaucer the Pilgrim tell this tale. Perhaps it was too painful to use his own character. Perhaps it is to hide that Chaucer’s marriage to Philippa may have been ‘corrupted’ by the foreign suitor: Aurelius who more than likely was based on her partner in adultery, John of Gaunt. This seemed to influence his mental health as his wife betrayed their sacred marriage vows and committed fornication with John of Gaunt who is generally considered to be one of his close friends.

It was not uncommon for John to pursue women as he was known to be quite the womanizer; meaning it would not be unusual for John to have pursued Roet. This tale suggests two things: Chaucer was aware of Gaunt’s pursuit of his wife and she did the honorable thing which would have been to reject his advances out of respect for her husband which in the story Dorigen rejects Aurelius’ pursuit of her. The second thing it suggest is that Chaucer was aware that she did indeed commit this horrible act but asked her to keep it a secret. In the tale there is a scene where Dorigen must make good on her promise to be with Aurelius since he completed his task for her while her husband was a way. Her husband commands her to keep it a secret and makes her keep her promise to Aurelius. “Dorigen can keep her promise to Aurelius, but Arveragus will kill her if she ever lets anyone find out that he has lost sexual control of her. Masculine pride in his public ownership of Dorigen is revealed here as the real bottom line of Arveragus's self-image, known cuckoldry the one outcome he cannot tolerate under any circumstances.” (Davis) Suggesting that Chaucer would not allow his wife’s blunder to influence his career.

There is quite a debate on whether Gaunt slept with Phillipa. Gaunt was married to Roet’s sister and an affair would have been considered incestuous but since public records regarding her infidelity are hard to come by no one can be sure. It is known that Chaucer’s son chose to take his mother’s coat of arms instead of his father’s suggesting that Chaucer may not have been his father at all. In fact, many scholars debate if Chaucer’s son was his own or if he was truly Gaunt’s son. “Given John of Gaunt's reputation for fornication, it is a distinct possibility that ‘the randy prince’ liked to tumble about with both sisters at the same time and that Chaucer's supposed son, Thomas was not the product of the poet's loins but was actually the son of John of Gaunt.” (Dartington Morris Men.) Due to the son wearing his mother’s insignia suggesting that he and Chaucer may not have been close possibly which would be likely if Chaucer was not truly his father.

Having to father a son that was not yours would more than likely be a significant cause of stress. It would have caused some tension between all three parties especially since given the events of The Franklin’s Tale Chaucer more than likely forbade his wife from discussing it. Although the law did permit that Chaucer could take revenge against Gaunt at any time: “the killing of a male adulterer by a male cuckold was not outlawed in secular law, leaving scope for lawful revenge-killing.” (Weinstein). Although revenge killing would have been way too risky given that Gaunt was a prince and if Chaucer killed him it would be revealed that his wife was unfaithful. The unfaithfulness of a wife would have shown that Chaucer was unable to maintain control of his ‘property’ causing him immense shame and staining his career. Having to keep a secret is known to influence mental health and one’s sense of self. The inability to do anything regarding his wife’s affair could be what led to the resentment of marriage that is shown in The Merchant’s Tale.

The final tale I would like to reference is The Merchant’s Tale. Since it was commonly thought that his wife was unfaithful and committed adultery with his close friend John of Gaunt. In medieval times men were expected to remain faithful to their wives but it was foolish for a man to expect his wife to be faithful back to him suggesting that Chaucer was aware of the fornication. Several of Chaucer’s tales focus on marriage but there are two that seem to mirror his own marriage closely one being The Franklin’s Tale and the other The Merchant’s Tale.

The prologue of The Merchant’s Tale starts with a negative view of women and marriage. “I have a wyf, the worste that may be/For thogh the feend to hire ycoupled were.” (Chaucer line 1218-1219) The Merchant believes that marriage is an atonement for past sins and belittles both his vows and his wife in front of the other pilgrims. January the character of the tale, is completely different than the one in the Merchant’s prologue, however. The tale itself begins with a favorable attitude regarding marriage as for some mysterious reason this honorable knight who had envied married men had avoided holy matrimony for so long. He describes being a bachelor as a painful thing and calls a wife “the best part of a treasure.” (Chaucer) He also notes that the thought of being married makes his heart swell with pride. With January’s view of marriage in such an opposition to the merchant’s, it is hard to know what side of the fence Chaucer himself stood on. It is thought that Chaucer knew his own wife was unfaithful but went back in forth between feeling as though he was a cuckhold-- ironically enough this exact word is used in the tale in line 1306 and once again in line 2256-- to feelings of anger. This is important because historically we are unsure if Chaucer’s own marriage to Phillipa Roet was content or full of contempt. “Women didn't have a choice as to who they would marry and, most of the time, women didn't even know the man before they wed. However, men were sometimes able to choose their bride. Marriage back then was not based on love; most marriages were political arrangements.” (Medieval Times) Perhaps even the great and humble Chaucer himself saw marriage as something political and not for love as he had a substantial problem with the concepts of oaths. Also, regarding marriage for the purpose of financial and economic gain was not uncommon during the time. Chaucer could have used his marriage to Roet to gain higher status and a larger amount of royalties for his writing since writers were not paid well leading many to have to pick up secondary careers. Although , it may be possible given the way January speaks on marriage and so obviously turns a blind eye to witnessing his wife’s ludicrous act with another man that Chaucer was so in love with Phillipa that he was willing to overlook her infidelity.

