depression

Let The Chips Fall Where They May: Jonah’s Story

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Let The Chips Fall Where They May: Jonah’s Story

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Jonah” is a pseudonym.

“That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough”
–R.E.M., Losing my Religion

I’ve tried to write this more times than I can count. Each time it’s been something different to derail it. What is the point? How can it help someone else? Do I need to detail everything that happened to me? Is it for me to air my grievances? Am I still angry at my parents? These and more are all valid questions I’ve had to ask myself.

While outlining events and their details over the last few months in my private scribblings, I’ve come to realize a number of things. First, it has done me good to really look over my childhood with a fine tooth comb. So many things I’ve tried to understand about why I am the way I am have started to come to light. Second, there were things that affected me that I didn’t realize until I started thinking long and hard about them. Whether you plan on sharing it or not, I recommend you write out your story. Detail it, tell it to yourself. You may not realize how many things about yourself you never realized.

I was homeschooled K-12 in an ultra conservative Christian home (note when I say ultra conservative, I don’t mean biblical law over the top fundamentalism conservative). I was the good kid and my parents never saw anything bad coming. Then, at age 21 I slipped into a deep depression. It got bad to the point where I lashed out at my concerned parents and told them I hated them. This came as a complete shock to them.

How did I go from not a problem to this? It was something that was building for years. A combination of isolation, my parents’ emotional unavailability, religious guilt and other factors played into it. I didn’t have a traumatic childhood, at least not compared to what many have endured. However, depression can be incredibly crippling regardless of the cause.

My parents sent me to a Christian counselor. For the first time in my life I found myself admitting to someone (I had not even admitted it to myself really) how much I resented my parents for the years of being isolated and having few to no friends. I resented my parents for being unable to listen or talk about things like sex, relationships and so on. This was just the start, after several months of counseling I was just starting to unravel what was going on inside my head.

Coming out of counseling I was no longer in a deep depression. I could function, going to school and work. But, the darkness was still looming over me. I wasn’t at peace, I had not been for many years. I began to get my life back in order but I knew there was still a long ways to go. I had told my parents what I was angry at them for and had forgiven them

Why wasn’t I at peace? Isn’t that what I needed? To admit to myself what problems I had, forgive and move on? There was still an elephant in the room, something I couldn’t even think to confront at the time. Religion. Ever since I was little it was pushed on me. I was to be the perfect Christian with my parents perfect conservative Christian values. I needed to ask for forgiveness every day because I was a flawed sinner. There was a deep rooted guilt that loomed over my entire childhood.

I had my doubts for years. It always ultimately shifted back to me feeling there was something wrong with me. In spite of accepting Jesus I never felt like anything changed. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. I wondered if it really mattered. Then I promptly got angry at myself for questioning Christianity. Then one day, I found my peace. It wasn’t with Jesus, or some magical prayer.

I was sitting in Church in October 2008. This was weeks before the 2008 election, in which Christians had a very big investment in prop 8 (banning gay marriage in CA) as well as getting McCain-Palin (Christian values!) elected. Obama is the anti-Christ and gays are the most evil, vile people on the planet! While I’m putting a snarky little spin on those things, that is very much the message coming from the pulpit. Spewing straight hatred and political propaganda. This wasn’t what I wanted to be. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I stood up quietly and walked out of Church. I was in no way demonstrative about it, I played it off like I was going to the restroom or something. The reality is I was done. I had found myself questioning more and more over the previous six months. Things from having my first gay friend to seeing my co-workers who were struggling to eat, to spending a lot of time with a buddhist girl I liked were changing my perspective on such things. I was done being a judgmental Christian. I was done thinking gays were evil people. I was done mocking people who used food stamps. I was done trying to judge others because they subscribed to a different belief system. Done.

Letting go of my parent’s ideology was the magic bullet. Years of guilt, anger and confusion were lifted in a matter of days. Was I rejecting the notion of God outright? No. I simply realized that I didn’t know. Nobody knows and nobody really can know for sure. Why should I spend my life trying to argue one way or the other? It was time to live my life for me and not to appease anyone.

That day was nearly five years ago. Since then I am still a work in progress, but I haven’t felt the ‘darkness’ that loomed over my life since. I’ve become my own person with my own opinions. I’ve done outrageous things like having a one night stand, exploring other religious philosophies and voting Democrat. I’ve found what works for me.

Sometimes I still feel the ‘darkness’. At times when I was detailing out for myself a recap of my childhood, I could feel those emotions looming over my head. But, it always passes. That is the past and I’ve moved beyond it. At times anger may bubble up, but I’ve forgiven my parents for the mistakes they made.

Today I consider myself agnostic, moderately liberal and I’ve been in a stable relationship for over two years. I have a job I like and I enjoy my life. I have a good relationship with my parents. I’ve never directly talked to them about my ideology, but I think they know. I don’t feel it really matters. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is I’m comfortable in my own skin.

The ultimate point I’m trying to make is this. Be yourself, do what makes you happy in life. It’s not selfish to think of yourself, it’s called self preservation. If something (religious guilt in my case) is choking you and holding you down, ask yourself if you really want that in your life. I’m not telling you it’s your religion, it can be different things for different people.

Many homeschoolers turn out fine as the prototypical conservatives that our parents always wanted. Many of us did not, for a wide number of reasons. That doesn’t mean you turned out wrong or should be unhappy with yourself. Embrace who you are, whatever you want to believe and let the chips fall where they may.

Finding A Reason To Wake Up: Warbler

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Finding A Reason To Wake Up: Warbler

Trigger warning: self-injury and self-sexual abuse.

Family Background

I know my older brother cut himself.  Sometimes he was just overly rough in whatever he was doing and got hurt that way.  I remember him sitting on the other corner of the table as my dad made us study Koine Greek together.  He glared at my father with hate-filled eyes and used his one set of fingernails to scrape up and down the inside of the other arm.  He got spanked about 3 times as much as we girls did.  He was “strong-willed” and didn’t seem to care how much they hurt him.  He boasted that he was never hurt and that they could/would have to try harder.  He was always “the rebel” and was the first one to defy our parent’s authority.

The eldest sister was “perfect” and I didn’t think she did anything like that until her ‘courtship’ went up in flames and daddy grounded her and threatened severe repercussions for ever touching the computer or getting online ever again.  I was in the other room listening to all of this, hiding.  She found me late and we sat there mutely staring at each other.  She said she was going to run away and she had a plan.  I was scared and I didn’t want her to get caught and punished worse, because that is what daddy always threatened.  But I looked deeply into her eyes; and I knew that if she did not get away, one of us would find her dead in her bedroom the next day.

I was a “chicken” in the fullest sense of the word.  I never had the courage to actually cut my own skin.  But I would exacerbate any wound or scab by picking at it fiercely and not letting them completely heal.  I would pick at the corners of my fingernails until I pulled off skin down the the cuticles that would bleed and ache for a week.  I would allow myself to get burned when I was cooking and wish the pain would keep going.  I developed a very high pain tolerance as I refused to care for bruises or cuts and attempted to “be tough” about them.

