Tag Archives: divorce

01/30/13

Breaking Social & Defying Relationship “Norms”I

If you have read even a few of my posts, you probably noticed that relationships, social rules/situations, people, in general are my biggest hang up. I do not know why, but their actions, behaviors, and words, can cause me to spiral. It feels as though I lose my footing when all the sudden a person seems to be sporadic, chaotic, out-of-character, or they behave in a way that does not make sense to me.

I wish it were not the case, other Autistics may not have such extreme social issues as I do.

I know there was a period of time when I was not this confused, but I also did not have social media, or true revelation of how socially confused I was. I did have scripts that I could use; some of them were not good though. I learned many by trial and error. I do know that because I have been socially isolated in many ways for several years, it has caused me to lose some of my skills. Once I tried to step out socially again, I encountered many similar things as I did in middle school and high school. It caused me to gain a completely new set of anxieties, or possibly it rehashed those from adolescence.

I thought that period of my life was over.

What I discovered is that what happened during those adolescent years continues through adulthood. Insert, interesting read Why You Truly Never Leave High School.They may manifest in different ways, but they are still the same social situations. I do pretty well with virtual relationships for the most part. Unless, my “real” life social encounters have confused, hurt, or exhausted me. Many people in my real life seem to change suddenly and it throws me every time. While my recovery time is much quicker and my coping mechanics are healthier, it still happens.

However, I think that the main reason for this is my lack of identity.

My inability to come into fruition of my identity has led me to seek out others as my guide, seeking answers to who I am through them. This dysfunctional system is faulty, irrational, and is filled with detrimental beliefs that I am slowly discovering. I have made huge progress in this area in the last few months. I will still shut down and cut people off in order to protect myself. (potential rejection, cause me hurt, or confusion of some sort) I have discovered this past weekend I need to remove people from my life and it is ok. I can accept that certain people in my life do not intend to get to know me or have a relationship with me.

Social_anxiety_by_FallenRoxSeveral of these people are family.

I know that I may sound like a broken record with this, but I am really getting a grasp on why I have been hurt. I am finally accepting that I had been holding on in hopes that one day I would understand myself through those relationships. I kept thinking that one day, if I did enough or tried to figure it out we could have a relationship.

I thought that I would have that “A’ha! I finally get me!” moment.

I will never find the answers that I have been looking for through others. I will not have the relationships that my other family members have together. I can move on and know I have done nothing wrong it is ok. It is SO hard to accept this! These continual confusing social encounters have caused me to be so fearful of being social that I have gotten to the point of almost throwing up just thinking of ever seeing or talking to them again. The ridiculous thing is that they do not know, nor do they care that I have been affected like this.

This understanding has helped me to see my reasons for wanting to be alone many times throughout my life.

I knew that if I kept limited access to people in my life, or controlled who and when people were allowed in my life that I was not confused. I have expressed this before, but many times, I ended up in relationships because I thought that was what you were supposed to do. I tried to make more friends because people told me I could not have only one friend.

My “one” friend would eventually grow tired of me, for various reasons.

One being I would not understand why they needed more than one friend. I understand this now. I thought I should have a boyfriend because the few girls I had as friends either had them, or were focused on having them. They also made me feel foolish for not having one. I did have crushes and wanted a boyfriend, but I did not want one at the same time, if that makes any sense. (I feel that way about all types relationships at times, because any type of relationship for me is a reminder of how inadequate I feel socially.) I did not want to think about it and I felt as though I was constantly forced to. I thought I should be more social because people told me that it was not “normal” to be myself.

“It is unhealthy.” Um… Susan Cain: The power of introverts

When I was unable to take anymore social stress, I would cut myself off completely. Several times in my life, this resorted in making moves to other states, so I could start over. In search of finding myself, I would get to a point of feeling so lonely that I desired someone in my life. It was normally during that vulnerable time that someone would “appear.”

I would somehow end up in the relationship.

Several times, I did not even like the person. Interestingly, people took the focus off “trying to find me someone” and I found that to be a relief. Because of that stress being lifted, I was willing to stay with a person. Just so, I would not have to hear “You need to find someone. You need to date. You need a husband. You need to have kids”

It was tiresome listening to people tell me that I needed a person.

I needed to date. I needed to “get out there.” I never wanted to do that. I did want to have children though. I wanted to find a person and be done for the rest of my life so I no longer had to think about it. I wanted someone that would be there, but that I enjoyed as well. I wanted what I envisioned as a best friend. A person that I shared many common interests with and that I could be attracted to. I find it difficult to be attracted to people as a whole. I was not optimistic of ever falling in love the way that the movies show it, or how books and poems express it, songs sang it, people told me about it…

I never thought it could happen for me.

I did not think I was capable of feeling that intense affection and I NEVER thought anyone would love me in that way. I did not have hopes for it, but I longed for it. I wanted it. I had hoped to feel it one day and my desire was to marry that person and live happily ever after. I think many people desire that, but I also think that it is an unrealistic expectation. I read this and it made a lot of sense. There’s No Such Thing as Everlasting Love (According to Science)

I am not so sure this type of love happens and lasts.

I do not know, maybe I have grown cynical. I do go back and forth in thinking that it is possible, but then, reasoning myself right out of it. I do spend too much time analyzing this topic – I have my many reasons. It has also been a special interest of mine since I was a child. None of the examples in my life have shown this type of love – although, many people have talked about it. I did not feel this in any of my marriages, the problem was that they thought they felt this way toward me, but I did not understand that.

