Stitching Up The Seams

Remembering that awkward moment when…

I liked Nathanael. A lot. And like a good fundy girl who hopes to marry a man, I was close with his family. His sisters in particular, but I was in good standing with his parents, too. Which is actually nearly unheard of with his dad. His dad doesn’t like ANYBODY that he doesn’t think is good enough.

But yeah. His dad commonly said both from the pulpit and to anyone who would listen really that he didn’t like loud girls. That they weren’t exhibiting a meek and quiet spirit. This was often aimed at one of his daughters in particular and her best friend. I always felt so bad for them.

BUT there was one time we were all at a conference together. I had come into the main auditorium during free time with a book to read, my journal to write in, and a few piano books should the urge to play come over me. He came over to talk to me, and as he was leaving he lovingly patted me on the shoulder and said, “I know you’re a quiet, contemplative type. I really like that.”

At the time, I was pleased. That meant that surely he would approve if Nathanael liked me back.

Now? I’m kind of fucking pissed. I’m not quiet because it’s some secret virtue that I believe in because I have a vagina. I’m quiet because I’m an introvert, and I don’t talk unless I’m scared/nervous, or actually have something to say.

Ah, well.

Every Tuesday and Thursday for at least the past four years, probably longer, there is a protest downtown on the road I have to take to get to my job. It takes place halfway between the giant Catholic church and the women’s health clinic. There are cars with giant posters saying things like, “ABORTION CAUSES SUICIDE, DEPRESSION, BREAST CANCER, GUILT” and a number of other things. There’s always a small group of people that literally chase passers-by down the street with signs and fliers, yelling at them. Sometimes it looks like there’s respectful dialogue. I wouldn’t know - I never stop.

Even when I was still a fundamentalist, these protests bothered me. I kept thinking, “How is Jesus in this? I don’t see Him.” And that’s when I saw Jesus in EVERYTHING.

Now? Now I still feel sad. I feel sad for all the women who have had abortions who must take the same road that I do every day, seeing this group of people who ought to be bringing Christ’s love and instead hearing that they are monsters, baby-killers, not worthy of being alive.

Abortion is a sticky topic. It really is. I’m not pro-abortion. Frankly, I don’t know a single person who IS pro-abortion. But I am pro-choice. I’m sad when that choice leads to an abortion. I’m sad for the circumstances that cause that choice to be made - medical difficulties, rape, financial struggles, family abuse, personal hurdles that are getting harder and harder to surpass.

I don’t like abortion. But I think what these people are doing is far, far more harmful than it is good.

In laws.

I really struggle with how to feel about my in-laws.

My father-in-law is an independent fundamental Baptist pastor, graduate of BJU. His wife is a music teacher, also graduate of BJU.

They were unable to have children. Spent ten or so years trying to no avail. So they adopted my husband at birth. His birth mother was a single woman who was leaving a lifestyle of drugs and alcoholism, staying with a local IFB pastor until she gave birth, until she could get back on her feet.

There have been times in arguments with Gary that his mom has told him that he is a bastard child. Not her son. Not legitimate.

When he was a child and having problems at his private school - being bullied by students and teachers alike - they never sided with him. When he would come home with bruises from other children and often from teachers as well, they did nothing. Until the time that he said, “fuck you” to a teacher while she had a vice-like grip on his arms. He was scared - he knew that would surprise her enough for him to be able to finally break free. He was almost expelled for that. He was in fourth grade. They STILL brought that up to him as an example of what a horrible child he was…when he was 19 years old. And during this incident, they literally beat him until he bled. He bled for days.

Then there was the whole debacle with me. They didn’t like me when we were just friends. Never met me, of course. But I was female. And I was three years older. And I wasn’t Baptist. His parents thought - and told him - that I was basically a cougar. That my biological clock was ticking, and so I went to BJU with the sole purpose of finding a man, and I’d decided that Gary was it.

Didn’t matter that I wanted nothing to do with him for the first two months I was there.