I had an active imagination and I would imagine myself doing things.  I hated being in the kitchen with the knives because I was never sure when imagination would lead to reality and I would “snap.”  Sometimes I wanted to snap.  Other times my primal instincts kicked in and I fought myself for life.  Because I saw myself as worthless and ugly and bad.

An Active Imagination

I hurt myself specifically from the time I was 10 until I was 17 or 18.  I know for a fact that homeschooling made this a problem because had I been taught more, I would not have used this to hurt myself.  A sex-ed class would have taught me much sooner that what I was doing was damaging.

I hurt myself sexually.  I would imagine some scenario where I was being forcibly raped or forced into being a sex-slave.  I would ball up a towel or a sheet and I would lay on top of it until I rubbed my skin raw (and sometimes rub it off).  I did not know much of anything about human sexuality, or why it hurt so much, but I would walk around in pain every step I took for a couple days and then do it again the next week.  I did not even know that it was “masturbating” or what that word meant until I was 14, and at that time, I was told only that it was a sin. I stopped for a couple of months because of fear, but having no other outlet, I began hurting myself again semi-regularly.  I was able to hide it even though I shared a room for most of my life.  I didn’t get any other information about sex until I was at least 16.  When I first understood the workings of sex, I was grossed out and immediately shut off the conversation.

It took me over a year to realize that what I was doing was actually sexual and bad for me physically. By that time I had an outlet for myself in a homeschooled social circle, a pet to care for, and an outdoor hobby (gardening) that gave me exercise, sunshine, and something to love and invest myself into.  I was incredibly depressed most of my teenage years and I know that was a big reason for my self-abuse.

Another reason, I believe, was because when I had a crush on a young man (he was 12, I was 9) my parents squelched it quickly and shamed me for it.  Instead of helping me develop my relationship skills and experience, I was made emotionally stilted.  My next male-interest wasn’t for another 11 years, but it fell apart due to my relationship-immaturity and inability to ‘learn’ years of relationship-growth-experiences/consequences in two years.   It caused a lot of pain and I think it was because I would have been a very different person if I had a larger social group.  I am the girl that has crushes on everybody.  Had I been able to express those and have them dealt with in a reasonable manner (not told to save everything for courtship, or when I was “ready” to be a wife and mother) I could learn what men were interested in me for me, what crushes were stupid and should have bad consequences, and what it took to make relationships work.

Homeschooling meant that my parents controlled my outward actions around men with fierce looks, codes of conduct, chaperones, and stringent rules.  So my emotions turned inward in a bad way.  I would imagine violent scenarios and hurt myself personally.  I could hide it from them because sexuality was never again discussed.  Homeschooling kept me away from my peers, leaving me with the romantic-relationship-IQ of a toddler.

When it comes to relationships with authorities; I am co-dependent and I feel the need to hide any part of me I think they will censure.  It was not healthy and it is something I still struggle with, personally.

Advice For Others Who Struggle

Find a healthy outlet.  Depression kills.

Go jogging, or plant a morning glory, grow an herb garden and start making tea, or adopt a pet, or volunteer at a shelter, or buy a junk car and find parts at a junk yard to get it running, or restore a painting.

Or climb Mount Everest.

Find something that you love and that you can pour your energy and emotions into: a place to give.

When you find a reason to get up every morning, you will not want pain any more.  I remember taking a shower and screaming into the gushing water, because that was the only place they couldn’t hear me.

It eats you up inside and I know you want to be free.      

Advice To Parents

Dear Parents:  Your kid is struggling.  Don’t say this isnt your kid.  I know they are.

This is not 1% who have a few problems, it is the 99% who hide it.

Your kid is struggling because you have set up a shame-based system of right and wrong.  If you ask them, they will deny it because they don’t trust you and they don’t want to be shamed even more. They know their failings more personally than you have ever had occasion to point out and they have internalized it.

You know that one issue that never seems to go away?  It’s a sign that something rotten is eating away at their heart.

The bad news (no, the first part wasn’t the bad news): you cannot really do anything about it at this point. Your child does not trust you; your words and actions and rules and teaching and religious views are largely the reason that this behavior began and has been happening.

You cannot stop it until after you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are changing. And that will take a lot of time, more time than it will take for them to grow up and move away.  So I suggest that you do major damage control by being as brutally honest about your failings first.  Don’t expect anything from them except to try to live with you as you learn to listen.  Get books and read them and ask your child for help.  And if they actually tell you something: do everything they say.  Don’t argue, don’t talk back, don’t tell them that you never taught that.  Take what they say and live it.

Maybe after a couple years they will start trusting you enough to share their lives with you. When you demand your child give you her heart, she will give you the one you want to see.  Her real heart will be hidden as far away as it takes to stay alive.  

** 

I have this one quotation saved in my email drafts with the title “Raising Children”:

“The only hope you should have is that they will gladly share their own adult journey with you.”

Ashamed Of My Own Skin: Lily

HA Editorial Team8 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Lily” is a pseudonym.

Trigger warning: this post contains references to eating disorders and self-harm.

“You may not wear that.”

This phrase, and others like it, made up a large part of the soundtrack of my journey into womanhood.  Modesty, and all of the accompanying clothing restrictions, were part of the homeschool community of “keeping our daughters pure until marriage.”

As young girls, my sister and I were told that dressing modestly was important, in order to not be a stumbling block to men.  I remember hearing modesty talks and going to modesty “Fashion Shows” as young as 10 or 11.  Before my body even began to develop into that of a woman, I was told it needed to be covered up.   Why? To protect the eyes, minds, and hearts, of men.

Of course, I was only in middle school, and my sheltered self didn’t understand the idea of sexual attraction.  I was skinny and developed relatively late, and so the legs, chest, and shoulders that I kept covered were those of a child.   Before I even developed womanly curves, then – I learned to be ashamed of my own skin.

I have long, thick, dark brown hair, and my aunts and other extended family women will joke about the blessing and the curse this thick dark hair is for all of us – because it grows everywhere.  Face, chest, sideburns, arms, legs, stomach, eyebrows.  As I turned 11, 12, 13, 14, even – I grew more and more self conscious of my hairy legs and dark upper lip.  I would timidly ask my mom how to take care of it, embarassed by my own body.

“You’re still a little girl. That would look awful if you plucked your eyebrows.  You would look so bad.”

Athletics became unbearable – not just because of the long, knee-length shorts that stuck out from the crowd – but because of the dark, thick hair on my legs.  “It’s time to pluck the stache!” joked one of my girl friends at a homeschool co-op gathering – not knowing my shame and embarassment that came from not being allowed to.

Makeup, shaving, and tweezing would have made me look too adult-like, said my mom.  Looking too adult-like was an aspect of immodesty.  Immodesty was a stumbling block to men, and I should be ashamed of myself for the way that I was leading boys on.   My mother once told me that the fact that my hair smelled good was a valid reason for other homeschool mothers (of boys) to be angry at me: after all, I was a stumbling block to their children.

