You Don't Get Over Addiction...You Just Learn How to Cope Better

I hesitate to write this blog. The topic is a painful one for me, and I am not particularly interested in delving into the pain. Unfortunately, oftentimes the only way to get past something is to face it head-on, and I'm having trouble getting past this.

So...here goes.

My mind was recently boggled. Well, I say recently, but in truth it was about a month ago now and I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what I gleaned when I read "It Will Never Happen to Me!" Children of Alcoholics: as Youngsters, Adolescents, Adults by Claudia Black.

First and foremost, neither of my parents are alcoholics. The only reason I even read the book was at the suggestion of my therapist, who had, earlier in that session, asked me who in the family was the alcoholic. It surprised me that she said "the" instead of "a". The use of "the" indicated a knowledge that there was someone in my family who was, and as far as I knew, she hadn't met anyone in my family aside from me. Even so, I hesitated before I named the person from a prior generation who I remembered being labeled as an alcoholic.

My therapist went on to explain to me that often times, children of alcoholics either become one themselves or choose a spouse who either a) is an alcoholic or b) is a child of an alcoholic. You see, the coping patterns learned in families who have a substance abuser are similar, and the adult child often chooses to go with the familiar.

I was disturbed, to say the least. I took the book home and ignored it for a week. When I made my next appointment for another week after that, I picked up the book and read a few chapters before putting it down until the day before my appointment, whereupon I finished reading it.

The patterns discussed in the book startled me in their familiarity. I felt horrible because I had, for so long, determined that one parent in particular was the cause of all my issues when, in reality, I have just as many issues with the other. The feeling that I lack the ability to speak up for myself had come from something completely different than what I thought before. It had just been too painful and frightening to admit before now.

Frightening because, in admitting it, I knew I had to deal with it. I.e., confront the source.

I spent the next couple sessions trying to deal with this new found knowledge, but the truth is, my mind is still reeling. I am still scared. I tear up every time I think about this - the screen is blurring even as I write these words. I don't want to deal with this knowledge. It shakes everything I thought I knew down to my very foundation until the concrete upon which I stood is cracked.

I never dreamed that substance abuse would touch my life in such a manner. It was always something that happened in other people's lives. My family was exempt from that pain!

But we're not, are we? I am an over-eater, a food addict. It may not be what people think of in terms of "substance" when they say "substance abuse" but it is a real issue for many people. Just look at the sites dedicated to helping food addicts: http://www.foodaddictsanonymous.org/ and Overeaters Anonymous are just two of the big, national-level groups that I have found. The point is that the food addict has the same problem as the alcoholic: trouble coping with life. While an addict is riding on the waves of dopamine-induced euphoria, the world isn't as scary. It's easier to handle because we're not handling it. We're shoving it away with or without the intention of dealing with it later.

Those of us who intend to deal with it later never get around to that intention because life moves on and there are new things to deal with and we shove those aside as well until there's a veritable mountain of unresolved anger, sadness, and depression congealed into a hard knot of rage that only knows one outlet: more of (insert addiction here).

Being embarrassed by my weight is less painful than the realization that such-and-such parent wasn't a pawn in the other parent's game after all.

But if I allow myself to continue to cope with life by eating everything I can get my hands on in an effort to shove it away, then I have failed myself. I am better than stuffing my face with food. I am strong enough to handle this knowledge, regardless of how painful it is.

I can overcome the lessons of my childhood and I can overcome what I took from those lessons.

I know for a fact that my parents never intended to pass on all of the things they learned from their parents, who also never intended to pass on everything that they had learned from theirs. When things get tough, sometimes we slip back into what's familiar.

It is what it is, and I can't change that.

But I can change the way I cope with it.
                                                        

NOTE: I originally wrote this blog several months ago and did not post it. Why? It's difficult to admit when you have an addiction, and embarrassing when it's the addiction that I have. But recent developments in my physical health have forced me to admit my addiction to food. I have been forced to cut out a lot of my trigger foods due to allergies that I had no clue I had. To give you an idea of what I've cut out of my diet over the past week, here's a short list: cow's milk and milk products (cheese, butter, cakes, cookies that call for butter, etc.), wheat and gluten (breads, pastas, semolina, anything with wheat flour, freaking pizza, even!), almonds, coconut, cocoa (milk chocolate gets me coming and going), and, finally, paprika, cayenne pepper, and red peppers (not red bell peppers, red hot peppers, which means bye-bye Tony Chacheres - a staple in our household - and also reading labels like a hawk...some mayonnaises have paprika. Did you know that?). And that's not all of my allergies. 

