Dreams that Still Haunt Me

I had a dream that still haunts me and reoccurs from time to time, often with some different forms, or I'll just see flashes of the scene, but it still comes and goes, as it has for years.
In the dream, I walk into a sanctuary. The pews are stained so dark, they're black, and everything is covered in a layer of dust. The place has a smell that is a mixture of an old church (anyone has to know what that smell is) and evil, like rotting blood or dead bodies. The ceiling is open all the way up, and the same dark stain coats the rafters and the walls.

I stand off to one side, to the right in the back, under the choir loft. Someone is standing with me, but I don't know who it is. I never look. I believe it is a man, but I don't know who he is. I get the impression that he's from my more recent life. He's from my now. He doens't know of my past, and he doesn't understand what is going on.

There is another man standing center stage, rage pouring from his being. My family is standing in front of him, namely my parents, and this man, this pastoral-like figure, is pure evil and full of fury. I stand in the back, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything, while this evil man brutally slaughters my family in front of me, letting their blood spread all over. The figure next to me doesn't understand anything that's going on. I want to scream. My body shakes. My body shakes when I can't cry. My body shakes when I'm furiously angry. I look down at my legs. My thighs are splitting like ball park franks with huge horizontal slices that bleed profusely. I'm trying to pull down my skirt over the wounds, trying to cover them up and hide them while watching my family being killed. Figure next to me is confused. He's looking at my legs, taking hold of my elbow, saying my name. I don't know what to say to him. The pastor's eyes are full of evil fury and he looks at me.

I wish I had had this dream three years ago, even two years ago. I wish this didn't still haunt me. I had this dream about three months ago. It's one of many like it, though this is the most detailed dream I can remember anymore.

I don't understand it, and I'm not too sure I'd even want to. What I do know is at some point, while we were in the process of leaving my XC, someone spoke to my mom and said that the congregation would rather see my family's blood in their aisles than have us back in fellowship. I know that makes the dream seem pretty obvious. But it's been five years, and I've moved on from so much of it, you'd think I'd be able to get to a point where I at least wasn't still having the dreams.

Do spiritual wounds, such as the ones so many of us carry, ever really heal? I don't think time heals things like this.

I'll be honest, I've tried to leave and ignore so much of it, so much of my faith even. I closed my eyes to spiritual things a long time ago because I was so weary and beaten down, and so young, I just didn't want to deal anymore. I left my town and the life I've been living has barely lined up with the perfect little christian girl I was before. I honestly don't regret most of it . . . but I thought once I wasn't immersed in that church anymore, in all the evilness that was there and all the lies that were being told, I thought once I was free from those bonds, the dreams would stop and I would heal.

Apparently, I was wrong.

My "new" church

It's finals week at my school, and I really should be doing lots of work, writing papers, and studying right now, but I'm so burned out, and I just want to write something for myself right now.

I'm moving back home on Friday for four months. I remember this time last year. I was exhausted and burned out like I am now, and just wanted to relax. The problem was I had in a sense "run away" from my home town a year early, skipped my senior year of high school, because I had to get away from everything that had happened with my church. Two years ago, my family was still undergoing a lawsuit via my oh-so-lovely narcicistic pastor, the people from my church treated my parents like shit but were sickly sweet to me (as though I was too young to know what was going on or to draw conclusions about things on my own), and I felt like I was suffocating. I went a very small Christian school that was overflowing with either people from my exchurch or people who knew people from my exchurch. At that point, I was so bitter against institutionalized religion and churches, and the Christian school did nothing to help with their intense legalism. I applied to college a year early, minus the high school diploma or GED entirely, and got accepted to a decent private college with almost half the tuition covered in academic scholarshihp and my teachers and principles told me I was doing the "wrong thing, going against God's will for my life and making a mistake." I was done with them at that point. I left that institution as well, hurt and disappointed in the Christians I had trusted for so long.

I know now that I could not be here if it's not what God wanted for me. I have excelled where I'm at now, and I'm doing what I really want to do.

Going back home last summer was hard. The only job I could get meant spending a lot of time waiting on and serving the churchies from my XC (exchurch), and I had to work with one of the students (the son of an elder) as well. I was miserable and depressed and angry. My parents continued their habit of dumping everything on me: their frustrations about the lawsuit, their depression at the loss of so many friends, my dad's pain over the loss of his closest friends. They told me what people were still saying, what people thought we should do. Told me that Jack, an elder who I trusted so much, and who even stood by us through a lot, thought we were doing something almost evil by having left the church and holding a very small Bible study in our home. I was told I needed to get back into a church, "find God again", whatever the hell that means.

I started pulling away from everything and everyone. By the end of the summer, I had a few fights with my parents, explained a lot to them about who I am now and where I'm coming from, and things got better. Regardless, going back again is still stressful and I'm scared.