I stopped eating, quit athletics, and ran alone in my neighborhood.  My 96 lbs at 5’4″ at age 14 dropped down to close to 80.  The dark hair on my body grew finer and more plentiful, and my breasts stayed almost completely undeveloped.  I hid food every chance I could, and threw myself into school and more homeschool co-ops and extracurriculars so that I would be able to skip meals and say I had already eaten.  My nose started bleeding about twice daily, and I bruised easily – even from small bumps, I developed large bruises that stayed for weeks.

Feeling embarassed and ashamed of my body was now a regular part of my life, and self-abuse became a way to deal with those feelings.  I started cutting my upper legs – a place that I knew would always be hidden away from the world, thanks to modesty restrictions.   My parents explicitly didn’t believe in privacy for teenagers, and I began to cut myself more and more because it was the one thing that I could keep secret.   Although I was allowed no control of my own body, the secret scars I left underneath my modest clothing was something that I could control.

When I confided in a male friend about my self-injury, my parents immediately found out thanks to heavily monitored spyware on my computer.  At this point, I weighed in the mid-80s and look and acted incredibly depressed and unhealthy, but my parents saw my issues as rebellion against their authority that should be broken instead of mental and emotional issues that needed to be treated seriously.  They loved me dearly, but refused to admit that self-injury and anorexia were “real” disorders.  The few times that I went to the doctor during this period, they strongly reccomended my parents allow me to attend sessions with a medical therapist – but they refused, as they saw no potential benefits from a medical professional hearing about my “rebellion”.

I was 14.  My mother started coming into my room immediately when she saw me leave the shower and make me take my towel off so that she could check my naked body for scars.  If I was in public with her and wearing shorts, she would pull the fabric of the shorts back on my thighs to see if I had cuts on my legs, or pull the waistband of my shorts down to check my hips.

I started showering less, wearing clothing that was harder to remove, and cutting myself in even more “private” places.  As it got less convenient for her to check my fully naked body, and more time passed since she had found cuts, she stopped remembering to check – but it was much, much longer until I stopped cutting.

As for my weight, she mostly dealt with it by telling me how awful I looked.  “You’re sickly,” she told me.

As I went through high school, I got better, mostly from interacting with parts of the homeschool community that simply didn’t know about my self-harm.  I played music with a successful band and worked hard for leadership in academics, and eventually graduated and was able to cut financial ties, and subsequently a lot of the manipulation in my life.

I have three points from this story.

First of all: If you are struggling with self-injury, an eating disorder, or anything else: get help.  Get medical, professional, help.   One of the resources that children in the public education system have is private, personal access to guidance counselors who are trained to recognize problems like this and point children in a direction where they can get help.  In a homeschool situation, well-meaning parents are not always able to understand or recognize the mental/emotional issues behind things like self-injury.   When there are no other adults present who are able to help a child/young teenager and parents have ultimate authority, it can be hard to find help sometimes.

Get help though – any way you possibly can.  One thing that I learned after graduating high school was that my mental issues almost always should be discussed with a medical professional, as well-meaning church elders who I talked to would almost inevitably point me back to my parents.  Self-injury is not something that can always just be “fixed” by praying to quiet your “rebellion”.  It is real, and as a human being, you deserve real help.  Don’t be afraid to seek it out. 

Secondly: To anyone who is struggling – it gets better. Someday, you will be on your own, with access to clothing and makeup/skin care stores that you can purchase from, free from guilt.  Someday, you will have friends who never would have known that you had a dark unibrow.  Someday, the way you look will be your choice, and you won’t have to be ashamed anymore.  It gets better.  I know what it feels like to be shamed into not being beautiful.   I know what it feels like to be told that your simple desire for hygiene and feminine attractiveness is slutty, sexual, and wrong.

It’s not wrong.  Wearing a v-neck is not wrong.  Wearing makeup is not wrong.  Plucking your eyebrows or waxing your upper lip is not wrong.  It is not wrong for you to want those things, and it is wrong for them to make you feel ashamed of wanting those things.  You shouldn’t have to lash out at your own body because you are ashamed of wanting those things.

Finally:  I am an undergraduate education major, and I teach young students and teenagers in the public schools on a regular basis – and, let me tell you, conservative, non-distracting clothing is not what the homeschool community or the Modesty Survey or Josh Harris or anyone says it is.  If you want to dress conservatively and not be distracting, dress professionally.  Wear those heels and dark jeans and a sweater.  Wear dress slacks and a button-down shirt, and guess what?  It’s okay if it’s form-fitting! It’s okay if it makes you look attractive!  It’s okay if you’re wearing lipstick!  After multiple years in the real world interacting with real people, I am finally beginning to realize that conservative and “modest” clothing is not what we were told it is, and it can bring about real, serious, body-image emotional and physical harm to girls who have never learned to love their own bodies. 

I hope that one day I teach my future daughter(s), who will most likely also have dark hair all over, small breasts, and a great smile,  how to dress in a way that makes them feel attractive.  I hope they feel confident enough around me to ask me for makeup or shaving or clothes advice, and I hope that I am able to help them learn how to dress attractively and appropriately for all situations.

Maybe, just maybe, they will grow up a little bit more comfortable in their own skin.

All My Fault, Not Good Enough: Quick Silver Queen

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All My Fault, Not Good Enough: Quick Silver Queen

Quick Silver Queen blogs at The Eighth and Final Square. This story is reprinted with her permission.

Trigger warning: self-injury.

Everything was my fault.

This was never said, but it was implied enough to really screw me up. Somehow it was my fault if the kids got into something and I was in the room with them, or just on the same level of the house as them. If I wasn’t watching them any time I was near them and they did something they weren’t supposed to, I got a spanking along with them. Sometimes I joked dryly to myself (and one or two trusted friends) that if a world leader on the other side of the globe was assassinated, somehow my mom would find a way to pin it on me.

I had a lot of anger and depression in my teens. I was growing into a woman, but was kept stifled and like a child. I was constantly told “if you act like an adult, we’ll treat you like one.” I was rarely even given the opportunity to act like an adult, and when I did prove my responsibility (like, I ran the household for a week while mom was in the hospital after giving birth to Abby), it was always forgotten.

I didn’t present a happy face enough. I didn’t spend enough time with the family. I didn’t spend enough time homeschooling the kids (which was my job, right?! Yeeeah). I didn’t spend enough time cleaning up the house (even if it wasn’t my chores). I didn’t serve my dad and brothers enough. I didn’t put enough time and energy into making dinner. I didn’t go outside enough. I didn’t keep my anger and frustration in check enough. Nothing I did was ever enough.

I’m naturally an introvert, and all the frustration and anger and blame and depression turned inward. I just was not good enough. I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t thin enough, nobody would want to marry me. Instead of diffusing my negative energy outward, I also turned that inward. I would bang my head into walls and doorways, because what did it matter if I hurt? I was nothing. And the pain helped the anger and frustration go away.

After a while I decided I didn’t want to give myself brain damage, so I began hitting my thighs and hips. I would hit so hard and so much that I had giant bruises and could barely walk for stiffness and pain. I never let it show though. I wouldn’t coddle myself, I made it hurt on purpose because I had to pay for everything that was my fault. I had to pay for all the ways I was never good enough. When the glass dishes were fresh from the dishwasher and piping hot, I didn’t wait for them to cool — I put them away anyway (I would sometimes get first-degree burns on my hands from it). Sometimes I would scratch my thighs so hard it drew blood. If dad was lecturing and I felt like crying, I would pinch my legs through my pants with my nails and draw blood. Same when he was embarrassing me for no reason in front of people.

