Post by oldestof13 on Nov 12, 2009 12:09:29 GMT -5
I just wanted to pop in and say hi. I'm the oldest of 13 children, and while as Catholics my parents would not have described themselves as QF, throughout periods of my childhood and teen years we were raised pretty much like QF children. Homeschooled, isolated, fearfully religious, the whole shebang.
While my parents have thankfully mellowed in some ways (the denim jumpers are gone, though they still require more modern modest dress) they let the teenagers do their hair and wear some makeup at 16, they're now allowed to watch more movies, etc) I still struggle watching them struggle financially, academically, and health-wise. My mother had her 13th baby last year and there is no end in sight as she is still quite young. (She married at 18) And they are so sad about me, living in sin with my long-term boyfriend, and pretty close to an atheist. I am especially puzzling to them because I was so so so so religious as a child. I planned to become a nun, I went to daily mass, I prayed with the best of them. I even used to loiter around shady groves just in case I was going to have a vision, and stay up late at night, crying and praying fearfully for the souls of my grandparents, whom I was convinced were going to hell for not sharing our faith.
I was bitter in my teenage years because I spent so much of my childhood covering up our failings, taking care of sick screaming babies when my mother just couldn't handle it, feeling isolated and angry and strange and so so guilty for feeling that way. I had some serious mental health problems that went unacknowledged and untreated for years because there wasn't enough time or money to notice or address them. A suicide attempt and several years of therapy later, I'm in a much better place, but it was hard going there for a long time. It helps a lot to read different point of views from people who came from a similar world. You can feel so alone. Sometimes it feels like nobody could know what it is like, growing up in an ultra-religious, ultra-conservative family except that family. And you certainly can't talk to them about it. So thanks for this community.
Though my family is very loving and they haven't shut me out, it does hurt to feel so isolated from them, because in many ways I am. Even my mother has said so. I recently read Joe Bageant’s Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. and there's a quote from it I'd like to share because it sums up my relationship with my family better than I ever could.
While my parents have thankfully mellowed in some ways (the denim jumpers are gone, though they still require more modern modest dress) they let the teenagers do their hair and wear some makeup at 16, they're now allowed to watch more movies, etc) I still struggle watching them struggle financially, academically, and health-wise. My mother had her 13th baby last year and there is no end in sight as she is still quite young. (She married at 18) And they are so sad about me, living in sin with my long-term boyfriend, and pretty close to an atheist. I am especially puzzling to them because I was so so so so religious as a child. I planned to become a nun, I went to daily mass, I prayed with the best of them. I even used to loiter around shady groves just in case I was going to have a vision, and stay up late at night, crying and praying fearfully for the souls of my grandparents, whom I was convinced were going to hell for not sharing our faith.
I was bitter in my teenage years because I spent so much of my childhood covering up our failings, taking care of sick screaming babies when my mother just couldn't handle it, feeling isolated and angry and strange and so so guilty for feeling that way. I had some serious mental health problems that went unacknowledged and untreated for years because there wasn't enough time or money to notice or address them. A suicide attempt and several years of therapy later, I'm in a much better place, but it was hard going there for a long time. It helps a lot to read different point of views from people who came from a similar world. You can feel so alone. Sometimes it feels like nobody could know what it is like, growing up in an ultra-religious, ultra-conservative family except that family. And you certainly can't talk to them about it. So thanks for this community.
Though my family is very loving and they haven't shut me out, it does hurt to feel so isolated from them, because in many ways I am. Even my mother has said so. I recently read Joe Bageant’s Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. and there's a quote from it I'd like to share because it sums up my relationship with my family better than I ever could.
Only another liberal raised in a fundamentalist clan can understand what a strange, sometimes downright hellish circumstance it is — how such a family can despise everything you believe in, see you as a humanist instrument of Satan, yet still love you and be right there for you when your back goes out or a divorce shatters your life. How they can never fail to invite you to the family’s Thanksgiving dinner.
It must be plain that I do not find much conversational fat to chew around the Thanksgiving table. Politically and spiritually, my family and I may be said to be dire enemies. Love and loathing coexist. There is talk but no communication. At times it seems we are speaking to one another through an unearthly veil, wherein each party knows it is speaking to an alien. There is a sort of high, eerie, mental whine in the air. This is the sound of mutually incomprehensible worlds hurtling toward destiny, passing with great psychological friction, obvious to all yet acknowledged by none.
After a lifetime of identity conflict, I have come to accept that these are my people — by blood, even if not politically or spiritually. I have prayed with them, mourned with them, and celebrated their weddings. I share their rude tastes and humor, and I am marked by the same fundamentalist God-instilled self-loathing. No matter how much I may change or improve my condition, I cannot escape their pathos. I go forward, yet I remain. I wait anxiously and strive for change, for relief from what feels like an increased stifling of personal liberty, beauty, art, and self-realization in America. They wait in spooky calmness for Jesus.
It must be plain that I do not find much conversational fat to chew around the Thanksgiving table. Politically and spiritually, my family and I may be said to be dire enemies. Love and loathing coexist. There is talk but no communication. At times it seems we are speaking to one another through an unearthly veil, wherein each party knows it is speaking to an alien. There is a sort of high, eerie, mental whine in the air. This is the sound of mutually incomprehensible worlds hurtling toward destiny, passing with great psychological friction, obvious to all yet acknowledged by none.
After a lifetime of identity conflict, I have come to accept that these are my people — by blood, even if not politically or spiritually. I have prayed with them, mourned with them, and celebrated their weddings. I share their rude tastes and humor, and I am marked by the same fundamentalist God-instilled self-loathing. No matter how much I may change or improve my condition, I cannot escape their pathos. I go forward, yet I remain. I wait anxiously and strive for change, for relief from what feels like an increased stifling of personal liberty, beauty, art, and self-realization in America. They wait in spooky calmness for Jesus.
It makes me really happy to see members of my generation get out. Like you, I'm an agnostic living with my boyfriend (or have been and will be once I'm finished with my year abroad for grad school) and disappointing my mother. I was one who used to contemplate suicide a lot, but never attempted it - I think even this ultimate distress signal would fail to get through to my mother, because I'm getting a cold shoulder from her that I didn't believe was possible before. She has quite literally written me off the book of life, so to speak - all but actually disowned me.