Completely honesty here: I'm a Bad Christian. I've done a lot of things I know I probably shouldn't have done since I left my church and school and hometown. I don't go to church and don't want to. I don't participate in any kind of Bible study or Christian group. I smoke. I drink. I lost my virginity to a guy who didn't love me then and still doesn't, I swear quite a bit. I refuse to say that this stuff doesn't need to change. I refuse to say that I didn't make mistakes and that I don't regret a lot of it.

But I flat out, completely, 100% refuse to say that I do not have a relationship with the God I've discovered since I left. This God guy, what I've discovered about him is that he's always there. He's been there when I've blackout from all the vodka, he was there when I crawled into bed with the wrong man, he was there when I sat on the stoop of my dorm in the middle of the night and asked "where are you?", he's here with me now. And somehow, I don't know how, but I think he likes me.

I used to hide behind this "good Christian girl" image, and oh, was I ever the good Christian girl. Bible cover and promise wring in tote all the time, I didn't do anything wrong on the surface. I wasn't me. I wasn't being true to myself. I was doing everything I was told I was supposed to do. I was "having visions" and saying the right prayers and being thankful and all, but it wasn't me at all. I had this fake like relationship with him that wasn't honest. Deep down, I was angry, especially between the ages of 15-um, now. I had this ugly, ugly anger inside me, stemming from all these "you should do this, pray like that, God won't like you if you do this, he'll be angry if you do that", all this goddamn hypocracy. I couldn't handle it.

Now, still uninvolved in any kind of organized group that meets to talk about God at all, I think my relationship with him is possibly more real than ever, even if it is just kind of starting out again.

I think in a way, maybe I was lukier than my parents through all of this. I had to grow up faster than I should have, had to leave a year early (I'll never forget my dad on the phone with an elder who finally realized we did nothing wrong; the guy asked my dad what he could do to make it better, and my dad said "give me that year with my daughter back;" break my heart), had to deal with adult situations at a young age that shouldn't have been put on my plate. I should be angry, I should be better, hell, I should be fucked up.

But I'm 19 years old and I'm free. The bondage that was my church, those chains are off my hands, and everytime someone tries to slap them back on, they won't stick. Yeah, I'm still bitter, and it's hard to move on, but I'm still free from the lies. I know that I don't have to be who I used to be to be loved or even liked by this Godguy I know now. I don't have to pretend.

And I think I've finally figured out what all the "rules" I was taught in church were all about. The "no sex, drugs, alcohol, etcetcetc," I don't think it's really about this superstitious ''God won't love you anymore" or "you'll just make him angry" thing anymore. I don't think it's about "do better, try harder." It's more about me. Ok, that sounds selfish, I know. But I think Godguy was just trying to keep me safe.

Cuz the sex is great, but right now, I'm alone, and since I've had that, I feel like I lack that more than ever. If fulfills and feels great at the time, and it feels great as long as your with the person. But no long term committment means lots of pain. It means being alone for the bad shit that comes with sex, like the pregnancy test you have to have your friend help you pick up cuz you're boyfriend is out of the picture. It means seeing someone and hurting, because they knew you more intimately than anyone ever has, and now he's knowing someone else that intimately, and you're alone.

And the alcohol -- while, again, fun at the time -- just makes you sick and depressed the next morning. It means pictures you don't remember being taken and people you don't remember meeting or kissing or dancing with.

And the drugs just become another thing to be dependent on. Another replacement for all the bad shit you went through before.

The smoking just replaced the cutting and makes me cough.

And I know I was told all this, and maybe I just wasn't listening at the time. But it was so wrapped up in the shoulds and shouldn'ts of my hypocritical Christian culture that I hated the rules. Cuz the same people who were telling me I shouldn't do it because God said I shouldn't were the same people who were cheating on their spouses and relying on that bottle of whisky to get through the day. And the guy who told my parents how to raise their children, it was his daughter who barricaded herself in a building after running away and tried to hurt herself and would only let me in.

So, yes, I learned all this the hard way, and I will never claim to be a perfect Christian or person, and hell, I'm still trying to figure stuff out right now, like how to give up new addictions, and what to do now that the boyfriend is calling again. I've made mistakes and I'm dealing with the consequences.

But I am free. Really I am. The friends I have found are some of the coolest people I know. And none of them is perfect. We're all pretty fucked up. But most of them know this Godguy in some way, even if they don't call him by the same name I do (what does a name matter?) and their honest with themselves and with him about who they are, about their hurts and pains.

And it is here that I've found my church. No small group needed, no structure at all. Nothing organized. Just the people God has led into my life for the moment, and honesty, and him. I realize in two more years, when college is over, I may lose all of that and be back at square one with church.

But for now, this is all I need.

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.