Didn’t matter that they had never had a single solitary conversation with me.

Didn’t matter that at the time I didn’t even want to get married.

Didn’t matter that Plymouth Brethren and IFB are sometimes just two sides of the same damn coin.

Then, over Christmas break, they found out that we’d started fooling around sexually. Man, oh man. At that time, I became a whore. Because Christian virgins don’t like doing the things that I like to do, apparently. They began fighting - verbally and sometimes physically. At one point, Gary was trying to walk away from the argument. His father wrapped his hands around his neck, choking him and yelling, “Look what this whore has done to you!”

To this day, if something brushes his neck…it’s bad.

When we finally did get kicked out and they came to pick him up, they were livid. I guess understandably. But you know what pissed them off JUST AS MUCH as the fact that we’d had premarital sex? The fact that we don’t believe that sex is only for procreation. That’s what his dad harped on the most.

I guess love and trust and sexual desire have nothing to do with anything.

When he came to visit me after we got kicked out, his mother emailed my mother and requested that Mom and I sleep together to make sure that we wouldn’t do anything. And she tried to sort of tell Mom about the things that they’d found out over Christmas break. Mom and Dad came into my room a couple of hours before we left to pick him up from the airport, wanting to know what I hadn’t told them and letting me know about my MIL’s request. I told Mom flat-out that I would not be sleeping with her - that if they were really that concerned, they could just lock him in the basement. And that my sex life wasn’t their business, and did they really want to know nitty-gritty details? Thankfully, that solved that.

When Gary was saving money, selling half of his possessions to have money, look for a job - his parents offered no help whatsoever. When he found a job an hour from me and he had to move within a month, they again offered absolutely no help. We think they were hoping it would fall through and he wouldn’t be able to go. He packed all of his worldly possessions that he hadn’t sold to give him money for the trip into his car and drove 17 hours. They did nothing, except helped him pack the car.

When we set a wedding date, they didn’t want to show up until the night before the wedding. They didn’t want to meet me beforehand. They didn’t want to get to know me. They didn’t want to spend time with their son. He had to basically bully them to come earlier. They came, but were not happy.

So I know all of this, right? We’re open with each other. We tell each other pretty much everything. I know what they think of me.

And when they finally do meet me, they’re all nicey-nice. I’m greeted with a HUG by his dad. I don’t hug men I don’t know. My FIL doesn’t hug his own son. It was weird. The entire situation was bizarre. I knew they hated me. I don’t know if they knew that I knew. But they acted like this was just an awesome situation.

Two days later, the night before our wedding, his dad tried to talk him out of marrying me.

I just…

I don’t know what to think of them.

They’re still nice to me. They don’t talk bad about me to Gary anymore. I think they may have tried once after we were married. Maybe. I don’t remember.

And they do love him. I know they do.

To me, though…it’s just clear that that’s the kind of “love” that fundamentalism teaches.

Not unconditional love.

Not love that meets you where you are, helps you become a better person.

It’s a love that has as its sole purpose making you into a little Christian machine. And if you don’t turn into a machine, then you are cut off.

And even now! They went six months without talking to us. During those six months, Gary called them twice a week. They never picked up. Never called back. Then suddenly he gets a Facebook message after he’s gotten a job, “Oh, we haven’t talked to you in a while! Call us!” What the hell.

They’ll go months and months without talking to us, then suddenly…we’ll get an email. Or his grandfather will die, and they’ll pay for our tickets and food to get there for the funeral. Or that time when we didn’t have enough money to put in his gas tank to get him to work, and they wired money to us.

Sometimes they’re there. But oddly, it seems mostly financial. Not substantial.

The night before we got married, my parents, his parents, and the couple that did our premarital counseling sat and talked for hours. Mom says there were lots of tears, lots of talk. Apparently his parents knew that their relationship with their son was strained to the breaking point. Might have even broken. But my mom told them that I could be the bridge that brought them back together. That I was a peacemaker, and that I could help.