I assumed that no one would feel that type of love toward me either. (abuse plays a role in that)

Insert, another interesting read Romantic love ‘lasts just a year.’ I thought to myself, How could they feel that way toward me? How could they love me when they do not know who I am? Quite honestly, I do not think they truly felt that way. I think they did for a while, but I also think they were intrigued by me because I was different from other women in their life. Intrigue and fascination is different than love. I have kept so much of my world hidden from people out of fear that very few have gotten a glimpse of who I am. Well, unless you read my blogs. I share a lot of me because that is how I process and it helps me to gain revelation of my identity. :-)

I did not intend to hurt people I was in relationship with.

To be continued… Big Surprise! :-)  Breaking Social & Defying Relationship “Norms” II (It’s a three parter.)

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10/22/11

Conversation With My Mom

I have been having the whole science fair experience still running through my mind because it opened a ton of other memories. I realize how I have blocked out a lot of things through different means, and every time it would start to fail I would find another distraction to keep me from feeling or dealing with it. Since I have had these memories come up I decided to ask my mom about it. She had a vague memory about it, but she remembered that I had won and she remembered several science fairs that I had been in. She was able to bring to light a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes. (I may have written some of this before, I am on a loop that is opening more memories so that happens and I cannot remember.)

During ages 9-13 I had a lot of change and things going on.

My mom got remarried, my dad and step-mom had my two sisters, my mom and step-dad had my other sister, (another came when I was 14) we moved into a much nicer trailer then into a house, my dad and step-mom and sisters moved out of state, I started middle school and was thrown into a whole new social world, and that is all I can recall at the moment. Nothing was explained to me I just needed to deal with the change. While in middle school my mom got promoted and was working a lot more so the person who was frustrated with me the most was my step-dad. He was not happy about that and he was also upset that my mom was making a great deal more money than him and was home a lot less.

I have felt tremendous guilt about ever saying anything negative about my parents.

I never mean to make them sound badly, but there are things that truly affected me and thwarted me because I did not know how to read them or communicate to them. I brought it up to my mom about her being disinterested in my schooling and after school activities, and I told her that I was not trying to make her feel bad, but I needed to talk about it. She point-blank told me that she wasn’t going to own that guilt. She said that she had enough guilt about things and that she could not take on things of the past like that. I was so happy to hear her say that. It actually lifted something off of me too, I think it was my whole trying to manage her emotions thing I try to do. What she said was: “It was how I was raised, I didn’t know any better and I cannot feel bad for what I did not know. I cannot do anything about it now.”

I really thought that was great and I had a moment where I could see her efforts in a new light.

Part of our Aspie issue is caring guilt or fault for things and it can be detrimental at times. I was happy to hear her say this because it meant she was not going to be bound by those thoughts and that both of us could talk about it and move on. I love that part about my mom, many times we can remove the emotions and deal with the situation. Although it depends on the situation and I never know what will be an emotional trigger for her.

She does not share the same interests as myself and when I share things she seems aloof and distant.

Even today I started talking about the Fibonacci Number and I thought that she would be interested since it is used in art, but the second she heard “number” I lost her. I tried to explain it to her, but she just didn’t get it. In the past I took that reaction as rejection or that she was completely  uninterested. The truth is, she is not interested in it because she has not made her own connection to it. If I were to show her through different means of art and take her through drawing a pattern of the florets of a flower or the spiral in a shell she would get it, but she has to want to get it. I now see just because she doesn’t get it doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t.

I have always assumed that if others were not interested in what I was interested in, then I should stop it.

Or I thought that I did not understand it well enough to talk about it so I kept it to myself. I am not upset at my parents about anything, I am frustrated that I was unable to pursue my passions because of my own self-doubt. I am so relieved to not be responsible for my parents emotional stability. Every time I write something about my parents that could be perceived as negative to me I feel physically ill. I worry and fret over my posts and I get afraid that I will hurt their feelings or upset them. I have done this my whole life, which is another reason why I have not been able to process my own emotions.

What happened during those years, my mom worked a lot.

Even if she wanted to participate in my school life, she could not because she was trying to give me and her a better life. She worked hard and still does. She supported me by giving me things she knew that I loved. My room during those years was pretty awesome. I had my half bath in my room, it was at the other end of the trailer so my mom and step-dad could not hear anything that I was doing, it was right next to the kitchen, sweet! I had a phone, a small black-and-white TV because I had insomnia and would stay up all night and used it to help me fall asleep, I had an awesome stereo with a turntable, cassette player, and FM radio, and at around 10 I got a Texas Instrument TI-99/4A. My room looked much like my house now.

Exclude the phone, I didn’t really talk on it a lot. It was a see through one that I thought was cool to look at. :-)

I talked to her about my room and all of the things that I had, she said that I was always interested in that stuff. I had forgotten that even as a little girl I wanted to assemble the electrical equipment or take things apart and put them back together. I got in trouble for messing with the stove, I lit the kitchen on fire when I was like four years old because I was trying to light the gas stove. I climbed up onto the counter and got the matches out of the cabinet. I was also interested in dressing dolls, not playing with them just dressing them and then setting them up in rows. My stuffed animals were all organized and lined up on my floor and specific ones on my bed. They were my audience and my friends. I wore dresses with shorts along with boots or no shoes at all.

I caught critters and played in the mud, but freaked out when it was on me. :-)

My mom reminded me of many things about myself today. My mom supported me the best way she knew how, by letting me be. She allowed me to be alone in my world and create my own worlds. I thought it was lack of interest, but in her mind it was freedom. Not that it was the best thing in the world to do, but I have to say my mom never forced me to conform. She may have told me how I should be or that my way was wrong because it didn’t look like what she thought was right, but she didn’t stop me. There are many great qualities about my parents that get taken away because of my negative loops. However, I need to acknowledge them, understand my emotions, process everything, and move on. I am feeling a bit of validation today by my mom acknowledging the things about me that I had hidden away. I have been afraid to say the things that I like or love to do or think about because in the past I felt rejected or wrong for them.