Why should I care if it hurt? Nobody else cared.

Starving myself was also a form of self-injury for me. I went on a diet with my parents (Atkins) before I was 18. My dad reminded me (far more than he ever complimented me) often that I needed to “watch what I ate” or “a moment on the lips, forever on the hips”, and “do you really need seconds?” Many days I would eat less than 1000 calories for the entire day, drinking only coffee in the morning and having a bird-sized portion of dinner. Why should I care if I was hungry? Nobody else cared.

Sometime along in my mid-teens I figured out (or learned about) that sometimes people cut themselves. I tried with a pocket knife, and that didn’t work, so I used pliers to tear apart the head of a safety razor to obtain the paper-thin razor blades. I never cut very deep or in visible places, and never more than I needed to. My anger and frustration and depression would evaporate instantly. It was my coping mechanism…besides writing, it was the only way I could get my feelings out.

I kept a razor and a couple band-aids with me at all times for years. I felt naked without them. I told a couple friends about my cutting; one freaked out and begged me to stop. Another tried to make me promise to stop because god wouldn’t want me to. A third confessed she self-injured too. Scottie was understandably upset by it, but he also knew the environment I was in.

When I escaped wasn’t when I stopped hurting myself. I think the last time I cut myself was a year ago or more. I’ve grown out of the craving. I’m much more emotionally stable than I was (even though I have diagnosed depression and am on Zoloft now). I’m building up my self-esteem and self-confidence, both of which I wasn’t “allowed” to have. Occasionally I’ll feel the urge to cut, but I haven’t mostly because I just can’t…unless I do it in front of my daughter and I can’t bring myself to do that. I’m determined she will grow up with the confidence and independence and self-image she deserves.

I have no words of advice. I have no apologies, only my story.

Homeschooled and Kept Ignorant, But Still Queer: Melissa

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Homeschooled and Kept Ignorant, But Still Queer: Melissa

HA note: Haley, Melissa’s spouse, shared her thoughts yesterday. Their courtship and coming out stories have been shared by Melissa on Patheos.

I was homeschooled from kindergarten through adulthood. I was the oldest in a large family, and very sheltered. We had the patriarchal beliefs common in the Christian homeschooling movement, so my role in life was very defined. I liked a lot of things about being a girl, but I sometimes wished I was a boy so I would have more freedom to go places, study something in college etc.

At the same time, I was fine with dressing modestly. The idea of getting male attention wasn’t really that appealing to me. I had a hard time imagining a guy I would feel comfortable submitting to and living with, and yet I had been told from early childhood that someday I would grow up and marry a good Christian man who would protect me from the world and support us financially while I stayed at home and had lots of babies to homeschool.

I wanted to be “right”. I wanted to be approved of. I wanted to fit in with my community and become that older Proverbs 31 Woman that all the younger girls asked for advice. I did the best I could to pay attention and please my parents by being who they wanted me to be. By age 17 I was very depressed, and thought about suicide often. I wanted to get out of my parents’ house and away from the expectations and restrictions so badly. As a female, the only way that was going to happen was when I got married. So whenever we were in places where I could potentially meet eligible young men such as homeschool conferences or homeschool gatherings I would anxiously watch and hope that someone would notice me.

I had no idea gay people existed until I was 14 and reading World Magazine and came across a negative reference to the dangers of “homosexuals”. I asked my mom what homosexual meant, she said it was when two men thought they could be together in the same way a husband and wife are together. It seemed like she thought it was a big deal, a bad thing. Of course at the time I didn’t have any real understanding of sex either. I knew that babies grew in a mothers belly, and I had attended the births of several siblings, so I knew how they got out, but I was still under the impression that sex was a magical transference of seeds needed to start a baby, that happened while you slept in the same bed. I started to suspect there was something more to it when I was reading all the purity books about how amazing sex was after you were married, and how hard it was to stay pure before you were married. If sex was supposedly this amazing, there had to be more to it than just sleeping. I tried looking up sex in the dictionary, but “act of copulation” didn’t help me very much. Eventually when I was almost 17 I found a book in the library that I did not dare to check out, but read as much as I could as fast I could in the corner until it was time to go home. It was here that I first learned about penetrative sex and what an erection was. It didn’t dawn on me that if men could be together, then there was such a thing as gay women as well until a year later.

I may not have known what sex was, or what being gay actually meant, but I knew I had a hard time imagining being with any of the guys I encountered. I hoped that my mom was right, and that god really was going to help locate he perfect guy for me. I did not have friends my age, most of the homeschooling families we knew had much younger children, and we didn’t go to church.

By the time I was 18 I had had enough sexually arousing dreams about women and enough urges to kiss or touch the breasts of friends I hardly knew to start to question if this was normal. My sisters or cousins would talk about celebrity guys who were attractive in their opinion and I didn’t know what to say, so I picked whoever was the most stereotypically masculine to hide the fact that I thought Catherine Zeta Jones was way sexier. I asked my mom what had attracted her to my dad, and when she said his broad shoulders that became what I would say I found attractive when people asked what my “type” was.

Eventually I got up the courage to ask my dad what our beliefs about gay people were supposed to be, I didn’t say I was asking for myself. He told me that homosexuality was caused by an especially disgusting demon, he almost seemed to shudder just thinking about it. My dad claimed to have heard and seen both demons and angels, so I felt that he must know what he was talking about. I was pretty sure I had never encountered a demon, and I had been very careful to follow the rules of the house so as to stay under the “spiritual umbrella of protection” my father provided, so I did not understand how I could have allowed demonic influence into my life. Maybe I wasn’t gay. So I asked about bisexuals, what did we believe regarding them? My dad said they did not really exist, that the only true bisexuals were demonically influenced witches. I knew I wasn’t a witch, and I was too scared to inquire further and give myself away.

So I told myself I was imagining things. This wasn’t really true about me. The only reason I was attracted to women, was because I had zero sexual experience, and the only body I had access to was my own, as soon as I got safely married and had sex, I would be attracted to men like I was supposed to be. I had never read anything that portrayed gay people in a positive light. I had never met a openly gay person, or even seen one to my knowledge. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I was sure that getting married would fix it.

The amazing thing is, that only a year after we began going to church, I met someone who I thought was a boy and fell in love. He was tall and had beautiful blue eyes and soft full lips that I so wanted to touch even though we were not allowed. We could talk for hours and he actually listened to and thought about the things I said. I had never had anyone treat me so kindly and respectfully. We had a parent supervised and controlled courtship, and got married after 10 weeks, and only 8 days after kissing for the first time. Basically, I went from having never held hands to having sex in a little over 2 months.

