winged thing

call me Estel. xe/they/he. sideblog for posting about angels and complicated ex-catholic feelings. please do not proselytize to me.

[winged-thinged]

Intro Post

This is a space for me to process complicated ex-Catholic feelings. Polite discussion is welcome, but I'm here to vent, not to debate. Me talking about my trauma is not an invitation for you to come in and try to change my mind.

Please no unsolicited advice on what I need to deconstruct. I am the expert on my own experiences, and I am not accepting applications for amateur mind-readers at this time.

A little bit about me: I was raised Roman Catholic with strong fundamentalist influences, of the Hillsong and the trad cath AND the doomsday variety. I got my BA in theology from a Catholic university with an emphasis on queer theology, spent some time in Lutheran and UU spaces, and am now something like a religious naturalist and a humanist/skeptic. I'm also nonbinary transmasc, aro-grayace and queer. This blog is for unpacking my experiences and the harm that my Christian upbringing did to me, both as a queer person and otherwise.

I do not need saving, because I am a good thing just the way I am.

Welcome and be well! You deserve to be treated kindly, because you are a good thing, too.

Icon is art by CassandraJP

[aro-culture-is]

aroallo culture is being super self conscious about your sexual attraction in fear of being labeled a gooner, or feeling like one already despite enjoying other aspects of life and relationships just as much

i'm gonna be so real: porn addiction is not real. gooning was a specific fantasy kink that got wildly changed by hitting mainstream.

some specific comments re: porn addiction not being real:

there is no study that proves porn addiction "shrinks your brain" as a whole, and a few that suggest people who watch more porn have a smaller region of the pleasure center of the brain. there is not a known direction of that correlation: it may be that people with a smaller pleasure region are more likely to watch more porn, or it may mean watching a lot of porn shrinks that area. the effect of either is not well understood, and could have no impact. anyone who doesn't put nuance in neurological impacts is trying to sell you something, whether ideological or product based.

there are very, very mixed studies about the effect of porn on relationships. it is more complicated than "porn ruins your relationship" or "porn improves your relationship". broadly, it's thought to depend on a lot of context - ie, solo/mutual watching, secretive/open in a relationship about it, beliefs about porn, etc.

there is no evidence that frequent porn watching or masturbation decrease the ability to get aroused. there is some evidence it might increase it, to a degree. there is some evidence that especially among women who report feeling more shame about watching porn feel less aroused after watching it. this is thought to be about the shame, and not the porn.

there's a HUGE amount of money poured into trying to find negative effects, very few of which reputably find significant detriments. there's not a lot of money into studies about neutral or positive effects. headlines will say the most shocking possible interpretation they can, regardless of the methodology, peer review status, or funders.

there are studies that STRONGLY indicate that feeling addicted to porn or masturbation is most correlated with a background where you feel that doing those behaviors is inherently bad, regardless of actual frequency or use.

“There is no scientific recognition of ‘pornography addiction’,” Grubbs explains. Prause agrees: “Of the different ways to understand problematic pornography use – such as poor sex education, problematic behaviour, or compulsivity – ‘addiction’ is the least supported by science.”

that said, if you feel that you use porn to escape negative emotions without ever addressing them, seeking a mental health therapist and talking about your worries over avoidant behaviors is a good plan.

A common scenario to watch out for is using porn to drown out difficult emotions. This can happen with any pleasurable activity, such as eating, sleeping or gaming, where a person begins excessively relying on that activity as a way to cope. “A healthier coping response might be to attempt to deal with the factors that cause the distress in the first place. This is opposed to just suppressing the feelings of distress by temporarily overpowering them with highly rewarding behaviours,” says Rowland.

in addition, if you find that you worry a LOT about how others perceive you, how porn is affecting you morally, ethically, religiously, or in community or relationships, or feeling like porn "contaminates" you in some way, it may be worth reading up on OCD and seeking an OCD-aware therapist (which is really, really not every therapist).

