With Apologies to Greta Christina

 

Whenever I can, I love attending atheist conventions. The several that I have attended have been over 2-3 days and have had some really wonderful speakers, events, and vendors. The first atheist convention that my husband and I ever attended was about 2012 or so, I think, at an event called Skepticon.

My husband and I had been chomping at the bit to spend time with others of like mind. We'd watched and listened to other conventions on purchased CDs and DVDs during the naughts with excitement. So we clearly remember the first convention that we were finally able to attend. 

Atheists like myself who now enjoy being open will recognize some of the speakers: Rebecca Watson, David Fitzgerald, Richard Carrier, PZ Myers, JT Eberhardt, Joe Nickell, David Silverman. And Greta Christina. Jerry and I felt amazed! The openness, the goodness, it was like taking a drink after being in a desert. Finally, human beings who were openly discussing issues that are so often glossed over in the world.

Greta Christina is a woman who has written a couple of "atheist books" and who is a regular speaker on the atheist convention circuit. I'm delighted that I've had time to speak with she and her partner over several meals shared at the conventions. (though I seriously doubt she remembers me at all. ) Her book Why Are You Atheists So Angry?: 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless is a book that I've read several times and have, even, plagiarized the idea of here on my blog.

This morning a video of her doing the talk came across my FB feed through two friend of mine, Pam and Scott. Listening to this talk again today brought up some other reasons why I, a totally kind and nice and positive atheist, am pissed off at religion. Strap yourself in.

• Today, a cousin of mine posted THIS DRIVEL; and she means it:

This crap is religious rhetoric that is ACTIVELY keeping us all trapped in our homes for fear of continued outbreaks and infection of this hideous virus. Over THREE HUNDRED days after our general and public knowledge of it!

• Now, speaking as a therapist working with human beings who are wounded, traumatized, pained, and shamed by their varied religious upbringings:
  
  
• SHAME. Good, kind, well-meaning human beings who are, now, living with a sense of being irrevocably wrong or evil or bad, all thanks to the absolute nonsense taught to them with the expressed goal of making them unable to doubt, question, think clearly, leave their parents' religious community.
  
  
• SEXUAL ABUSE. Again, good, kind, well-meaning human beings who are, now, living with a sense of being irrevocably wrong or evil or bad from having been used and abused as children for the sexual gratification of some grotesque adult who was unable to get their sexual needs met in a healthy relationship with a consenting adult. Not to mention the protection that the church has and IS affording the offenders, while shaming, wounding, and not choosing to support the actual victims: the children.
  
  
• SELF DOUBT. Good, kind, well-meaning human beings who are, now, living with a sense of being irrevocably wrong or evil or bad, ADULTS who struggle with those long-ago messages that good exists within this tiny box of what is acceptable, necessary, worthy of love.  ⃞
  
  
• SUICIDAL. Good, kind, decent, well-meaning human beings who are, now, living with a sense of being irrevocably wrong or evil or bad, unworthy of this life because their brain's unlikely ability to break through the brainwashing is allowing for questions, reason, exploration of concepts outside of the box. And the brainwashing tells them that free thought is sinful, unworthy, and not worthy of life.
  
  
• TRAPPED. Good, kind, well-meaning human beings who are, now, living with a sense of being irrevocably wrong or evil or bad if they question or attempt to live outside of the male-dominated, white-dominated lists of what is OK.
  From domestic abuse to racial disparity and white superiority to male-dominated roles in life, these good hearts, in addition to struggling to change life-long behavior patterns, also have to deal with the negative self talk that they've inherited from their parents, their community, their culture, THEIR GOVERNMENT and their religions.

DAILY, I am working with beautiful human beings who are tortured by the brainwashing and upbringing within religions. Grown men and women who sob, cry, scream themselves into exhaustion for the struggle of the hideous, ugly, bullshit brainwashing...


Pissed off?
OH, YOU BET I AM.
Me too, Greta.

 

P.S. Greta, if you're ever here, PLEASE leave a comment!  😉

With Sincere Gratitude: Through the Blue

You know those days when you realize you have been feeling blue, blah, for awhile without really noticing it? Then the realization happens and you don't see the why of it all? You're blue, aba dee aba di. I suddenly realized that I'm there right now and it's not because of my life. I have the happiest life I could have ever imagined! I'm in a real happy place, yet I don't feel it.

