I M Perfect lady

When I hear people so vehemently defending their religion, it almost seems like they are taking it personally, perhaps too personal, like there isn’t a self left standing, that the self and the religion are one.

In my experience within the FALC, that the stamp of the church infected each one of my roles.

In fact as a child, you were first taught what a sin was.  That you could or could not do this, not by what was kind or good for humanity, but rather what is good for being a First Apostolic. 

So, instilled within us was the foundation of the FALC, before we even knew who we were, we identified ourselves as First Apostolic, and it ruled our lives from the time we were very little.

Not only that, but the adults in our lives, the ones we depended upon for food and shelter, also lived by this formation. The FALC controlled them, not reasonable thought or what was good for their own family, but what was seen as good within the church.

If you look at how we were indoctrinated from the time we were just babies, it is easy to see how any comment that is shining a light or seemingly smearing the church, it is actually feeling personal, for there is very little about the self that isn’t created by the FALC.

And while deeply invested and entwined within the confines of the religion, there is very little self exposed, so any comment will feel like a direct hit.

Otherwise, if this weren’t so, the reactions would not be so rabid…there could be two people having a discussion.

Yet as far as my experience goes, having a dialogue with someone who is 100 proof of religion or abuse, all you talk to is the religion or the abuse.

You can’t get to the individual or self, for each role and thing they do is seen first through the lens of abuse or religion.

There is no separation…or awareness, it is one solid piece and no matter what words you use or what tone of voice or what research you have found, what the truth literally is, IF it something being said about the 100% make up of who they are, they will react and not respond.

Their reactions will be from fear and understandably so.

I have very little recollection of my years in the FALC, for I was missing.  There was no self there.  I moved through life following the group more or less or feeling shame and guilt if I didn’t.

Mostly I would say shame and guilt for not being a good member.

I didn’t marry within the religion, and I feel that was the first weakening of the hold the religion had on me.  And they do preach that the devil is out there waiting to pull you out.  And it does, but I don’t see it as a devil.

I seen myself from the view of the church or the view of how my family saw me…or the view of how my husband saw me, or the view of how my friends saw me. But never a view of how I saw my self.

If you took all the views away…or without them giving me value, I disappeared.

And in fact, when my family’s abuse came into view, I lost a huge part of my self, for I lived for them.  Then when I discovered that the church knew of my abusive father and that he was blessed repeatedly, even for the latest little girl BY her father, I lost another huge chunk of who I was.

In a few short days, I stood alone.

It was then that I knew I had no me.

All I had was a person who had been built up by what was needed by the religion and family too. But I had built very little of me and I was 46 years old.

Oh, I suppose I had 25% me.  My art…well maybe not that high, I guess it was more like 5%. 

That 5% was pure me.  And it was from that small beginning I began adding more and more of me into me…and each time I discover another vein of religious or abusive beliefs or thoughts…I know it is another percentage of me coming forth to be brought upright.

So, as I read the comments of those who feel so viscerally attacked, I understand.  For there is very little of you that isn’t made up of FALC ingredients, you may be 100 proof.