I'm keeping a detailed food journal and weighing in daily. The pounds seem to be melting away, which in and of itself is frightening. Will they come back? Is it really this diet that's making me lose weight? Where did the pounds come from? Last night, a full week in and 6 pounds down, I broke down. I don't know how to cope with life without turning to food, I told my husband. I don't know what to do. Even the knowledge that I finally broke through the plateau I've been on since August didn't cheer me up. I cried for a while, and thankfully I have the partner that I do because he understands what I'm going through. He supports me, and has cut out most of the same things that I have cut out of my diet.

Eventually my doctor said I could start adding things back in - once I've built up an immunity to the allergens. But to be honest, if I can make it three months without my trigger foods (one week down...) then what is the point of bringing them back in when I know my addiction will cause me to overeat again?

There isn't one.

Hopefully the next three months will find me learning better ways of coping with life's stress.

Gender Roles

For a long time I've struggled with being an atypical woman. By a typical woman, I mean a woman who wants children, family, and a career to juggle atop those (or not). So atypical = no kids, and more of a concentration on career and other things typically associated with men. 

Let's be honest here: kids intimidate me. As a teen, there were many parents who wanted me to babysit for them. This didn't work out well. I did have one family that I regularly babysat for, but their kids weren't infants, and the oldest was old enough and respectful enough to help keep an eye on the younger two.

Not a difficult job there.

In addition, I never had a younger sibling or cousin to look after. I am the youngest of four. The next youngest cousin in line is five (maybe six?) years younger, and didn't live close enough for me to get regular experience babysitting her. I attended a couple baby showers here and there with my mom, but I never really "got" what the deal was. The first time I refused to hold a newborn (literally - had been born maybe an hour or two beforehand) I was told I was a chicken. A different friend asked me if I wanted to hold his month-old daughter and I said no. You would have thought I'd told him pigs fly by the look he gave me. 

What? How can a woman not want to hold a baby? 

Easy. It's a tiny human that screams, sleeps, soils itself, and pukes. Okay, I know it's more than that, but those are the primary things for a good deal of time when it's first born. In addition, it's incredibly fragile and I'm incredibly clumsy. Recipe for disaster there, really. 

That being said, part of a woman's life is invitations to different kinds of parties and showers, but the ones that I always dread are the baby showers.  

This may sound strange, but it is really quite simple. I dread them because I feel that, as a woman, I am expected to go and fawn over tiny outfits and other things, whereas guys get a pass because they're, well, they're guys. We women can't expect men to want to attend a baby shower. After all, they have more important things to do, right? 

Get real. We don't expect them to go because typically guys just don't go to baby showers. 

When I was told at five or six years old that I could either help in the kitchen or in the nursery at church (since I was told I couldn't lead singing), I had a realization: if I'm not good around kids, they won't want me to help in the nursery. If I'm not good at cooking, they won't want my help in the kitchen, either. 

Did I set out to be intimidated by kids or to burn half the things I attempt to cook (not being sarcastic there - I still end up burning half the food I cook, even with the microwave) on purpose? No, I didn't set out with that in mind. I just lived my life and thought that, as a woman, something was wrong with me. 

But there isn't anything wrong with me. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I have to be good with kids! Just because I was born with two X chromosomes doesn't mean that I am a natural in the kitchen! 

In fact, I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen or caring for children or juggling both of those with the addition of my career. It may be far-fetched, but I don't want the child-rearing or kitchen responsibilities AT ALL, not even if they're shared with a spouse. Sure, I've gotten to the point where I can manage in the kitchen enough to keep myself (and occasionally my husband, too) fed. Most of the time he does the cooking, and is happy to do so. And I am VERY happy to let him! 

I love to drive (it's rare that my husband drives when we're both in the car), I love to work and I derive a certain satisfaction in seeing us stick to our budget (that I track in an excel spreadsheet) every month. I like seeing the yard freshly cut and knowing that it looks good because I got out there and cut it. 

Am I saying that all guys enjoy all those things that I just listed? No. But they are typically tasks attributed to men, and, quite frankly, they shouldn't be, just as child-rearing and kitchen duties shouldn't be typically associated as women's roles. 