In medieval times men were expected to remain faithful to their wives. Adultery was considered a crime under a monarchy that centered its laws around the bible. When laws were broken the court would subject them to a fitting punishment and punishments in the medieval times are nowhere comparable to the lenient jail time criminals can serve today. Depending on what crime was committed a person could be condemned to wear a badge designating what their crime was for their entire life. (Thorpe) or even worse, since torture was a favorite during this time, someone accused of cheating on their spouse would be put into a stock or a pillory and the stock would hold one by their ankles while the pillory was used for heads and wrist. (Medieval Chronicles). Although Chaucer thought it was foolish for a man to expect his wife to be faithful back to him. (Lumiansky) women were not exempt from being punished for adultery. The Leges Henrici Primi decreed that the King should have the executive authority to punish an adulterous man, and that adulterous women should be punished by bishops. (Weinstein). Although, ironically enough in The Manciple’s Tale, Chaucer warns women to be careful of unfaithful men. It is well known that Chaucer’s wife was an adulterer but, it is possible due to his wife being of higher status then him he didn’t have much room for complaint because if they were to be legally separated for any reason Chaucer would lose the higher status he had achieved. It is to be noted that this status was indeed revoked when Philippa, his wife, had passed on. Also, if Chaucer loved Phillipa he would not want her to receive the punishments that were attested to women when they were charged with the crime of adultery. “The codes of Cnut prescribed corporal mutilation for female adulterers—cutting off their nose and ears.” (Klinck).

Being conflicted on whether to turn his spouse over to the higher court and risk her punishment or letting her be free to cheat continuously would have caused Chaucer significant emotional stress. We see that infidelity in marriage is a common theme in almost all the marriage tales Chaucer writes. Furthermore, it is known the when a spouse is unfaithful it can have a significant impact on one’s health, “being the victim of infidelity can have serious consequences for a person's mental and physical health. The situation has been associated with depression, anxiety, and unhealthy coping…. some mental health professionals also believe there can be parallels with post-traumatic stress disorder.” (Millar) It is possible that since Chaucer could not turn her in nor did he believe in going to the church confessional that he internalized a lot of his anger and sadness and instead wrote his feelings into The Canterbury Tales, the safest place for them to be. I would also argue that he could safely express his feelings regarding the church because the tales were written in English and English vernacular, which at time would have been the language of peasants. Anything considerably worth reading at the time would have been presented in Latin and French the languages regarded worthy at the time. This would have allowed his to get away with quite a lot.

