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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Apr 8, 2010 17:18:23 GMT -5
Kiery ~ I'm curious to know if you read the Bluedorn brothers' Fallacy Detective books in your home school? tinyurl.com/y9zvcfy They are fairly popular ~ and, I think, actually quite good for teaching critical thinking skills. I used to read the logic books during our family devotion times ~ under the guise of teaching thinking skills to the children, I was actually hoping that Warren would learn the lessons in logic! And he did ~ at least enough to encourage me to have hope that some day conversations with him might not always be an excercise in sheer frustration. (Warren always learned just enough to give me hope and string me along.) Ironically, I wouldn't be surprised if the popularity of classical education (grammar, logic, rhetoric) among homeschoolers will provide the rational basis for QF kids to reject the ideology and lifestyle. The weird thing to me though is that I've talked to, and corresponded with, Harvey Bluedorn ~ and for all his emphasis on logic ~ his application of reasoning is fairly unsophisticated when it comes to doctrine. Wish I still had the email exchange between us on the topic of eternal damnation and whether a loving God would actually consign His creatures to Hell ~ his argument basically boiled down to "don't question God ~ you're just a pea brain and can't possibly understand ~ just trust and obey."
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Post by kiery on Apr 8, 2010 18:22:59 GMT -5
We used it a little in speech class, and I borrowed my debate partner's copy. We also did Chris Jeub, Argumentation and Debate, and Secrets of the Great communicators. Really, it's because I actually was given the ability to learn and use those skills that I stopped buying into it. I developed a brain! Unfortunately, my parents blame _debate_ for my leave-age and my sisters won't get a taste of it.
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Post by arietty on Apr 8, 2010 21:05:22 GMT -5
Whatever it was that was driving me to take good care of the house and obsess over nutritious and home made everything when I was QF.. well that is well and truly gone and a great apathy has settled in its place, LOL. I realize I will never recapture that old drive, it's just GONE. Lots of stuff I just did without thinking is pure drudgery to me now. This has happened to me too, Arietty ~ and I am not sure if it's such a good thing ~ especially with so many kids still at home. It used to be that every little detail of my life was eternally significant ~ that's a very powerful motivator and it is what got me up out of bed all those years when I was so incredibly exhausted and worn out from perpetual childbearing. Having experienced such a noble and worthy calling ~ I find that ordinary reasons for doing what needs done are not nearly motivating enough to get me going. I'm struggling with taking care of the responsibilities I heaped on myself when I had ultimate purpose for doing so ~ Here's something I wrote to my uncle early in our correspondence (I've probably shared this before): If I did not believe in Eternity and that one day I will give an account for my life ~ I wouldn't do all that I do. Why would I? The crap and the creeps of the world have been too close ... I am convinced that without God (capital G) and His word to make sense of it all, and the hope of redemption and the promise of ultimate justice and the indwelling Holy Spirit to enable me to carry on ~ I would give up. It's a scary thought ~ but sometimes, I think this really is happening to me ~ I want to give up ~ and the only reason I haven't is because my kids are all still young and there's nobody except me to take care of them. With the health problems I've been experiencing recently, someone asked me if I have written out a will ~ "just in case." I do have a will, though it hasn't been updated since the divorce, and truthfully, I'm fairly hesitant about taking care of that ~ because I'm a little worried that if I go to the trouble to ensure that the kids will be taken care of and provided for in the event of my death ~ then next time I get hit with a bout of depression and anxiety, the one thing that so far has kept the suicidal thoughts at bay ~ fear of leaving my kids to fend for themselves ~ would no longer be there keeping me from the temptation to make a quick end of my troubles. Yikes, huh? This is why I'm back in counseling ~ and I'm even considering expending a bit of brain power on figuring out a new or modified "Something" to believe in ~ something to keep me going when I am so darned tired and feeling like my life is taking way too long. My encouragement to you Vyckie is that though the apathy about housework and other "womanly arts" has continued on a decade later I am happy and energized as a mom with my kids now. I once longed for community and then reeled from being ejected from the one I found.. but I have a new community now and it is my family. Once the kids started growing up the bonds really strengthened and we are our own strong culture and community now. Having a big family has been a strength that has helped me greatly in having to live outside of having a vision. However when I was where you are right now, a couple years out, kids in adolescence dealing with their immediate past.. well I felt like absolute shit. Being a mom was just more drudgery a lot of the time and of course there was now no vision to spur me on.. just the common sense of needing to take care of all these other people. Here's how I coped, some good and some bad: Drank. Okay that was fun but I got over it in about a year, lol. I don't recommend this to anyone with an addictive personality, I have never been able to get addicted to anything so I am really missing that gene. But it WAS fun, I enjoyed just indulging myself. Found some people to go out with now and then and let loose, though I am not friends with any of them now. It was also a bit of the old missed-my-youth thing, because I really did miss it having married so early. Spent 10 million hours on the internet. I picked up interests I had had 