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This is a support forum for those who have left
or are in the process of leaving fundamentalist Christianity
Current Forum Since June 2001


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eriktrips
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(Date Posted:06/13/2004 09:33:59)

I was going to do this a couple of days ago but then nothing happened but I somehow got distracted anyway. where on earth to start. does anyone else count Jack Chick tracts as instigators of repeated childhood trauma? really that one called "The Beast" could tell you everything you need to know about my early life as subjected to fundamentalist teachings. I was raised in the Southern Baptist church in Georgia so knew I was going to hell from a very early age but it was that Chick tract I found in fourth grade--that mom explained to me was basically true but perhaps fanciful in the details so it may have been that when I had been left behind in the rapture I would not necessarily then have to have my head chopped off by the mobile guillotines Chick envisioned coming after anyone without the mark of the beast on their foreheads but maybe it would have been a firing squad instead--it was that particular one that terrorized me for about four more years while my family and our church waited for me to "make my decision," the decisive gesture of which consisted of walking alone down the aisle and up in front of the whole church at the end of a service. this apparently terrified me just a little more than being left behind or burning forever did as I never did it on my own but was somewhat coerced into doing it in the end. that's about the shortest way I can relate it. I was relieved to be "saved" from about age 13 to 16 when various repressed moments came to disrupt this way too neat answer that being born again was supposed to be. the short ofthatis that I began to suspect that I was gay, which turned out to be a good thing, but also I slowly became suicidally depressed over a number of things not the least of which may have had something to do with being obsessed with my own damnation from the age of 8 on. anyway at some point I noticed that prayer never seemed to garner results on the one hand and the church was telling me all my desires were sinful on the other until at some point towards the end of high school I'd had enough and became an atheist already. this didn't happen all at once but it was remarkably quick in that way that everything in adolescence seems to take forever but looking back you realize that you changed in a matter of weeks. but so that solution was also too neat to survive and I find myself here because after my last big depressive crash--yeah I've been doing this pretty much my whole life and am kind of used to it--all the church ladies and preachers and of course the religious nut aspect of mom came to life in my head again to the point that it seemed to be a ptsd-like eruption of flashback anxiety and panic and this lasted for months if not a couple of years and has finally subsided mostly now or at least to the point that I can once again think for myself without some crazed superego yelling at me night and day. but so the result has been that out of necessity I've fashioned for myself an enormous intellectual and spiritual bulwark that answers god back with something like an a/theism I can only barely explain to anyone else but which at least has figured out what was wrong with the kind of christianity I was taught. what's left is a mess to clean up and some kind of story to put together because by eighth grade I pretty much stopped talking to anyone and although as an adult I have found ways to talk about all kinds of other childhood trauma this one is only just starting to find its narrative voice. I hope you all don't mind if get carried away. a little to know about me: I'm a 42 year-old female-to-male transsexual living in San Francisco and needless to say I haven't spoken with my immediate family in years. we email each other occasionally but nothing resembling a conversation has yet to come out of that. I lived as a dyke from about age 20 to 35, when I remembered something that had occured to me when I was quite young and that was of course that as a little girl I thought I was a little boy. this nugget got buried beneath everything else and somehow rose to the top nearly unscathed and I greeted it with great joy and a little fear but not enough to keep me off hormones once I knew where and how to get them. the story of my torment at the hands of christ's servants might be made somewhat more concrete by the realization that I was a quiet and shy little girl. these days I write mostly and sometimes teach. I'm supposed to be writing a dissertation but as you can see I sometimes get sidetracked. I'll stop for now. hi! Erik

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This much Kafka was absolutely sure of: First, that someone must be a fool if he is to help; second, that only a fool's help is real help. The only uncertain thing is: can such help still do a human being any good? It is more likely to help the angels who could do without help. Thus as Kafka puts it, there is an infinite amount of hope, but not for us.



--Walter Benjamin

MrHighwind
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(Date Posted:06/13/2004 21:48:56)

Okay, that's the third gay Eri(c/k) to join this forum.  I smell a conspiracy. 


Welcome aboard! 

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God heard you talking in your sleep.
God knows all the secrets that you keep.
Are you free?
clivedurdle
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(Date Posted:06/15/2004 04:11:44)

Welcome!!



I've never seen the Chick tracks you mention but he sounds like he might have some psychiatric problems that he has been infecting you and others with!



again, welcome!