By the time Chaucer had started working on The Canterbury Tales he had been exiled from Europe. He was permitted to return years later and lived in the Close of the Collegiate Church of St Peter until his death in 1401. However, during exile he had lost his wife and several of his children died due to diseases that commonly plagued Europe at the time. After his wife died his social status was revoked and he was reduced to little more than a gardener. It is unknown how Chaucer died some say it was natural causes while other say he was murdered by enemies of Richard the second. Despite the chaos of his life I think that Chaucer did not die a miserable man. In his last moments he could speak his mind freely in his book allowing all the troubles he faced while he was alive to be translated onto paper. Many people may ask why a paper like this is important to explore when there are more pressing topics when it comes to Chaucer’s writing such as feminism, sexism, and queer theory. While those are indeed important looking at things from a psychoanalytic lens is equally important. As English majors I think it is important to look at Chaucer's work through a psychoanalytic lens because often we forget the writers exsist outside of their work. Chaucer was a person as much as he was a writer and it is important to acknowledge that he went through a lot in his life if we want to understand his work better. Realizing that authors are human takes them off the god pedestal our society has forced some of English's greatest writers-- such as Shakespeare -- and makes them feel more accessible to students and teachers alike. A topic like this is also important because it discusses the taboo subject of mental health which serves to further humanize English's favorite authors. As readers we like to think that our favorites were untouchable, Great literature makes us believe that these authors did not suffer through real life events and only exsist through their writing. I think that that is dangerous because struggles are what make people who they are. When we separate crucial events from our writers, we start to miss important points and topics that appear in their writing. Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales not only for our entertainment but also to express that he was not invincible. He was a man just like the rest of the world, who suffered just as much as the peasant class did. I can say that he did use his writing as a tool to express the anguish that appeared because there are too many events in The Canterbury Tales that mirror his real life to be coincidental. Scholars may debate this point but upon reading this essay I hope they research Chaucer’s life and see that the tales are more than just a way for him to poke fun at the church and throw a couple of sexual innuendos into a literary classic but also asway for a human man to express human suffering. It is important to realize that these people also had lives just like us so that we can have a better understanding of their works and they do not feel as untouchable as we allow them to now. It is a new phenomenon to include trauma in works of fiction as a way of therapy. Walter Dean Myers another famous writer was often encouraged by his teachers to use his writing to express himself. Van Gough was thought to have used The Scream to paint the storm he felt inside of himself. Chinua Achebe used his writing to express disdain for the British settlement and colonization in his home country of Nigeria. Geoffrey Chaucer was not the first man to use his works as his own personal therapist and he will not be the last.

Works cited:

“BibleGateway.” 1 Samuel 16:14-23 KJV - - Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%2BSamuel%2B16%3A14-23&version=KJV.

“History of Mental Illness.” Preceden, www.preceden.com/timelines/72367-history-of-mental-illness.

“Medieval Crime & Punishment.” Medieval Crime & Punishment, www.medievalchronicles.com/medieval-torture-devices/medieval-crime-punishment/.

“Medieval Marriage: What Was Marriage Like In The Middle Ages?: Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament.” Medieval Times, www.medievaltimes.com/teachers-students/materials/medieval-era/marriage.html.

“Raptus in English.” Glosbe, glosbe.com/la/en/raptus.

“The Merchant’s Tale.” The Riverside Chaucer, by Geoffrey Chaucer and Larry Dean Benson, Houghton Mifflin, 1987, p. 153.

“The Wife of Bath's Tale.” The Riverside Chaucer, by Geoffrey Chaucer and Larry Dean Benson, Houghton Mifflin, 1987, p. 117.

Burton, Neel. “A Brief History of Psychiatry.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 2 June 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201206/brief-history-psychiatry.

Gu, Yue1, [email protected]. “Narrative, Life Writing, and Healing: The Therapeutic Functions of Storytelling.” Neohelicon, vol. 45, no. 2, Dec. 2018, pp. 479–489. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11059-018-0459-4.

Hoyle, Carolyn. “The Impact of Being Wrongly Accused of Abuse in Occupations of Trust: Victims' Voices.” Oxford Law Faculty, 1 Oct. 2018, www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-and-subject-groups/impact-being-wrongly-accused-abuse-occupations-trust-victims-voice.

John O'Gaunt and Chaucer. Dartington Morris Men, dartingtonmorrismen.org.uk/john-ogaunt-and-chaucer.

Klinck, A. L. 'Anglo-Saxon Women and the Law', Journal of Medieval History, 8.2 (1982), 107–21 (p. 111); doi:10.1016/0304-4181(82)90043-4

Lee, BS. "Exploitation and Excommunication In 'The Wife of Bath's Tale.'." Philological Quarterly. 74.1 (1995): 17. Web.

McDougall, Sara (2013). "Women and Gender in Canon Law". In Judith Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (eds.). Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 163–178. ISBN 978-0-19-958217-4.

Millar, Abi. “How Cheating Affects Your Health and Sex Life.” Patient.info, 17 Nov. 2017, patient.info/news-and-features/how-an-affair-affects-your-sexual-and-mental-health.

Pearsall, Derek. The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer (1990), Pp, www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/chaucer/cecily.htm.

R. M. Lumiansky. “Chaucer and the Idea of Unfaithful Men.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 62, no. 8, 1947, p. 560. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2307/2908623.

Schaus, Margaret C., ed. (2006). Women and gender in medieval Europe: an encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415969444.

Schwartz, Larry, and AlterNet. “8 Horrific 'Cures' for Mental Illness Through the Ages.” Alternet.org, 26 Dec. 2014, www.alternet.org/2014/12/8-horrific-cures-mental-illness-through-ages/.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Bedlam.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 Sept. 2013, www.britannica.com/topic/Bedlam.

