So, I grew up Catholic. My dad is Italian and Polish, my mom is Indigenous Peruvian and Italian but pretends she’s only Italian. Her maternal grandfather was also a French Jew who escaped the Holocaust, but she wasn’t Jewish because Judaism is matrilineal and it was her grandfather not her grandmother (her grandmother was Indigenous). Both parents were raised Catholic and raised me and my brother the same way. I was baptized as a baby, made my first communion, went to church every Sunday, made my confirmation. I was an altar server for ten years. My parents teach Sunday school. My family was and still is pretty involved in the church.
I always had a complicated relationship with church. I hated it. I went to a Christian school as a small child because it was the only school that would take me (I was young for my grade), and I faced so much trauma at that school it was disgusting. The things people can do to a 5-6 year old, man. It’s horrific. I hated anything to do with church.
When I was 7, I made my communion, and decided to be an altar server afterward. I don’t know what prompted this. I think I just wanted something to do during church because it was so boring and awful, and I actually didn’t hate church quite as much as a new altar server.
I came out to my parents as a trans boy when I was twelve. I changed my pronouns at school, and everything was fine for about three months. In June of my seventh grade year, my parents found out I changed my pronouns. I told them I was going to, so I don’t know why this was news to them, but it was, and in response, I was berated, beaten, and humiliated. My mother took away my belongings, beat me, asked me disgusting questions, refused to feed me, and called me names. I remember it was June because I remember it was the week of my parents’ anniversary, and they told me they wanted to go to church to get blessed for their anniversary. They brought me in with them and told the priest everything, and made me speak with him while I was screaming and sobbing. It was a mortifying and humiliating experience, and six years later, no one acknowledges that any of it happened. If I bring it up, I’m told to shut up.
Overnight, I went from tolerating/liking church to absolutely hating it. I have DID, and I couldn’t go through one mass without dissociating and switching. I could barely even sit in the church anymore because all I could think of was that event, and I didn’t get a choice. My parents dragged me along, forced me to go to church for the next five years, dragged me to Sunday school, made me get confirmed, and I hated every second of it.
Almost immediately following this major event in my life, I began seeing signs. I wasn’t on Tik Tok, and anyway, this was even before Witchtok blew up (I think it was a thing in 2019, but it wasn’t big), but I started noticing signs. Dogs would run at me when I walked past on the streets. Every single time. I started seeing repeating numbers everywhere, especially 555. There were loads of others, but I didn’t pay much attention to them because I thought they were just normal things. When quarantine started, I suddenly got the idea to learn to bake things like cake and bread. I started walking more, and walking, being out in nature, calmed me. It’s what kept me calm and sane during quarantine. Every June since June 2019, I would feel inexplicably attracted to the natural world, to a religion outside of Catholicism, and it started before I even knew what Hellenic Paganism was.
Witchtok blew up in 2021, and I started seeing it all over YouTube. Witchtok compilations, etc. I didn’t really take much of it seriously because it was the Internet, but still, I felt drawn to Hellenic Paganism in particular, and I remember once again that attraction being particularly strong in June. I didn’t pay too much attention to the stuff I saw online because I knew the Internet wasn’t always accurate, but I did things like make prayer beads and sun water and spend time in nature. This went on for several years. Every June, I would do all these things as a Pagan, and then it would turn July and I’d stop for the rest of the year. I didn’t understand it. I made my confirmation in spring of 2021, when I was fourteen, and afterward, my hate for church was only stronger and my attraction to Paganism grew stronger as well. Meanwhile, the signs I saw before only got more common. I saw 555 everywhere. License plates, house numbers, the time. This continued for years.
When I was in high school, I made tons of new friends, some of whom are Hellenic Pagan. It wasn’t until April of this year, when we were talking about it, that my friends did research on the signs I’ve been seeing and saw that all of them line up really well with Lady Demeter and Lord Apollo. It took me nearly six years to understand. They were practically beating me over the head with it for six years, and I didn’t understand until my friends made me understand. It’s interesting that it all started in June, after one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. It’s as if the gods saw me and wanted to help.
So now, here I am again, trying to be a much better, much more consistent Pagan.