"Like a Girl"

Growing up with three brothers made it fairly evident that there were many things that I could not do, simply because I wasn't as strong as them. I wasn't as good at wrestling, for instance, or other things that required a lot of upper body strength. I remember, after an argument with one of my brothers, I punched him between the legs as hard as I could. After a pause in which he utterly failed to collapse, I ran and hid behind mom because even though I obviously hadn't hurt him, I had rather ticked him off.

I remember being told that I did things "like a girl" with the phrase being said in a tone that indicated the speaker's derision. In P.E. in sixth grade, we were idly tossing baseballs one day while waiting on our coach to give us instructions. I threw the ball as best as I knew how (I have never had much experience throwing balls - my milieu was kicking them. In soccer!) and one of the girls in our class called out, "Geez, you throw like a GIRL!"

I was humiliated.

And why? I AM a girl. Yet I was taught, by my interactions with my family and the people around me, that I was less than.

And damn it, it still pisses me off!

I'm grateful that there are campaigns like the Always one (link below) that is striving to teach us girls to remember our power, our WORTH! I encourage you to watch: When Did "Like a Girl" Become an Insult? 

Don't shame someone for being what they are. It's like telling a door that it's dumb because it's a door and doesn't turn on like a lamp does. The function is completely different.

All rights to Always for their ad. And THANK YOU, Always!!

To Bikini or Not to Bikini?

I read a blog earlier today about why one woman wears a bikini even though she doesn't have what society would deem a "bikini body". It was titled, "I Wear a Bikini Because...F*ck You" (read it here).

It seems that body image is a real hot button these days, and I have to admit that I am not someone with a load of self-esteem when it comes to my body. But after reading this blog and watching a plus-sized pole dancer win 4 "yeses" on Britain's Got Talent (click here to watch) I am beginning to think that I shouldn't have such a bad body-image.

Beside the blog I mentioned above was a series of photos of "Body Image Heroes." Two stood out. One because she was the thinnest woman there, and she was saying that it isn't a bad thing to be born with that type of body, anymore than it would be to be born with a voluptuous body. The other one was of Beth Ditto, a singer whom I must admit, I've never heard of before. She spoke to The Advocate, and they quoted her on this site. She said, "I have had a lifetime to adjust to seeing how people treat women who aren't their idea of beautiful and therefore aren't their idea of useful, and I had to find ways to become useful to myself."

And it struck me... Why are we, as women, judged as useful or not useful due to the body type we have?

When I was a preteen, I got a book of which I don't rightly remember the name. Inside was about what happens to girls when they go through puberty, what to expect, as well as what to wear, how to properly brush your hair, etc. Most of the information wasn't useful as I already knew it, but one image stuck out in my mind. On the page, there were three girls: one very thin, one svelte, and one voluptuous. The book suggested that the two smaller ones could wear whatever they wanted, but that the voluptuous one should lose some weight first before showing off her budding body.

At twelve (or thirteen - I can't remember exactly) I looked at myself in the full-length mirror I had in my room. My body type, though I was only a size 9 to 12 at 5'6", matched that of the largest girl in the book.

I felt a fist of ice hit my stomach. I couldn't wear "fun" clothes. I exercised already in gym (our girl's gym class had been doing aerobics) and I played soccer and ate decently.

But even so, I needed to lose weight.

I cannot describe how upset I was. I put the book down (I never picked it up again) and tried to put it out of my mind. But that stuck with me so that now, around fifteen years later, it is still a vivid memory; both the pink book that looked so hopeful on the outside, and the feeling of worthlessness that came after I read that section.

I never told anyone how that struck me before, but now that I think of it, my thoughts turn to "how dare they?" How could the writer say something in a book that was supposed to lift a preteen's self-esteem? What was the point of the book if it was only going to tell me that I wasn't good enough because my body wasn't the right type?

Not only was my worth as a female less than a male, but now my body wasn't good enough, either.

That's what I was taught, or at least what I took from my experiences.

And now? The last time I wore a bikini was in Galveston when I was 18. I was around 200 pounds then, single, and didn't give a shit what anyone thought. My grandparents, parents, an aunt and uncle, 2 cousins, and one of my brothers were all with me on this trip. I can't remember exactly who said it, but one of the women said something derogatory about me in the bikini. I said I didn't care.

But since then, I began to care. I started covering up my body, and as my self-esteem plummeted, my weight sky-rocketed.

And now that I'm quite a bit heavier than I was when I was eighteen, would I be caught in a bikini without a cover up?

I don't know.

