Younger me was right
The rules really were stupid and unfair.
I bawled my eyes out in therapy last week. All it took was us tip-toeing into neurodivergent territory, talking about masking and how I thought I’d probably learned to mask from a pretty young age. I got emotional and then said I was working on being okay crying, especially in front of people, and they asked me what I was taught about expressing emotions as a kid and I said I was probably taught that big emotions weren’t allowed. It was all waterworks from there.
I talked about how I was punished as a kid for having a “smart mouth” and talking back, but that I suspected at least some of the times this occurred I wasn’t actually trying to be disrespectful, I was just making what I thought were honest observations or asking what I thought were obvious questions.
I have a vivid memory of my mother slapping me across the face in the grocery store. I think I was probably around six years old. There was a woman standing in the same aisle just going about her shopping business, and I knew she had seen the whole thing. I can still see the reflection of the bright fluorescent lights against the linoleum floor as I ducked my head to hide my tears. Can still feel the shame and embarrassment that rippled hot across my skin, in tandem with the stinging in my cheek. What’s not quite as vivid is the reason for the slap. Though I know it was because I “mouthed off,” the exact words are fuzzy. But there’s an impression, an echo, one I don’t know if I can trust. My mother asking me to grab a can of something from the shelf. Me saying, “Why don’t you get it yourself?”
Maybe I did say it sassily. Maybe I was tired and overstimulated and just wanted to go home. Or maybe I was genuinely confused as to why she’d asked me to get it when she was literally standing right there? The can within arm’s reach of the cart where she’d paused to look at her shopping list.
I don’t know. What I do know is I don’t think either scenario warranted being slapped in the canned vegetable aisle of the Giant Food Store.
I also know that eventually my mother realized corporal punishment wasn’t curing my strong-willed-ness. As I’ve laughingly shared as a humorous childhood anecdote dozens of times (including in a previous post), when the spankings only seemed to fuel my stubbornness, my mother resorted to taking away my books. When I got in trouble for not completing some chore or for talking back, I’d be grounded for a few days from reading anything other than my Bible. As the punchline to my story goes, I became a very compliant child after that.
But when I told this story to my therapist, in an attempt to push through my tears with a bit of humor, she didn’t laugh.
Instead, she looked at me with the kindest, gentlest expression and said “Oh, that must have been so hard. She took away the thing that brought you joy.”1
Cue a fresh round of sobs.
As a young child I was taught that my greatest accomplishment was obedience. I read Bible passages that said disobedient children deserved to be stoned. I memorized verses like “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” I heard the adults around me constantly complimenting my parents because I was so well behaved, so quiet, so mature2, so respectful.
When I did what I was told, when I calculated every action to make sure I stayed within bounds, when I considered every word before I spoke it, I was praised. I was good. I was righteous. I got to keep my books.3
And so I became a student of The Rules.
I got very good at coloring inside the lines. Acing every test (I cried the first time I got a B). Not being too loud or circling through the TV channels one too many times when my dad was in a mood. Asking the right questions. Eating the right food. Reading the right books. Watching the right movies. Listening to the right music. Having the right friends. Wearing the right clothes. Crushing on the right people. Believing the right things. Voting for the right party.
I don’t say any of this to shame my parents or paint them as monsters. For the most part, they were doing what the “experts” and religious authority figures in their life convinced them was right. They’re as much a victim of evangelical indoctrination as I was.4
And my childhood certainly wasn’t all bad. As my therapist gently reminded me: multiple things can be true at once. I can have great parental childhood memories and shitty ones. But as uncomfortable as it sometimes makes me to label the latter as “trauma” (even little t trauma), that doesn’t mean the label isn’t accurate.
I can look back now and realize that most of the rules weren’t actually meant to keep me safe. They were to keep me pure. “Godly.” Characteristics that were associated with safety, but that ultimately were more about control. More concerned with me becoming a good Republican Christian girl than learning to think for myself, trust my own intuition, consider my own wants and needs.
Because my obedience was more important than my joy.
I was sixteen. It was a sweltering Montana summer evening. My best friend and I were driving down a quiet street on the east side of town in her bright orange Ford Bronco (that she unsuccessfully tried to teach me how to drive stick shift in once). The windows were down and music (probably Superchick) was playing on the radio as we sang along.
Then, suddenly, she was pulling over to the curb as the ch-ch-ch-ch of an automatic sprinkler system starting up sounded from a green expanse of lawn in front of a sprawling office complex.
“C’mon,” she called with a grin, leaving the engine running as she jumped out to race around the car toward the sidewalk.
I followed, opening the door and stepping onto the warm concrete, pasting on my own smile even as my stomach lurched. My best friend gleefully ran across the lawn and through the cooling spray of water while I timidly lagged behind, hugging the line where grass met sidewalk, catching the drops that leapt the border I was afraid to cross.
Will we get in trouble for this? What if someone comes out of the building and yells at us? What if the cops drive by? Can this be considered trespassing?
I pretended to be a normal teenager for a few more seconds until, in a flurry of damp giggles, she raced back for the car. This time, I hurried to follow and we both jumped in like it was a waiting getaway vehicle.
But I’m pretty sure I was the only one who felt relieved, not by the coolness of water on sweaty summer skin, but by the car door closing, my feet safely back in a space I knew they were allowed to occupy.
I came across a post on Instagram recently that said something along the lines of: “‘Doing whatever you want’ is the greatest threat to Christians today. Don’t do whatever you want, do what God wills.”
