It All Adds Up, But I Wish It Didn't

(Sheldon's note: Reader discretion advised for this post, especially for abuse survivors)

I made the call was I was dreading making to my sister, but I had to know. Several weeks ago, she had made a vague reference to our "mother"  who I prefer not to refer to her as, (usually I just say her or she, or call her Mrs. Psycho, I can't even bring myself to say her name or refer to her as a mother), trying to protect her from her warped family, but said she hadn't protected her from who she needed to protect her from, our father. She made some vague reference that he had done some things when she was a teen that she found disturbing, she acted like she didn't want me to push it any further, so I didn't.

Even before she had said that, since I had broken free from them after The Confrontation, I began to realize a lot of things that I hadn't noticed before, I spent so much time during my years as the Undercover Agnostic just spending so much time and energy trying to survive that I had no sense of self reflection.

In recent months, some things started to add up, to make sense, that I wish didn't. I didn't want to believe it was possible, not because I had any illusions that she wasn't capable of it, but it felt so disturbing, so violating to even think about it.

So much made sense, the way I was simultaneously the favorite of the family in her eyes, but also hated, and she seemed to resent my very existence as a human being.

 I remembered the way she always seemed jealous of girlfriends and female friends as I was a teen, and would come up with bizarre excuses of why I shouldn't around them, and why they didn't measure up to her ridiculous standards of "godliness", and I could tell she was grasping at straws in trying to come up with excuses, even for her delusional mind, but at the time I couldn't piece together her agenda was. I remembered her delusions about the mother of my best friend Rose supposedly hitting on me when I turned 18 (she was doing no such thing).

I remembered the disturbing way she used to hug me, even though she knew I couldn't stand her hugging me, that always left me feeling violated, and my father, ever her enabler, would chew me out later for making it damn clear that I did not approve (and she would always get annoyed by it), "she just wants to show you that she loves you", etc. (she kept this up until I was about 19/20 years old by the way).

No, no, it just couldn't be possible, I don't want to think about this, I can't remember much of anything before I turned about 12, so it's possible it didn't happen, it probably didn't, you're probably just seeing patterns where they don't exist, I mean, she's pure evil, but that? ...shit, it probably did happen.

Stabbed in the Back By A Cult Leader (Part 2): Cease and Desist

After my my last post, in which "Pastor Jones" informed me that he took it upon himself to release details that I explicit told him were to be confidential because he felt he was "obligated Biblically"  to do so, he tried to contact me yet again on Friday, while I was at work. He came to the house, and left this in the door:

Text:

 I am deeply sorry for the misunderstanding associated with our encounter and my responsibility toward God and the church. The last thing I want is for there to be something else in the way of you coming to the truth. Please know that I care very much for you as many at Grace also do, and I would welcome an in person conversation with you.

My response, in a certified letter I sent off today:

In my last visit to your office, I explicitly stated that the only information that should be passed to the congregation is that I was resigning my membership from the church due to the fact that my beliefs had changed. I said that any further information that I told you was “not to leave this office”.

Information I have received in recent weeks leads me to believe that you have gone far beyond those limits, and your e-mail response confirmed that fact. What you did was plainly a gross breach of trust and confidence.

You claim a theological precedent for your decision to do this, yet to the best of my memory, I never recall you making your policy on such matters clear in any sermon. I highly suggest that in the near future, that you state what your policy is on people wishing to leave the congregation; I believe your members have the right to know where you stand on this.

I also clearly stated that even if I could return to Christianity (which was highly questionable at best), I could not return to a denomination as conservative as the Southern Baptist Convention, and I most certainly could not return to Grace Baptist Church.

All communications from you since that time have plainly implied that your only intention in contacting me was an attempt to bring me back to the church, and to agreement with your stances on theology (your statements on me “going astray” and worries that you have driven me farther away from “the truth” make this clear). 

That shows an appalling disrespect for me as a person, and for my decision as an adult of sound mind to leave your congregation in peace, and quite frankly, it has reached disturbing levels in its persistence.

Stabbed in the Back By A Cult Leader.

Recently, I had called my sister to check on her, and as we were talking, she had informed me that my former pastor, who I call "Pastor Jones" for the sake of this post, had leaked out details to my former congregation of a conversation that I had with him, the day I had personally informed him that I was officially resigning my membership at the church, the church I had been a member at for 12 years, until I could finally break free form my abusive family

That day, he had asked why I wanted to resign my membership, so I laid it out there, told him the theological reasons, drifting away from Christianity and becoming more agnostic for lack of a better term, and finding a lot of acceptance and peace at the Unitarian church I am attending now.

Since the abuse of my past played a role in the life experiences that led me there, I told him about how I was beaten until I was about 11 years old, forced off medication for my depression,  barricaded in the house of my "parents" and threatened with violence when I tried to leave at 21 years old, and about the most recent of the abuse, "The Confrontation" , where just this past December, when I was forced to cut them out of my life, and they tried to break into my home, and nearly assaulted me in front of a police officer.

I told him, even if I could believe in Christianity again (which is a massive remote possibility), I couldn't go back to a church as conservative as that church, and I definitely could not return to that church, for my own safety. When I told him this, I explicitly told him that I expected this to be confidential, my exact words were "this should not leave this office". He never once objected to this, and I went on with the presumption that it would remain confidential.

