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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jun 10, 2010 8:25:00 GMT -5
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Post by juliacat on Jun 10, 2010 8:53:54 GMT -5
How so many people can believe so much nonsense, without even noticing how much it hurts the people they ought to love the most, is beyond me!
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phatchick
Junior Member
Medicated for Your Protection
Posts: 80
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Post by phatchick on Jun 10, 2010 9:22:54 GMT -5
I have no words {{{{{Sierra}}}}}
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Hillary
Full Member
"Quivering Daughters ~ Hope and Healing for the Daughters of Patriarchy" Now Available!
Posts: 129
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Post by Hillary on Jun 10, 2010 10:20:14 GMT -5
Oh my heart hurts. {{Sierra}}
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Post by kiery on Jun 10, 2010 10:23:01 GMT -5
(((HUG))) omg. soooo sorry!
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flah
New Member
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Post by flah on Jun 10, 2010 11:14:08 GMT -5
Holy cow, where's my child, I need to hug the stuffing out of him. I feel so sorry that your mother was under such a heavy hand of depression and delusion and basically robbed your childhood.
{{hugs}} (And trust me, I'm not the huggy type.)
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maicde
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by maicde on Jun 10, 2010 11:16:55 GMT -5
Sierra, unbelievable, just unbelievable. There are no words to express the depth of sadness that I felt when I read your post, how you must have been hurting as a child and the depth of that hurt. I know that to be accepted and loved is what children want and need the most, to be loved and accepted for their BEING. The only conclusion that I come to (and forgive me if I'm wrong as I'm not trying to put anyone down or diminish anyone) is that your mother might have been suffering with some sort of mental illness. I can't even imagine the pain that was (perhaps inadvertently) inflicted on you. I am so sorry for the little girl in you that was wounded that way.
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Post by rosa on Jun 10, 2010 11:21:12 GMT -5
Sierra, this post just makes me so sad. Some people get lost in grief like that, but it sounds like instead of helping her heal, the church just made it worse and worse.
That belief that if you are good enough you will be healed/blessed with what you most want is so damaging.
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Post by hopewell on Jun 10, 2010 12:41:25 GMT -5
Such a sad story. Reminds me of my Mom going to the nursing home [two states away] to see her mother and not being allowed to see her till they reached my Uncle--he had been listed as an only child. My mother's family was very son-focused, too. So sad and so pointless. After all who births all those babies--the sons?
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Post by coleslaw on Jun 10, 2010 12:47:09 GMT -5
I wonder in reading this if your mom had some kind of "life script" that called for her to have One. Big. Disappointment, and if it hadn't been this, it would have been something else. My MIL used to tell stories of her every interaction with another person to fit the pattern of "someone tries to victimize MIL, MIL is persistent, MIL triumphs over her adversary", and it was interesting to hear how she made, say, the story of how an old school friend who worked in a dress shop let her buy a dress that wasn't on sale at sale price fit that pattern. Your mom seems to have done a similar kind of cut and paste job on her life to fit the pattern of barrenness.
Maybe if your brother had lived, he still would not have been the son she always wanted, due to some perceived deficit on his part. It's hard for children to fit into a role that was written before they were even conceived. Some do, by sheer luck, and most of us have parents who are content to rear the children they have rather than the ones they wished they had. I wish that had been the case for you.
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Post by Sierra on Jun 10, 2010 16:26:50 GMT -5
Thanks all for the comments. I'm really not sure how to comment further on this, because I honestly believe that my mother was blinded by grief and literally did not even see me for a while. I wasn't neglected. I was still fed and dressed and homeschooled and taken to play dates. In processing her grief, though, she eventually turned to me as a friend rather than a daughter. I wonder in reading this if your mom had some kind of "life script" that called for her to have One. Big. Disappointment, and if it hadn't been this, it would have been something else. This shoe absolutely doesn't fit. My mother was convinced that God was going to rectify the situation. She was constantly anticipating a miracle. She wasn't using the miscarriage as a crutch for any lack of development in her own life. The anticipated 'promised son' bothered me more than the loss of the previous brother. The idea that we were all broken and waiting for a male child to save us made me feel totally helpless and irrelevant. As a child, I was totally unable to fulfill my mother's needs. And for most of my childhood I thought that my father shared her conviction, although he later told me he never cared whether he had a son or daughter. I actually do believe him on that. The church explicitly fed my mother's longing for a boy by insisting on old testament role models for women. The virtuous woman would be the one blessed with many sons. Daughters' names are rarely ever included in the Bible. It was implicit that having daughters indicated some sort of secondary status.
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Post by humbletigger on Jun 10, 2010 16:52:55 GMT -5
I am blown away, Sierra. I can't believe your mother, a woman herself, would not celebrate and cherish her daughter. Mental illness? Pffff. Uh, yeah. I am so very sorry you grew up invisible. And so very glad you have the strength to share your story today. Your gracious and kind words on this forum stand out and call for attention and respect. Thank you for surviving, and healing, and loving. You are amazing.
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Post by tapati on Jun 10, 2010 16:53:50 GMT -5
It is impossible to penetrate someone else's delusion if they are that far gone, but my heart aches for your younger self trying to say "You have me!" to someone who couldn't really see you (as the delightful person you are).
{{{hugs}}}
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Post by Sierra on Jun 10, 2010 17:10:32 GMT -5
Thank you, humbletigger and tapati. I can't believe your mother, a woman herself, would not celebrate and cherish her daughter. My mother was receiving the same messages I've mentioned before from our patriarchal church: women are simply not to be celebrated or cherished as more than 'jewels in the crown' of their men. Women existed to bear children, and their female children existed to bear more children. The only people who really did things (including things for God) were men, so it was more prestigious for a mother to have a son to bring her honour than a daughter. My mother did not cherish herself as a woman. She considered her own (Catholic) mother domineering and identified with her (passive) father. It was easy for her to buy Branham's line that women are manipulative, conniving and inherently inferior 'by-products' of men because she felt that the antagonist in her home was a woman. She did not devalue me as a person. My mother was not a bad mother. She devoted massive amounts of energy to my life: the biggest birthday parties of all of my friends, field trips and books we read together. The miscarriage was totally jarring, and the 'promised son' complex that developed afterwards was even more bewildering for me because she was not cold or neglectful. She was grieving, and her grief was intensified by the church telling her than only sons are valuable. There is no Branham quote or Bible verse I can provide to demonstrate that boys were valued over girls in our brand of quiverfull. It's more insidious than that. But I know that women who had more sons were implicitly considered more 'blessed'.
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Post by arietty on Jun 10, 2010 21:26:41 GMT -5
The church explicitly fed my mother's longing for a boy by insisting on old testament role models for women. The virtuous woman would be the one blessed with many sons. Daughters' names are rarely ever included in the Bible. It was implicit that having daughters indicated some sort of secondary status. When I read your blog post I felt that what your mom really needed was counseling and people around her who wanted to help her move out of her grief and into an engaged and happy life. Maybe she needed some meds too, to bump her out of this trench. If she had been in a more mainstream church she would have been encouraged to seek counseling but because she was in the Message her grief over "barrenness" and biblical longing for a son were confirmed to her as the place God wanted her to be. She started out where many women are, in grief at the loss of a child. But she had no healthy relationships to move her through that grief.
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em
Full Member
Posts: 176
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Post by em on Jun 10, 2010 21:35:22 GMT -5
Oh Sierra. How awful. Each segment of your story just breaks my heart more and more. I'm so glad that your life is a million times better and more happy now.
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Post by Ex-Adriel on Jun 10, 2010 22:50:14 GMT -5
I feel for you about the sons thing.
It's awful how something that's never even explicitly stated can have such an impact. Even without ever directly saying anything, it can be made very clear what your standing is inside a tight-knit church like that.
And unfortunately, women (and girl children) don't usually have a good standing at all. I always felt from the churches that my mother chose to go to, that the young girls were either actively being groomed (ick) in the case of the pretty or well-connected-family girls or completely ignored because they weren't able to bear children yet, therefore they weren't worth any time or attention.
Such a complete waste, and so hard to deal with when you're a child and you don't understand the messed-up grown-up reasons behind it.
Its worse when you get conflicting messages like what you say about your mom - that she cared for you and treated you well, but at the same time considered herself a barren woman. For me, a similar experience made everything disconnect in fundamental ways, because nothing linked together right. Sometimes and in some instances, things worked in one way, and sometimes and in other situations, it worked completely differently, and all of it was the way things were meant to be, even though the two ways seemed mutually exclusive.
It's hard to explain, and hard to remember.
I really feel for you when I read these entries of yours, but in some ways, I am really glad that you write them, because they are so similar in some ways to what I experienced as well. It's nice to know I have company in my crazy past. (as sad as I am that someone else has a crazy past - does that make sense?)
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Post by arianadream on Jun 11, 2010 3:11:38 GMT -5
This story makes me feel so very sad. I wonder what might have happened and how your mother might have reacted if she'd had another child who turned out to be another daughter...
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Post by grandmalou on Jun 11, 2010 8:56:39 GMT -5
How so many people can believe so much nonsense, without even noticing how much it hurts the people they ought to love the most, is beyond me! Sierra; Thanks so much for this post. And (((HUGS))) for you, and for that little girl lost. This is not just a "churchy" thing. Men have been more in favor of boys than girls as far back as I can remember. In the secular realm, when I was pregnant with Jim...before the days of ultrasound, his dad tried to kill him by several different means...near-drowning of me, punching me in the stomach, etc. After he was born he came to see "His Son". Telling me he had no idea he would have a boy, since all four of his older siblings had way more "STINKIN' GIRLS" than boys. Yes, it hurts to be reminded verbally or otherwise that "we women" are inferior...
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Post by krwordgazer on Jun 12, 2010 18:10:05 GMT -5
And still in many corners of the world, infant girls are killed or left to die. And those that survive are taught they have no value in and of themselves, but only as they relate to men. Sierra, I can only say what others have said. My heart hurts for you, reading that segment.
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Post by corardens on Jun 14, 2010 7:43:13 GMT -5
So much hopelessness. I am so sorry you dealt with it.
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