Thorpe, JR. “9 Bizarre Medieval Punishments.” Bustle, Bustle, 28 May 2015, www.bustle.com/articles/86247-9-bizarre-medieval-punishments-from-wearing-a-bridle-to-suffocating-under-mud.

Weinstein, Jeremy D. 'Adultery, Law, and the State: A History', Hastings Law Journal, 38.1 (1986), 195-238.

Woolston, Chris. “Writing for Therapy Helps Erase Effects of Trauma.” CNN.com - Writing for Therapy Helps Erase Effects of Trauma - March 16, 2000, 16 Mar. 2000, web.archive.org/web/20041120093458/archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/16/health.writing.wmd/.

#essay #essay and formal #canterbury tales #writing #formal writing

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real-life-pine-tree · 7 years ago

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Growing Up Lonely: Single Mother Struggles (2/?)

I decided to make the Miracle Child oneshot a series of oneshots chronicling Yuto’s life in Heartland prior to the Invasion.

Shortly after unofficially adopting Yuto, Lono came to realize that raising an infant by herself wasn't easy at all. She already had a job as a school therapist at Heartland Academy, so with her new secondary job as a single mother, things became far more complicated for her.

On one particular day, Lono was speaking to a girl who was having some issues regarding being teased when a loud cry interrupted her rant. "Ms. Osaku?" the student asked.

"Oh, it's alright," Lono said, lifting her son close to her and unbuttoning up her shirt. "Yuto is just hungry. Please continue."

The student simply blinked as Lono proceeded to feed her son. "Sorry..." she said. "But it's kind of...distracting."

"He's not at the bottle stage," Lono explained. "But don't mind him. Have you made any progress?"

"Uh... I have to go..." the student said, getting up from her seat. "Maybe I'll tell you another day."

The interruptions didn't stop. But despite having to take care of Yuto during important student sessions, Lono refused to go on maternity leave. Due to her living in a middle class environment, she had to earn enough money to afford taking care of her son. Not just for baby care, but for when he gets older. And what about when he finds that special someone? She had to make sure he has an amazing wedding.

But sadly, on one particular day, the principal of Heartland Academy, Karen Andrews, asked Lono to come to her office after school. The students were complaining about baby Yuto and how Lono was more occupied with him than her job. However, Lono wasn't happy with this information.

"I know Yuto is a bit of a hassle," Lono said, holding her son close as he slept. "But once he starts walking and talking, I'll get back to taking my job seriously."

"The students can't wait that long," Karen reported. "I have received numerous reports on how you have been feeding your son or changing his diaper during discussions. They find it rather distracting, so I would suggest that you either go on maternity leave or hire a babysitter."

"Karen, I can't go on maternity leave," Lono said. "I need the money so I can afford to raise Yuto properly. It's also why I can't hire a babysitter to watch over him every day like you do with Nelson."

"Then why don't you ask a relative to watch over him?" Karen suggested.

Lono couldn't respond. In all honesty, she couldn't remember her family. Ignoring the sudden sorrow in her heart, she held Yuto close as he stirred in his sleep, not sure how to answer the question.

"I'm not even certain if he's officially your son," Karen said. "Did you really found him in an alleyway?"

"Of course," Lono answered. "With a strange-looking Duel Monsters card I never saw before."

"Then why didn't you take him to the orphanage or track down his real parents?" Karen asked.

Before Lono could answered, Yuto woke up as he made a small sound. She looked down at him and he looked at her, smiling wide. "It's his smile," she answered. "It's the most precious thing I have ever seen. I was afraid something might take away that beautiful smile, so I decided to become his new mom."

Karen let out a small sigh. "Aren't you worried his real parents might see him?" she asked.

"I know it's an unusual theory, but what if his birth parents died or didn't want him?" Lono asked in response. "I can't just leave him."

"You can't continue to juggle between your job and being a mother," Karen insisted. "But if you continue to be this stubborn, I will have no choice but to ask you to leave the infant in an orphanage."

Realizing there was no other choice, Lono let out a sigh. "Alright," she said, agreeing to maternity leave. "But it's only until Yuto starts school."

Later that day, Lono had brought Yuto to the local Catholic Church for support. Luckily the local priest not only gave her enough donation clothes, but also provide a baptism ceremony for the young infant. Unfortunately, the ceremony didn't go according to plan.

"I baptize you, Yuto Osaku, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," the priest said.

But as soon as holy water came in contact with Yuto's forehead, he started screaming as his eyes glowed periwinkle and he thrashed around. Worse, it appeared that the holy water was burning his skin!