This has been a great eye opener to what I have lost about me, reclaiming those things, and I find it quite freeing.


 

 

 

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05/22/11

“Just Sit There And Be Pretty!”

Yes, an ex-boyfriend said that to me. I remember every detail of that night. I remember after it was said to me I shut down because I did not know how to respond to it. I frequently got in trouble with significant others because of my questions and conversations that I would start while out and about socializing. I am intrigued by people and I enjoy hearing their stories, what they think, what they are all about, and how they got to that exact moment in which our worlds interacted. I ask a lot of questions and I probe.

I find this enjoyable, while others just want to go out and have a “good time”.

I had three long-term boyfriend relationships starting at around the age of 14. This first relationship is in part the reason for my obsessive behaviors I discussed in my last two posts. It is a fragile time in a person’s life anyway but this is when you begin to really start looking for answers to who you are and what you are going to be. I entered into an abusive relationship for 3 years and didn’t even know it. What he did to me caused so much confusion and loss of identity that it forced me to be in search of the “real” me.

I never thought I was being abused because I never felt like a victim.

In all three relationships, they manipulated me, not all were physically abusive but they were verbally with saying many things similar to what I titled this post. The thing is that I stood up for myself. The normal pattern was for me to shut down because I was confused, then I would be hurt and then that would manifest through rage. I was sharp with my tongue and my wit. This would make them even more angry. In my mind I figured if I could stand up for myself than I was not really being abused. I was so hard for them to control because on the one hand I seemed very fragile and insecure but on the other hand I was strong and independent.

I felt victimized but never a victim.

I still feel this way. I see people take on the “victim” identity and I think that it is a shame to be settled in such a title when we have been equipped with the ability to not stay victims. Then again I do not like to see those take the ‘warrior” mentality either because then you can never show weakness. Part of being a true warrior is recognizing limitations, not hiding from them but embracing them to make you stronger. What I am sharing now has always been me. I lost these things about myself at one point. I had people in my life many times try to not allow me to use my brain.

Not just in relationships but also in other settings, such as work and church.

My obsessive behaviors did ease as I grew older and I found that if I was not in a relationship I was much better at being myself. I may have felt alone but I was comfortable with being alone with myself. I still however, had a desire for someone to be in my life so I searched on. By the time I met my first husband I had been alone for quite some time and I was pretty confident in me in a lot of ways. I liked him because he was intelligent, loved music and had a dry sense of humor that I got. But we really were just friends, I never felt anything more than a friendship with him. Plus I was entering into a new era of my life and started going to church which changed our dynamic.

We had many differences in our beliefs and I was evolving into someone new.

By the time I met my second husband I was fully emerged into church life and being a Christian. I felt I had no idea who would make a good husband for me so I trusted my friends instead of listening to my gut. He too just wanted me to sit and be pretty. This brings me to what triggered this post and why I felt I needed to get this out. Last night I had been thinking about all of this, my life playing like a movie. I had some feelings of regret but I think regret is good and I wrote a poem about that as well. Anyway, I looked at David and I was staring at him awkwardly, with no emotion on my face, this creeps him out, (I have a gift of being able to do that when I am thinking and creep people out. lol) and I said “Thank you for loving my brain.”

He looked at me and said “I do not know how to respond to that.”

I do that often too, I say strange things that he doesn’t know how to respond to. Hee hee It was at that moment that I realized why David has helped me so much. He has allowed me to use my brain. He has encouraged it. He has even gone to great lengths to tell me that “If you didn’t use your brain, I could not respect you and I would not be able to stay with you.” I shared with him what I meant by loving my brain. He was the first person to allow me to ask my questions, listen to my rants, let me cycle and rage, laugh and cry, whatever I needed to do, to be able to let my true nature come out.

He used to get hurt or frustrated with things I would say.

Like when I called him a cry baby, I wasn’t being mean in my mind I thought I was helping him. I see the error of my ways now. :-) I can say harsh things but not mean them in a harsh way at all. As we discussed all of this he told me that “He would rather me clear a room, making people uncomfortable and deal with the things they will not face, rather than sit and be a wallflower.” He doesn’t mean for me to be rude but to ask the questions that are hard and driven for answers. He told me that he hasn’t really done anything except encourage me to let the things that he sees in me to come out. Not let them hide but let them out freely. I think this is a reason I had no obsessive behaviors with David. I didn’t feel like I had to hide anything or try to keep parts of me hidden.

One dear person that I worked with said to me once “Angel, you need to find someone who loves you for your brain.”.

I remember that day in every detail too. My second husband had left, we were separated, when that friend (thank you, Jim) said those words, I had a flash of the entire relationship. The whole time I had been railing against the unspoken words “Just sit there and be pretty”. My relationships, many of my friends and my church that I was in, had all been telling me the same thing. Don’t use your mind, sit there and do what you are told, stop thinking for yourself. And I couldn’t do it, no matter how hard I tried.

I could never and will never be able to “Just sit there and be pretty.”

 


 

 

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02/22/11

Just Me, Myself and Cats?

After having two failed marriages, I had finally decided that relationships were not for me. I devoted my time to my new church. I felt like I was perfectly happy with just me, my cats and Jesus. My goal was to go into full-time ministry. I was drawn to people who were not the “usual” church goers. I went out on the streets and to bars praying and just hanging out with people. People would ask to buy me a drink and I would tell them I only drank water, an occasional diet coke if I really wanted to get loopy. :-)   There was a group of us from church who would meet at a local bar and discuss current events. I liked to discuss spiritual matters, not convince people of things.

