Thinking

As I was returning the movies I had rented last week, I drove past a sign telling of a garage sale at the Baptist Church. I got to thinking, as I drove, about how the last time I saw the pastor (P)at my old church, he gave me an order about coming back. Since I didn't "obey", he hasn't spoken to me and virtually avoided me whenever possible. Not that I have a problem with that. I'm perfectly happy that he doesn't try to play nicey-nice with me in a forced, false friendliness. I just wonder why he believes I don't attend. Perhaps I should explain...

I come from a traditional Baptist home, born and raised. It was a very patriarchal home even though it was my mother who wore the pants in the family. I was emotionally abused, mostly by my mother, and for as long as I can remember, I've had pretty much zero self-esteem. I didn't realize (or even suspect!) that I had been emotionally abused until I was 32 years old. All my adult life, I have been attracted to men who are losers. Can't keep jobs, financially inept, can't function properly socially, were abused as kids, controlling, self depreciating, usually emotionally and sometimes verbally/physically abusive. I would find someone who would give me the pathetic, sob story of their miserable childhoods and I would have a purpose. A meaning. A self worth. I could fix this person by loving them when no one else would. I'd love them so much and so hard that they'd become a better person. I would become obssessed with them and call it "love". I would do anything and everything for them - anything to make them happy. If they weren't happy, I was miserable cuz I was failing as a wife. I would lose myself, camaflage myself, become a chameleon, adept at hiding my wants and needs since childhood. I have become so many different "people" that I lost myself. I didn't know who I was or what I even liked or wanted or needed! Kind of like the "Runaway Bride" movie. With my first marriage, I ended up with a man (A) who controlled me, used me, abused me, cheated on me. I was too weak to leave him after he cheated. Four months later when I "fell in love" with our best friend (J), he found out and threw me out. After the J's mother told him to leave town and have nothing to do with me again, I went back to A and spent two weeks in hell before J "rescued" me and took me back "home" to my parent's world. I ended up getting pregnant and marrying J. We had two children and the cycle started all over. We were good together but I cut pieces of myself out that he didn't approve of. I "couldn't live without him" and every now and then, he'd disappear to see if I noticed, which scared me to death. I had an extreme fear of being left alone by someone. I still had no self worth. We spent 9 years together before another man came along and gave me his terrible sob story and I "fell in love" with him. At that time, I was a huge part of "my" church. I was the pianist and a singer on the worship team, I had a band in which I played guitar and sang lead, I was an actress - for the first time doing what I should have been doing for many years!, I volunteered for almost everything that the church did, I was part of the "inner circle". I was close to P, in a father figure manner. I helped build my friend's (D) new business building and move her into it. I was part of her bible study and she was the first friend I made when I came to this town. The church and my friends there were my whole existance. Besides J, that is. Then I was doing a play with L. We started getting really close - as characters and as friends. I began to change myself again to fit his role. He told me how unhappy he was in his marriage, how abusive his wife was, how horrible his childhood had been, how he hated work and the people there "spied" on him. I did my usual. I "fell in love with him". I was tormented by the relationship. I told J that I was having feelings for L and he said, uh huh. I confided in D about my struggles and my feelings and the torture I was in. I thought that I could trust her. She confided in me about her struggles with feelings for someone else too. I thought I could trust her. After the play was over, I feel into a depression. Within a few days, D told P that I was ruining my and L's marriage. P told me that I could no longer be a part of the drama (he may as well have cut off my arms and legs, I'd have been happier), sing with worship team, have my band, be a part of anything that the "public might see". He told my drama leader that anyone else in town could addition for the next play except me. He began preaching sermons about adultery and using me (minus my name) as an example. Between P and D, they told pretty much 1/2 the church what had happened. So it didn't matter if he used my name or not, most people knew exactly who he was talking about. Anyways, in the course of my attachment to L, he gave me a whole lot of information about emotional abuse. After doing a survey of 50 Questions of yes or no answers to things that tell you whether you've been emotionally abused and answering 45 of the 50 with "yes", I finally understood why I was attracted to "bad" men. How I could end up in an abusive first marriage. Why I had no self esteem and no self worth. How I could profess to "love" someone so much as to die without them and then be able to feel the same about someone else. Why I was filled with self doubt and self hatred. Why I had no physical or mental boundries. I gave up going to church when I came out feeling like I had been beaten with a stick every week. I stopped having anything to do with any of those people. I had started going out singing karaoke to get my "performance high". I met some guys who became my friends. Darren and I (the man I'm with now) became very close right from the start. We are excellent friends. There wasn't anything between us except friendship at the start. But L was insanely jealous. INSANELY jealous. He would berate me and call me down and make me feel horrible about Darren. He started to make me cry anytime I talked to him. He made me feel like a whore. I spent more and more time with Darren as L frightened me more and more. Finally, I broke up with him and he went crazy. He started phoning me all the time and leaving messages. He would drive past my house a million times (I was just moving into my own apartment) and my work a million times. I was terrified to be alone. He showed up at my work one day just before I got off. One of my friends had come to visit and told me that he'd seen him waiting out by my car. I nearly fainted, I was so scared. My friend called Darren who came immediately to help. I waited inside while Darren confronted L and told him that he'd beat the shit out of him if he didn't leave me alone. I ended up moving in with Darren and things progressed. We orginally became friends with benefits but then I got pregnant. Darren was estatic! I was thrilled too but a little afraid of what my parents would say. Pretty sad that a 32 yr old woman would be afraid to tell her parents she was pregnant like she was some errant teenager. We've been together and happily since. Our relationship is like nothing I've ever had before. And more importantly, I've learned to love myself for all my quirks and follies. I have self esteem. I can love someone else because I have learned to love ME.

Back to P and the rest of them. Today I wondered what they think the "why" is. I'm betting that it's that they think I am ashamed cuz I'm "living in sin" and that I am to embarrassed to be around them. Probably that I'll have to shape up and "get right with God" and apologize to all of them for causing so much trouble. You wanna know the real reason? Because I don't trust them. Not a single one of them. They gossip and backstab. P used me as sermon fodder. Of all my "friends" there, only ONE of them attempted to figure out why I would turn my life upside down and empathized with me. Everyone else was too busy casting me out and condemning me. Sadly, I don't trust many people anymore. I have a few friends. We occasionally attend the Lutheran church (Darren was brought up Lutheran) but I find I spend more time concerned with what anyone who talks to me wants from me. I Don't Trust Anyone. I am not ashamed of who I am. I am not ashamed of the life I live. I am not ashamed to be seen with Darren and my kids. I don't care what any of them thinks. But I let very few people in close enough to hurt me these days. There is a vast gulf between me and most other people. Oh, I have people talk to me about their secrets. They somehow seem to know that I am absolutely trustworthy with others secrets (even when they destroy mine. I never told anyone about D's secret.) and, sometimes even when I hardly know them, I find them telling me deep things that they don't tell anyone else. The only one who hears my secrets is Darren - and my notepad. And pretty much the only person I truly trust with almost everything is Darren. But I still don't trust anyone else. Interesting how I can blog this for anyone to read and judge me. I don't care... feel free. :) Either you love me or you hate me - kinda like Sambuca... lol