That means that it is chemical for me.

Because of my long history with depression I know that I can often interject positivity into my mind during times like this and get some relief. I've been treating my depression for about thirty years now with medication. I've taken Lexapro®️ now for at least twenty of those years and I really love it and depend on it. It makes me be my real self. 

So if the Lexapro®️ isn't doing the trick, maybe it's time for me to do my part and get deliberate with the positive talk, with the gratitude. Making it happen.  😌

Please allow me to share my gratitude with you, and I would be honored if you would share a line of two of gratitude in your own lives down in the comments:

• I have to begin any list of gratitude for the dear, dear heart of my husband. A man who supports me with any hair-brained idea that I have. A man who is gentle with my internal storms. A man who is thoughtful, funny, and delightful.
  My heart.
• I must also add the kids to any list like this, for they are so beautiful on the inside. My heart feels happier just typing this.
• I am full of grateful love to the many wonderful authors and writers out there in the world. At the moment I'm deeply appreciative to Mary Doria Russell for her amazing intellect and for her capacity for beautiful language.
• I'm grateful for the internet, whatever that is.
  It contains my friends, my music, my thoughts. It is a place I go to for research, creativity, classical information, distraction, and news.
• I'm grateful for my heart and my mind.
  These parts of me allow me to experience so many things without losing myself.
• I'm grateful for the outward sign of success with both Elizabeth and John as each of them experiences a graduation this month! Elizabeth graduated from community college with her Associates and John graduated from homeschool high school, first in class!  😉
• I'm grateful for the cooling rain we received earlier while Jerry and I sat on a couch thing on the front porch and talked about the beauty brought to our lives by our granddaughter Eleanor.
• Of course, I could not be more thankful to my wonderful stepdaughter and her husband, Jessica and Ryan, for making us grandparents. Eleanor is the brightest light, Folks!  ❤️
• I'm grateful for the comfortable and cool bedroom that Jer and I have created for ourselves, regardless of whoever else does not love our green walls.
• I'm grateful for the spring cleaning I did recently. It's lovely to have cabinets not spew their contents if we dare to open the door.
• I'm grateful for my new shirts. I feel pretty.
• I have such gratitude for my dear friend Lara, a woman with a very full life who always has the time to pass along love and light whenever she sees my need.
• I'm grateful to Elizabeth for some things that she knows about but that I'm keeping private.  💜
• I'm grateful for the new friends we have brought into our lives lately. It's a true bounty.
• I am sincerely thankful for the fact that I brought home the majority of Mom's plants after she died. She truly had a green thumb and, at this point, all of them are still alive and thriving. I'm grateful for the chance to keep them green.
  
  As I give it some thought, I think I now realize where my sadness is coming from...
  
  I've been missing my mom...
  
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  You might also enjoy:
  A Thank You Note to LIFE
  Grateful, Full of Grate?
  A Little Gratitude

This is Life: A Reminder

Sometimes it hits me, the darkness, the silver lining. I can't find the door behind which I wait. 
I feel empty and I feel full. I feel wounded and 
I feel surrendered. I feel uncertainty and I feel conviction. I feel confused and I feel discovered. I feel bound and I feel untethered. I feel all of it at once. 

I lay my head down on Jerry's lap and feel his instant connection, gentle fingers in my hair, weighted arm about my waist. He allows me to express it all and to feel empowered by it. Tears, snot, words, sounds, the man creates a holding place where my outpourings are held gently and where I am strengthened through it all.

This is life, he will say in a whisper, it is complicated and you, you must not be afraid to feel it.

Then gently, in waves, it passes through the two of us and I am warmed and reminded that this life comes in in a rush, and that this too shall pass. It is a reminder to appreciate the absolute beauty and certainty that is my life. 
I am again reminded of the substantiality of my role in this life, of the connections that bear me forward.

It is the connections that save me, as well as my personal integrity. And my antidepressant and my sun lamp and my husband and my other loved ones. It is my connections. For it is the connections between each of us and our beloveds that makes this world tolerable, 
joyful, even transcendent. It is my hunger for peace and love that will save me.