[unwelcome-ozian]

[aenigmatica]

thought crimes dont exist yay forever

[winged-thinged]

thinkin about the "Catholicism is Woke, Actually" strain of thought, championed by liberation theologians and Catholic queers and people who are a little too easily misled by Pope Francis's & Pope Leo's social media campaigns, and I think what it is symptomatic of, is the desire to redeem Catholicism (because you find something meaningful in it) without doing the hard work of actually redeeming Catholicism (because that would mean undoing thousands of years of abuse and oppression and injustice and taking modern Catholicism apart at the seams and undermining almost everything it stands for and coming out the other side with something radically different than when you started). It's just too hard, it's too much work, it's uncomfortable and means seriously reckoning with how your community, your sources of meaning, your God cause harm, and most people aren't willing to do that. But they're aware enough of the many Problems with Catholicism to be uncomfortable, and they don't want to be seen as socially regressive. So they do the same thing that Pope Leo's social media team has been so adept at. They rebrand. Slap a fresh coat of paint on. Call it "progressive." No need to actually reckon with the ongoing legacy of centuries of patriarchy and colonialism and abuse and sexual repression if you can just paint a smile over Jesus's bloody face.

[winged-thinged]

via @brave-little-avocado-toaster

This is so funny to me because I grew up going to the whitest most upper-middle-class suburban Catholic church in the midwest, but I think you're right. It's the "well Catholics (mostly meaning Latine Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans) have historically been discriminated against in the US so they're winning the Oppression Olympics and therefore they must be more morally correct" thing, and folks that is not a given

[forestgreenandgray]

Hey do you know what rumination is?

Rumination is probably the most common type of OCD compulsion, but I rarely see anyone talking about it. I've talked to multiple people diagnosed with OCD who didn't even recognize it as a compulsion.

Basically, if you have OCD you have terrible intrusive thoughts. They can be about anything, but common themes are fear of being a bad person, fear of hurting someone, fear of contamination. etc.

Rumination is when you get stuck in a spiral. Rumination is when you spend hours catastrophizing, overthinking, analyzing, telling yourself it's going to be okay.

I'll say it again:

Rumination is a compulsion.

Rumination is a compulsion, and that means you have to stop doing it.

I did ERP (exposure response prevention) for my OCD with a therapist! For 9 months! And it did help, but the idea didn't really click until I found this website a couple years later.

And Oh My God. It made things make so much more sense, and I was able to pull myself out of an episode even though I wasn't in therapy or on meds at the time.

Genuinely if you have OCD, or even if you suspect you have OCD, I'm begging you to read some of these articles.

Like this was genuinely life changing for me.

Here are some of the ones that were most helpful to me:

Defining Rumination

How to Stop Ruminating

ERP Exercises for Compulsive Rumination

What to Do When You're Triggered

[winged-thinged]

thinkin about the "Catholicism is Woke, Actually" strain of thought, championed by liberation theologians and Catholic queers and people who are a little too easily misled by Pope Francis's & Pope Leo's social media campaigns, and I think what it is symptomatic of, is the desire to redeem Catholicism (because you find something meaningful in it) without doing the hard work of actually redeeming Catholicism (because that would mean undoing thousands of years of abuse and oppression and injustice and taking modern Catholicism apart at the seams and undermining almost everything it stands for and coming out the other side with something radically different than when you started). It's just too hard, it's too much work, it's uncomfortable and means seriously reckoning with how your community, your sources of meaning, your God cause harm, and most people aren't willing to do that. But they're aware enough of the many Problems with Catholicism to be uncomfortable, and they don't want to be seen as socially regressive. So they do the same thing that Pope Leo's social media team has been so adept at. They rebrand. Slap a fresh coat of paint on. Call it "progressive." No need to actually reckon with the ongoing legacy of centuries of patriarchy and colonialism and abuse and sexual repression if you can just paint a smile over Jesus's bloody face.

[thewingedwolf]

do you think the catholic church effectively utilized wokeness by funneling money into the colonization and rape of the americas after issuing the doctrine of discovery which effectively legalized the subjugation of indigenous peoples?