First my insides flinched — a reminder of how tied my nervous system still is to old programming and shame tactics. Then, I just felt sad. For everyone who feels this way. And for me, for believing for so long that I had to sacrifice so much of what makes me, me — my needs and wants and desires and interests and curiosities and likes and personal expression — for a god so narcissistic he created people for the sole purpose of worshipping him, and if you don’t, he’s going to make you suffer for eternity as punishment and gaslight you into thinking it was your choice to burn.5
During my brief stint in pastoral ministry, I saw so many Christian young people paralyzed by this belief. Unable to make decisions because they’re convinced anything they might want can’t possibly be good, because they’ve been taught their desires are inherently sinful and selfish. Second guessing every choice, looking to spiritual authority figures (aka white male pastors) to tell them what to do, what God’s will is. Terrified they’ll make one wrong decision and wind up separated from blessing and protection and left to deal with the consequences of God’s disappointment.
I can confidently say that rejecting this type of thinking has been one of the most freeing experiences of my life.
A few days after I encountered the above admonition, I saw another Instagram post and this time, I had to laugh.
It’s true. Younger me would be horrified. But then I’d sit her down and tell her that all the times she thought the rules were stupid and unfair…she was right.
Like the time you weren’t allowed to read even The Chronicles of Narnia because there were mythological creatures in it.
The time you got in trouble for watching The Princess Bride when an adult from church put it on for you so you wouldn’t be bored at an event. Being told that you, a child who was supposed to be quiet and polite and respectful, should have told said adult you weren’t allowed to watch things like that — things with magic and witches and fantasy that were a slippery slope to the demonic.
That time Dad yelled at you (literally) for something you didn’t even do, but you got sent to your room for talking back and standing up for yourself. Your mom came in to apologize for him, but when you asked why she wouldn’t stand up for you if she knew he was wrong, she said that he was the head of the household and she couldn’t undermine his authority. And that it was your job to avoid setting him off like that.
Not being able to listen to N*SYNC, your secret favorite boy band (and really only point of pop-culture connection with your peers), without feeling guilt-ridden for enjoying “secular” music.
Being told that a fruit of the spirit is self control, but if you, a girl, don’t dress appropriately, men — even the Christian ones — can’t be blamed when they lose it.
Being told to love your neighbor as yourself. But not that neighbor…or that one…or them.
Being told Jesus died because you’re a sinner and it’s impossible for you to be truly good, but you have to spend your whole life trying to be like Jesus which, in turn, means trying to be perfect even though that’s impossible.
It was all stupid.
It was all unfair.
Younger me was right.
She’d be so relieved to know she was right. The rules really were bullshit.
And I think she just might be proud of me for learning to break them.
👏 “Adolescence & the Illusion of Choice” from the Strongwilled substack by Krispin & D.L. Mayfield. This doesn’t fall under my usual fluffier recommendations here, but it’s too perfect not to share. Reading this a couple months ago blew my mind with how perfectly it described my adolescence, and it further proves that obedience and commitment to ideology was the sole goal of the Religious Authoritarian Parenting movement. The Mayfields are great people doing great work - go check out their stuff!
📚 These amazing recent reads: The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston (food, romance, and a time-traveling apartment…just trust me, it’s utterly lovely). Furious by Jamie Pacton and Rebecca Podos (a YA sapphic ode to the Fast & Furious franchise). How Far the Light Reaches (life, love, identity and queerness explored through a mix of memoir and essays on sea creatures).
🌈 Getting to see The Japanese House in concert. So much queer joy.
🎧 Speaking of music…I finally started a Spotify playlist I’ve been thinking about for a while. If you’ve ever worked in ministry, you’ve probably heard the worship music joke “is this song about God or your girlfriend / boyfriend?” Well, I had a silly idea to turn that on its head with an “is this song about breaking up with your ex or the church?” soundtrack. They’re not all break up songs (some just have lyrics that have struck me at different points in my journey), and you don’t have to be recovering from high control religion to enjoy them, so…give it a listen if you like.
Later I thought to myself, doesn’t that just sum up my experience with religion? It took away the things that brought me joy — or in many cases what would have brought me joy had I been allowed to explore it sooner.
As I saw in a random post recently: “quiet, meaning ‘has been yelled at or ignored a few too many times and now considers all attempts at communicating with others to be pointless’ and ‘mature, meaning ‘traumatized but let's ignore that.’" 😂😭
And since obedience to my parents was obedience to God and obedience to God was the most important thing, I was safe. But just in case, I still prayed every night for forgiveness for my sins, including any I might have committed without even realizing it.
Lately, I feel like I’ve (maybe, for the most part) progressed from the anger stage of deconversion to grief. I’m no longer angry at my parents for the decisions they made in raising me or the things I missed out on as a kid. I’m mostly just sad. And I’m able to hold that sadness for my parents as well as myself, thinking about the things they felt pressured to give up, the rules they made for themselves, and the shame and fear they must have carried around too (and probably still do).
Required disclaimer for the “not all Christians!” crowd: I am well aware that not everyone with faith in God believes in this god. I have friends who have beautiful faiths. I know entire churches rejecting the dogma of white, American, authoritarian, evangelical thinking and creating beautiful, welcoming affirming spaces. I am so grateful these people and places exist, even if I no longer feel those spaces are right for me. (And if your first reaction to my words is not to feel empathy and acknowledge how much trauma this kind of theology inflicts, but to feel defensive — I encourage you to sit with your discomfort and examine it, your beliefs and the practices/messaging of any church you attend.)
Wow, so good. And so relatable. I hope that session with your therapist ended with a big weight being lifted ❤️🩹
I mostly feel grief now too and I try to indulge my inner kid on the regular, especially when I’m feeling sad about all the things she missed out on/lost sleep over (watching grease at a sleepover, reading teen magazine at a friends house)… have you heard Maddie Zahm’s song “you might not like her”?? If not, you’ll want some tissues!
I loved reading this and related to so much of it. Thank you for sharing, you are wonderful <3