But I'm going to start wearing one around the house to get used to the feel of air on my skin again. 

"Anger Turned Inward"

I was reading an article a few minutes ago and ran across something I've heard before, but that has never quite stuck with me the way that it did just now. 

Depression: anger turned inward. 

I think that I've never allowed myself to fully grasp the meaning there because growing up, I was not allowed to feel "bad" feelings, i.e., anger, sadness, depression, etc. As a woman in Christianity, I learned (note the wording there: I learned. This is what I took from my experiences) that women were to be seen and not heard. They were to be beautiful objects, but brainless. 

So how could I feel those "bad" feelings if I didn't have a brain to comprehend the concept of emotions? And because I did feel those powerful emotions, that meant that something must be wrong with me, see? So I stuffed those emotions down, thereby cultivating my own depression. 

Of course this wasn't done on purpose. It's only with the gift of hindsight that I can even grasp the idea. I could blame Christianity, but the truth is that I learned to think that way through a culmination of life's experiences. It's like...no person reads the same book. What I deem important, you may see as trivial and vice versa. 

The truth is, I do have a lot of anger inside me, and I'm learning that it's not all wrapped up in what I had originally thought. 

For instance, I dreamt last night that my father came up behind me and braided my hair. He couldn't find a tie to secure it, so he unbraided it again. For some reason this dream deeply disturbed me to the point that I wore my hair braided today. But why should that bother me? The braiding of one's hair is an innocent act, right? 

Except when you look at interpreting the dream. According to www.dreemmoods.com, braids symbolizes "your neat and orderly way of thinking. It symbolizes your determination and strong mindset." 

Unfortunately, the website doesn't have a description for "braiding", so I need to look a little deeper at the rest of the dream to figure it all out. 

What does a father symbolize? "To see your father in your dream symbolizes authority and protection. It suggests that you need to be more self-reliant. Consider also your waking relationship with your father and how aspects of his character may be incorporated within yourself." 

And there's the kicker: consider your waking relationship with your father to see what is really going on. 

Well, to me father has always been (supposed to be) associated with leadership, power, control, discipline, etc. But the environment I grew up in wasn't that traditional role. My father traveled a lot and my mother was the discipliner, the powerful one.

That is, until dad got home. 

I never thought about it then, but why would my mother hand over the reins the moment he got home? Now I know that it's because she was taught that the man is the head of the family (remember that scripture from my first blog?). She was taught, same as I was, that a woman is to defer to a man. 

I think that I have always been angry that women were considered to be "less than" by the church I grew up in, at least since I realized that was what was going on. It bothered me to be put in second place by dint of being born on the wrong side of the gender pool and, powerless to do anything about it, I became depressed. 

Only in speaking out can I find some od the depression fog lifted. Sure, medication helps on a day-to-day basis, but I'm not looking to keep slapping a bandaid on the symptom. 

It pisses me off when women as treated as "naturally" second best. It infuriates me to have someone dismiss my anger or passionate response "because you're on your period", ESPECIALLY when I'm not! How dare someone decide which of my emotions has merit? My emotions are not the problem! 

Daily Affirmations from Today On: 

I will no longer suppress my anger!

I will not be silent! 

It's not my problem if someone can't handle my beliefs and emotions! 

I will not bite my tongue for fear of reprisal! 

I am worth the effort!!

Thoughts Bouncing Around My Head

I don't have a particular theme for tonight's blog. I have a lot on my mind, and most of it to do with the risky business of psychology.

I have applied to college as an undergrad to catch a course that I missed the first go-around so that I can continue on to my graduate work. Once upon a time, I intended to continue with my graduate degree immediately after receiving my undergrad, but then life happened. Instead, I have been making ends meet and providing for my family.

Yet every spring I get depressed. I think of what I want to be doing, of what I feel is my true calling. And then I wonder, what the hell is my true calling?

Last spring, I asked my mom what I was passionate about as a child. She mentioned my penchant for writing my name on my things. I had to laugh. As the youngest of four, I often found myself in arguments with my brothers. One in particular went like this:
Amber gets up to go get something to eat, or the like. When she comes back, one of the brothers is sitting where she had been sitting. She walks up to him and says, "Hey! That's my chair!" 
"You weren't sitting in it so it's mine now!" 
"Mom! <X brother> stole my chair!" 
Mom: "It doesn't have your name on it so it's not yours. Sit somewhere else!" 
After that, I wrote my name on EVERYTHING!

