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.

When A Shirt Is More Than Just A Shirt

I had been needing new clothes for some time now, between working to rebuild my house, and gaining a few pounds lately, many of my clothes (pants especially), were too tight, had paint on them, or were wearing out.

I had been buying some clothes with each paycheck, and then my tax refund came in. I bought for myself what I wanted, regardless of what anyone else would think of it for the first time. It was liberating at first when I bought a Pink Floyd shirt and a Sons of Anarchy "Fear the Reaper" emblem shirt, and I could walk around without a care in the world.

You see, I growing up, my mother who absorbed a lot of the superstition of the extreme Pentecostal beliefs she encountered when she converted.

There was evil hiding behind every corner, most forms of modern music were "evil", and she unfortunately even believed the "Knight's In Satan's Service" hoax. I wish I was joking. Anything that seemed remotely loud, dark or edgy was something scary to her. She was always more extreme than the churches we were in, strangely enough, but this kind of paranoia does creep into evangelical/fundamentalist world in many ways, ways that I bought into.

The "fundigelical" world is very paranoid, convinced that outsiders are after them, convinced that the rest of the world is "persecuting them", and often fear and hate groups they don't understand, LGBT people, people practicing any other religion, and well, just the outside world in general.

Ironically it was the intersection of music/media and a person of another religion that in part, helped to lead me out of fundamentalism. Today, I met with a woman who I used to know. She owned a store in my town that sold hard rock memorabilia.

At that point in my life, about 4 years ago, I was starting to question everything I had even known, and I don't know what led me in the door the first time, perhaps it was curiosity, since the store was across the street from a local government building where I was doing a student internship at, seeing that store sitting there day after day, wondering what kind of people I would find in there, running a store like that.

I never knew I would find one of the most wise, mature, loving people I would ever meet in my lifetime. Here's the kicker: She's Wiccan. Many people in the fundamentalist world mistakenly believe that Wicca = Satanism, or at least fear it as something dark and mysterious that they feel is "evil", but at this point, I wasn't trusting anything I had been told before as truth until I learned for myself. I found out that everything I had been told was a lie, and I was glad that I kept an open mind.

Unfortunately, the store closed in October 2012, and life got busy for me, and I hadn't heard from her much since then.

Nothing Left Here for Me In This Town

I have so much history in this town, but there's nothing left for me here. As many regular readers know, my family is no longer in my life, besides my sister in northern Indiana.

 I lost just about everyone who was already in my social circles when I left the creepy/borderline cult church I was in. I have no reason to stay here other than the fact that when I bought the house as a foreclosure for cash off of the federal agency HUD, I signed a contract that I wouldn't sell the house until June 2015. I'm stuck here until then.

I don't like that, I'm ready to ditch my old roots, I'm tired of reminders of my parents everywhere I go in the town, and having to go out of my way to avoid places I know they will be.

Some communication I've had with Granite City's police department since The Confrontation, and their actions during The Confrontation has shown me that they aren't very willing to do much to help stand behind me, I'm not sure why they're not taking it seriously, so the risk of a public meeting by accident is too great. Fortunately for me, Mrs. Sociopath has horrible night vision, so any time I go into stores after dark, I'm fine.

I'm tired of this place, and it's probably not good for my health. I'm close enough to a steel plant owned by US steel (pictured at left), that I can hear "man down" sirens go off when there's been an injury. It's a highly industrial town, and I'm tired of the pollution and the noise.