Separation of Church & Fate
This year apparently has been about learning self-validation.
I started school this year, and turns out - I’m not dumb and i’m really good at time management, unlike what i was telling myself.
I was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD (combined type) at the very start of the year, and it turns out those are fuckin REAL and so are the issues they bring to my life. I’m not just a lazy asshole, like i was telling myself.
It’s also been about recognizing old patterns and navigating the essential inner growth.
Why do i feel these things about myself? Why is my self-confidence destroyed this year? I KNOW i’m not bad, or dumb, or manipulative, and that i am always putting effort into growth within relationships and myself. I like to ask questions because i’m genuinely curious and i want to know what people think and i like to solve problems in ways that benefit everyone.
So where am i getting this negative self feed-back loop? And why was it missing for a few years but suddenly has come back full-strength?
Turns out that the negative thought patterns i allowed to creep in are not actually my sentiments at all. They’re the reflections of very difficult years in harsh environments built up over time, strengthened by the perceived notions of people who have no fucking clue what’s actually going on. My inner awful dialogue wasn’t something i struggled with as a kid, until the church came along. This would be partially a product of simply being a child, but also being an AUTISTIC child. Most children are who they are, they like who they are, and they don’t realize that there’s anything wrong with them until someone doesn’t like them or misunderstands them. Essentially, all children are taught to be self-conscious and learn that they are ‘weird’ or ‘bad’ or ‘dumb” from social peers and triggered adults and the cycle starts there.
This is true tenfold for autistic children.
Up until the point I was introduced into a society that isn’t built to include me, i had no frame of reference to believe that i was any better or worse than anyone else. I was ME. I liked being me, until i encountered a religious environment that told me i must acknowledge that i’m a bad person in order to participate and get any social ‘perks’ with my club membership (my father also told me i was 'stupid', an 'idiot', and 'dumb' on a daily basis but that's a story for another time).
This seemed arbitrary. Listening to someone preach love and forgiveness every Sunday while also casting hellish aspersions on non-club members, sanctioning domestic abuse and violence, subjugating their female members, and publicly flogging and banishing members who didn’t adhere to the exact script - none of it made sense. It sure seemed everyone was getting away with something, but because they’d stamped God’s name on it, it wasn’t hypocritical.
My blood would boil, my blood pressure would rise, and I would daydream about stabbing myself in the neck with my pen, listening to these men preach on and on and on. Which didn’t seem constructive or conducive to personal growth. I wanted to get rid of that part of me that spent the mornings in the pew viscerally angry. Because, as i was being told, the problem was ME.
I started asking genuine questions because i was confused how such GOOD people could be so hypocritical and lack so much self-awareness. Why would these men tell my mom she had to stay with a man who pushed her down stairs and beat her children and why would they say God wants it? Why would they take it upon themselves to discipline grown adults like they were children and treat children like livestock to “train”. Why would there be a spiritual entity that wants any of this?
These aren’t ground-breaking questions that should shake the very foundations of a sturdy, well-built religious faith that’s predicated on genuine love and forgiveness. If we were truly involved in the spiritual practice this cult claimed we were, there would be inclusiveness. Kindness.
Support.
Grey areas.
Honest and difficult conversations.
The ability to share your experiences and have them be received with curiosity and understanding.
There would be space for mistakes, apologies, and proper conflict resolution.
Turns out, this was too ideal and not the environment in which i found myself. I quickly learned that asking tough questions and trying to have a dialogue relegated me to the status of “questionable” and “dangerous” - even if I took accountability and apologized. I didn’t understand that.
Years later, i realized i’d already been marked as dangerous by this community when i was 8. And while it sounds too self-victimizing to be true - it was simply because I shared some info and asked a question.
My father’s anger was ramping up. He had started taking it out on my mom in physical abuse form, and if i stepped in, it was my turn. Being a problem solver, i figured sharing this info with some older girls at the church might yield positive results. Perhaps their dad could say something to mine. What actually happened was difficult to process.
The girls went to their mother, who went to my mother. I was pulled aside and reprimanded by this other woman for sharing personal family info and instructed never to do it again. She had dragged my mother over with her and lectured both of us on…something - probably encouraging us to get our feminine tongues under control. Years later, this woman’s husband would recommend that my beaten mother skip the divorce she so badly needed on the premise that God likes faithful and submissive wives. But that's another story.
So this is where I learned that my naturally questioning and problem-spotting brain was THE problem. If you see something suspicious, you will get swatted. If you ask questions, you will be banished. If you speak up for yourself, you will be punished. It doesn’t matter how obvious the problem is, how kindly you try to say it - it doesn’t matter if you’re not contributing to the dialogue in a way that sweeps things under the rug and bolsters the bullshit.
I had assumed this was only an issue within church structure. Once i left, the pattern seemed to resolve itself. A non-religious social hierarchy built on the same non-friction and passive double-standard principles didn’t seem like it should exist.
Unfortunately, au contraire.