These days will pass and I will, again, find my way. I am certain of it for I have found my way again and again in my 54 years of life. The cycle comes around and, soon, I will be back to myself. I do not fear these days because, truly, this is a part of the humanness of being alive. You and I know that imperfection is the norm, not the falseness of TV and movies and social media. This is real.
All will be well.

BORED

atheist homeschool atheist homeschool atheist homeschool atheist homeschool atheist homeschool atheist homeschool atheist homeschool atheist homeschool 

You have to have huge balls to tell me that you are bored if you live in this house.

With all of the crap...er...things we own, all of the internet and media options, books and such, and with so much freedom to explore interests, it takes some nerve to tell me that you have nothing to do. But I think that there is more to it with Elizabeth right now. 

She's bored with school and all of her classes, she's bored with work, she's bored with our house...  Sounds more like a spike in depression to me. You know? She agrees that that might be happening a bit...but she is also bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.

Even with my erudite explanation of how interesting life is and how many amazing things there are to learn about, she is still bored, bored, bored.

My child has a tendency to experience feelings in an extremely magnified way, so her boredom is massive. I comfort myself by remember being her age and feeling bored all of the time, so I'm not worried per se. But it has had me thinking, and fretting a bit.

Although I am a lover of learning, a lover of reading and researching, and a person likely to always be trying new things I'm not at all worried that my children won't follow in my footsteps...much. It's my fondest wish for them. I want it so bad! I want them to be interested people, you know? 

What if they rest on their laurels? What if they never grow into adults who continue to improve themselves? What if their current continual boredom lasts for the rest of their lives? What if their brains turn into much from all of that game playing? What if their whining of being bored never ends? What if they become apathetic slugs? 

What if Elizabeth never figures out that boredom can be an excellent opportunity to work on herself, to expand her knowledge, to become a more interesting person?

Is it remotely possible I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill?

Guilty Pleasure and Escapism

atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog atheist blog 

What a laugh!

I have been working on this blog post today when, to my delight, my best friend was working on her own blog post entitled Guilty Pleasures - Loving Ourselves. She posted on her blog This Time, This Moment about an hour ago...just as I was shutting down for awhile. I just reopened my blog and started looking at the segment on the left side of the blog entitled Blogs I Read When I Can and I saw Lara's post...made me laugh and made my day! 

What a pleasure!

You've heard the phrase Guilty Pleasure; perhaps you have used this phrase yourself. This afternoon I've been thinking about a conversation with a friend yesterday that has really stuck with me. A conversation about guilty pleasures.

Growing up in my family, in my efforts to please my parents and others, I often pretended to dislike things that I actually liked and to like things that didn't appeal to me. Why would I do this? Just for a bit of parental approval, I guess. I was very swayed by the opinion of others. But, as it happens, I must have convinced myself of these long-standing falsehoods too because into adulthood I've spent years rediscovering myself, rediscovering things that do indeed bring me pleasure. I acknowledge that, in fact, I find it difficult to label a thing as pleasurable.

I do know where the guilty part of guilty pleasures comes. Many strange messages spin around in my head and make it difficult to always understand where I stand on things. If not for my oddly dysfunctional family of origin and from the church, I might not struggle with such prisons of the mind. Even to this day I still have moments where I am able to free my mind of still-entrenched and hidden shackles. Shackles of the mind.

Romance movies watched repeatedly

While my dear friend and I were talking yesterday, one of the revelations that came to me in a moment of our conversation was a thing that has been stewing in my mind for decades:  the idea of escapism. When reading a great book, performing intricate hobbies, watching enchanting film, we often say that we are participating in such activities for reasons of escape. Escape from the drudgery of life, I assume, escape from boredom. Maybe escape to things too:  to felicity, to enjoyment, to bliss. I hadn't thought of that before.

In my home way back, such an idea as escaping from reality was harshly judged. I would never have admitted to such a sentiment as escapism. But while my friend and I were talking we began considering this idea and how absurd it is to avoid the pleasures of escapism and of guilty pleasures.

Why oh why should pleasure be guilty?