[winged-thinged]

"with the exception of queerness and divorce" as if you can just lay those things aside, like those people aren't being actively hurt and excluded by the community that you choose to be a part of. Like divorcees and queer people don't matter. Like those regressive teachings aren't deeply rooted within the structure of natural law theology, patriarchy, strict rules about "complementary" gender roles and men's and women's places and pervasive sexual shame. Like it's fine that there is not a single Catholic church led by a woman. Like it's okay that women, queer people, those who have sex at the wrong time or who have the wrong kind of sex are denied access to the sacraments. Like it's okay that the organization facilitates and hides abuse and hides and punishes abuse victims. It's really woke.

[unwelcome-ozian]

[namedvesta]

The Bird of A Thousand Voices, installation by Boris Acket at the Vilnius Light Festival in the St. Catherine Church, 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟨

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[succubusboyfriend]

are you “adaptable” or are you just willing to subject yourself to existing in low key background-level ambient misery

[succubusboyfriend]

these are different things btw. actual adaptability means not dealing with being miserable long term. and being constantly mildly annoyed/frustrated with a situation but being “able to deal with it” counts as ambient misery. btw.

[succubusboyfriend]

let this be your sign to make your life just a little more livable. get a dollar store trash can for your bedside so Cup City’s invasion plans fall through. block a tag or post that makes you grind your teeth every time you see it. get some grip pads so your bed stops sliding across the hardwood a little bit every time you get in it. tell that person you need a little more support. if you get annoyed at a situation more than a couple times, change it. don’t be content with being miserable.

[demonprincex]

and the more that you start doing this, the better you will get at detecting your own feelings and advocating for yourself! This is an important start to being more of a person in the world if you struggle with that

[a-vampsarchive]

Some time ago I was sitting in my garden drinking tea at 5 am when I found myself thinking of my relationship with religion, catholicism specifically.

I didn't panic, my heart didn't feel heavy, no fear of Him hearing the "sinful" reflections crossing my mind. A good sign I'd say, that I left that God-fearing, paranoid boy behind, even thought fragments of him are still within me I'm sure.

Instead I still felt the tranquility that the quiet and breeze of the early morning naturally instill in me. They were just thoughts passing by like any other, so I calmy continued sipping the tea that kept my hands warm.

I heard a few owls still left awake but the day birds started showing themselves too. I observed them fly from the sky into the garden, my eyes followed them until a few ended up, as usual, landing on the biggest tree of the garden: a Judas tree.

I kept staring at it for a good while. That tree was always there, I grew up with it and it's the only plant that never got sick.

Maybe it's a foolish thought but in a way, it felt prophetic like I was destined to turn my back on Him.

From that moment it's a thought that's just there, it's not uncomfortable or likeable.

It's just there.

[tpwrtrmnky]

*cracking open your moral intuition systems* ohhh i see, there's the issue, you're running secularism on a kernel built for protestant morality.

Tricky one cause the kernel's built around creating the need for salvation from a higher power, and you'll have to change up a lot of the systems for evaluating your own and others' moral worth to avoid operating with a deficit when there's no inbuilt release valve.

You haven't been going around making up ad-hoc solutions for redeeming sinners instead of trying to patch out the notion of sin, right?

[decentsapling]

Have you thought about how these trends of diet culture and being skinny (ie. starvation and deprivation) are also encouraging a disconnect from your body?

Ignore hunger pangs and discomfort (and intuition), feel the burn and push through (and endure a person who might make you feel the same). Ignore the signals from your body (that something isn't quite right, here). Mark your progress not by internal equilibrium but in external inches and pounds (and opinions and desires from others).

Be small. Shut up. Fit in my hand. Look for my approval. Don't trust yourself. Ignore the fact that this doesn't feel right and do it anyway. For me.

[natalieironside]

I don't wanna sound like mean or nuthin but a lot of y'all have been trapped in a vortex of suffering for so long that you've come to identify with the suffering as an aspect of your personality and ideology and thereby to covet suffering and to mistake debasement for enoblement and humiliation for virtue

[natalieironside]

The brief rush of moral superiority might be enough to sustain you for an hour or a day but in the long term it's a very very unhealthy coping mechanism and in the very long term it's where stuff like Christianity comes from

[ungodlydandelion]

Your mind is your body. You are literally your body. Your emotions are physical and so is your mind. And this is a good thing! You're alive! All of you is you!