A
Angryatgod
Guest
I had an abusive home life. My father was an active perpetrator of sexual abuse towards several women, abusive towards my mother and I, and a devout Roman Catholic.
He died when I was 9 from lung cancer. I had severe PTSD that was not being acknowledged, addressed, or treated. I was diagnosed with severe ADD and was put on twice the usual dose of stimulants. I began to go to the very small, unrecognized-by-state-education-board, unlisted school at the church.
I couldn’t do my homework because I was going through such bad dissociative episodes that several days at a time were lost from my memory. The nuns acted as the classroom teachers, and they’d often tell me that my dad would be very disappointed in me for not completing my homework.
I was targeted by the Mother Superior. She publicly insulted me, insinuating that I had an intellectual deficiency as opposed to a learning disorder, found a way to shame me if she caught me smiling about something, and finally, began to take an extremely disturbing interest in my body and how I was developing.
She said she would often see male partitioners staring at my chest (I was 13 but very developed) during Mass. She said I was tempting them away from focusing on the Mass, and that my body was my cross to bear. She took it upon herself to suggest to my mother that I should have an elective breast reduction surgery, paid in part by donations the Church received.
I began to see my body as something that was inherently evil, and that I had to maim myself to be less appealing to men. I began seriously self-mutilating, both as a way to try to show the M.S. that I was genuinely trying to be good, and as a cry for help to my mother to please get me away from those insane people.
My mother was doing the best she could and had my soul as her highest priority. She had been brainwashed by my dad into thinking that this church was the only way to reach salvation. She tried to speak to the priest at our church, who was a Bishop about it, but he was in his 90’s and out of it. It was later revealed that the M.S. was actively manipulating him in his senile state, which is considered elderly abuse.
After the M.S. suggested I get the reduction surgery to my mom, it clicked that this place was incredibly abusive and she took me out of the school. She tried to get me to come to church with her still, but I now had PTSD from my father passing AND the abuse in the school. I stopped going, and eventually stopped going to church altogether, and now I haven’t gone to church or had any kind of faith for 15 years.
I’m feeling drawn back to faith—but please don’t try to convert me, I’m already kind of going in that direction and after all of this insanity and trauma I have a right to move at a pace that won’t send me into a flashback.
I feel a need for spiritual guidance and some kind of perspective on all of this mess. I would gratefully and warmly welcome any insight into what could have been happening when I was a kid, how to understand my anger at god, how to understand my incredible distrust of religion, and how to move forward spiritually.
I really hope to hear from you guys.
He died when I was 9 from lung cancer. I had severe PTSD that was not being acknowledged, addressed, or treated. I was diagnosed with severe ADD and was put on twice the usual dose of stimulants. I began to go to the very small, unrecognized-by-state-education-board, unlisted school at the church.
I couldn’t do my homework because I was going through such bad dissociative episodes that several days at a time were lost from my memory. The nuns acted as the classroom teachers, and they’d often tell me that my dad would be very disappointed in me for not completing my homework.
I was targeted by the Mother Superior. She publicly insulted me, insinuating that I had an intellectual deficiency as opposed to a learning disorder, found a way to shame me if she caught me smiling about something, and finally, began to take an extremely disturbing interest in my body and how I was developing.
She said she would often see male partitioners staring at my chest (I was 13 but very developed) during Mass. She said I was tempting them away from focusing on the Mass, and that my body was my cross to bear. She took it upon herself to suggest to my mother that I should have an elective breast reduction surgery, paid in part by donations the Church received.
I began to see my body as something that was inherently evil, and that I had to maim myself to be less appealing to men. I began seriously self-mutilating, both as a way to try to show the M.S. that I was genuinely trying to be good, and as a cry for help to my mother to please get me away from those insane people.
My mother was doing the best she could and had my soul as her highest priority. She had been brainwashed by my dad into thinking that this church was the only way to reach salvation. She tried to speak to the priest at our church, who was a Bishop about it, but he was in his 90’s and out of it. It was later revealed that the M.S. was actively manipulating him in his senile state, which is considered elderly abuse.
After the M.S. suggested I get the reduction surgery to my mom, it clicked that this place was incredibly abusive and she took me out of the school. She tried to get me to come to church with her still, but I now had PTSD from my father passing AND the abuse in the school. I stopped going, and eventually stopped going to church altogether, and now I haven’t gone to church or had any kind of faith for 15 years.
I’m feeling drawn back to faith—but please don’t try to convert me, I’m already kind of going in that direction and after all of this insanity and trauma I have a right to move at a pace that won’t send me into a flashback.
I feel a need for spiritual guidance and some kind of perspective on all of this mess. I would gratefully and warmly welcome any insight into what could have been happening when I was a kid, how to understand my anger at god, how to understand my incredible distrust of religion, and how to move forward spiritually.
I really hope to hear from you guys.
ray:t2: