calulu
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Post by calulu on Oct 8, 2010 22:20:55 GMT -5
It's great that some of our marriages have survived leaving the cult like atmosphere of QF. My dear husband is the one that put an end to the madness and took us out. I was still drinking the koolaid for quite some time after leaving. But I see now he really did have our best interests at heart.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Mar 1, 2010 12:04:19 GMT -5
Arriety! Wonderful post! You really summed up how awkward, hard and strange it is leaving that lifestyle in a hurry. As sorry as I am to hear you got phone calls and snubs it's comforting to me to know I'm not the only one out there on the receiving end of harassment because I stopped cold turkey drinking the koolaid and toeing the line.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Jan 29, 2010 11:47:11 GMT -5
I find it interesting that good old Jim Bob says they were always prepared for something to go wrong. Whatever happened to all the bragging about trusting God they usually do?
The thing I find so disturbing about the Duggars is that they make Quiverful seem so mainstream and 'nice'. That's the danger, they make it look attractive, not cultish, no reality for most Quivering families is shown.
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calulu
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Barren
Jan 29, 2010 10:28:58 GMT -5
Post by calulu on Jan 29, 2010 10:28:58 GMT -5
Thanks everyone. This was something very difficult to share because how horrible the people at church acted.
My daughter is now a happy 18 year old who no longer has bouts of ITP. She gets shingles every couple of months, has IBS and the same sort of unnamed immune system illness as I. Even though her health isn't the greatest she goes to college full time and works as a bank teller. She is one of the great joys in my life.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Jan 27, 2010 15:03:23 GMT -5
All that blathering about how to tell a man where the freeway is without being authoritative over man is the very thing I gag on over the patriarchy movement. Hair splitting and silly.
I've always wondered if in the context of their own home and church where many of these guys insist on being the head if it's the only place in their lives where they aren't being bossed around. Sort of like you know what rolling downhill.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 28, 2009 21:59:12 GMT -5
Dear Body,
Never again will I doubt the signals you are sending me. I just found out that the knee we had xrayed at the hospital a few weeks ago is broken. You and I will have to have surgery next month and be dealing with crutches and the like. You told me, you kept insisting it was something more than a bruised knee like the ER doctor said.
I'm so sorry I doubted you.
Calulu
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calulu
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Posts: 76
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Post by calulu on Dec 25, 2009 12:50:58 GMT -5
My husband is officially my hero right now! After listening to me bitch and moan about the Locust Plague family he called the father and told him it was family only on Christmas Eve. We got to eat our own sausage balls, cheese bits, cookies and egg nog without the pious interjections of the freeloaders.
Of course I like to secretly think that the Freeloaders were coming up the sidewalk while the husband and son were watching to that Cheech and Chong movie in the study and ran away in righteous fear of cannibis jokes.
Merry Christmas everyone!
I'm still in my nightgown, still haven't put the ham in the oven and still am half asleep.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 24, 2009 19:45:30 GMT -5
I feel like crying tonight. Not so much because it's Christmas, but because I'm about to experience fundamentalism flashback..oddly on the heels of me thinking the last few weeks about how in my old church other men would try to control you and tell your husband how he should be forcing you to toe the line.
We used to know a couple with six children at our old church that would descend upon our home without warning and tell us that their children were hungry, pull up a chair to our table and expect to be fed. At first I went along with it, I wasn't about to see anyone's kids go without food, but soon it turned into three or four times a week and was seriously straining our food budget. I remember one long ago Christmas Eve when they arrived with no warning to our home where I'd laid out a huge spread of canapes, cider and cookies as is our family tradition. They inhaled our feast without a thank you.
But even worse was if I expressed any reluctance to host them, make any remark about being tired from work, etc, the husband of that family would berate me for working outside of the home or pull me aside to berate me for not being a gracious submissive helpmeet for my husband. He'd also tell my husband all sorts of junk about how to control me.
I finally got rid of the freeloaders when I put my foot down that they would be as welcome as the plague at my home. Their son had stole from us and the wife had apparently used me as an alibi for an affair she was having.
Ten years pass by and I am free of the freeloading family. Tonight they call while I'm working and tell the husband they want to stop by and 'visit'. I'm looking at my loaded dining room table filled with canapes and cookies and knowing it's about to be destroyed. Woe be to the husband the second he starts trying to tell me how a 'good' Christian wife behaves.
Just told my husband I want to break my foot off in his ass for agreeing to host these very conservative freeloaders. We're not part of their world in any way shape or form. I'm anticipating not only food inhaling and lectures but being told I'm going to hell on the eve of Christ's birth.
Merry F*cking Christmas.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 18, 2009 18:40:07 GMT -5
Is there a way to decode those images? I'm curious too.
When I emerged from the woods I was standing in front of a low slung Italian villa with a gleaming tiled roof and creamy walls. I came in through the arched doorway into a room in shades of rich golds, flooded with light but without much furniture. The floors were tiles in the shades as the walls and the walls were hung with old oil paintings from the Italian Renaissance era. In the rooms there wasn't much furniture at all, just the bare minimum and the rooms were either a shade of gold or bright blue with each being flooded with the brilliant golden light of Northern Italy. My favorite room was one holding a large spa tub with a huge window looking out over tall Italian cypress trees and hills. I felt very happy and relaxed to be there.
When I got to the Body Room it was different than the others. It was in soothing greens and blues, water-like colors and furnished more lavishly than the other rooms. It held sofas and chairs in plush moss green velvet and I got the vibe that this was a room to rest and rejuvenate in. The windows were lined up behind the sofa but not much of the light from the outside penetrated the inside of the room, the windows weren't large. But the view was spectacular, looked like I was looking down the hill to a lake or sea with blue waters.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 18, 2009 17:29:08 GMT -5
You tell and I'll tell....
Tapati amazing images! I love the one of you in the water!
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 18, 2009 14:03:08 GMT -5
Interesting that all you saw at first was black. I did the visualization thing this morning while thinking 'This is stupid." and was immediately struck by the house that emerged from the woods and by my own Body room. That was the thing that stands out to me from the Body Room, the windows were too small, there needs to be more natural light. There was plenty of light and windows in the rest of the house, just not in the Body Room.
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calulu
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Posts: 76
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Post by calulu on Dec 18, 2009 8:13:58 GMT -5
We've reached the end of the road with asthma treatments. Summer of 2008 they gave me weekly chemo treatments to dial back the asthma and it sort of worked. I finally got permission from the insurance company to go on Xolair injections, the treatment when you run out of treatments. My attacks have gone from life threatening attacks twice a week running to the ER with an epipen dangling from my leg to much milder as in use the nebulizer and go lay down for a few hours.
Tried to go to a concert recently, a smoke free one, and reacted too badly to the crowds chemicals. I did get to see the opening act before leaving so it is forward motion for me.
The surfing is a big love for me and one made problematic by the asthma. The summer I got chemo I went to the beach in one of those silly head to toe burkinis to surf and found I was too weak to get beyond the breakers. This summer I tried again and I'm very clumsy at it. But I did it. My goal is to be as natural at it as I used to be.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 17, 2009 21:06:18 GMT -5
My list
1. Stand up straight, stop slouching.. realize no one is really looking at your boobs and you're not an embarrassed 12 year old any longer trying to hide your breasts 2. Surfing - Build up the strength/balance again to ride the waves again this summer 3. Dance again - 4. To be in crowds again without fearing being set off into an asthma attack by others colognes and smoke 5. Go to an amusement park and ride all the rides 6. Ride horses without fear of asthma attack 7. Wear shorts this summer 8. pose naked for my husbands camera 9. Paint a nude self portrait 10. Go nude for an entire day in my home. 10.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 17, 2009 20:42:08 GMT -5
Tough assignment.. I had to think about it for a full day..
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Body,
You and I, we’ve been through some changes and some battles together, haven’t we? We’ve been through cancer and triumphed, we’ve lived with asthma and are still, aren’t we my old friend?
I love how complex and strong you can be. You thrill me every day when we go to the gym and we power lift together. It’s fun showing the gym rat types that we can lift so much weight even if we’re graying and not skinny. I like that you’re as feisty and adventurous as me. I like your curves and muscles. I like how in tune with the ocean you and I both are.
But… do you have to overreact to common things all the time like dog hair, foods and chemicals? I’m getting tired of being a science experiment over at NIH because you cannot handle much without shutting down my breathing. You’ve been doing that since day one just not so intensely until four years ago. I understand it, sort of, you started doing this at birth because we arrived unwanted and rejected by our mother. But why do you continue? We’re not rejected, we’re loved and cherished now.
And was it really necessary to start being so out of wack that we have no balance now, tripped over a box and ended up in the hospital the other night? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was to be continually questioned by first the nurses, then the social worker and finally the doctor about if I was drunk or high or lucid? The questioning about why our heart rate was so fast and blood so thinned. I emerged with my dignity bruised and a blood filled contusion behind our kneecap that had to be drained.
Calulu
Dear Calulu,
How about for many years you paid me no attention, you did the things that would hurt me, drugs, alcohol, no sleep, semi starvation. Then the endless pregnancy attempts that ended in miscarriages. For years I’ve been taken to the edge and what can I do but breakdown?
Thank you for starting to eat right and taken supplements and for the vigilance you’ve shown for the past four years to make sure I have what I need. Keep it up.
Your Body
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 15, 2009 12:55:58 GMT -5
Tapati, what a wonderful topic!
I've come to love my roundish shape so I'm not going to do the exercise but what taught me to love my body for it's own uniqueness was going to the gym daily. I started working out earlier this year for the first time in over twenty years.
I used to be a serious gym rat in my late teens early twenties, I modeled, I did a number of things you had to fit into that 'mold' to do. I hated, hated, hated it, felt like a whore, felt I never looked 'good enough' Looking back I can see I was quite lovely and a size six, there was nothing wrong with me. It was all in my head. I laugh at my younger stupider me now!
Going to the gym pushed all of my boundaries. I didn't start going to be 'skinny' but to improve my crappy lung function and develop a healthier post menopausal body. But the biggest challenge for me was walking into that locker room and undressing with everyone else. I felt I was going to be judged, shamed, put down for not being perfect. Years of fundie living had left me with some strange modesty issues.
What actually happened wasn't that at all. What happened was I realized I was just one of many with bodies that do not conform to societies false standards, that there's nothing wrong with my body. I've come to love it. I'm also intrigued by the bodies of others in there, I've started coming home and sketching out all the imperfect beauty I see in that locker room. It's been one of the most freeing revelations I've ever had.
And yes, I can now get nude in that dressing room without a thought for my body now.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Dec 12, 2009 20:33:56 GMT -5
This is probably going to sound cruel and heartless but it's not meant in that spirit... but.. if you keep rolling the reproductive dice something is bound to happen outside the norm eventually. The older the mother gets and the more babies the more the odds shift.
I've been wondering how on earth they are going to afford the hospital bills. Bills for a preemie can easily top a million dollars before this is over with. And that's not counting if poor Baby Duggar is one of the 60-40% that end up with ongoing health issues. Somehow I doubt that they have health insurance.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 30, 2009 18:53:56 GMT -5
Journey, bravata! It is hard to recognize it as abuse when you're in the middle of it.
I went through a time of being thought of as the bitter rebellious wife of a perfect guy when we first joined our fundamentalist church. None of them knew that Mr. Perfect was suicidally depressed and in therapy and drugs for years, misdiagnosed with a mental disorder instead of what it actually was, a tumor on a gland driving the depression. Every single day behind the Great & Powerful OZ curtain the church members saw I shored him up, did everything, tried to be a helpmeet and became more frustrated. Eventually his mask slipped and everyone knew what was going on and many people told me that they'd had no idea and how much they pitied judging me harshly.
Add in the Christian counselor who told me that his depression was due to my inability to be submissive enough. I don't know how I didn't jump off the tallest building in town or od I was so frustrated in so many ways in those years. Extreme frustration.