"My goodness," the priest said as Lono tried to calm her son down. "That has never happened before."

"I'm so sorry," Lono apologized, patting her son's back. "Yuto is normally calm and gentle. I don't understand why he would suddenly act like this."

"It's alright, Ms. Osaku," the priest said. "God wouldn't shun Yuto for being different. Maybe he made him special for a reason."

"You think so?" Lono asked as Yuto finally calmed down.

"Of course," the priest answered. "You must make sure he is accepted and loved by all. Perhaps attending church every Sunday could help."

"Thank you," Lono said. "I just hope your advice works."

#Arc V Aftermath #Growing Up Lonely #yugioh arc v #Yuto (arc v)#Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon

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duckbeater · 7 years ago

Text

Fuck Church-going, I’m Going to H&M

M and I were walking downtown, through the cold dark channel of skyscrapers on Dearborn Avenue, holding off on reaching our respective trains. Some of the light fixtures were done up in orange and white to look like candy corn. Spooky music (pipe organ, maybe the theme from The Phantom of the Opera) wafted out of the flowerbeds done up in hearty mums. I appreciate how much the city celebrates its holidays. I hoped ghosts would rain down demented terror on all of us.

I was just off work and M was out of therapy—we had barely coordinated our meeting. Somehow we were embarrassed to be where we never were, like the time we intersected just after he’d purchased his condo, appearing before each other in our business casual at the Belmont exchange, approving our dress basics (”You are a new man in Chinos!” “I appreciate you in a tie!”), then agreeing to a celebratory drink. He was nearly silent. I forgave him: he’d just laid a good chunk of his earthly estate on the line, on down the line, and was dizzy with the prospect of failure. (This was confirmed in the bar, when the color left his face, and he murmured, “I’ve signed my whole life away. Now I’ll be one of those gays who never stops talking about slate versus granite countertops.”) He was quiet now, too, puzzling over the book recommendation his therapist had given him.

“Conscious Communication by Mary Shores. I already Amazoned it, but I’m not going to read it. And not reading it will just produce more shame, more guilt, that I’ll have to talk around in our next session.”

“Maybe you can read it,” I advised, “consciously, on your commutes, but choose your headings, you know? Like, be a proactive skimmer.” My therapist never recommends little books for me to read. She listens, an awful lot, to me talking about books, referencing books, shitting on books. I realized I use my therapist as a kind of pre-book-review audience, where I pitch angles her way and she says, “Mmm, but do you like it?” And it occurred to me then that I was extorting my health insurance for an embarrassment of riches to workshop book reviews I then published for free on poorly trafficked websites. This, I thought, is the emotional commerce of an MFA. I told M: “I don’t get homework from my therapist.”

He said: “I think mine is bored talking to me about guys, so he wants something we can both talk about. So that’s a fucking book.”

To our left, in the Daley Plaza, secondary directors on one of the Chicago series were filming a public demonstration. A monumental backdrop with exquisitely art directed graffito read: GOD IS GAY AND HE LOVES YOU! The crowd of onlookers was fairly separate from the crowd of extras, but it was a close thing, and somewhat confounding, the distinction between a simulated fracas over milquetoast iconoclasm and the genuine anger of what I assume were tourists. People milling (extras) were deflecting earnest proclamations from people on the other side of the barricade, who shouted things like “God is great!” and questions like “God is unknowable, so how do you know He’s gay?” (also shouted).

M said, “Whoa!” but I said, “It’s just a movie. That’s not even local news.” I pointed to a folded crane and several reflectors: “They’re trying to make it look like two o’clock in the afternoon. That’s an Arri Alexa—gay youth groups don’t take those out of the box.” I was guessing about the camera, still, it impressed M.

We idled outside the Goodman so M could ruminate on how his stringent, captivating Catholic upbringing was possibly rearing a cudgel now, example: his inability to manifest erections during recent, aborted Grindr hookups.

“How many are we talking about?” I asked.

“Maybe, after the last time we talked, three others?”

“You’ve abandoned three hookups because your dick wasn’t hard?”

“No, just two of them. My dick was a part of, uh, all of them though. This one dude was too dirty to fuck. I know it gets late, but who doesn’t shower before hooking up with a stranger?”

“Some guys are into that.”

“I’m not,” said M. “Sex with Ben is fine. Jerking off is fine. I have a libido. Maybe I just need some romance first. What is the point of ‘opening my relationship’ if I can’t have sex with other guys because my dick isn’t cooperating?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Maybe it was obvious that I was forlorn.