And so I have decided to eschew guilty pleasure. From this moment forward there are only pleasure. Open, honest, delightful. I reclaim the idea of doing things simply for the purpose of self care, self interest, self, luxury. 

So in the name of loving myself, claiming my pleasures as things that I will no longer feel guilty for enjoying, naming it and claiming it against the past forces of falsehood, and to join my gorgeous friend in her list of pleasures, here are some of my favorite things. Here are things that I enjoy!

• Carol Burnett
• Favorite romance movies watched again and again
• Perfume
• Scented soaps
• Cheap romance novels
• Naps
• Sumptuous bedding
• Relaxing in the bath
• Reading in bed
• Clean teeth
• Freshly washed bed sheets
• Poetry read aloud
• Young Matt Dillon
• Aiden Turner
• Beautiful house plants
• Going barefoot
• Travel
• Barbra Streisand
• Coming home
• Beautiful serving dishes
• Daydreaming
• A pot of tea
• Receiving a bouquet of flowers
• Robert Plant
• Gorgeous fabric
• Giving gifts
• Autumn days
• Game shows
• Doris Day
• Going to the theater
• Poptarts
• Used book stores
• The dance scenes in Brigadoon
• Stay Gold Ponyboy
• Fine pens
• Lipstick
• Quilts
• Barbra Kingsolver
• National Geographic
• A beautiful library
• Snow days
• Thick towels
• Staying up late, alone
• Musicals
• Colorful pillows
• Rare beef
• Obsessing over favorite entertainers
• Hideous, warm sweat pants
• Lilacs
• Family heirlooms
• The "Look back at me" scene in North and South
• Body art
• Researching new things
• Bette Midler
• Ladies night out
• Sherlock
• The quiet of snow
• Eating out
• Old photographs
• Cheesecake
• Driving aimlessly
• Lazy afternoons
• Foreign films
• NOT watching sports
• A cup of tea
• Harry Potter
• Old books
• Beaches and sea shells
• Baking in the sun
• Eating outdoors
• Cotton candy
• Live music
• Bohemian elegance 
• Coloring books
• A good British mini-series
• Beautiful glass drinkware
• Gorgeous tea cups
• Bragging about my children
• Looking at my children
• Just being with my children

THERE! Reclaimed!

  P.S. I LOVE YOU LARA!  

I No Longer Have the Time

self-esteem atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You might also like:

Who I Am, Who You Are

Build a Bridge

You Decide Who I Am

This I Believe

A Thank You Note to LIFE

Not Just for the New Year

Good Time Johnny Sings the Blues

depression, sons

Both Jerry and I and Elizabeth have all taken antidepressants at one time or another. We see some depression in our extended families also. So it might not come as a huge surprise that my happy-go-lucky son is experiencing some down time.

Over the last two years I have seen it overtake him every so often. While we were in Brisbane he had some times when he was quite down. Well, I've noticed it happening again in the past two months or so, days when he's quite down, nights when his conversations are quite dark and deep. John and I have talked quite a bit about how to manage depressive moods, depressive thoughts, depressive periods, yet he felt like he needed some additional help.

Today we talked to his pediatrician who agreed that further help might help. John started taking antidepressants today, a very, very low dose and John is hopeful that the medication will take the edge off for long enough that he can get ahead of it.

In the meantime he has started doing some reading, guided reading of books that I recommended, and he's been writing as well. He is writing some poetry and some prose. When he does this writing he experiences such a rush of happiness, accomplishment, and relief from getting some of these thoughts out and onto paper and shared with me and others! It's exciting to see him making efforts to manage the internal struggles.

He has also been getting more active outdoors with the advent of beautiful spring weather, he has started some new projects that excite him, he has worked on getting better sleep, and he continues to share his feelings quite openly.

John is a very open kid and he talks with his friends a bit about his feelings too and that has been really helpful because so many of them can relate to the mood dips and the despondency that goes along with it. However he had one person who did not handle the information that John entrusted to them very well. This person threw it in his face and really injured him for his trusting and open nature as well as for his sensitivity. That unpleasant experience has become something that John considers a real life lesson; I'm impressed with his efforts to makes sense of the limitations of maturity or compassion that others may have for reasons of their own.

