Things I Remember

It’s been about four years now since I left the church I grew up in, three years since I’ve left the institutionalized church. At first, I thought it would just be for a while, just give myself time to heal or be angry or whatever I needed. Now that it’s been a few years, I think this is going to be more permanent than I thought it was originally.

So what have I done over the past four years? Have I healed? I’ve gotten angry, very angry, I know that for sure. I’ve gone through a year and a half solid of counseling, and a few random month or two long sessions when things got bad again. I eventually had to pretty much mentally separate myself from everything that happened in my church, and in doing so, I actually forgot most of it. I couldn’t easily tell you what happened or why my family finally left, why I finally left altogether. What I can tell you is it was traumatic, it was abusive, it was scary, and I came away feeling wounded and bloody. I can tell you I cried myself to sleep almost every night from the time I was fifteen til I made myself stop crying when I was sixteen and thereby forgot how to cry altogether. I can tell you my parents were both a mess, that they were depressed, and that my older brother buried himself in his relationship with his girlfriend, and my little sister was sheltered and still doesn’t understand why we are all so bitter and hurt. I can tell you about a three year law suit against my family that sucked our finances and our emotions hard core. I can tell you a counselor once told me I’m one of the angriest women he’s ever counseled.

But up until just recently, so many details have faded away, forgotten in the back, dusty corners of my mind. I suppose I pushed them there – I hated thinking about it anymore. I just wanted to live my life again, breathe again, laugh again, and take lots of pictures. So I did. That didn’t bode so well for me in the end either. I came to college, and while I love it here, I realize that what the world has to offer me now doesn’t suit. It’s left me feeling more empty in the end. The sex, the drugs, and alcohol, the nicotine and caffeine. None of it makes me feel any more whole. For a while, I felt like it was a little more honest than what I had found in the church, because at least these people were honest about being fucked up or fuck ups. But in the end, we’re all still hiding behind these masks as much as churchies hide behind their hymnals and podiums and pews.

I had to go back to my church a few months ago for a wedding. I wouldn’t have gone if they bride hadn’t asked me to be one of her bridesmaids. The smell of the place brought back a lot of memories that have haunted my thoughts for three months. Things are starting to come back to me that I haven’t thought about for a few years, things I couldn’t have recalled if someone told me they had happened.

But I’m starting to remember . . .

Random things, but important things . . .

I remember someone saying they’d rather have my family’s blood run through their aisles than have us in fellowship.

I remember the pastor’s sermons telling us we should be like the other brother in the story of the prodigal son instead of the prodigal son.

I remember trying to get help and being told I shouldn’t be angry, I should reach out to my narcissistic pastor’s children, I should be the bigger person because it was the right thing to do.

I remember in senior high, being told that the parents of the junior highers didn’t really want me to talk to their kids, basically because of who my parents were.

I remember when things were really bad, my youth pastor decided to have a “mediation” with in my youth group, because we all were siding with our parents and had become very divided. This mediation involved sitting me sitting in the youth center, listening to all my old friends talk about my family, and not being allowed to leave. It involved me crying as I left and no one saying a word to me.

I remember the church paying 10 grand for a professional mediation group to come in and assess our church. I remember going to talk to them and feeling validated for once when the guy told me they took the teenager’s words more seriously than anyone else’s cuz we were usually the most honest. I remember them ripping my pastor apart, telling the church he should never be a pastor again. And the church kept him for a few more months. The denomination has kept him for the past four years in a church somewhere else.

I remember how quickly I was dropped by my closest friends when the pastor blackballed my family.

I remember one day, Lexi was my best friend. And the next, she wouldn’t look at me.

I remember trying so hard to be the Good Christian Girl I thought I had to be to be loved and be “righteous”. It meant not being angry, not being bitter, and “letting go”. That plan failed as I withdrew all my feelings deep with in myself. It grew into an overwhelming rage that ultimately has injured me more than anything else in my life.

More than anything, I’m beginning to remember the people who stood up for my family and myself. I feel a loyalty to them that is unexplainable, even though for the most part, I don’t have much a relationship with them anymore either.

I remember a man who was a second father to me telling me he would do anything for my family, that he would try to make things right. He became an elder, and when they told him to brush my family under the carpet, he did.

I remember the dreams I used to have. Dreams filled with demonic figures, satanic figures, dreams that kept me up longer than my tears. Dreams that terrified me. Dreams that made sleep on the bathroom floor, sick, on more than one occasion. Dreams filled with violence and intense anger.

I remember all of this now. I had forgotten most of it. I don’t know why I feel like a veil is being removed now. Maybe I needed the years of forgetting it so I could heal a little bit. I think the real healing will begin now, as the layers are peeled back. I think I’m ready for it. I’m ready to be done with what the world has to offer me in sharp broken pieces. I’m ready to find something real and solid, something that’s not destructive like the church and faith I was in.