Two key scenes of my distended friendship with M: ferrying him to a movie after his dog died, stroking the soft clippered hair on the back of his head while he cried in the passenger seat, just as my mother had done when I was a child. (Farm life is punctuated by many gruesome cat deaths.) He talked to his sister on the phone and said things like, “Yeah, but did the vet let you hold her head?” allowing her answers to destroy him. The second, a few months back: when M decided to break up with Ben, my driving him around Chicago for a debrief. He was so under-slept his under-eyes seemed saline-injected. He repeated feelings he’d been expressing up till then and I tried to offer comments that weren’t cliches, also previously expressed. “What we’re dealing with here,” I said, “is summary, so maybe we can just listen to music and respect the end of this thing?” He contested that the reality of the relationship’s end—nearly four years of honest coupling—was worth examining, as a phenomenon whose pain had far exceeded his expectations. (Thus, my blog.) Obviously those weren’t his exact words. And anyway a couple of days later, he and Ben agreed to keep dating, albeit “openly,” the announcement of which caused me to state, openly, “Good luck with that!”

So he had bad luck with that, and being a sport now, he said, “You’re a smart guy, tell me what to do!”

“Don’t blame God on your erections. Don’t blame romance on them, either. Don’t blame them. This whole setup is bunk. You have to report, verbatim, the stupid not-sex you have with randos, edifying no one, least of all Ben.” (A condition of their open relationship is they tell each other everything.) “You have a guilty conscience, is all. You want a clean fuck? You will never get one. Every time you boink someone else, you think about how Ben won’t like it much, and he doesn’t like it much, it makes him terrified that you’ll actually really breakup with him, and you’re terrified, too. Look at the very long leash he braided into the back of your hair! So pretty! You went to New York alone to meet up with a guy you’ve been Scruffing for eight months!”

“But I didn’t fuck him! I couldn’t get a fucking boner!”

“I’m fucking glad!” I snapped.

We both exhaled very loudly and very slowly. We had been mobile, with sharp hand motions, all the way to the corner of Lake. Trains clattered above us.

“Fucking Christ,” I said, peeling my backpack off, hugging it.

“What?”

“I forgot to buy a fucking sweater from H&M.”

“You want me to walk back with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

We passed by the movie set again. People were chanting “CHRIST! IS GAY! HE WAS BORN THIS WAY!” which unnerved M no end. “It’s just, I spent an hour talking about growing up uber-Catholic, feeling gross about gay people, and now there’s people chanting in the streets—”

“It’s a movie,” I pointed out again.

“You think because it’s fake it doesn’t make it worth feeling—”

“I think god is fake, too, but—”

“That’s the whole point! It’s—the—meaningless . . . ” I thought he was burying it, the dredged up convictions. Instead: “Do remember Jed’s stupid ministry?”

I did. This is a mutual acquaintance who married young, sired two kids, preached in his father’s church, outed himself before his congregation, got kicked out of his church, temporarily lost his family, and turned this turn of fortune into a not-very-profitable speaking tour. His self-published memoir, a re-conversion narrative, described the gift God gave him: making Jed a gay shepherd for His flock.

M: “You think it’s stupid because he took the thing that ruined his life and promotes it now as the thing that saved it.”

I said, “Absolutely, I do think that’s stupid.”

M: “Right. Fine. But you understand that being psychologically affected by your religious upbringing doesn’t make you an idiot, okay?”

I perceived where M wanted to turn his thoughts but it didn’t make me care about them. “The planet is dying and we’re killing each other with guns. I don’t want to talk to another gay person about god, or prayers, or spiritual affiliation, or how they still feel shame because of their church-going. Fuck church-going. I’m going to H&M, I’m going to buy a sweater guaranteed-made by the most desecrating human labor, and then I’m—I’m going home.” I should concede what I perceived: that had young M had any access to a faith that celebrated his sexuality, or at least didn’t shit all over it, then he might be a more contented, better adjusted adult. Here was the universe broadcasting this back to him, grandly, on the bright stage of an updated mystery play. He felt stirred to compassion for his former self, and benevolent toward his former (though perhaps extant) beliefs. I acknowledge that it resonated. The timing, the scale, how could it not? I resented its convenience.

M: “You’re acting like a total fascist.”

I said, “I know. I’m sorry. We can get an ice cream after I find a sweater.”

M said thanks, and we hustled over to State Street. I had been hugging my backpack for too long. He took it out of my arms and told me to look like a normal person, not like a scared child, and held the straps open for me.

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monawriter2020-blog · 5 years ago

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Home Schooling: Educating the Teachers

It's 5:30 a.m. on a summer day. I should be sleeping like the rest of the world, ensconced in a woolly blanket of certitude that there is no work today, only vacation. But I can't really sleep. It's the first day of school, you see.