Alexa and Felix

The more I got involved in church leadership, the more I was convinced that I was destined to be single.

I was really settled on the matter, except I still felt this urge to pray for my future husband. There was the possibility of being reconciled with my ex, very slim but possible.  I did feel like someone was missing. I would feel led to pray and would even start out my prayer journals with “Lord I do not know why I am even praying about this but I feel like I should pray for my future husband.”  My life was full of work, leadership classes, serving, small group, small group training, prayer ministry, outreach, and my cats. I was pretty content mentally with my church life but my work life was sucking life right out of me. I think with all of the social situations between work and church it was just too much. But I would get energized by helping people. I got wired and excited from learning and training. I was exhausted and excited. I truly thought I could be a single woman pastor. Though my leaders said that it may be quite a challenge, they never hindered me.

By the time I was getting pretty settled with being alone and felt fully recovered from my failed marriages, David appeared.

The first time I saw him, I had no idea who he was but he was at his car, it was a cold winter night and I caught a glimpse of him out of  the corner of my eye. I could only see him from a distance and I felt like I was supposed to pray for him to go inside. Where? I had no idea just to go inside and so I prayed. I then went on my way to small group, within a few minutes there was a knock on the door and it was him. I didn’t like that at all, what was that all about? He was new to the group and I was not expecting anyone new. One of the girls invited him and everyone was interested in what he had to say. I didn’t have a bad feeling about him I was just confused by the whole thing and thrown because he was new. As he talked he shared about being in graduate school and how he was going to work in The Netherlands after his dissertation and I don’t know it all went “wah wah wah wah wah” in my head because I felt like I was supposed to ask him “Is that the plan God has for you?”.

There was no way I was going to ask this stranger a question like that.

Instead I rudely blurted out “What brought you to this church anyway?” Everyone looked at me funny and he just stared for a moment and then said “Well, I felt like I was supposed to go there and just wait.” He shared his story which was scarily similar to mine. By this time I was confused by him and he thought I was too aggressive I guess is a good word, he didn’t know what to think of me. But he has referred to me as “the interrogator” and tells people how I interrogated him the first night I met him. The next week the group was supposed to meet at my apartment, he called to tell me that he was going out-of-town and wouldn’t make it. We were having a good conversation and I realized that I was still talking to him, then abruptly said “Ok, I have to go, hope you have a good trip.” and I got off the phone.

While he was away I felt that I was supposed to pray for him several times.

He was visiting his mom and he had been around several different Christian places and people. It was more of a charismatic kind of feel and he was what is called “prophesied over“. One of the men prophesied about his wife to be. He gave some pretty detailed information and then later said “I think you know her already”. David didn’t have a clue to what he was talking about, I didn’t even cross his mind. When he came back I felt like I was supposed to talk to him, so after service one evening I went over, very reluctantly to talk to him. He ended up asking me to go for coffee and I said yes because I knew that I was supposed to ask him the original question that I DID NOT want to ask. I didn’t think it was a date or anything and either did he, but it was funny that I got a water instead of coffee. I had to work the next morning so I couldn’t have coffee, I confused him. :-)

Finally, we were talking and I knew that first I had to tell him that I was still married so he would not get the wrong impression.

I told him and he was confused. I had been separated for over a year but I still did not feel like I was supposed to date anyone, until the divorce was final. If I was to date at all. I never really “dated” anyway, I found someone and stuck with them. During the year of my separation, my ex had said that he was filing for divorce, then he dragged it on and messed with me, then he had no contact with me for several months. I didn’t pursue anything because I had no desire to, it didn’t matter. Anyway David was understanding and said  he didn’t know what to think so we could just be friends and see what this is all about. I finally blurted out the question “So is it God’s plan for you to go to The Netherlands?”. He facepalmed and said “I don’t know.” Apparently he had been contemplating a lot the last few months before I met him.

We continued to be friends and hang out.

Neither of us knew what “we” were all about but we just felt right together. I prayed for God to do something if David and I were truly  meant to be together. I was seriously going to stop seeing him, even as friends. After several months of no contact with my ex, he left me a message on my phone and said “Yeah, it’s been long enough let’s get this taken care of, what do we need to do?” By the end of the next week we were divorced. David and I felt like we were supposed to be together. We discovered that we only lived three minutes away from each, in the same apartment complex. We would both stare up at the sky at night talking to God and asking about the phantom space in our heart that we wanted to go away. (Not even knowing that we were right around the corner from each other.) If we were not meant to be with anyone then please take it away, was our prayer.

David finally had to make a decision about The Netherlands.

I would have gone with him but he did not feel like that was what he was supposed to do. He gave up a pretty incredible research position with a top scientist in The Netherlands. Both of us have had our moments of questioning whether or not that was the right thing to do. We always conclude that it was for him. We felt led to pack up our stuff and move to another state to start a coffee shop ministry. With in a few months we packed up, moved out across country and were married. It started us on a journey that has been exciting, scary, challenging, complete bliss, joyful, and full of all kinds of adventures ever since. We are always growing and ever learning from each other and about each other.

We really enjoy the fact that we are together all the time but we also have our own space.