As you can imagine, sex was still an awkward topic. The attractions I thought would magically disappear after marriage, didn’t. I didn’t dare talk too openly about it, but sometimes it worried me. I was happily married, I was attracted to my spouse, but I was still very attracted to women and worried that I was a bad person for feeling the way I did. I had many other detrimental beliefs related to sex as well. I had an understanding that I was obligated to be there to service my husband’s sexual requests whether I felt like it or not. I had always been told that god had designed men with very active sex drives, and that if they were rejected by their wives, men would turn to pornography, or even another woman, and I would have no one to blame but myself. I had no concept of consent. In fact when I was first married I had made a promise to myself that I would never say no to a sexual advance from my husband, even if I was sick or exhausted. I also had a lot of anxiety about my worth being tied to how often my spouse wanted to have sex. When my spouse was too tired or just not really interested in having sex, I worried that I wasn’t attractive enough or wasn’t performing adequately. Sex was often one big ball of worries fear and second guessing.

Five years later I had the surprise of my life when my husband came out to me as transgender. What happened next was a 2 year journey that inspired more growth both in our relationship and as individuals than ever before. We discovered just how much each of us had been hiding from the other for our entire marriage. Shedding that fear of rejection and judgment and being honest is one of the most powerful transformations I have ever experienced. When Haley told me that she needed to transition to female and live as she truly was, I wasn’t really phased, and that fact led me to face my sexuality head on for the first time in my life. Haley was patient, and waited while I read and read and asked her question after question. Eventually when Haley felt ready to transition, we came out publicly to our families and started our marriage over again as a lesbian couple. I couldn’t ask for a better partner or co-parent, and the respect we have for each other has only continued to grow. Reactions were about what we expected, and we were reminded many times over why we had hidden for so long. Some people cut us out of their life and refused to speak to us. People who hadn’t communicated with us for years sent us long emails detailing how wrong and evil we were for making this “choice”. It was exhausting and draining, and I was so grateful that we were adults and financially independent before we had dared to come out.

Sometimes I wish that I hadn’t had to spend so much of my life living someone else’s idea of who I needed to be. It has been quite the task to learn how to relax and just be rather than second guessing every single thing I think, do or say. I also wish I had known how many wonderful supportive people were out there, just waiting to embrace us for exactly who we were. Coming from such an isolating, restrictive and judgmental community growing up, it has been a new experience to meet people from all backgrounds, religions and sexual orientations who are accepting and loving. I have also been surprised by how many people from our old life have come around in some way. My parents in particular come to mind, after a rocky start and 3 months of silent censure, my parents have found the ability to be tolerant. Even though they do not understand or affirm our sexuality or the journey our marriage has taken, they have chosen to try to love us and be with us.

It’s been almost 8 years since we got married, 3 years since Haley came out to me, and 1 year since we came out to the world. I thought we had a unique story, but since telling our story on my blog we have been contacted by so many other couples who married in the closet and stayed together after coming out. There are so many years that we lived in shame, sometimes we can get frustrated with all that time wasted, and pain endured. Only one year in, sometimes it feels like the new goals and dreams will never happen. It’s been a lot of work starting over from ground zero, some days we fall into bed too exhausted to even say goodnight. Sometimes old messages haunt us, telling us that we are not good enough, that we are failures, that who we are is somehow less than. But overall there is something about the honesty of this life that feels really good. We have the story that we do. We came from the background we did, and it took as long as it did for us to overcome the shaming messages and be ok with who we are.

There really is nothing to regret, only a life to live, fully.

Getting Bi Ain’t Easy, No Matter Where You Are: Isaiah

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Getting Bi Ain’t Easy, No Matter Where You Are: Isaiah

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Isaiah” is a pseudonym.

I don’t think growing up bisexual or otherwise sexually complex is easy in American culture, regardless of how you’re educated. I suffered through long issues of self-illegitimacy as a consequence of bisexual erasure, which can happen in mainstream culture just as easily as in evangelical circles.

That said, the relationship between homeschooling and the development of sexuality is a complicated one. All things being equal, homeschoolers — especially those with healthy social lives — would have the same basic kind of sexual development as anyone else. But in the largest and most representative homeschooling culture, it’s apparent that all things are very much not equal.

The glaring difference between being homeschooled and publicly educated is the potential for isolation, and that can play havoc on myriad factors of development even if you’re part of a relatively liberal family. The more isolated from the multiplicity of human behavior you are, the more critical every small cultural influence is, and the more damaging harmful beliefs can become.  In my experience, there is no place this hits harder than in the development of one’s own sexuality, especially for those who don’t fit easily into archetypal, simplified cultural frames.

As I have mentioned in a previous essay on this site I was raised in a relatively liberal Christian home but studied a fundamentalist curriculum, which was rarely contradicted despite my family’s milder beliefs. The media I watched and listened to, the books I read, and my family life in general never argued with this fundamentalist ideology, and it became a strong part of my reality.

My mother’s inherent empathy and lack of an authoritarian personality wouldn’t allow her to follow the most bigoted aspects of her faith, and she did not “protect” me from certain cultural influences as many other homeschooling parents did. I knew that gay people existed and didn’t think much about it — I simply assumed they were people who fell in love with their own gender instead of the other one. I knew, too, that people sometimes loved other people but didn’t get married to them, or that people could love more than one person at once.

But this knowledge was tempered by severely restrictive cultural archetypes — gay men were like women, gay women were like men, people who loved each other always “should” get married, and so on. My curriculum helped to push these mainstream archetypes into my consciousness too, and went even further as it became more strongly fundamentalist over the years.

All the subjects — history, math, science, Bible, and English — attempted to discuss sexuality in their own way. But they did so in very limited terms, probably to avoid offending the really fundamentalist parents who made up part of their target market.

History and math made poor platforms for propaganda about sex and human relationships, so they were largely free of this particular stain save the occasional Bible verse. Science never mentioned sexuality in any way for over nine years, then one day, in grade ten, a unit about human sexuality and anatomy was introduced. It was ten percent anatomy and physiology, and ninety percent propaganda — mostly the standard lines that define the purity culture and the cult of the “traditional family”. Nowhere in this lesson plan was anything other than straight, male-dominated sex mentioned, even as behavior to avoid — and once the lesson plan was finished, sexuality was never mentioned again until the next grade year.

English and “Bible” both hit the hardest with moral teachings, English doing so mainly through its reccomended reading list and Bible accomplishing the task merely by existing. There was never a fire-and-brimstone shakedown to scare you off from “immoral” behavior — which meant essentially anything but male-dominated missionary heterosexual sex within wedlock — but it became clear very quickly what was acceptable and what wasn’t.

I will give my former curriculum credit for its relative subtlety compared to other brands of evangelical education, but the message still stuck. I can remember being taught about “purity”, which, though emphasized to girls, made its point with boys too. Through cognitive dissonance or ignorance, I actually never perceived my curriculum’s obvious prejudice against homosexuality (which was never actively acknowleged, just hinted at constantly) or its extremely black-and-white morality with regards to sex and marriage, both of which I had been raised to perceive in a more tolerant way.

None of this mattered to me for much of my childhood, of course. I began to develop sexually fairly early and have always possessed a somewhat high sex drive, but I didn’t begin to have any issues until after my pre-teen years.

