Joelle

Hannibal - :0) Thank you ! Real smile on my face as I read this.

Thank you all very much for your thoughtful responses. It's very validating to read them all, to feel that I'm not alone in my feeling like this was insane and completely hypocritical and again, INSANE behavior. Morse Code Stutters- dead Jewish zombie hahahahaha :0) I actually laughed out loud at that! If this is actually the purpose of this ceremony, my mind is blown! In speaking with a friend about this yesterday (who I have introduced to FRD!! Yaaa!!) and we had a good laugh about this. Thank you for the time and thought you put into responding to me, I feel very supported and heard. Wesley- thank you for your thoughtful response, I’m hoping that this beautiful little girl will not have to go through any of this again. Her parents are not Catholic, but the father (my friend for many years) was raised in the Church, but I think (and really hope!) that’s all the holy torment she will endure. I think that Grandma has little to do with them, but wanted to ‘display’ the baptism to her ‘friends’ Sayo- Thank you for your thoughtful response. I thought a lot about what you said about my friend and me standing our ground in the first place. I’m still pondering this. For myself, I never felt manipulated by my friend- he asked me if I would be the ‘godmother’ for my niece, we talked about how this would have nothing to do with religion (he too is not religious, having experienced tons of religious abuse and insanity such as this throughout his childhood) but that I’d be a very special aunty. I told him that I am not catholic and so don’t really understand what I am supposed to do as far as some ceremony, but that I would go. I didn’t feel pressured by him, and did not feel threatened at the thought of simply being in a church. After I was sat alone and was actually in there during mass I felt very uncomfortable and pressured, but I think it had a lot to do with my feelings about religion and my lack of it as a child, and perhaps this added to my experience of trauma. I did think about getting up and running away after this man aggressively condemned me and all the other people looked at me with hatred and appalled disgust. I knew my friend would have been disappointed if I left, but that he would have understood. I stayed because I didn’t want to feel overtaken, like I had to base my actions (IE to bolt) on this man, that he had the power to make me flee. I’m still pondering this. Did I stay because of guilt? Did I not let this man run me out? I don’t regret staying. One of the sickest oddest parts of this story is that the grandmother (super religious fanatic bitch) knew full well that I am not catholic and that the parents (her son and his girlfriend) are not catholic, AND that they are not married. She did tell everyone that we were catholic, and even asked my friend’s girlfriend to wear a fake wedding ring (which she didn’t). So… She was okay to lie to everyone in the church, to the priest, to her friends for the sake of appearances. So these ‘sacred’ rules of her religion, that she preaches to everyone, and knows inside and out, do not apply to her in practice, but, the rules of HER religion, not mine, DO apply to me, even if I do not know them…. On a side note, I am currently considering a DE-FOO in my own life, and I hope that witnessing this might help my friend understand that it is possible. Again, thank you all very much for your thoughtful insightful responses.