There was a lot that we dealt with in the beginning of our marriage but we have always laughed. We make each other laugh and we are just plain silly a lot of the times which saves us from taking ourselves seriously. For me the biggest thing is that I genuinely enjoy David’s company. There are very rare moments when I just want to be left alone now and that says a lot for him. In past relationships I just would get to a point of wanting them to go away. The way they would eat, talk, smell, act whatever would just make me so upset but I have not had that with David. We have been honest with each other from the beginning. David is David and if there is one thing I can say about him it is that he will be brutally honest with you. You never have to question his integrity. Those are some pretty important factors to me in a relationship. We were also both in a place in our lives where we didn’t place priority on a relationship. David is divorced too and we both were not wanting to go through a bad relationship again.

I am very thankful that we found each other and I do thank God for orchestrating the events. :-)

Next I will be writing about our ministry life the good, the not so good, but mainly the good! (I have all of these posts in chronological order in my head and I have to write them because it is like a movie playing over and over that I need to get out.)

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02/20/11

Failed Relationships and Then Some II

Needless to say my second marriage was not founded on anything good. As I describe in my previous post. I prayed and prayed for God to change me. I really did, I thought I was so horrible for not liking him. But I perceived him as fake, he would change all the time right in front of my eyes. He kept things from me; twice I discovered piles of bills hidden in our second bedroom. He just wouldn’t tell me. I have no idea where the money went. All of this was going on while we served at church. We served in several areas together. He was being considered as a deacon. All the guys loved him and the ladies thought he was charming or something. There were many things going on but the final straw was actually my fault. Sometimes I am just too honest, thinking that I am helping but I make it worse. We were at a counseling session for couples because we were having problems and we were trying to get help. We were told to be completely honest.

I told him that he really needed to pray for our marriage because I had a crush on another guy at work.

Oh, yes I did. I told him that not because I was acting on my feelings but because I was seeking help in the situation. I told my pastor, who in turn told others in the name of “prayer” and the rumors started flying that I was cheating. I later found out that my ex had told some leaders as well that I was cheating. It was a mess. By that time he had already left, dumping all of my belongings out all over the house and taking whatever he could that he said belonged to him. I felt completely violated and devastated. I am admitting, I got to a point to where I couldn’t stand the sight of him. I had many meltdowns and tantrums because he was a liar and he threw my sensory issues beyond any other thing in the world. At times his presence hurt my flesh.

For a while when he was still there, I wouldn’t come home until wee hours of the morning.

I just couldn’t, I would rather sit with friends or my car alone than go home to him. I will say we both did things wrong but sometimes I feel like I did the biggest wrong by not listening to myself or God and I caused both of us to suffer needlessly. It did not help that in the beginning of our marriage I had a miscarriage, it really made things much worse. He left and caused me lingering problems for quite a while. But the story does not end there. There is the failed relationship of my church family.

I had several very hurtful things happen to me during this time.

I had some people pull me into a room and tell me that people were saying that I had cheated, I went off. I asked them who said it, why did people believe it, even if it was true who had the right to gossip about?? It was discovered the link being the pastor during a prayer meeting. I do not think it was his intention but it was hurtful. I had one of the elders wives corner me in the corridor of the church and say loudly “GOD HATES DIVORCE! You better do something to fix your marriage!” I just looked at her and said “You can’t make people change.” She then replied “Well God can change them and every marriage can be fixed.” I replied with “You cannot know what goes on in every marriage.” and I left. They had asked me to step down for a while serving, I felt they were right and I had no problem doing so.

The day was soon approaching though when I was to return to teaching the kids.

It was the day before I was to return to class, I had asked for the curriculum a week in advance and no one gave it to me or would talk to me. I got a call from the pastor (he was a new pastor than the youth interim) at work telling me to please come to church after work because he wanted to talk to me. I felt like I was in serious trouble. I went after work and the pastor and head elder sat me down and told me that the elders had voted and they decided that I could no longer teach the children. I understood and sobbed for days. They told me that they felt my character wasn’t good at that time to be around the children and that it would be too confusing for the kids. Side note here: The day before one of my friends had seen my ex with a girl going to the bank. It could have been nothing but it didn’t seem to be nothing to her when she saw them. I really don’t know, but it is interesting that my character was being judged.

No one ever talked to the kids about the situation and I was not allowed to, even though they all asked.

The very next Sunday was a final blow to me. The new pastor’s son had recently graduated seminary and was a youth pastor. He started going to the church because he had to move in with his parents. His wife had found another man and left him. That Sunday he got up talked about his divorce and then it was announced by the head elder that he would be the new youth pastor starting immediately. I still don’t even know how to take all of that. I asked why it was ok for him and not me; I was told that he was open and honest about it so that probably made a difference. I WAS OPEN AND HONEST! I told the pastor right away when things were wrong and that I needed prayer and that my marriage was failing. It still doesn’t make sense. I was never angry, I am still not but I was hurt. No one absolutely no one asked me anything except that small group of people.

I felt like I was  wearing a giant red “A” on my clothes.

I stayed for a while longer but then I felt led to go to another church. The new church helped me recover. They were very accepting and they built me up. They encouraged my challenging questions and they even let me rant about inconsistencies with the scriptures that I felt I saw. I feel like the Lord really led me to a place of healing and it also helped me to not become bitter and angry at all churches. That was my first church experience as an adult. My first church experience as a new Believer. My first church experience with groups of church people. It was not a good one and unfortunately it was not the last. It feels good to write this out. I have held on to it for so long for fear of people thinking that I am bitter or hateful. I am not, I am sad by the experience. I am sad that people can go to church their entire life and never get the message of Christ. I wish the message wouldn’t get lost in experiences like this.

I know that I am not the only one and that makes it even harder for me to bear.