By the end of Spring 2013, I came up with three things that I was passionate about: Writing, Stories, and Happy Endings. I determined that I could do anything that I wanted to, and that I have done many things that, while enjoyable, were simply done to pass the time. Then life intervened again and I was caught up in the whirlwind with little to no time to even think about dreaming.

I have toyed with the idea of going back to college for the last several years. When asked what I would go back for, I always say psychology. But psychology is a diverse field, and there are many concentrations to consider: bio-psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, abnormal psychology, etc., and within each of those there are concentrations to consider as well! It was overwhelming to think about, so I simply didn't.

And in ignoring the niggling desire to go back to school, I ignored something that I didn't realize I could really be passionate about: religion. Not religion for religion's sake, but the affect of organized - and unorganized - religion on the psyche. Particularly, on a woman's psyche. But not just any woman.

The affect of religion on my psyche.

After all, people go into psychology not out of a desire to help others, (though that may weigh heavily on the decision) but out of a desire to understand themselves.

You see, one religion held me back for the bulk of my life. The interpretations of generations of patriarchal society weighs heavily on the (protestant) Bible, and indeed, many other walks of faith. I wonder how I would interpret the teachings found in each if there was no one there to influence me? If I had never read the Bible and picked it up and read it front to end, what would I take from it?

Would I, in 2009 when I first began this journey, have ever dreamed that I would want to study religion? Certainly not! I wanted nothing to do with religion at first, and locked my feelings away. That's how I deal with difficult emotions, after all: I shut them up, shove them down, lock them away, and refuse to think about them. I didn't know that I could - and should - let those emotions out. I never learned that I had a voice and a choice until recently.

Religion was a huge part of my life for a long time. I left it because I felt like a hypocrite, singing songs that I didn't believe in, and evangelizing when I didn't even want to be there. Instead of pretending, I left and have dabbled at studying a couple of different paths since then.

Now I am faced with a startling truth: the only way to center myself again is to face the fear of being sucked back in to something I don't believe in; of being subjugated to the point that I forget that I am worth the effort it takes to maintain my feminine core.

I don't know where this journey will lead me, and that worries me. But will I ever forgive myself if I don't take that risk?

The answer is simple: No. 

Waking Up Explained (SPOILER ALERT)

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T READ MY NOVEL WAKING UP: MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!

I started Waking Up one March weekend in 2010. During the previous fall I had told my family that I was no longer affiliated with Christianity, and my struggle with religion had been weighing heavier than normal. In fact, I went to the doctor and asked to be put on a new anti-depressant. A close friend had told me about her experiences with a particular one and I wanted to try it. My doctor agreed, and I started the weaning off the old and on the new process. 

I wrote the first ten thousand words of Waking Up in that first weekend that I was on the new medication. Those words were later cut from the final version of the story as they were background story and unnecessary as the scene was explained elsewhere in the novel. But they were necessary to the entire plot: the scene, ten years before the events in Waking Up happened, when Deidre learned the true colors of her step-father. 

It was difficult to write. No scene that is as tragic as what Deidre went through is ever easy. All I could think of while I was writing was that I was disrespecting my parents by writing about something so terrible. But the story has nothing to do with my biological parents.

It's about my relationship with the Christian God.

In Waking Up, the main character Deidre was, ten years prior to the events in the novel, raped by her step-father. He stabbed her as well in an attempt to kill her, mutilating her uterus to the point that it had to be removed. Someone she trusted, should have been able to trust, took what made her a woman away from her.

And that's exactly what I was trying to say: that, while I was Christian, what being a woman meant to me was a stunted version of life. I was always seeking acceptance or permission from other people, particularly men. I saw a lifetime of this ahead of me and something precious inside of me died. That very part of me that made me a woman became a loathed part of my life that I dreaded upon every waking. Oh, I wouldn't have been able to put it in so many words then, but looking back I can see that my hatred of women, my fear of children, my disinterest in just about anything that vaguely resembled a feminine trait was truly a hatred of self.

And the worst part is, I had learned to suffer in silence to the point that for a long time, I literally could not voice my true inner, feminine thoughts.

So the very thing that Deidre's step-father took away from her was her uterus - her ability to have children; what made her a woman.