I was not raised with 'organized religion' in the sense of going to a church or knowing any of the rules/stories etc of Christianity aside form very basic, 'Jesus is the son of God', and Christmas is his birthday. I'd never been to a Sunday mass, never been to any kind of church ceremony other than a funeral, not once in my entire life... Growing up, when other kids in school would talk about their religion I always felt myself shrink and hope no one asked me any questions about 'my church' or anything, as I didn't want to 'be found out' that I didn't know all of these things. Looking back, I felt ignorant and like, not sure how else to describe it, but like a bad unclean person for not being religious. My family life growing up was very disgusting behind closed doors, shame, secrets and avoiding true self was paramount; much of family is still this way. As a teenager, I think I would describe my self as having some beliefs that there was some sort of higher power, but that I would never want to become religious as it seemed like 'choosing' a religion, even one of the many streams of Christianity (which there are differences I guess in the many types, but I have no understanding of them- haven't looked into it and don't plan on it), would be like putting myself in a box that would separate me from everyone else outside that box and that the positive values people claimed to get from religion, for example, being good to one another, trying to be honest, giving to those in need, etc. were supposedly part of every religion as far as I could see, and so 'choosing' a certain one just seemed kind of pointless and like it would create arbitrary difference between myself and others. Anyway, over the years I have just tried to be a good person and be aware of my impact on others, and try to practice the values I believe in, think before I speak/at, that sort of thing. I’ve leaned from agnostic and lately much more towards atheism. This was my experience today- my very good friend and his girlfriend had a beautiful daughter, she is a year old. My friend’s mother is hyper-catholic (and in my opinion a very scary black hearted person- for those who have seen the Stephen King movie 'Carrie', think Carrie's mother...) and she insisted/manipulated my friend into having his daughter baptized. So he asked me if I would be her goddaughter, which I was happy to (as my friend is not religious, and so the meaning for him and I as we discussed is that I am like her very special Aunty). I told my friend I am not catholic and have never been to mass/church or a baptism and don’t know what I’m supposed to do. He said it would be easy, just to do what he does, and to just pretend I’m catholic. So although I felt uncomfortable doing it, being nervous about ‘messing up’ somehow, I told him I’d be there for him and his daughter, both of whom I love very much. So I got to the mass, and not seeing my friend, sat alone among the congregation. I did my best to stand up when everyone stood up, to kneel etc. I didn’t sing the creepy songs or mouth words amen or whatever else phrases require to be said repeatedly during the mass. Then, nearing the end of the mass, we all had to get up and get in lines to take a weird cracker from the priest (I truly do not know what it is called, I’m sure people know what I’m talking about?) and instead of eating it, I just took it and kept walking (I thought about refusing, but didn’t want to offend, I thought taking it and not eating it would be the less offensive thing?). I’m a celiac so don’t do well on wheat, but secondly, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do, so I just followed the person in front of me. Some people kept going back to their seat, so people stayed in a line and drank juice from the same cup, which I didn’t want to do. I sat down, and this fellow about two rows in front of me, stands up and points his finger, full arm extended and says ‘you did not eat it! You kept it! That is shameful!’ and everyone in the seats around us all stared at me. I had no idea that not eating the stupid cracker was a horrible thing to do, so I handed to him and apologized. Everyone all looked at me with disgust and as if I had just done some amazingly unforgivable brutal thing. I felt so much shame and fear. I really felt like I would burst into tears and I wanted to run out of the church, but I stayed as I wanted to be there for my friend and his beautiful daughter, and also because I didn’t want to ‘confirm’ my awfulness by the admission of wrong that running away would communicate (at least to me). This fellow kept looking back at me every few minutes with absolute hatred in his eyes, shaking his head, speaking to the people next to him (I assume about me and the horrible thing I did). The people sitting next to me wouldn’t look at me, but seemed to inch away from me in their seats. I still can’t believe that people would behave this way, immediately after being read a long passage about humility and loving one’s neighbors (albeit a passage rife with hypocrisy and bullshit… a laughable line being “I am so proud of myself when I achieve humility”) I feel better now after standing my ground in the situation (sort of) and not running away and not being there for my friend. I am still stunned at how horrible it felt to be there in that moment. I cannot understand what motivated this person’s apparent burning desire to make me feel completely awful and to make sure everyone could hear him berate and try to shame and humiliate me. Did this make him feel somehow morally superior? Fucked up...