This year was about learning that people everywhere feel attacked when you suggest something in the social structure is off and try to have a dialogue about it. In a less aggressive sense, this situation mimicked the one from my childhood - misrepresentation, misunderstanding, an entire group of people telling me i was wrong and insecure, and several others clinging to the idea that i tried to control their lives.
(lol - why are they pretending i have that much power)
The difference this time was that i'm now an adult. I have endless experience being treated this way for asking questions.
i also now know that people - esp women - on the spectrum are treated socially poorly bc they're easy targets due to our trusting nature and our communication disability and inability to understand or be passive aggressive. So we are labeled confrontational and aggressive. Dramatic and rude. This time around, I can observe it from a more secure vantage point. i don't have to let it rule my life or destroy my self-confidence. Or convince me that my intentions are bad or my perspective invalid. I can simply remove this dynamic from my life altogether. I can stand up and leave that pew behind.
What surprised me wasn't that i was encountering these accusations of being dangerous again. What surprised me was that it was a social structure of people in their 30s, who should know better. What surprised me was that the church structure i'd worked so hard to leave behind exists alive and well, but on a social level.
Certain social groups it turns out, can also be built on rules and certain ways of doing things. None of this is the more ‘correct’ way, it’s just become whatever is easy and more acceptable by a majority. There’s even a game element to it - and as long as you play by the rules and don’t upset anyone - even if their behavior has negatively impacted you - you have a club membership! Don’t rock the boat! Please be sensitive to others but the minute you ask them to be sensitive of you, it could end poorly for you and only you! If you have a mental breakdown because of years of hiding an unknown disability, you will be accused of trying to take advantage of someone financially! You're not a partner! You suck! This social construct hates consequences, but we definitely have some for YOU!
This provides a nice set-up for people that lack self-awareness or good intentions - or have yet to sort through their negative patterns of behavior. People who aren’t BAD per se, but also aren’t trying to grow or take accountability. Charismatic people who charm the pants off friends but gaslight and stonewall their partner behind closed doors. People who haven’t learned conflict resolution. People who don’t understand boundaries. People who are blind to the fact that most of society functions around using your friends to get the attention and validation you want rather than learning to get it from yourself. And these don’t make them bad people. No one is perfect, and we all have blind spots and struggles.
The distinction lies in whether or not they’re willing to accept responsibility and pay attention when someone shares negative feedback or says “hey…i think we have a problem.” The only bad person is someone who makes a mistake and does not apologize or learn from it, but chooses defensiveness and projection instead (at the end of the day, that will affect THEM negatively the most). No one likes to hear they’re wrong or fucking it up, but it’s a necessary part of being a human if we want to grow and improve. It’s a personal pattern to break. Humans are here to communicate and help each other.
Reliving an experience adjacent to my church upbringing as an adult has been eye-opening. This year, i realized this is where my personal responsibility to breaking this pattern as an Autistic person comes in. Because of the autism, I will be dealing with this in some form for the rest of my life. The pattern contains many things - my participation, my willingness to trust that most people have good intentions and want to be better and will listen when someone speaks up, my effort to fit in with everyone else, my desire for connection. In certain environments, these expectations will be true. Recreating my experience as a child of witnessing fishy behavior, boundaries being crossed, and trying to step in for someone that was not my responsibility was my fault. I willingly chose to do this. That's my shit to work through.
And while it is not up to me to accept the blame for how people respond or their behavior, my responsibility, in order to avoid putting myself in these witch-hunt situations, is to learn how to recognize in which environments asking questions and solving problems is accepted, and to pursue relationships within those. Because, based on how my brain works and my communication style, no matter how much responsibility I take for my side of the street, other people will find some sort of problem with how I am.
However, I can complain about how i’m being treated for speaking up for myself all i want, but if i truly want growth and a healthy environment, i’ll stop choosing social spaces that label me as insecure and controlling, and i’ll stop choosing people who play the victim and misrepresent me and gossip.
If i am in a place where i cannot open dialogues with people and learn and grow with them, then i must seize the opportunity to trust myself, my intuition, and my emotions. Time to practice the self-validation that i have struggled so much with over the years and learn the warning signs of this particular pattern, so that i don't have to play this game again. i can validate my own experiences. I can seek environments where deconstruction of social norms is encouraged, and where my question-asking brain isn't THE problem.
Because if all it takes is one person challenging the "way it's always been" to topple a social or religious structure and wreak havoc, then what was that foundation built on? Certainly something that was already false and unsustainable to begin with. If the structure of whatever i'm questioning is truly sound, it shouldn't result in defensiveness and fear and gossip. It should add to foundations and be embraced as another unique nail that holds it up.
In a sense, I'm grateful to be confronted with this strange dynamic again. These experiences teach me how NOT to be. I don't want to live my life unable to take responsibility and unable to embrace different points of view. That's where we lose growth and accountability and stay the same. That's how we are adults with a child's conflict resolution skills. That's how we tell ourselves that our point of view is THE one and we harm and ignore the others.
Be respectful. Speak up for yourself. Ask questions. Point out problems. And if people don't like it, that's their problem.