There is an old theory of learning that says education isn't about teaching students new things but only about reminding them what they already inherently know.

It's a high-minded theory that assumes everyone is what my old college president would have termed "educable," that knowledge, like truth, is not relative, but exists on its own plane running parallel to ours and may be accessed by revelation school leave letter for my son.

One need only be shown the hidden path to the oracle's chamber, so to speak, and all will be unveiled.

Sometimes, though, it's not the student but the teacher that needs to be shown the way.

Perhaps we are so inured to others' needs, so accustomed to our own convenience, that we modern folk oftentimes don't pay heed to the tragedies occurring before our very eyes. Particularly for parents trying to educate our children, there seems to be a wall in front of our eyes that shields us so often from the truth.

We place our children in schools in the hopes that they will learn what is needed for them to survive in this world: facts, figures, social aptitude, an inquiring mind, an entrepreneurial spirit.

And we will show up and be supportive at school assemblies, classroom field trips, endless fund-raisers, sporting events, etc., ad nauseum.

We provide classroom supplies, chaperoning, transportation, library staffing, even office support, all in hopes that we are furthering our children's education by setting a good example and freeing up the teachers to do "what they do best."

Too often, though, what parents get out of this bargain isn't what was promised. Instead of bright, energetic, go-getter scholars, what we are handed back is children who are lethargic, beaten down and drained of any creativity they once had. We get kids who are indoctrinated into political correctness -- which is to say the art of arrogant whininess -- but who can barely multiply. We get kids who have been taught in "science" class to recycle to "save" the planet, but who can't explain to you how an airplane stays in the air or how an internal combustion engine works. We get kids who have been forced to memorize Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and participate annually in Cinco de Mayo but who can't explain one contribution of white people to the world other than bringing disease to North America.

In some schools, it's not unusual for as many as half the students to drop out before their senior high school year. Of those who hang in there, many seniors can't even pass an eighth-grade-level exit exam to get their diplomas.

And just to add to parental enjoyment, along the way, the children have almost certainly been exposed to gay sex, oral sex, premarital sex, contraception, abortion, illegal drug use, alcohol abuse, nihilism and atheism. All under the auspices of the school, and all before sixth grade -- kindergarten, if some legislators get their way. Recess and that after-school time before parents come home provide ample opportunity for kids to put into practice what they've learned in "skool."

Parents may seek relief in private schools, but often what they encounter is no better, just more expensive. If you are rich enough, it is still possible to buy your children a real education. If you're merely well-off, more likely what will happen is you will pay through the nose, and your children will receive an education that is relatively free from the sex- and drug-teaching curricula of the public schools, as well as the more violent forms of playground bullying. But for the most part, the rest of the teaching agenda is the same, particularly if you live in a state like California, where private schools are so regulated that they often just give up and use the same books, the same curricula, same time tables and same test "preparation" procedures as the public schools. If you're lucky, there might be some time to squeeze in a little religious education.

That was our experience. Not being much of a corporate yes man myself, we've often been on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. Still, we managed to put our son into private schools despite the cost. Sending him to our local public elementary school was out of the question. The first time we went to that school's office, there were three children being treated by the school nurse after getting beaten up in the halls. The second time we went to that office, the police were there having a "chat" with a boy who looked like he was in about fourth grade.

So we got our son into a local private school, with high hopes of better things. Now, when he started kindergarten, he was almost a whole year younger than the rest of his classmates because of the oddity of birthday cutoffs, but he still tested above many of them. That glowing moment didn't last long, however. Soon, we were told that our boy needed a speech therapist because he had trouble pronouncing certain syllables. We took him back to our local public school, which actually had a real speech therapist on staff, and after five minutes she pronounced not only was he normal for his age, but he was exceptionally bright and seemed like he was a few years ahead in his vocabulary, even if he couldn't quite pronounce his "th" sounds yet.

After we got over that hurdle, we learned that he was being picked on at school. Despite the school's supposedly strict "no bullies" policy, our son, who was a year younger than most of his classmates but also taller than almost all of them, was in the same classroom with a boy who was almost two years older than most of the kindergartners. So now I found myself having to explain to my gentle 5-year-old how to handle an 8-year-old developmentally challenged gorilla who liked to express himself with his fists. We finally got the principal to take action after the teacher did nothing, but at the expense of his teacher now viewing us and our son as "the enemy" for getting her in trouble.