Granted, they immediately went and tried to talk him out of marrying me.

But still.

Sometimes I’m not sure if I want to bring them all back together. I love them. They say they love me. They say they love Gary. But it sure doesn’t feel like it.

I’m torn. I’m so torn.

Family is very important to me. At least, immediate family. Parents, siblings. I want to have a relationship with them.

But I don’t know that it’s possible.

And I’m not sure that it’s even healthy.

Also, ptsd.

Laugh if you want to.

But I really do think that I have PTSD from my time at BJU.

Some days I’m really good at explaining why - I remember specific things that made me feel differently, think differently, exist differently.

But today my memories are blurs of feelings.

And maybe it’s not JUST Bob Jones, you know? I hadn’t worked through my sexual assault at that time (not that I’m finished working through it now, but at the time I had been convinced by others that it was a non-issue so naturally there was no reason for me to work through it). I had spent two years with Peter in which I’m pretty sure he was grooming me for something or another. I had fallen in love with Joe only to find out he was married/divorcing and my parents/my religion forbade me to be friends with him. In the midst of all of that mental chaos and instability, I entered the atmosphere at BJU.

I was only there five months.

After only three months, I was pretty fucked up, though.

Thanksgiving break, I remember driving around my hometown lost on more than one occasion. And things hadn’t changed that drastically. The only thing I remember that actually had changed was a school was torn down and rebuilt somewhere else. And that messed me up. A town I’d been living in since the age of six and had been driving around since the age of 15 was foreign to me. I got lost on my way to one of my best friend’s houses, a house I’d been to countless times. Gary and I had begun to sexually fool around by this point, and I was nearly suicidal over that and thus confessed to as many people as would listen and was flabbergasted when they didn’t flog me. I didn’t eat. My mom made all of my favourite foods, my dad baked all of my favourite treats, and all I could do was nibble. I slept a lot. I looked in my mirror and marveled at the weight I’d lost. I still remember Daniel walking up my driveway IN THE DARK, stopping dead in his tracks with an awed muttered, ”Whoa…you’ve really lost weight.” I never noticed at BJU because I layered upon layers upon layers to stay warm, but my clothes literally HUNG off of me. I had lost 30+ pounds in three months. Probably sooner than that.

Christmas break, Gary and I had fooled around even more and I was beside myself with despair and anxiety. I’d failed all but one of my classes. Me, the straight-A student. The girl who should have gone to art school. The intelligent one. Had a .23 GPA at Bob Jones. And it wasn’t that my classes were difficult. I just…I couldn’t do the work. I was too hyped all the time. And I didn’t used to be hyped like that. Went to a Bible conference with Ann - on our way to pick up a friend, we got lost and I absolutely flipped my shit with her in the car. I realize now that in some ways I probably pushed her away, but I swear to God I didn’t understand what was going on. I just knew that at any time my entire world was going to come crashing down around me and I was going to burn, burn, burn. We went to the beach for the conference - I didn’t step foot on the sand even once.

After getting kicked out, my second job that I got…my boss asked me to open an Excel file and work with it. I had an attack right then and there, because I’d never worked with Excel and I couldn’t do it and I didn’t know how and why was she asking me to do this?! She was concerned, but mostly annoyed, and told me something that both terrified me and has helped me tremendously ever since:

I think your response is a little disproportionate to what I’ve asked you to do.

That shook me. That woke me up. In that moment, I realized for the first time since I had gotten back from BJU that I had been constantly choking on fear, constantly unable to breathe or sleep or function normally.

As Amanda puts it, “No wonder - they were literally brainwashing you.”

Trauma rewires the brain. And I’m trying not to freak out over here, because anxieties have resurfaced again randomly and almost incapacitatingly. But I can see that my anxiety is disproportionate to what’s going on. I can see that it’s irrational. I see it. I know it. And it helps me calm down.

But I still have to calm myself down.