"Dear American people, please forgive us for every single one of us not dying on the first three days of the Russian Federation's full scale invasion of our country. We are sorry that we keep dying in moderate quantities that are insufficient for your economy"
I do feel that my existence and identity as an ndn is heavily connected to why and how I love speculative biology/evolution, but damn are a lot of spec evo artists weird about us.
I try not to get too personal on here but I need to vent really quick about some family/religious trauma bullshit so welcome to my diary entry lol
cw for evangelical christian type religious trauma/spiritual abuse etc etc
So my mom is very Christian and has gotten more active with church stuff recently which on one hand is great bc she needs hobbies and on the other hand is not great bc she goes to an evangelical church that's really putting the evangelizing into being evangelical.
I do not believe in God. I tried for many years, even post-deconstruction, to continue believing in the Christian God so I could keep calling myself a Christian but eventually I realized that I only wanted to believe in God so that my family (mostly my mom) wouldn't have debilitating anxiety about my potential for eternal damnation and when I realized that I decided to stop trying to believe in God and I've had a lot more emotional peace when it comes to religious trauma. It's still something I'm working through, but the things I'm working through are, like, the deeply rooted shame that was instilled in me as a child and making sense of the harm to me and others perpetrated by churches/Christian organizations. I'm not like, "struggling with my relationship with God." I don't have one, need one, or want one.
I have not told my mother all of that because of the aforementioned hell anxiety, an anxiety I no longer have because I don't believe in hell anymore. But I am deeply familiar with that anxiety and I know what it's like to be a Christian who believes in hell and believes that non-Christians will go to hell. I know how those Christians talk about non-Christians because I have been privy to those conversations and prayer requests. I know how painful it is to be convinced that someone you care about will go to literal hell if they don't believe in Jesus Christ as their lord and savior etc etc. I can only assume that it's more painful when that someone is your child. HOWEVER THAT IS NOT MY PROBLEM it is not my job to soothe my mother's anxiety because her beliefs include eternal damnation etc etc.
A while back, I set a boundary with my parents that I didn't want to talk about Christianity or get stuff like bible verses or worship songs recommended to me, especially in regards to my mental health. My dad has respected that and he listened and really tried to understand when I explained why Christianity and church and all that was not good for me. If he is worried about my eternal salvation, he has not expressed that to me and for that I am grateful.
My mom does a very very poor job of disguising her anxiety about my religious beliefs (or lack thereof). She holds her tongue MOST of the time, but she has insisted on showing me some worship music and on one occasion last year, after a whole conversation where she denied the fact that I'm disabled (autism et al) and denied the existence of religious trauma ("God didn't hurt you, people hurt you" generic shit I've heard a bazillion times before and since leaving the church) and said the same queerphobic stuff she always says when the topic comes up, she was like "I just think you'd be less depressed if you starting reading your bible again and went to church and also went on mission trips" and after that I internally decided that I never want to discuss any of those topics with her again unless she goes to therapy etc etc
All of this to say: the other day, my mom sends me the link to this thing at her church that's supposedly a non-judgmental place where you can ask questions about Jesus and the church and it's promoted as this thing that welcomes everyone but is really just intended to convert/reconvert people. It's typical non-denominational "all are welcome, but..." bullshit that I am intimately familiar with as someone who was VERY INVOLVED in these types of churches for 20 years. THEY CANNOT FOOL ME and I looked through the website, I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and YEAH it's just evangelism with extra steps, targeted at people who are lonely and want quality community.
But like I said THEY CANNOT FOOL ME and I already have a community (that is technically a church but it's complicated) with good friends with a wide variety of beliefs and experiences and it's a community that genuinely doesn't even care if you believe in God or not. The goal there is community. I have many friends there who I can have spiritual conversations with should I desire to do so.
My mom knows about this community I have but she also knows that it's queer affirming and that most of the people I know there are queer (go fucking figure).
It might seem like a small thing, the invitation to a group like that. But even aside from the violation of one of the most explicit boundaries I have with my parents, it feels like such a slap in the face that she still doesn't believe me. She doesn't believe I have religious trauma or experienced spiritual abuse (she said "maybe a place you can find some healing for your wounds from church"). She doesn't believe me when I say bible reading and worship songs make my anxiety worse. She doesn't believe me when I say I'm queer or disabled. She can be nice to me and we can have a pleasant conversation about neutral topics, but I will always be aware of the fact that I am not the one thing she wants me to be, the thing that she believes is the most important thing. I am not a Christian. I don't think I ever will be again, and definitely not the kind of Christian I used to be. I will still be queer and autistic and weird. I will always be a disappointment. No published book or progress with my mental health or positive relationships with my friends will ever make up for the fact that I am not what she wanted.
My mom doesn't care if I'm happy. She cares if I believe in God. And that really fucking sucks.