And that was just the beginning of our experiences with private schools. At one point, our boy must have seen something on TV at the same time the class was studying Christ's Passion in school, and he made a comment to somebody, somehow, somewhere, "Oh, just kill me." I think it was because he used the wrong color crayon or something. Suddenly, our then first-grader is supposedly likely to kill himself, he could be a danger to others, yada yada. So we take him to his first shrink, who pronounces him normal but unusually imaginative and, surprise, verbally gifted, and says that the boy was just acting out something he heard. We were not really surprised, but we were still relieved that everything was normal.

Let me tell you, though, after something like that gets around, nothing's normal ever again. Suddenly, we were the pariahs who were raising the next Columbine kid. We couldn't buy a play date at that point. And our son was aware of it. He started hanging his head when he walked, playing by himself at recess, and we'd catch him calling himself "stupid" when things went awry. At that point, we had an opportunity to apply to another school. We went through all the hoops and got positive feedback from the interviewing teachers and so forth, but one of the deciding factors turned out to be a letter written to the new school by our son's kindergarten teacher. We weren't allowed to see the letter, but the tone of the interviewers changed drastically after they read it.

Fortunately, we had another opportunity to get into a different school, this one Catholic, which is our denomination. Once again, we had high hopes for better results. Once again, those hopes were dashed. Our son wound up in a classroom with a first-year teacher who right off the bat pegged him as a troublemaker for whatever reason. This teacher, we later learned, had a habit of yelling at the kids, and she took out much of her aggression on our son. He began hating school and not wanting to do the incredible amount of homework they piled on every night. The next teacher was much nicer, but by then the damage was done. Even though our boy was capable of doing his homework perfectly (when he wanted to), he regularly flunked tests because they were time-limited and he would panic because he could hear his past teacher screaming at the kids next door.

Just to add insult to injury, we finally realized that the curriculum at the school was the same state-created curriculum at public schools. They used the same texts and applied the same ridiculous schedule of 8 to 10 subjects per day, which hardly allows any time to absorb the information, much less understand it. The parents whose kids were doing well in class, we later learned, were going to Kumon classes after school. When our son needed extra help with multiplication, we were told he must be tutored. Well, the tutors at the school didn't have time for us. We approached the youth director because her teens need service credits to graduate high school. No one volunteered to tutor our son. We were finally told he MUST have a professional tutor. We were given a name, supposedly of a parishioner, but no contact information. This person was not on record with the parish or the school office. The principal, who had recommended him, never came forth with a number. We contacted the church's nuns. This particular order is charged with teaching children. That's their gig. Within five minutes, the got back to us and said one of the sisters would tutor our son, but they wanted to talk to his teacher before setting up a schedule. They talked to his teacher apparently, then suddenly they weren't available to help out.

So in the final analysis, our own church school, using lay teachers to teach state curriculum out of state textbooks, happily accepts thousands of dollars in tuition but is unable to properly teach the children math, forcing parents to supplement with either a program like Kumon or, in our case, nonexistent tutors.

We spent somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000 on tuition, uniforms and other expenses in the vain hope of giving our child a decent education. All that happened was a gaggle of overpaid strangers slowly strangled his curiosity and crushed his desire to learn, leaving him a bundle of nerves at the age of 8.

Sometimes it's the educator who needs to be reminded of what he already knows. My child is too important to me, and I think someday to the world, to leave in the hands of a capricious public or private education system that, ultimately, is designed to produce conforming drones, not thinkers. We, as his parents, cannot simply stand by and watch the life being squeezed out of him like the juice from a lemon.

The reality is that we, like most parents, have allowed this to happen for far too long because it was convenient to let our son be raised by strangers.

No more.

We had started supplementing his education with materials from a local home schooling program when he began having grade trouble and as a "backup" because of the monkey business school administrators liked to be up to, such as putting new students on "probation" for no reason.

We've decided to take the plunge and just home school. It will be a change, for sure, and a lot of responsibility, but the incredible improvement we've already seen in our boy's attitude and aptitude is making it worthwhile.

I've encountered many parents with stories similar to ours. We apparently are part of a growing movement to take back education from the millers who are running the system.

Having been through the system myself, and having seen what it nearly did to my child, I no longer believe in "reforming" the education system, reducing class sizes or raising teachers' salaries. If the government insists on dabbling in education, then what is needed is a wholesale elimination of what we have now. A replacement system would start with teachers who are trained in a subject other than "education," have an administrator-to-teacher ratio on the order of 1-to-20, eliminate the nonsensical scale of grade levels and let students achieve at their own speed in the needed skills.

#schoolleaveletterformysonsamplepattern

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