Deidre is, in many ways, much stronger than me. She lived in crowded New York for years despite a phobia that left her unable to be alone in a room with a man. (How did she avoid that in a place that crowded?? Trust me, when you have a phobia, you find ways to get around it. Deidre would have taken the stairs if the only elevator available was occupied by a man. She would have met up with female friends so that she was never alone, etc. If you still don't believe me, then I am glad that you have never had such a phobia!) All of her life circulated around this phobia, but she managed to live on despite it.

In the beginning of the story, Deidre's step-father is released from prison on parole, having been incarcerated for the past decade for attempting to murder Deidre. Deidre is frightened of a repeat, and is happy to get back to New York, far away from a man she firmly believes deserves to still be in jail.

Then her grandmother dies and in her will, Deidre is left a plantation home that's been left to go to rot. Deidre sees the home and immediately falls in love with it. Sure, it's a huge project, but it's one she commits herself to.

In dreams, a house often resembles our psyche. The first floor is the conscious, the basement the subconscious. Anytime you're running upstairs in a dream you're going higher into your conscious thoughts, bordering on the physical. Likewise, anytime you go downstairs, you are heading down into your subconscious mind. Check out www.dreemmoods.com for more information on this.

So for Deidre to take on this project of fixing up a home is a metaphor for her renovating her psychological health. She has setbacks and comes to accept the masculine side of her psyche (represented in the story by Will Pendergrass). She almost gives up, but something draws her back to the ramshackle house in bayou country.

Deidre has woken up to what was wrong in her life, and is actively working to fix it.

Just as I was, and still am.

She also encounters difficulty with her half-sister Phoebe and with a female ghost named Elizabeth Duplessis who resides in the home. These two women represent her past and her future. When Phoebe is introduced, she hates Deidre with a passion. She wants nothing more than for Deidre to go away and never come back. She does everything in her power to stop Deidre from being happy until the moment she comes across a letter written by her grandmother to Deidre confessing that Henry had killed before (Deidre and Phoebe's mother). From that moment on, Phoebe is solidly on Deidre's side.

Likewise, the ghost of Elizabeth Duplessis is stirred up by the renovations going on in the house. She wants nothing to do with Deidre's changes. Why can't everything just stay the same: familiar and comfortable? Elizabeth does everything in her power to stop Deidre from succeeding in making the house beautiful once again. But in the end, she accepts that Deidre isn't going to stop, and that this is a good thing.

The issue underlying is accepting oneself. Just as Deidre and Phoebe had to accept one another for who they were, and move on from their struggles in the past, I have to accept my past for what it is. Just as Elizabeth had to accept the changes going on in her world, making things unfamiliar and uncomfortable, I have to accept the changes going on in mine, even the ones I don't like. Especially the ones I don't like because those are usually the ones I learn from the most!

In the end of the story, Deidre takes a pregnant Phoebe to confront Phoebe's father - Deidre's step-father - where he is incarcerated. He insists to talk to Deidre first, and, despite her fear, Deidre confronts him. She stands up to him, and is finally able to move on.

For me, that point of standing up began when I told my parents that I was no longer a Christian. This confrontation has continued as I have not shied from the path I am on, and have stood up against the pressures of family and friends to conform. It's not easy, just as fixing up the house wasn't easy for Deidre or the people she enlisted to help. But it is worth it!

That is also what this blog is mostly about: standing up and saying what I believe in. Standing up and saying, no, I will not ask for permission. No, I do not need your acceptance. This is what I believe in. This is who I am: a woman constantly waking up to the inner voice that says, Yes! I am JUST AS GOOD as any man! I will NOT be silent! I will NOT be cowed by fear!

Maybe I'm a lot more like Deidre than I thought. We both have woke up to new ways of life, and both have struggled with it.

Both determined to make the best of this thing we call living. 

A Tale of a Dissident Daughter

Many years have passed since I graduated from college. I hold a B.A. in English with minors in History and Psychology. I intended to go on to a grad school for creative writing, but settled down instead in my old hometown after meeting the man who became my husband. I concentrated on making a home for us and, after he was injured on the job, on my career. During those years, I kind of floundered around, uncertain of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

For a time before we were married, I worked in a career counseling program and took the Meyer-Briggs personality type indicator as well as the Strong Interest Inventory test to determine what my strengths are for what positions I would be most satisfied in. I discovered that not only am I a borderline introvert/extrovert (with introversion being the stronger side), but I am also split when it comes to my strengths. I am both very creative as well as very analytic.

The latter test told me, twice (I retook it because I didn't believe it the first time), that I would be happiest in a military leadership position.