 


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02/20/11

Failed Realtionship and Then Some I

I have mentioned before that I was not brought up in church, though I was influenced by Biblical teachings and ideas of Christian faith. I came to Christ on my own, through reading the entire Bible (Protestant) from beginning to end, by myself. No one told me to, except I felt very compelled to read it. When I read it I had a pretty distorted view of Jesus, I was good with an all-powerful God but Jesus? What was He all about? For some reason when I read the Bible in its entirety He made sense in my mind. I took to His teachings as literal. I looked upon Jesus as a Jewish man, who showed us how to live by the Jewish teachings and concepts. I knew I was a gentile and didn’t feel like the lifestyle of the Jewish people was what I was supposed to do, though.  I did not become confused until I started reading more Westernized Christian influenced teachings and listening to their preaching. Mainly what many “Americanized” teachings have  adopted as a philosophy and call it “religion”. (I mean no offense I am just trying to explain my mindset.)

I felt like in order for me to understand my faith that I needed to go to church.

One morning I felt led to turn on the radio, I flipped through the channels and at the end of some sermon, which I had missed completely; the preacher went into how to accept Jesus into your heart. I fell to my knees and just felt like that was what I needed to do. I sobbed for an hour, nothing in particular coming to mind, except for, I felt accepted. Accepted and at peace for the first time in my life. I became obsessive about learning the scriptures and studying all about what the Bible meant. I heard in my inner being, I guess that is the best way to describe it, to get baptized. No one told me this; I read it in the scriptures. I was baptized by my father at his church, that became mine too.

I had conflicting feelings the entire time I was there.

First of all, when I arrived the pastor of over 13 years just got removed because it was discovered that he and the secretary were having an affair. The youth pastor had just taken over as the interim and there were a lot of emotions flying that I didn’t know how to process. My dad was a church leader at the time, until my second sister got pregnant at the age of 15 years old. Everyone was forgiving, with very condemning comments when my first sister had gotten pregnant, but after my second sister did, well….it was too much. My dad stepped down. I quickly got involved and started serving in children’s ministry. My first husband would not go to church with me; he was Catholic and felt very uncomfortable in a Non-Denominational church. We had a lot more problems after I became a Christian and started studying. His family did not appreciate my history lessons about the Catholic Church and they did not like my many questions about their faith.

I wasn’t trying to be rude; I genuinely wanted to know about their faith and beliefs.

Eventually we came to terms that our marriage was not going to work no matter how much counseling we did, I was obsessed with my faith and he was not. We just couldn’t get past it. The church was very accepting of me during this time, because he was Catholic and they felt that his faith was wrong anyway. Those are not my views, that was what the church felt. I was beyond devastated. The Christian faith made it clear that divorce was wrong; I personally never wanted to get a divorce because of my family history of multiple divorces and the pain that it causes. I felt like a failure and a horrible Christian. I carried the burden of him getting a divorce because he was Catholic and no one in his family had gotten divorces, there was just a lot.

The church made it clear that it was ok because they felt that he had abandoned me.

They needed that to make it ok. The children at church never even knew I was married because I was always alone so they had no problem with me to continue serving. I then found my second husband, whom I despised from day one. I never liked him, I thought he was a fake and a phony and I told him so. A lot. I went against my gut and I listened to all of the church people tell me that he was such a great guy, “he is so spiritual”, a “real man of God” and so and so on. I knew that he lied to me while we were dating and I called him on it every time. He would ask me “How do you know this stuff?”  I wish I would have listened to my feelings that told me to get away from him. I will give you one example of how I feel God was trying to make it very clear that I was right in my judgment, but did not trust it.

It was New Years Eve weekend and he had made plans to go to his hometown.

I begged him not to go. I just knew something bad was going to happen. He told me “I have to go; it’s like the ending of my previous life. It’s symbolic.” He went and I was praying the second he got on the road. I was up all night, that New Years Eve, I wrote it all down in my prayer journal. I saw like a vision of what he was doing throughout the evening. When he came back, I told him that I knew he had cheated on me and that I saw all of the things he had done. He claimed that they did not happen and that I made it up. I described the girl. He still denied it. After a few months he did something similar and the same thing happened though I did not see him cheat but I did see him with a girl.

He finally broke down, confessed all.

I had been right about everything. I then felt like it wasn’t about me, it was about him and God. I led him into prayer and he rededicated is life to Christ. Then after that he asked me to marry him. I said I don’t know. Later that day I was working alone, my heart was broken because I had been right and I didn’t know what to do. I heard my name being called, like in the air and I looked up. I saw like a vision  and I heard, “I would not give you someone who would hurt you.”(Not audibly, it’s hard to explain) I understood what that meant because after all of my failed relationships (with the exception of my first husband), the common thread was they lied, they cheated, and they did drugs, and was abusive to some extent. I ran to my ex and told him what had happened and I told him how I felt like that meant we were not to be together.

He said “No, I think that means that before, if I did not rededicate to Christ. Now that I have changed you know I won’t hurt you.”

I was very confused, I talked to my Christian friends and they all said what he had said. I assumed that I was wrong. I thought “Well maybe it is possible that he was the wrong guy before but now that he has accepted Jesus, maybe he is the right guy.” I didn’t trust my gut with my first marriage and I didn’t with my second. In my first marriage I made the decision based on never wanting a divorce. Since he was Catholic, I really believed we would never get a divorce. The difference about him and my second ex-husband was that I genuinely liked him as a person. He is now remarried and very happy and I was so happy to discover that. My second husband I married because everyone else told that he was right for me and since I couldn’t trust my judgment on relationships, I believed them.

Our marriage was built upon distrust and my overall dislike for him as a person.

More to come….