I think that some people might have a problem with the fact that we went to medication for the depression with a fourteen year old.  I did think and wait for quite some time before considering medication. How much of John's melancholia is kind of normal and how much of it is something to be concerned about? There was a point in several of our conversations where I believed that a line was crossed and that we had reached a point where we could use a hand.

John is happier and more hopeful this evening and that is so important to me. 

I remember several years ago when we came to this place with Elizabeth, when we started talking about medication and therapy for her moods. She was so relieved that I had actually heard her troubled self and that I had responded with real solutions. I think that John is reacting that way too:  relieved and grateful that we've taken this step to help him to manage his heavy-heartedness.

Have you had brushes with depression?
Have your kids ever been here?
What have you done to help them?

I'm John
And I approve of this message.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You might also enjoy these posts:
He's So Bright I Call him Son
Moving into the Light
Cuddling Cures the Meloncholy
I Trusted My Gut

He's So Bright That I Call Him Son

sons, homeschool, poetry

My son in incredibly sensitive. He has been that child who would respond to the background music of a show before I even noticed that any music was playing. He will be upset by any person trying to control another person in any way. He will sound it out whenever he notices a quiet person feeling alone. He's the kid who will say it rather than keep quiet. He is deeply in tune to the emotions of the people around him. He is also deeply in tune to his own feelings.

Yes, John and I often commiserate over how difficult it is to be an empathic person in the world at large. For his part, he struggles to keep a positive attitude.

He's fourteen now, the age of angst.
I would never belittle this age, or make fun of it, or tease a person experiencing the pain and struggle of figuring out who they are, (as was done to me constantly; who would do such a thing?) what the world is doing, what the meaning of all of this is...

Nearly every day he and I have conversations about what has happened as he's moved through the day. He can be quite overwhelmed with his feelings so we talk often about ways to cope, ways to handle overwhelming feelings, how to comfort oneself, how to express oneself, and how to manage the intricacy that some issues bring. 

The other day we talked about journaling and poetry. As a former angst-er myself I told him that I used to write tons of terrible poetry and that I've written books and books of journals, trying to find my way out of cognitive cages of my own construction. He was surprised that I had enjoyed a balladry period. I didn't know what effect that conversation would have on him.

In the past two days he has written tons of poetry, good poetry, bad poetry, deep poetry. He is a veritable dilettante odist . His thoughts are rich and metaphorical, emotive and universal, ambitious and adept. More importantly, he is discovering a new part of himself, as he told me, that seeks to express itself through metaphor so that more people can relate to it. A part that appreciates the exquisite difference between two synonyms. A part that is empowered by language.

On top of this new exploration of his, John has figured out exactly what is so amazing about this writing effort: 

I'm a poet, and I didn't even know that I was!

Get it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other posts you might enjoy:
He's So Scawy
My Son Doesn't Like to Write
Growing Pains
Gripe!

I Took The Long Way Home

I know that my blog has taken a bit of a turn lately. Less homeschooly stuff and more personal stuff. I'm sorry if some people who read here are turned off by that. My life is changing slowly and I find myself dealing with some personal stuff. I don't mind being honest about them, in fact I am annoyingly honest, some would say.

The thing is that I am coming to some realizations about some of this personal crap and it is making me get all introspective here on my blog. The TMI posts, the personal musings...  It is where I am right now, but it will pass. If you find TMI awkward or difficult or boring to read, I understand.

The thing is that I have grown up weird and some of that crap has reared its ugly head.... again ...and is occupying my mind. When a thing is occupying my mind, I have always made it a point to go there, to explore it, to feel it, to figure it out. I don't have that thing that some people have where they can just ignore it or cover it up or brush it away. I have to go there.

After about three hours of making memes to put on Pinterest for Emotional Abuse survivors, it hit me again that I have two parents who, each in their own disparate way, has given me a mass of emotional crap to work through. And I'm doing it; I'm working through it. I always find my way home.

So why the memes?
Because I figure, if I have to find my way through and out of the maze of emotional abuse, TWICE, I want to offer something to other people who are stuck in it.  Emotional abuse is quite odd and isolating and hard to quite put your finger on. So, here I go, being all public again about difficult things.

