I just need to let off some steam I think but it really makes me angry, my dad and I got into a fight about revelation, and it is so infuriating that when he's wrong, and he knows he's wrong, he will just shut up and do this I'm not arguing about this stance. My sister does that and it makes me so mad. She sent me an e-mail about a muslim store that was closed on 9-11 and basically all the things to get people stirred up against Islam and I sent her the snopes reply to it, she sent me an e-mail saying she wasn't going to argue it out, EVEN THOUGH SHE SENT ME THE E-MAIL TO BEGIN WITH!!!! It's like they don't care that I have an opinion, it's theirs or nothing. With my dad, though, it was like he was trying to imply I was stupid or something. He was trying to manipulate me into going to a pentecostal church. I refused to visit that church until they stopped preaching on revelation. I told him I was sick of the sensationalism. I'm just sick of them acting like Gods going to come back and reward them for being so self-righteous or something. I'm really sick of the fear. Now they are treating me like I am the heathen or something. I never renounced Christ. I just think their form of Christianity is BS. I asked my mom how a particular person in her church was doing (since he just lost his lifetime wife a month ago) and she replied, "he is just fine, he doesn't grieve like someone without hope would." She was pretty much implying I had no hope cause I said that the interpretation of revelation which says their is a rapture and such is crapt. I didn't drone on about it. I just told her it's stupid to think just because someone is a Christian that they won't be HUMAN.
This is not the first time that they have treated me like an outcast to try to manipulate me into believing like they do. In 2005 I developed panic attacks. Things in my life were not good at the time, I was engaged to a guy who pretty much saw me as his sex object, I had just remembered most of my abuse, and my grandfather had died the year before and the grief from that was still fairly overwhelming. I was flipping out about what to do with my relationship and getting ready to graduate from college, trying to work an (unpaid) internship and work a full time job at the same time, no thanks to any support from my father who refused to support me getting a degree in sociology. I had been out of church for 5 years, I had never even heard of this website (we had dial up and its hard to do anything with that) at the time nor did I really have any friends that could understand what leaving pentecostalism must be like. I was already in counseling from the sexual abuse, which was taking almost everything out of me, and I'm sure that the counselor I was seeing wouldn't understand religous abuse, or at least the ills that pentecostalism could befall you. Most counselors want you to have some sort of spirtuality and mine thought it was great I wanted to go to church.
I just remember being in the same ICU that I watched my grandfather die in (my dad was visiting someone from church) and hyperventalating. The woman in ICU asked what was wrong and my dad interjected "she just needs God back in her life." The fear and him saying that are what drove me right back into pentecostal church. I was just looking for something to numb the pain, to make the fear go away. It did, at a price. In all honesty if I were to choose whether I wanted to be a christian or not, I would NOT be. I don't like it that I have homosexual friends that are told they either can't be in a relationship or they will go to hell. I don't like feeling bad that my husband and I lived together before we got married (so I could live in an air conditioned house and not have panic attacks, since my father refused to replace our air conditioner). I hate feeling like I can't hang out with certain people or have cable or listen to secular music, and I know those are not technically sins but in my head that is how Christianity presents itself, there is never being human or real, you follow rules. Even St. Paul laid down some rules for the christians of that day to live by. But do I leave christianity, NO, why? because of the fear. Only the fear. Thats why I do practically anything. Because of fear. And who put that fear there. The Pentecostals. Now I am sitting here and the last thing I want to do is run back to that hell hole, but I can feel the fear creeping back in. Last night I drove past the hospital and I could feel the fear there, what I do I do if I need to go. If I don't have people who can "pray down the house" I could die there.
Did I mention that I don't trust people, particularly medical professionals. And why is that, because I was molested, and my parents willingly ignored it. They thought if they prayed enough that I would be healed, I didn't need counseling, nor would they pay for me to have it, or for that matter even stop the abuse. They thought if I saw a counselor, they might fill my head with dangerous ideas. I hate the fear they left, and now they are trying to do it again, but talking about it seems to make me feel better. I hope this time I've left for good.
This is not the first time that they have treated me like an outcast to try to manipulate me into believing like they do. In 2005 I developed panic attacks. Things in my life were not good at the time, I was engaged to a guy who pretty much saw me as his sex object, I had just remembered most of my abuse, and my grandfather had died the year before and the grief from that was still fairly overwhelming. I was flipping out about what to do with my relationship and getting ready to graduate from college, trying to work an (unpaid) internship and work a full time job at the same time, no thanks to any support from my father who refused to support me getting a degree in sociology. I had been out of church for 5 years, I had never even heard of this website (we had dial up and its hard to do anything with that) at the time nor did I really have any friends that could understand what leaving pentecostalism must be like. I was already in counseling from the sexual abuse, which was taking almost everything out of me, and I'm sure that the counselor I was seeing wouldn't understand religous abuse, or at least the ills that pentecostalism could befall you. Most counselors want you to have some sort of spirtuality and mine thought it was great I wanted to go to church.
I just remember being in the same ICU that I watched my grandfather die in (my dad was visiting someone from church) and hyperventalating. The woman in ICU asked what was wrong and my dad interjected "she just needs God back in her life." The fear and him saying that are what drove me right back into pentecostal church. I was just looking for something to numb the pain, to make the fear go away. It did, at a price. In all honesty if I were to choose whether I wanted to be a christian or not, I would NOT be. I don't like it that I have homosexual friends that are told they either can't be in a relationship or they will go to hell. I don't like feeling bad that my husband and I lived together before we got married (so I could live in an air conditioned house and not have panic attacks, since my father refused to replace our air conditioner). I hate feeling like I can't hang out with certain people or have cable or listen to secular music, and I know those are not technically sins but in my head that is how Christianity presents itself, there is never being human or real, you follow rules. Even St. Paul laid down some rules for the christians of that day to live by. But do I leave christianity, NO, why? because of the fear. Only the fear. Thats why I do practically anything. Because of fear. And who put that fear there. The Pentecostals. Now I am sitting here and the last thing I want to do is run back to that hell hole, but I can feel the fear creeping back in. Last night I drove past the hospital and I could feel the fear there, what I do I do if I need to go. If I don't have people who can "pray down the house" I could die there.
Did I mention that I don't trust people, particularly medical professionals. And why is that, because I was molested, and my parents willingly ignored it. They thought if they prayed enough that I would be healed, I didn't need counseling, nor would they pay for me to have it, or for that matter even stop the abuse. They thought if I saw a counselor, they might fill my head with dangerous ideas. I hate the fear they left, and now they are trying to do it again, but talking about it seems to make me feel better. I hope this time I've left for good.