Say what now?

Well, that wouldn't happen anyway; it couldn't. I am a life-long asthmatic and the military doesn't take asthmatics. Instead, I just did what I could do, working in an office and gaining Skills and Experience for future positions.

But I never felt satisfied.

I am interested in a lot of different things. In my youth I played the French Horn and sang as well as playing in a soccer league and beginning writing when I was around twelve. We practiced martial arts when we were very young, and I daydreamed of a time when I would have adventures and ride motorcycles and travel to exotic places. I lived those adventures vicariously through my characters in my stories.

It wasn't until I was in some of the darkest days of my life that I finally stood up, shook off the dust, and started shaping my life into the one I wanted - needed - it to be.

I mentioned previously that my husband was injured on the job. He's still not fully recovered and it's been almost seven years to the day. I found myself in an atypical role for a woman as I was suddenly the primary breadwinner. Yes, it was a shock and a certainly uncomfortable learning experience. As things got worse (both his health and our finances), I spiraled down into depression. I constantly reminded myself to look for the silver lining in the clouds that seemed to just keep coming, but rarely could actually find it.

After my grandfather passed away, I finally broke down and called my employee assistance program. From that initial consultation, I began regular therapy sessions throughout the fall of 2009. During those sessions, I began to quietly voice my disappointment with the religion I was brought up in. My therapist suggested a couple of books, one of which I read with a highlighter and pen in hand so that I could mark sections that spoke to me and write my thoughts in the margins.

That book was The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd.

The first section I felt I could have written myself. It was as if Mrs. Monk Kidd dug around in my brain and found the words that I didn't know that I needed to say. She gave voice to the feelings inside of me, and, seeing that I wasn't the only one who had experienced what she termed the "feminine wound", I began to break out of my protective, hardened outer shell.

That long-ago moment when I was told that, instead of leading singing, I would only be able to work in the nursery or the kitchen - that's the feminine wound. It's the exact moment when a young girl realizes for the first time that she isn't going to be treated as equal. It's the loss of faith in the system that should have protected and nurtured us as girls but instead told us that we were "less than males and that we were going to spend the rest of our lives obeying and asking permission or worrying if we didn't" (Dance, Sue Monk Kidd, p. 17).

In the fall of 2009, I wrote a letter to my parents, telling them that I was no longer a Christian and that I didn't want to speak to them about my decision and asking them to not speak to me about Christianity. This was a tall order for my parents, as my father was the pastor for a small Christian church at the time, and their lives were heavily involved in the church. For the first time in my life, I didn't speak to my mother for weeks. I had always had a great relationship with her, but in standing up for my believes, I had trodden very heavily on both her and my father's toes. She told me later that she didn't really know what to say to me after that.

It hurt, knowing that I had hurt them with my dissidence. But I could no more turn a blind eye to the awakening spirit within me than I could deny that, yes, I am a woman.

I read the first two sections of Dance of the Dissident Daughter and then, with my brain full to bursting of new concepts, I set it aside. Over the next years I tried to absorb what I had read - that I wasn't the only woman to experience the feminine wound, that I wasn't going to burst into instant flame the moment I said I didn't believe the same thing my parents believed, that there were feminine gods long before the masculine ones, and, most importantly, there is inside all women a spark of feminine divinity.

I wasn't ready to fully accept my femininity then. I had gone around for the past several years telling myself that I didn't like women and preferred the company of men (which was true).

What I realized, however, was that I didn't like myself because I wasn't what I wanted to be.

Powerful. Successful. Assertive. All those things that I associated with being male.

I had to find it in me to forgive myself for being born on the wrong side of the gender pool before I could accept the divine feminine spirit growing inside of me. Grow she did, and still does as I struggle daily to accept that I am, and that it is okay for me to be, a girl.

That, my friend, shouldn't be necessary. A girl shouldn't question that her femininity is just as good as masculinity, let alone hate being a female as I did for so many years.

Recently I went back and read the third and fourth sections of Dance of the Dissident Daughter. Shortly after I began reading it, my mother and uncle stayed with us on their way through town. While they were here, my uncle asked me, point-blank (and completely out of the blue) if I was a member of a certain religion.

To say that I was surprised is putting it lightly. I have studied a couple of other religions since leaving Christianity. I wasn't certain how my uncle knew, but I didn't want to lie. So I told them the truth: that while I don't consider myself one, I am studying the theology.