Personal Note: When I talk of hearing voices or seeing visions, I am not really sure how to explain it properly. It could be a variety of things going on. I have intense dreams as well that have given me clear direction, so scientifically it could be my brain telling me the right thing to do. Spiritually it could be how I experience God.  I have gone over mental reasons and do not fall under the criteria for any of the mental disorders that I have read. For me I am comfortable with both the reasons being science and God.


 


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01/31/11

Some Jobs Not For Me II

From my previous post Jobs Not For Me I, it was clear that I should not be in workplaces that involve a lot of social contact especially with those who I see need help but that I am unable to help. However, it has been only recently after writing about these things, that  I understand how I was affected in so many ways. During these places of employment I was also going through serious personal struggles, such as divorce, financial problems, health problems and ethical problems. I seriously struggled with my understanding of what being a Christian meant and applying that to my work life. I had fully transitioned into what I thought a Christian lifestyle was  by the time I was working in this other place of employment. I had a lot of guilt and misunderstandings about all of it. I have intertwined my faith and work here somewhat to give a little clarity of what I was thinking during that time because I had a lot of inner struggle with the next job that I will talk about.

I was a human resource specialist for a temporary agency.

My job consisted of interviewing, hiring and trying to locate new positions for labor and clerical work. Once again in this position I felt something was wrong but I did not know what it was. I thought that it would be a good thing to help try to get people placed into positions who were unable to get work. The problem was, the owner of the company was doing things that did not seem right and during that time many of the the people who were looking for work were in similar life situations as those who use check cashing/payday loan stores. They have had hard lives, many of them want to do well but have a hard time doing it. There were many illegals that came through and were quickly pushed through with fake social security cards. I was unaware until I started noticing how blatantly bad some of them were. I brought them to my supervisors attention and she said if they don’t look too bad take them. I did not do that.

We filled factories with many people who could not speak English.

They lived in one and two bedroom apartments with 10 sometimes more people. They felt privileged to be working in dangerous atmospheres for $5.25 an hour. I got to know these people, some of them took advantage of me and some did not. I wanted so much to help everyone. I felt that having to work there was a short-term thing and that soon I would be led into my true calling, church ministry. I looked at work as a ministry opportunity also but it was not a long-term thing. My heart was set on ministry and I was heavily involved with my church. It was one of the good churches I have been in. With the ethical issues, the constant people coming in and out, interviewing, talking, having to make phone calls, the different types of people, I began to get sick. I regularly had sinus issues but I ended up getting a virus that lasted for over two months. I was also going through a separation waiting on my ex-husband to file the papers that he said he was going to do. I was also in serious financial trouble because he left me with mounds of debt, I will write about another time.

Both this job and the payday loan job were similar in many ways.

There was an aspect of being in danger that I felt but did not understand until later. One day however, I realized just how dangerous it was with this job sometimes. We had another office in a little town about 30 miles away, one day a week I was to go there and do interviews. The office was in a building that had other offices but no one got there until later in the afternoon. I was there by 7am ready to open the doors at 8am. There were times that I was in the office alone and would have several guys in the office as well, filling out paperwork and waiting for interviews. Many of them, in that area, had been in prison or had problems with drugs or alcohol at one point, possibly still but they were all required to have drug testing so we could know if they were eligible for hire. Many of them tested positive for drugs, which meant that they were possibly under the influence while in the office with me. This would explain some of the strange behaviors I noticed. Also things I felt or saw but could not explain.

This particular day, the office was empty and there was a guy standing outside the door, waiting.

I had a bad feeling the moment I saw him but I had to let him in. I gave him the paper work and asked him to fill it out. I was very uncomfortable and saw a swirly blackness around him, I also had a sick feeling in my stomach. I shut my office door and locked it and prayed for another person to come in for an interview. They never did and I had to proceed with the interview. I was also struggling, like I have so many times before, with feeling like I was wrongly judging the man. What if he was a nice guy and I was just being evil in my thoughts? I understand now that I had misinterpreted Christian teachings, though some people use them to manipulate like that, this was my own wrong interpretation.  The whole interview was very uncomfortable and I just knew I had to get him out as quickly as possible. I did not follow procedure and after the interview part I just said we would call him if he was eligible. He then started to get a bit aggressive and insisted that we had to give him a job. I told him that I would look through his paperwork and we would call him for drug testing if it were to work out. He would not leave and continued to go into a rant about how we had to give him a job but that we would probably not since he had a felony.

I then said that I could call my supervisor and see what she said while he was still there.

As I tried to explain to her what was going on, she could hear him in the background being loud. She finally told me to tell him that we could not hire anyone who had a felony due to our insurance policy. This was actually not true but I didn’t know that at the time. I told him, he was very upset, I stayed on the phone with her until he finally left. When he left the office she told me to look and see if he wrote down what he had done. He had and it was for rape, he had been in for 10 years. She told me to quickly pack up and get out of there and come back to the office.

Again, things began to connect for me about the job just like with the other one.

I started to understand the kind of potential dangers I was in. I started to understand about the people who were suffering and working hard to make ends meet. I was starting to understand that there were people who were taking advantage of people like me, though I could not differentiate between them. It made it even harder because my employer was taking advantage of me, my supervisor and the temps and the temps were also taking advantage of me and the employer. It was too much for me to understand.

By this time, with this job I had lost so much weight I was down to 100 pounds again.

Unlike before in my life, this was not self-induced weight loss. I am 5’4 and that is just not a healthy weight for me to be at. I became very sickly and I was mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. The only thing I found comfort in was my church. To this day it is the best church I have ever been in. They supported me during my divorce. They encouraged me to get into leadership. They developed me in my prayer life and challenged me in my faith by reading books from people of different faiths and beliefs. They encouraged loving people right where they were at and most of all they did a lot of hands on ministries. We would work with the many different ministries throughout the city and offer help. They were very unity focused and did not see any reason to start a ministry if there was one already in progress no matter the faith or no faith, we would help them help others and be actively involved in our community.