Stick with me, I'll get through it.

In case you are curious, here are a few of the memes. 

I made over 60 of them, all with the same background and style

so that they would be easily identifiable...

I will upload them to Pinterest when I get enough time. 

What I wish I could do with them was to link them 

to a really good resource for recovery...

ADDENDUM!
HERE IT IS, A good resource.

I find this quote from Neil Gaiman's U of Arts Commencement Speech is truly inspiring.

The moment that you feel that, just possibly,you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right.

- Neil Gaiman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For More Posts Like This One:  
I Dunno, What's a Motto With You?
Build a Bridge
This I Believe
This is Me: Things I'm Afraid to Tell You
You Decide Who I Am
Mother, The Word

ADDENDUM!
HERE IT IS, A good resource.

I Dunno, What's a Motto With You?

TMI ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you have a motto in life?

I do, for me it's Question Everything! 

Many years ago when I was in therapy I was constantly being stumped by thoughts that I thought were true, assumptions that I thought were reality, truths that I thought were universal. These assumptions were like huge road blocks in my pursuit of the truth.

While I am fortunate to have been a young girl who knew that her parents loved her and did their best for her...until that day when all of that changed, a day that became my bookmark for everything to come.  From this event forward an event was classified either before or after the divorce: 1977-1978. Those were the hideous years.

I know what I'm talking about.  ;)

Why were those years so pivotal for me?
People get divorced every day!
Those years were acute for me because both of my parents instantly became strangers, delusive, victimy, unavailable, isolating, unhealthy with boundaries and relationships, and oddly spectral.

Both of them, in their own very disparate ways, began to think of themselves first, often leaving the kids completely out of the equation. They were both wounded, I know. It was a period of time when all of those things that I thought I knew were honestly and truly crushed, when the parents that I had known became incredibly inaccessible and self-absorbed, and when my custodial parent began a long-term program of indoctrination and brainwashing and slavishly requiring unquestioned trust.
(I assure you, these words are not too strong or too dramatic; they are completely accurate.)

And the brainwashing was thorough, Man. It was a true brain fuck. I spent many years in therapy where I strongly resisted challenging the truths that I thought I knew.  
It was arduous and painful and extraordinary and odd.

Things finally started to click for me I learned to Question Everything!

And I'm grateful for that moment because the dark years, the missing years, those years that are misty for me, do not go away. Not a single extended family member is aware of how things were for us. Most of them consider me in particular to be disrespectful, cruel, deceitful, perfidious, even profane. They do not know, or cannot know how victimized we were because they, too, are victims of that brainwashing, but they don't even know it. My sibs and I still struggle with this crap today in our forties and fifties.

 ***

But that skepticism and questioning didn't instantly remove religion from my life. It took me another fifteen years or so before I was able to climb out of the religious boat that I clung so desperately to. 
But I did it. The process of challenging all of that, of accepting small, incremental bits of reality seems like it took at least four years or so before the final hurrah of religion left my mind.

The reading, researching, talking, thinking, writing cycle went on for many years. When I read my journals and poetry from those years I still feel the specter of confusion and pain and anguish in which I was drowning in those days.  

I remember where that phrase came from.

I was working with an older guy who was very wise and kind and larger-than-life in my eyes. I didn't share my story with many people; I didn't share it with him. But in how he lived his life he sent out the phrase 

Question Everything!  

and I figured out how to do that in my own life.

It changed everything! Questioning Everything brought me into the light! It is why I am honest-to-a-fault. It is also why it is freaky hard for me to make some types of decisions, because I can so deeply and intimately see both sides to an issue. It is why honesty is essential to me. It is why I will always speak the truth, however alone I am in that. It is why I will stand alone in my integrity. It is why I am so weird and timorous at times. It is why I will raise my children in reality. It is why I am perceptive and intuitive at the same time that I am unaware of things.  I question everything.

Try it.
Try Questioning Everything and see what happens.
You might just learn something...about yourself and about this amazing world in which we live.

Question Everything!

So, do you have a motto? 

..................
You might also enjoy these posts:
My SUPER Super-Sensitive Kid
100 Years from Now it Won't Matter
Lessons I Have Learned as a Mother
This I Believe