I spent that evening and the next morning speaking with my mom for the first time about my decision to leave Christianity. I told her of my experience, of how I learned that I was "less than" a boy that day when I was told to work in the kitchen or nursery. Her expression is one I don't think I'll ever forget: disbelief and horror. She couldn't believe that I had been told that, and hated that I had. I went on to tell her about the Dance of the Dissident Daughter and what it had taught me. We talked, for the first time and openly, about our experiences as women in the Church. I wasn't surprised to find that she had experienced a similar situation.

And in hearing validation in her voice, I found myself healing just a little more. Accepting just that much more that it is necessary in religion to have a feminine divine, so that men and women are equal, as we are meant to be.

Not a Day Without a Line

"Nulla dies sine linea." Not a day without a line.

The phrase is attributed by Pliny the Elder to Apelles, who was a painter a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Actually it was here on earth, but anyone who knows me knows my first full-length novel was a Star Wars fan fiction.

But I digress.

Apelles said this famous line in regards to his work as a painter. From what I understand, in an effort to come as close to perfection as possible, he painted every day even if it was just to go over lines already laid down. Click here  to find out more about Apelles from (what I think) is a reputable source.

Over the years this idea has been attributed to other artistic lines of work, such as writing. Not a day without a line isn't as literal as it once was; to the writer in me, it means a line of sentence, or, better yet, a paragraph. At the moment I don't write every day, but that is something I am trying to change.

This blog will touch on many things that mean a lot to me, and plenty of them will be controversial. I have been silent in my beliefs for going on my entire life. As such, it is past time when I stood up and spoke up.

This isn't an easy thing for me to do. As the youngest of four and the only girl in a strict Christian household, I often felt that I had no voice. Oh, I could shout and scream, but when it came to making important decisions, those were often taken from me. I will get into that a little more as this blog progresses.

I learned early on that being a boy was a better life. My parents were overprotective of me and our religion taught that women were to be silent. Seen, but not heard. If a woman wanted to argue with a leader in the church, she had to go to her husband and have him present the argument. She could not teach unless it was to other women or children, and the leaders in our church took that a step further to say that a woman could not lead singing. See (in no particular order) Ephesians 5, 22-33; 1 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 3, 1-16; Genesis 3, 16 for references to my above statements.

I was maybe six years old when I learned that I was "less than" because of my gender. I have always loved to sing, and I wanted nothing more than to lead singing in church like my daddy did. I can't remember who I approached about this desire, but I do remember being told that it wasn't possible. That I should go help out in the kitchens or in the nursery instead.

Six years old and I learned that a woman's place is in the kitchen or with the children, and that was all that she was destined for.

I grew up refusing to learn how to cook, and shying away from children. To this day, kids intimidate me! My brothers would tease me because I didn't know how to cook. I remember one Christmas in particular when we were teenagers, they told me that I was getting a stove for Christmas and that was it; so that I would learn to cook. I didn't, of course, (get a stove, that is) but the memory of their teasing sticks in my mind.

This is what a girl should do. Why aren't you doing it?

That's not what they were saying. At least, I don't think so. But the underlying societal pressure was there nonetheless. Women and men have always had "certain roles," and since that day when I was six years old, I have always identified more with the male gender. They got to do the fun stuff, after all. They got to walk down to go get the mail without having someone either a) watch them or b) go with them. They got to lead singing, teach, all the important and fun things that I wanted to do, but was told that I couldn't.

I'd like to say that I showed them. I'd love to say that, as a child, I went out and did all the things that I was told not to, or that I wasn't capable of doing. Unfortunately, I turned inward the pain of being told that my gender made me less than. I did everything that I was supposed to do (I was a dutiful daughter of God) except to embrace being who and what I am.

And yet...I was the first person on my father's side and in our immediate family to earn a bachelor's degree. At eighteen, I went away to college with that very mission in mind. I cared what I majored in to a degree, but the overall quest was to go down as the first in my immediate family as well as on the one side, with a higher level of education.

It was the first time in my life that I had ever done something just for me.

And it was an incredible, eye-opening experience that I wholeheartedly enjoyed.

Since then, I have struggled with religion to a point where I shirked it completely. I struggle daily to be true to myself as a woman, and to remember that it's okay to be my gender; that it's not a bad thing to be a girl.

And that, in a nutshell, is what this blog is about. Learning to accept myself for what I am. It isn't as easy as it sounds, but the path so far has definitely been worth it.