I was at church and serving as much as possible.

I found that this too was too much for me emotionally. I wanted to serve and help anywhere and everywhere. I spread myself thin and was basically working two full-time jobs with my regular job and with serving at the church. Both involved a lot of social activities and both caused me to stay very sick. I was overwhelmed and slept or had meltdowns all the time at home. I will be writing about my church experience in the next few months because I feel that I am able to without any anger or hurt now, this church that I talk about now, was the hope that helped me not give up on all churches. I know from their example that there are good churches out there and good people.

But back to the jobs.

What I discovered from both of these jobs was that I am not capable of working in places like that. Someone like myself cannot handle the stress and pain of watching people suffer, go in cycles and not change, the unknowing of who is taking advantage of me and who is not and the inability to do anything about the injustice of it all. Talking to people who are unable to buy diapers, food or have heat in the winter is devastating for me. Especially when I too was in such financial burdens that I could barely help myself. I wanted to help I tried to help and on many occasions I got burned for it. There were a few who were able to receive help and be able to get in better places in life. I hope that they are still doing well. I am thankful about that but I cannot work in environments that use so many different social situations. Too many for me to understand. I would sometimes be overwhelmed with emotion and didn’t understand what I was feeling.

I then had to protect myself.

I started to get a hard heart because I couldn’t take it. I shut down emotionally and the people became objects and I began to trust no one. There was a major problem with this because even though I shut down, I still felt it since I was engulfed in it. Since I was going to church I was constantly reminded that my faith revolves around loving and caring for those in need. It was very hard but I have now come to understand that I was not bad for trying to protect myself. I was taken advantage of so I should protect myself. I also understand that my longing to help others can be better used in different ways. Healthier ways for me. We each have gifting and they should be used in their proper place. I am not gifted to work in these environments because they will eventually kill me. Suck me dry and leave me empty.

I am thankful for all of the good things that came from those work places.

I learned a lot about people, unfortunately I still get sucked in by certain types of people sometimes. I have to stay on guard but I have grown in that area. My church experience has opened my eyes in a lot of ways also. All of these experiences that I have gone through have actually helped me to understand that the world is a lot different from what I thought it was. Now that I have been gaining an understanding about how my brain works and that I am not at fault for how other people behave, I see all of these situations in my life as learning tools. This information can help my kids when they get older or help someone else right now. I felt stupid and ridiculous when I realized that I had been taken advantage of. I felt confused because I didn’t understand how to incorporate my faith into my life without sacrificing my sanity and health. I would bypass my gut feelings because I felt that I had to be wrong, Jesus would never think that way about a person, so I shouldn’t.  I couldn’t understand why everyone else could get it and I couldn’t. I see now that I was not wrong for wanting to protect myself and I wasn’t wrong with my “gut” feelings.

I am just not capable of working in those kinds of environments and I am not a bad person for that. FREEDOM! :-)

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05/13/09

In the Beginning

(Originally, posted May 13, 2009.)

I remember when Daniel was born he was first; he paved the way for his twin sister and made the whole experience very quick and easy. He turned head down at about six months and stayed that way until the end. He was so far down I thought he was just going to come out at any time. When I saw him I only had a moment because the doctor asked if I wanted to rest and then said if I did my little girl may go breech. So I didn’t take a break I said “let’s go I can’t have that.” Seven minutes later there she was my precious Ariel.

My twins were finally here!

I held Daniel right away, but it was very short. I had to wait until we got to the room to finally enjoy him. They were so beautiful. It was such an awesome experience and I was filled with joy. I remember thinking I didn’t know if I could love them. I was sort of afraid that I wouldn’t be able to love them the way they needed to be loved. They were so precious and such amazing gifts. I thought everything would be great. Just like the pregnancy and birth. It was all so good and went so well.

I thought now we will just be like everyone else with kids.

I had the image in my mind that we would all be happy and “normal.” At least my kids, I didn’t think they could possibly suffer from any of the things I suffered from. I came from teenage parents who got a divorce when I was around three. My single mom worked her butt off, but we were still in the lower income class up into my teenage years, living in a trailer. My mom being divorced and my dad remarried to my step mom with their own family.

Later my mom getting remarried having their own children, everyone belonged except for me.

(Several years later divorced again, now a single mom with three girls.) The torture of being bullied and made fun of all through school, suffering from anxiety and depression from as far back as I can remember – abusive relationships and my turmoil with wanting friends/relationships, never “fitting in,” but desperately wanting to still longing for solitude all at the same time.

No way would our children ever have the same fears and issues as me!

I thought that David and I could be stable, we could work hard at keeping peace and balance in our household. Surely our kids would be able to enjoy life and not have any problems. Right?

My Kids

Bright and smiling they lead me to join
into the trumpet of laughter and song.

The questions they had for me today,
gave me hope in a new way.

Dancing and leaping just because,
what fun it is to live life as bright as the sun.

We have such peace, wonder, and love.
Countless moments and many to come.

They make me better they make me right.
They cause me not to be so uptight.

They fill me with awe and surprise.
Wonderful gifts that no money could buy.

Unique and different in every way,
I can’t say no when I hear “Mom, let’s play”!

They are perfect in everyway,
being themselves as they play.

All frustrations wash away,
when I see their smiles throughout the day.

My prayer for them is that they will be
truly who they were created to be and live their life completely free.

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