I grew into a teenager in an environment much more isolated than where I lived as a child, and for various reasons fell into a state of chronic but functional depression for several years. The overwhelming feeling of illegitimacy in my sexual identity was a major factor in perpetuating my depressive tendencies, and to this day can act as a trigger for depression. When the agonizing confusion I felt in my early teenage years finally stopped, and I realized the cold truth of my own variances in sexuality, I became mentally paralyzed with the idea that there was something wrong with me, something that I could not find a way to fix.

I was a torrent of repressed emotions nearly all of the time, afraid to express myself for fear of being thought evil or crazy in some way. In the depths of my mind, my instincts constantly pushed me to feel as though there was nothing at all wrong with me, that I was legitimate and had every right to exist as I was, whatever that may be. But without any cultural context or knowledge that bisexuality or sexual fluidity existed, I could never fully accept this idea. Whenever the disharmony between my instincts and my fear and guilt was brought to light, depression would take hold again and I would feel inwardly dull for hours or days. This was by no means the only reason for my depression, but it was probably the largest single factor at any given time. It peaked and finally began to slip the further I moved from the religion and curriculum I was raised with, and now that I have abandoned them completely, only their murky shadows remain.

I can’t say what was unique about my homeschooling experience, as it relates to sexuality, compared to a conventional education. It would be much more clear-cut if I identified as simply “straight” or “gay” — and likely more predictable too.

I’m sure those who are homeschooled in a truly evangelical environment — not the milquetoast one I was raised in — would prefer the risks of being bi in public school to the almost certain abuse and erasure they would suffer at the hands of fundamentalist families. But being bi, and especially learning that you’re bi, is usually a difficult and traumatic experience in both mainstream culture and the various homeschooling subcultures. Bisexual and sexually fluid people are far harder to stereotype and classify than people who identify as gay or straight or transgender, and as such have very little cultural presence, often being treated as mysterious and alien or vicious and predatory when they are given a space to exist at all. The ease with which bi and fluid people can get out of the game by simply sublimating part of their identity and identifying as merely “gay” or “straight” compounds the problem.

The fact is, having any sexuality that’s difficult to stereotype is hard no matter where you come from. When I was depressed all those years, I craved one thing more than anything else — existence. I didn’t need acceptance, permission, or tolerance — just the right to exist. In short, I needed to not be erased. But if you were to ask me whether it would have made a difference had I not been homeschooled, whether I would have been allowed to exist had I been sent to a conventional school instead, I can only say that I don’t know.

Growing Up Gay Is Like Growing Up In A Warzone: Andrew Roblyer

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By Andrew Roblyer

When I first sat down to write this piece, I had never really asked myself what role I thought that homeschooling played in my life with regard to my sexuality.  I knew what role I felt Christianity has played, but in my experience homeschooling isn’t synonymous with Christianity of any type, even conservative fundamentalism.  And as I have created a virtual pile of crumpled up attempts to put my thoughts into words, I’ve been confronted over and over again with the fact that my homeschooling experience is, just like everyone else’s on this site, unique to me.

In our family, homeschooling was a way of structuring our studies; the overall way we were brought up had more to do with our faith than with our choice in educational styles.  I know that if we hadn’t homeschooled, we probably would have been at church almost as often, I would have been just as introverted and nerdy, and many of my issues with faith and sexuality still would have manifest themselves in my life.

In other words, I realized that I can’t blame “homeschooling” or even “the homeschooling movement” for the majority of my struggle in coming to accept and love the person that I am.  What I can (and want to) do is explore the ways that my experience as a homeschooler accentuated that struggle.  In the end, I hope that this piece will outline some of the challenges homeschooling brings for people like me that identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans*. (* Why the asterick?)

I didn’t know what “homosexual” meant until I hit puberty around age 13.  But once I was informed of its meaning, I distinctly remember a thought crossing my mind: “That’s what I am.”  At the time I didn’t fully comprehend the implications of that realization, but I knew that it wasn’t a good thing.

In many ways, I grew up a stereotypical “gay boy,” interested in cooking and reading and playing house with all of the girls in the neighborhood.  I studied ballet and loved theatre and choir.  I designed my dream house in my head and loved interior decorating shows like Trading Spaces.  I played with dolls and stuffed animals.  All of the “signs” were there, but really the only thing that mattered is that I never once looked at one of my female friends and developed a sudden case of the butterflies.  Instead, I crushed on the boys at Scout meetings or youth group or children’s choir.

To their eternal credit, my parents never stifled my creativity or my passions.  I remember several lectures about my limp wrists and walking like a man (no hip-swaying), but those were more about external appearances and protecting me from the comments that they heard far more than I did.  And despite having a father who was in the military, I was never subjected to parental chats about “manliness,” because my parents were far more concerned with my character than any external trappings.

But from the moment I learned what “homosexual” meant, I knew that I would never truly be the person they wanted me to be, because I knew that I was inherently flawed.  And as is often the case with things like this, once I knew what the word meant, I began noticing it everywhere.  But in the conservative Christian circles (including homeschooling support groups) I was a part of, it was rarely something I heard in its entirety.  Instead, it was like something just out of the corner of my eye, a fleeting shadow in the midst of a conversation.   It was that-sin-which-must-not-be-named.

Even though nobody wanted to be the one to say it, it came up over and over in conversation, often in the form of discussions about “manliness” and masculinity.  What was and wasn’t appropriate for men to do, how men should dress, how men should behave.  I was once asked, in high school, to have a discussion with two younger boys about their “effeminate behavior” and remind them that it was how “the homosexuals” behave.  And it was in moments like that, when the shadowy topic stepped squarely into my field of vision, that the fear was the strongest.

I often equate growing up gay to growing up in a warzone, where bombs fall all around you day after day after day.  Eventually the abject terror you feel when one lands nearby fades into a constant clenching in your stomach that you don’t even realize, because while you can’t entirely relax, you can’t afford to run at full alert at all times.  I saw and heard so many gay people attacked and condemned by the people I grew up with that my stomach was perpetually clenched, terrified that their rhetoric and doctrine would be used to attack me if they ever found out.

I did everything I could to try and “fix” myself, including looking into electroshock therapy, though thankfully I had to have a parent’s consent and there was no way I wanted to tell my parents.  Eventually, after a failed attempt to turn myself straight by dating my then-best-friend (a woman) in college, I reached the end of my rope.

I fell into a deep depression, was suicidal on multiple occasions, and through it all was desperately trying to reconcile my faith (and thus the large majority of my friends and family) with my sexuality.  Eventually, through the grace of God and the support of my parents, I came out of the closet.  It was not a firm step; it was more of a feeble stumble.  But it was a freeing experience, and one that was filled with a peace and understanding that I have come to know as the peace of God.

Since then, my faith has become stronger, but my human relationships have drastically changed.  Many of the people I knew when I was growing up are people that I voluntarily disconnected from when I came out, terrified of how they would react.  After all, I knew people who verbally and publicly advocated the death penalty for people who identified as gay.  And I stopped teaching in the homeschooling community (I was a debate coach), because I was scared that the incorrect but prevalent rhetoric I heard so often in that specific community linking child molesters to homosexuality would be used to try and accuse me of hurting the students I worked with.  Thankfully in the time since, I have found people, both former homeschoolers and non, to support me in my faith and my sexuality

So which pieces of my struggle are related to growing up in a conservative Christian environment and which are related to being homeschooled?  This distinction is important to me because, again, the form of academic education I received was, in many ways separate from the spiritual education I received, and I think that many of my struggles would have taken place even if I had been public schooled.  But there are some differences.