20 years ago and threw myself into online communities that centered on them. That was also a missed-my-youth thing because it pained me so to have let these things go out of my life because they were not Godly or because my husband hated them. This was good for me because I was able to do it for free and at home. I made some great friends that are still my friends today. Read a lot of feminist blogs and listened to a lot of woman centered/lesbian music. This kind of gave me back an identity as a WOMAN, not as an adjunct to a man and not as a vagina shaped connecting piece in God's grand plan for man's dominion over the earth. This has had a lasting and positive effect on my life. Here's a funny thing though--sometimes I wish I was a lesbian (which wouldn't be difficult for me) and I want to slap myself because I realize part of the appeal is being a part of that subculture. Yes the LURE of the subculture is strong and it is really the same intense feelings of appeal as I once felt towards QF life. Noticing this does help keep me in check! [DISCLAIMER: Yes I know there is no one lesbian subculture, please do not derail the thread pointing this out to me.] So that is how I spent the years immediately following my expulsion from my church, dismantling of my belief system and divorce. I admire YOU Vyckie because you are doing something incredibly positive here with NLQ and the book and Take Heart. You are stepping outside of your own problems and making a real difference in the world. This is such a wonderful thing and not something I could have done myself. The level of burnout after years and years of running on adrenaline (that high you will NEVER get back) should not be underestimated. I had anxiety attacks, depression and intense apathy for a long time. I had to get used to normal living, living from day to day just doing stuff. Stuff that does not get you high because it is not a part of God's Divine Purpose For Eternity. It's a cultic mentality, fundamentalism, you are so deep into pursuing that high of MEANING that you lose all touch with reality. The reality that is filled with just ordinary stuff and things that have to be done and decisions that have no right or wrong way to go, that just ARE. So you are dealing with severe adrenaline burnout and trying to cope in this new, kinda meaningless world. It does get better and I have to say I cherish normal life now. I don't care that I will never get that drive back, reading this forum has helped me define what that was all about and I don't want it back any more. I accept my apathy, I think some of it is my normal nature and some of it is just where I've been dumped after those years of being driven and that's just the way it is now. Anyway.. I am so happy for you that you have a counselor. I always wanted to go to one but never had the money or people to mind the children. I hope you get a lot of it. I'm really writing this long post to you to just say--what is happening to you now is a normal response to leaving it all behind. You're in transition. Transition lasts longer than we want it to but it does pass.
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Post by musicmom on Apr 8, 2010 22:37:46 GMT -5
Arietty, Thank you SO much for this post. It really gives me so much hope. I am about 2 1/2 years now since my ex moved out and sometimes I wonder if I will ever get to the other side. Definitely, things are so much easier now, in so many ways. My kids are doing better. I am getting healthier. But the apathy and the dullness of life: that really takes some getting used to. Taking care of the needs of 9 people without any eternal significance...Where does the motivation come from? I mean, I do it. But it is so different. I used to be ON FIRE as a mother/homemaker. I was really really good at it. I made great meals every night. Now, we have take out probably 3 days a week and when I do make dinner, I put it on the table buffet style and we just casually eat and chat with whoever is there. And I just cannot make myself care more than that. I am getting to know my kids as people and enjoying the relaxed, real relationships we are building. That really encourages me, what you said about having that strength in your family now. I have moments of feeling that way even now. I have discovered feminism - finally. Read The Feminine Mystique and was like "wow, why didn't I read this 20 years ago???". I have certain feminst blogs I check every day. A part of me is getting much stronger - and I think it's the part of me figured it was safer to submit than it was to fight. I feel much more in solidarity with the rest of my sisters all over the world - as opposed to "well, I am a true woman because I am living God's plan". Haven't checked out feminist/lesbian music - any suggestions? Didn't get into the drinking, but I will confess an affair with a married man which I would guess might have served a similar purpose: finally being that rebellious teenager I'd never been able to be. Not that I'm proud of it, but it was a stage I guess. I don't recommend it. I realized that I didn't want any part of deceiving another woman. So, 2 years down, how many more to go? You're ten years down the road and you sound pretty darned good good for you!
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Post by dangermom on Apr 8, 2010 23:44:09 GMT -5
I don't really know anything about it, but you could always try Sarah McLachlan and the Indigo Girls. I love them (esp. Sarah, my favorite). Can you tell I was college-age in the early/mid 90's? ;D
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Post by coleslaw on Apr 9, 2010 4:15:54 GMT -5
There is a really good book I read during my divorce from ex-H called Transitions:Making Sense of Life's Changes by William Bridges that really helped me in the dark years after my divorce. The author's thesis is that all changes in life start with an ending: first an ending, then a fallow time, then the beginning of something new. We get in trouble when we try to start at the beginning without managing the ending first. I see there is a new edition available and you can get it on Kindle, too.
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