Sorry to thread jack.
Did your husband's mask ever slip publicly and if it did were you secretly glad?
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 13, 2009 9:28:27 GMT -5
My cable provider doesn't offer We. Itunes is the only place to get out outside of We right now.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 12, 2009 14:27:27 GMT -5
Finally downloaded this and watched it on Itunes. Still sorting out what I think but here are a few impressions. Holy crap! What a load of nonsense!
The Jeubs just rub me the wrong way and Rachel Scott completely contradicted just about everything she said on the Joy Behar show. Amazing.
I wish they would have addressed the Jeub daughters that have been cut off, if nothing else to show how rigid, unforgiving and judgemental that type of life can be.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 9, 2009 12:27:06 GMT -5
Angel that was very powerful and made me cry. I am so glad you survived and finally got to be who you are. I am sorry you had to endure that experience in your life but I'm hoping that you're able to take away something that will help you on your life journey from that time.
The thing with suicide is if you try it and fail it's almost a worse feeling than what drove you to it in the first place. I tried twice and waking up the next morning to even more feelings of failure, that 'oh crap I'm still alive, I'm still in pain' was the worst.
Cops, like social workers, sometimes get very burned out and cynical when all they're exposed to is the worse of human behavior and society. It's easy to slide into that mindset after a while. Sounds like what happened allowed him to see that he was in burn out.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 8, 2009 20:11:42 GMT -5
You break my heart every time I read or hear about the years of misery you endured, Vyckie. I'm glad you got out and I'm glad you've been so vocal about the abuses this movement engenders.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 7, 2009 13:29:05 GMT -5
I really got the impression that this woman is a wacko that only wanted to promote herself in a 'look at me I'm so so special and perfect'. It was so infuriating. Vyckie you did well in appearing composed and rational in contrast to someone with clear personality disorders.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 4, 2009 10:15:54 GMT -5
Oh man! Headcoverings..
Brings back bad memories of my fundie church. One faction of women started insisting that every female in the place wear head coverings 24/7. There ended up being a big church split over it. The covering folks went off and formed their very own Church of the Holy Basement because the pastor said that the scripture about headcoverings was just for that time in history, not for today's times.
Erika I'm so so sorry you had to deal with headcovering folks because if they were anything like the ones at my old church, and it sounds like they were, they were the most uptight prideful self righteous people on the planet. They also were super interested in making sure everyone at our church toed the line of behavior exactly. I remember once I had an allergic reaction to a food and my lips were swollen for a few days. One of the headcovering people started saying I was vain and had gotten lip injections. Eventually one of them confronted me and I started laughing so hard. I couldn't believe someone with misinterpret an allergy as plastic surgery.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 4, 2009 10:07:58 GMT -5
I could feel my blood pressure rise every single time Rachel Scott opened her mouth and uttered her happy shiny version of QF. I'm extremely disappointed that WE chose her for their show, she's not what I would consider a typical patriarchal QF type at all.
Vyckie you did well! You didn't lose your poise or cool and you were coherent. You didn't do what I probably would not have been able to resist, counter each of Rachel's similitudes with a reality check.
It's intimidating to do a show like that. Five years ago I came up against my kids school when the school called in the police to investigate a rumor on a kids blog and interrogated both of my kids and many others. The thing on the blog that was being investigated was some kid had posted a list of kids they did not like on their blog account. ALL the kids on that list were interrogated and treated like criminals and the school reacted as if this dislike list was a hit list. Long story short. I made a lot of noise about the stupidity of the school's reaction and was interviewed by most of the media outlets. I ended up as a guest on a segment of Bill O'Rielly show. It was a struggle to be natural with all the lights and whatnot. You handled it better than I.
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calulu
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Post by calulu on Nov 3, 2009 7:13:18 GMT -5
Wow, that's the same conclusion I came to recently about those jumpers and floor length skirts. It's a type of pride that makes the patriarchal people dress like that, not modesty nor humility. I kept one of each because I loved the fabric. Big mistake. I wore the skirt recently and it was an interesting experiment in how people treated me very differently.
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