1. Homeschooling allowed for a more insulated environment.  While my faith and my academic structure were separate, the support groups and social activities we engaged in as a family were almost exclusively groups that were conservative Christians and homeschoolers.  While there is always the potential for cliques in public or private school environments, you are exposed to a wider array of students and of teachers, simply because of the sheer numbers.  As a homeschooler, I interacted with the same group a lot and had fewer opportunities to meet and interact with different people.

2. Homeschooling’s smaller social circles meant that word traveled fast.  While this is true in any contained environment, the lack of anonymity that might be possible in a larger educational environment mean that it was much harder to justify having conversations about topics that made people uncomfortable, such as sex and sexuality.  For this reason, any and all sexual topics were taboo and “dirty.”  This created a significantly sex-negative environment that still has repercussions for me today.

3. Homeschooling’s all-encompassing nature gives little reprieve.  While my parents always endeavored to teach us to think first and foremost, the constant presence of both family and other homeschoolers meant that you had little time away from those influences.  This was positive in some ways, but as a result could leave you with little opportunity to process and deal with issues related to those people you were around for so many hours of the day.  This is, perhaps, one of the greatest drawbacks I see to homeschooling, and the precise reason that so many parents I knew chose to homeschool: tight, constant control over their children’s lives and educational experiences.

4. The homeschooling environment was so repressed in so many ways that my “eccentricities” often went unremarked on by many of the people I interacted with.  Perhaps my parents received more concerned comments, but the contained environment in which I grew up in many ways explicitly rewarded my “sensitive” nature while implicitly criticizing my “manhood” and “manliness.”

Many of the other parts of homeschooling that I might connect to my struggle to reconcile my faith and my sexuality are, in my opinion, more strongly linked to conservative Christianity, so I’ve left them out for now.

In the end, would not being homeschooled have made my coming out easier?  I don’t know.  In some ways, I think so, in that I would not have felt so insulated and tied to a relatively small number of people who collectively made it known that my sexual orientation was unacceptable.  My parents have been so incredibly supportive and loving during my coming out process, but I sometimes struggle to differentiate between the things they specifically taught me at home and what the homeschooling community as a whole contributed to my development.

This is why I am so grateful for efforts like H.A.  The isolation and insulation created by homeschooling is so powerful that it can be dangerously enticing to parents who hope that their children will live in a certain way.  If the potential for that isolation is not balanced in some way, either from inside or outside of that community, the results can be disastrous.

That is the reason I felt it was important to both write this story down and put my name on it:  because I know that there are hundreds and thousands of homeschooling youth struggling with the same questions I did.  They are probably feeling isolated and insulated and alone, just like I did.  They are likely severely distressed at the thought that they have to choose between the (relatively few) people in their lives that they interact with regularly and being true and honest to who they are.

It is for them that I hope my story (and those of the other H.A. contributors) can help raise the questions that need to be asked to help make homeschooling a better environment for all.

Step Forward And Call For Change: Sheldon’s Thoughts

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Step Forward And Call For Change: Sheldon’s Thoughts

The author of this piece writes under the pseudonym Sheldon at his blog, Ramblings of Sheldon. He describes himself as “a former Christian fundamentalist” who “is now a semi-closeted agnostic” that writes about “his fundamentalist past, his beliefs now, and the cult known as the Independent Fundamental Baptist denomination, which his sister was a part of (and he also had some personal experience with).” Also by Sheldon on HA: “Looking Back at my Fundamentalist Home Schooling Past.”

"I know there are good homeschooling parents out there, and I would like to see more of them step forward and call for change."
“I know there are good homeschooling parents out there, and I would like to see more of them step forward and call for change.”

I spent about a year at a well known Southern Baptist university, and some of the people there were homeschool alumni. They use to make jokes about the “awkward homeschool kid” stereotype, and many of them were even members of a Facebook group that was built around such jokes.

It wasn’t very funny to me. They were relatively well adjusted, or at least appeared to be. Many of them had been a part of homeschool groups, sports, some had even been to community colleges or spent some time public high schools before they entered college. They seemed, at least for the evangelical world I was in at the time normal. I never felt that way.

I was lost, confused, very depressed, and unable to understand the people around me in any way, shape or form. It lead to depression, panic attacks, alternating muscle pain/weakness, fatigue, and and overall nervous breakdown that lead me to move back with family in Southwest Illinois.

The “awkward homeschool kid” jokes weren’t funny, because it was very real to me. It was my experience. I was raised in a family that always seemed to be more extreme that most of the churches that they were a part of, which I always thought was odd. My father was always a rather easy going parent towards me, but my mother could have her abusive moments, and she rejected the outside world almost completely, and expected me to do the same.

She saw any modern forms of music, especially anything with a beat as “evil” (except for, hypocritically, more modern forms of country music, which she liked), she hated anyone who didn’t look, think, act, or believe like us. People with large amounts of tattoos/piercings? Must be evil! Does someone follow another religion, or is a liberal Christian? They’re evil! Are they gay/bi-sexual etc? Evil!

As you can expect, shutting out most of the world around you, and fearing them as well doesn’t do well for developing someone’s social skills. To this day, I have a hard time understanding the culture around me, but looking back, I realized I couldn’t understand other children my age at the time either. Not only do I not understand the culture around me at times (though I have gotten far better at that by immersing myself in it), I just don’t understand how people think and act the way that they do in ways ranging from the major to the very minor. It’s like I’ve never learned how to be “normal” in most people’s estimations.

When I’ve talked openly about this, I have had people question whether I was autistic. I really don’t know if I am or not, I can see quite a few similarities, but I have never been to a psychiatrist (though I should, if for no other reason than my persistent depression), and I wonder how much of it is in fact due to my own mind, the isolation of homeschooling or the compound effects of both. It’s hard to tell, especially, since I keep encountering so many stories of people who have experienced the same effects from isolation in their own life.

Some homeschooling parents love to dismiss or even mocked concerns about socialization, but in a recent post by Lana of Wide Open Ground, she complied 12 statements from me, herself, and 10 other people made on her blog alone, from people who had experienced this kind of isolation, and are still struggling to fit into this world.

I’ve had my struggles, but also had my high points in my journey to live post-fundamentalism. Being able to experience music I never heard before, and growing to appreciate and love it. II now listen to that “evil” rock music, and love it. There’s few things I enjoy more than listening to Cake, Rise Against, Metallica, or Alice in Chains.

I’ve also had the opportunity to meet people that I would have never met before, both in person, and online. I remember getting involved in a local discussion website, and getting to know a woman who was a Wiccan. Along with her husband, she owned a music store in my town (unfortunately it closed last October). I was so surprised when I got to know her, not only did she shatter all the preconceived notions I had about Wiccans, but she showed more of a sense of love and compassion to the world than most of the Christians I knew at the time.