 Unfortunately, Pastor Jones had sided with my family, used the old "honor your mother and father" line on me, doubted what I had told him about the past abuse, and tried to chalk up The Confrontation to holiday related stress, and encouraged me to reconcile with them.

Despite him doing that, I hadn't thought he would stoop that low as to stab me in the back by leaking this information out to the church, but that was the reports I was hearing from my sister. "Mrs. Sociopath" was talking to her about it, supposedly the pastor had told a deacon, who then went on to tell her this information.

After I had heard the news from my sister that he had let this information out, I was furious, I confronted "Jason", my Sunday School teacher when I was in that church about it, he works for the same company that I do, on a different shift.

He denied that Pastor Jones would have done that, and said I had no proof, it's rumors, it could have slipped out some other way, I was rather annoyed with him, defending him, and he got in a little jab about me being agnostic, said that if I considered myself a person guided by logic and reason, then instead of just believing rumors about it, I should ask him myself. I told him I would.

A Lost Puppy and a Letter From a Sociopath

I was rather stressed yesterday afternoon due to a letter from my sociopathic mother (I'll talk more about that later in the post), and I guess the stress was making me want to binge on food (maybe getting involved with OA, should be in my future, who knows....), I had stopped by a local pizzeria that I hadn't been been to in a while, but they were closed. So, I changed plans, and decided to go to a fast food place just off of a local highway.

I cut through some nearby neighborhoods to get to that highway quite often, and as I'm driving, I noticed that traffic on my side of the road on this busy street running through the neighborhoods is coming to a stop, and I don't know why.

A white pit bull pup, who looked a lot like the dog pictured at left here, is going up in front of vehicles, getting them to stop, and then eagerly running to their driver's side door, as though he expects them to let him in and take him for a ride. He's about 60 pounds, probably 7-10 months old, and seems like a very happy dog.

This didn't sit well with me, it was after 3 pm, and so I knew Granite City's Animal Control department would be out of their offices, and not running any trucks either, and I knew if I called the police department dispatcher, and this normally happy dog has an aversion to uniforms (like many dogs do), they wouldn't hesitate to shoot him, our police department is notorious for being trigger happy with large dogs, especially pit bulls.

I start driving through the neighborhoods on both sides of this road, looking for him, asking people walking down the streets if they had seen him, some had, and they were directing me as to where they last saw him. I kept searching, driving up and down the blocks, seeing school buses stop and let children out (I especially looked for him when I saw the buses, because a happy dog like him would probably enjoy children).

All my searching come to nothing, though. I thought I had spotted him at one point, but it was an English Boxer (Boxer/British Bulldog hybrid) safely contained in someone's yard.

I had hoped that either he found his way home or that someone with good intentions had picked him up. I was hoping to convince him to come into the car (which probably would have been easy to do), and turn him over to a no kill shelter in the morning, find out if they could help to find his owner.

He seemed well taken care of, even his bright white coat was very clean. I didn't know why I was so concerned about this poor lost dog. I have always understood dogs better than people, and I guess with everything that has been overturned in my life lately, I understand where this lost pup was coming from.

Undercover Agnostic (Update 20): If You Are Going to Go New Testament on Us, At Least Be Consistent About It

Recently, “Jason”, a frequently occurring character in the Undercover Agnostic series, invited me to a viewing of an old A&E special on the history of the early church at the house that he owns with his sister “Kelly”.

Our new pastor, let’s call him “Pastor Jones”, was interesting in viewing the video himself, so Jason had let him preview it before the showing at his house. Pastor Jones’ has been a pastor in churches mostly in the south for some time (North Carolina and Arkansas, he is originally from North Carolina himself), but his theological background is mostly in church history, he has a seminary doctorate in church history in fact.

Since the video was produced by the cable network A&E, it looks more at the history of Christianity from well, a historical and outsider’s perspective instead of a more rigid fundamentalist view. Pastor Jones had a few objections to some statements and assertions that were made, and he had come with a printout detailing his disputes. We were all discussing his list, and then the discussion took a different turn.

Jason spends quite a bit of time with Pastor Jones, especially when he is counseling new church members or prospective members. He had talked about an incident where he had went with Pastor Jones to speak to a man who had been attending the church for a while with his young daughter, and had wanted to convert and join the church.

The pastor asked him if there was anything that he wanted to confess to god and to him as his pastor, and the man said that he had been living with his daughter’s mother, but was not legally married to her. Pastor Jones said that before the church would accept him as a new member, he must either break off the relationship with his girlfriend, or marry her. Jason said the man never contacted either of them again, and both this man and his daughter have not been to the church since.

It started a discussion on marriage and divorce, and Kelly brought up something I never knew about the practices of the church. She said that her son wasn’t willing to join our church because he has been a member of a moderate Christian denomination (I can’t remember which one, I think it was a branch of the Lutheran denomination), and he had married his wife in a ceremony officiated by a female pastor, and the church had already told her and her son that they would not consider his marriage to be legitimate because he was married by a female minister.

I was rather shocked by this, since in over 12 years of being a part of that congregation, (although 3 of those years have been spent undercover), I had never heard of such a policy in place. I had asked the group then about what the policies on divorce were, because I had never heard of anyone being excommunicated, refused membership, or having their second marriage deemed illegitimate in the eyes of the church before. For reference, let’s look at the New Testament view of marriage, divorce and remarriage before, I discuss the group’s reaction.