Thank you very much to everyone who posted theirthoughts. I've continued to think about these things and these specificevents. I believe I have a much better understanding of myself in that I have always had trouble standing up for myself, although I am anexcellent advocate for others; I have had other abusive or traumaticexperiences in life which were on-going; and I have a very hard time eventelling people when I am having experiences in which I am being victimized insome way (as an aside, I think a lot of people struggle with these thingsalso). To me, after thinking again about some of theseevents, it makes a lot of sense to me how I 'learned' that standing up formyself leads to worse things, that 'it is okay' for me to remain in horriblesituations, and to not tell people when I need help. After I thought more about these things, read thesereplies (again, thank you for all your shared thoughts and words!), I came homeand cried. I have always really been bothered by what I had assumed was my 'weakness'in my ability to stick up for myself- I often quite literally freeze in themoment, even if the confrontation seems very minor. I actually feel quitevalidated today. I am asking myself 'how would it be possible for me to havelearned another way of being, given these examples?'. I feel angry. I feelheard. I feel like I am able to throw the shame I've carried (for being 'weak')onto these people who failed to be parents. Also, listening to another podcast this morning- Ioften have justified my parents' behaviors with the 'they did the best theycould with what they knew' thing... The Stef made an excellent point thismorning while discussing something else in the podcast I was listening to'.Basically if that is morally sound logic, than children who fail a math test,as they 'did the best they could with the knowledge they had', shouldn't haveany repercussion, or should not have to prepare or study, or feel responsibleto learn math before taking the test etc. (hope I'm not misconstruing the pointhe made). I am so grateful for this community, for FDR, and for Stef! I happenedupon all of this one day randomly browsing iTunes... So glad!!!!!!

(hopefully this is an appropriate place to post? I'm new...) I just listened to the podcast on divorce; I was listeningwhile doing other things, and so was not fully engaged in listening (at first…)and then, not sure exactly what line struck me, but I felt a visceral ‘WHOA!’moment hit me like a Mack truck of insight. Long story (as we all are!) but my childhood was extremelyabusive- my father was physically sexually psychologically and emotionallyabusive, and growing up with my mother and grandparents in a very enmeshedconfused codependent and still abusive household, I have a lot of resentments.I know that much of who I am in relationships is impacted by my ‘upbringing’. I think I have always felt a bit defective for not beingable to fully forgive or let go of anger for numerous incidents with my mother andfather (both who have never apologized and who will not even acknowledge thatthese things happened and still happen), that I am being childish or selfish orimmature for not ‘getting over’ these things. Anyway, a thought that struck me- Stef made mention of achild having respect for a parent who chose to be with an abusive person etc… We (my mom, brother an I) moved into my grandparents housewhen I was 3, and I was forced to spend weekends with my dad for years (untilhe decided without telling anyone to move across the country- he’s been backand forth and remarried numerous times and has been our of my life for years ofhis own choice) where I would continue to experience severe abuse. While listening to the podcast, I distinctly rememberedbeing very young, maybe 3 or 4 and pleading with my mom and grandparents not tomake me to go to my dads. I did this every time before he would come. I would hide,pretend I was sick, cry and beg, anything, but they made me go every time.Sometimes my brother didn’t have to- my mom would tell my dad that my brotherneeded to stay because he had commitments with boy scouts etc those weekends,and I would go alone. When I was about 6, my mom forced me to tell my dad that I didn’twant to go. I was so amazingly terrified. She stood there and watched,wouldn’t say anything, but I felt her take great pleasure in making me do it (Ithink she felt some sick schadenfreude victory or something?). I was crying andshaking utterly terrified- physically it was very much like having an anxietyattack. I still had to go, and the abuse was much worse that weekend. She never defended me in many other situations as a child(allowing my brothers friends to sexually assault me, and then made meapologize to him for punching him in the face to get away), and never taught mehow to stick up for myself (she doesn’t stick up for herself either- just isvery passive aggressive and a martyr and relishes in an absolute poor me victimidentity). She has always been very frustrated by my independence andwishes she could be my ‘mommy’ (her and my brother have a very enmeshedrelationship still- he lives with her, doesn’t work, doesn’t do anything forhimself and is growing into a very angry person with no sense of responsibilityor control of himself or his life. He’s in his 30’s.). She uses guilt as a weapon and finds itextremely irritating that I will not put myself in situations n which I wouldhave to entrust my safety (in any way- physically, emotionally, etc) in her, asto me, although I love my mother, I find her to be like a ‘little girl’. I lovemy mother, and try to be kind to her and foster a positive relationship (although there is much that she will not even talk about will literally change the subject, so I have thick boundaries) but have always found it difficult to respect her, and have alwaysfelt that perhaps this inability to respect her was a flaw within me, that I wasa selfish person for not being grateful for ‘all the great things she did’. I'm so grateful for having heard this podcast. It's given me much to think about.