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Clive

The first tools on earth might have been developed by a loner sitting at the back of the cave, chipping at thousands of rocks to find the one that made the sharpest spear, while the neurotypicals chattered away in the firelight - unlikely - how did they work out how to light the fire!



Who understands does not preach;

Who preaches does not understand. Tao te ching
phoenixgirl
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(Date Posted:06/15/2004 04:20:49)

Well, welcome officially!


I hope you'll visit here as you find your narrative voice regarding the trauma inflicted upon you by the fundies of your upbringing.  Sharing those stories with one another is cathartic and enlightening.  I look forward to reading more from you.

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--Phoenixgirl

"I am influenced at the present time by far higher considerations and by a nobler idea of duty than I ever was when I held the Evangelical belief." George Eliot
"I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating." Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country (I promise I read this before it was an Oprah book club book)
Shadowself
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(Date Posted:06/15/2004 04:44:01)

Welcome to our diverse little bunch of non-comformists. 

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A big revelation in my professional training was that humans can learn skills for living and relating. We don"t have to be desperate for a miracle of God to make us decent.--Marlene Winell
katseye
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(Date Posted:06/15/2004 10:40:30)

Reply to : eriktrips




I was going to do this a couple of days ago but then nothing happened but I somehow got distracted anyway.where on earth to start. does anyone else count Jack Chick tracts as instigators of repeated childhood trauma? really that one called "The Beast" could tell you everything you need to know about my early life as subjected to fundamentalist teachings. I was raised in the Southern Baptist church in Georgia so knew I was going to hell from a very early age...







Holy sh*t!!



I'm so sorry. Yup. Know about those Chick tracts. Do you still have copies of them? I'd love to get ahold of some and laugh this time around. They scared the crap out of me as a kid.



I was raised by fundy missionaries that thought the Southern Baptists were too liberal. Seriously.



But I can't write it without smiling...



You've come to the right place. Welcome.



kat
Drummond
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(Date Posted:06/15/2004 10:52:01)

Welcome third gay Eric/k!


Uh, Erik, am I the second?  Is it my purple flame?

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From American Splendor

Student to Harvey Pekar: "It"s hard enough trying to convince people that socialism is a good thing without basing your argument on some abstract theory of human nature. Plato tried and failed. Fourier tried and failed. Marx tried and failed. Sartre tried and failed."

Harvey Pekar: "Well maybe I c"n learn from their mistakes."
eriktrips
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(Date Posted:06/16/2004 10:02:16)

Reply to : MrHighwind






Okay, that's the third gay Eri(c/k) to join this forum. I smell a conspiracy.Welcome aboard!







perhaps we should have a parade.

--------------------------------------------------------------
This much Kafka was absolutely sure of: First, that someone must be a fool if he is to help; second, that only a fool's help is real help. The only uncertain thing is: can such help still do a human being any good? It is more likely to help the angels who could do without help. Thus as Kafka puts it, there is an infinite amount of hope, but not for us.



--Walter Benjamin
eriktrips
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(Date Posted:06/16/2004 10:04:57)

Reply to : clivedurdle




Welcome!!I've never seen the Chick tracks you mention but he sounds like he might have some psychiatric problems that he has been infecting you and others with!again, welcome!







chick.com has a few online that you can peruse. if fundy ranting triggers you though you might want to stay away. I won't go there anymore.



thanks for the welcome!

--------------------------------------------------------------
This much Kafka was absolutely sure of: First, that someone must be a fool if he is to help; second, that only a fool's help is real help. The only uncertain thing is: can such help still do a human being any good? It is more likely to help the angels who could do without help. Thus as Kafka puts it, there is an infinite amount of hope, but not for us.



--Walter Benjamin
eriktrips
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(Date Posted:06/16/2004 10:12:04)

I was going to reply to each one of your replies separately but I quickly saw that this would generate entirely too much repetitive html code so hi everyone! I'm sure you will hear more from me very soon. right now I have to go to bed.



for those who are interested, if you missed the link before, chick.com has a few reproductions of the infamous tracts. I had copies of a number of them but threw them away when they began to whisper nasty things to me. ok I'm being melodramatic but I didn't want them around anymore because I was no longer able to laugh at them. maybe again someday.



Erik

--------------------------------------------------------------
This much Kafka was absolutely sure of: First, that someone must be a fool if he is to help; second, that only a fool's help is real help. The only uncertain thing is: can such help still do a human being any good? It is more likely to help the angels who could do without help. Thus as Kafka puts it, there is an infinite amount of hope, but not for us.



--Walter Benjamin
MrHighwind
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