I have also gotten to know some great people online as well, many of whom have lived through fundamentalism, and have left it behind. People like Lana, Jonny Scaramanga, and Godless Poutine are people that I am proud to say that I know, and they have been an inspiration to me, as I plan to move on, and come out as agnostic sometime this year.

Though life is starting to turn around for me, the isolation still had its effects, and though some may disagree, I think it’s abuse to isolate a child to the point that they are shut off from the outside world. Letting children interact only with people within a narrow circle of fundamentalists is not socialization, despite what such parents may say, and it does not prepare them for life.

I hope that as time goes on, that we will start seeing some changes in the Christian homeschooling community, I know there are good homeschooling parents out there, and I would like to see more of them step forward and call for change.

Teaching My Son the Lessons I Didn’t Learn

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Crosspost: Teaching My Son the Lessons I Didn’t Learn

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Latebloomer’s blog Past Tense Present Progressive. It was originally published on May 12, 2013.

"Watching my naturally shy little boy become comfortable and have fun with other people is incredibly satisfying."
“Watching my naturally shy little boy become comfortable and have fun with other people is incredibly satisfying.”

Much to my surprise, I’m finding motherhood to be incredibly therapeutic.

Part of it is certainly that I have felt far more socially connected since my son’s birth than at any other time in my life.  Ironic, I know, but true.  I feel incredibly supported by my friendships with other parents, accepted for who I am, and inspired to grow.  Finally experiencing the social connection that I desperately craved for my entire childhood has increased my self-esteem and has decreased my issues with depression, which in turn helps me feel like a better mother.

But more specifically, as a mother, I feel like all the kindness and love that I pour into my son’s life is somehow healing my own childhood wounds.  I see him learning the lessons that I wish I had learned myself as a child, and I feel at peace.

He is learning, right from the start, that his feelings are important.  As a toddler, he has so many feelings, which often appear suddenly and catch both of us off guard.  My job as a parent is to help him learn to recognize his feelings, to validate his feelings, and to direct him toward an appropriate action to manage his feelings.  For us, that means when he’s expressing an emotion, I get down at his level and say things like, “Sweetie, are you feeling sad/upset/angry because _______? Awww!” And then I suggest an appropriate comforting/distracting/calming activity.  The most amazing thing to me is that, even as a toddler, he usually quiets down in order to listen to me name his emotion,  and seems incredibly relieved just to be understood.

He is also learning that his opinions and desires are are worth expressing, even though at this age they sound like nothing more than him shouting, “No! No! No!”  It’s up to me to help him phrase his opinions and wishes more clearly, because his “no” could mean anything from, “Don’t do that!” to “I don’t want to do that!” to “I want to do what you are doing” to “I want to have what you have.”  Once we understand each other, we can decide how to proceed.  But most importantly, I always try to praise him by saying something like, “Good job asking!” even when I have to delay or deny his wish.

Finally, he is also learning, along with me, about the importance of social connection and the joy that others can bring into our lives.  He is not yet in pre-school, so as a stay-at-home mom I have to make a conscious effort to teach him this.  We leave the house at least once every day, either for a playdate, coffee date, mommy & me class, park, children’s museum, library, or errand.

For myself, I know that I need to be around other people daily to avoid emotional flashbacks to the isolation of my youth.

For my son, I know that he needs to have a lot of early positive experiences with others and have a lot of opportunities to observe social interaction so that he can build his confidence for later social success.  Watching my naturally shy little boy become comfortable and have fun with other people is incredibly satisfying.  It gives me hope that my personal social weaknesses will not greatly limit him.

Seeing my son learn these three lessons has made my motherhood experience wonderful so far.  I only hope, as Baby Boy #2 joins that family this fall, and as my boys get older and start school, that we will be able to continue building strong family relationships on this basic foundation.

Into the Real World: Ellen Cook’s Story

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Into the Real World: Ellen Cook’s Story

Ellen Cook is 18 years old and from California.

"Get out of the Christian bubble!"
“Get out of the Christian bubble!”

I feel like my parents were easily swayed into ideas they may not have agreed with. They made the decision to homeschool us when we were driving around our new neighborhood located in the Kern River Valley. They were so convinced because a couple young teens were riding horses with their mother, and they had mentioned what homeschooling was for them. We must have sat in our van on that dirt road for an hour or two. But this conversation resulted in my older sister’s journey into boys and teenage-hood. My 12 year old sister entered into 6 years of homeschool chaos, while me being 8 got to watch and wish that I had a life. My parents thought we could travel around and see historical and educational places in our area — get some hands on learning.

That rarely happened.

I am very lucky though; I was not homeschooled through high school (thank you Jesus). My sister has hated me, in a sense, since the day my parents said they wanted to enroll me in high school.

Something I always noticed in one of my sets of curriculum was little comics. The characters had weird names, like “Happy,” and they implied good morals and obeying God — which is good, I guess. But the one that will always stick out to me is one of a boy, “Pudgy,” earning money and giving it all to the offering in church. It struck me as very strange at 9 or 10 because all I wanted to spend my money on was candy. But now that I know what those homeschool companies are trying to do, it’s very unfair. Sure, giving to the church is not bad. But the money isn’t going directly to God, as implied when I read it.

I see now that the indoctrination is very strong with these Christian homeschool families, but maybe not mine. I know many homeschool parents that raised sin-committing rebels from their pure and Godly homes. Homeschooling did not work for most of the kids I knew. I realized this when they became 18 and had their first girlfriend or boyfriend. Our friends that are boys would come over to swim in our pool, and all the kids would have to cover up their swimsuits as to not attract sexual attention. We were Tweens! My sister and I didn’t know what a penis was!

What exposed me to the world was my best friend, a girl that moved in next door about a year or two after we moved there. She introduced me to Punk Rock, Tiger Beat, MTV (we didn’t have cable), hair dying, cursing, and everything else that makes me who I am today. I am so lucky to have met her, or else I would have been the weird homeschool girl in high school. I would have not survived. We even took her to our home school prom and she almost got us kicked out for sucking the helium out of balloons. All the home school moms freaked out and did not know what to do. It’s on Youtube! We were some rebels back then…

Now that I am older and have experienced more public school than just 3rd grade. I look back at my homeschooling years and I can see it was a manic decision by my parents, and it screwed up one of their children. My dad is bipolar and depressive, so our education was in his indecisive hands and it did not turn out pretty. But really, I am thankful for my short 5 years of homeschooling because I’ve learned that particular society may not be what I want to participate in, and that the Republican Party may not be the best just because they are the Christian party. I’ve learned more than enough about the Civil War, and got to run around outside when it snowed.

But yes, that’s a bit of my story. All I can say for other homeschool kids is find out things for yourself, listen to music besides Worship or Christian, and watch the news — get out of the Christian bubble! I am Catholic now, and I appreciate church now more than ever because I don’t feel judged or like a sinning teenager. I finally feel like going to church isn’t a joke, or mandatory to please my parents. And that is a blessing. But homeschooling never hurt my relationship with God — it was too safe. Getting out into the real world tested my relationship with God, and made it stronger.