RIPping off the band-aid.. (Pt. 1)

Healing is a difficult process. It requires a lot of reflection, and from there pinpointing the source.

I have one area of my life that has been especially painful. This is not to ruffle feathers because I can only speak from my own experience, but…

Religion.

To be completely transparent, my heart is beating so hard just thinking of the things that I want to express. Please keep in mind, this is my own experience. You have the choice to let this effect you if you want it to. Or you can just read, remember this is my own journey, and leave it at that. If you feel the need to say something, please feel free to do so. If your opinion is different than mine, great! We should have them so we can learn. We do not tear others down because they think or feel differently. Ask questions. Get to know the situation, and if you still feel the strong urge to say something because I’m wrong, you can keep it to yourself.

Growing up, I was taught about God, and I was taught about spirituality. I was taught how to find happiness, and what needed to be done to have it. Stepping out of the lines would not lead to true happiness. The rigidity of religion always unsettled me. I had and have a hard time believing God has set such strict guidelines for life.

I only listened to music that promoted Gods presence. I only wore clothes that were either highly encouraged by the religion or had the same standards. I was afraid to read books by authors that didn’t have the same background as me. Something about people outside of the religion made me fearful of them, and always at arms length. Having friends or influences outside of the religion felt so wrong to me. Like I was starting to cross over to the dark side. I also kept this safety net, like if they had my same standards then we were ok. Blind faith. And that was dangerous.

The other part of religion that I found so hard was the close mindedness it encouraged. I am not referring to any specific religion, but just my experience with religion in general. There is an especially disturbing documentary called The Keepers on Netflix that highlights this close minded mentality. When you are apart of a congregation you are taught to trust those around you. They are never going to hurt you, they have your best interest because we are of one mind. We all have the same values, standards, beliefs etc. However, I did not find that to be true. I forgot that these people that I surrounded myself with were real people. With real struggles. Struggles that were potentially very harmful, like narcissism, pedophilia, and domestic abuse.

The close mindedness made me think, that was completely impossible. Those people did not exist in my little world. There's no way that was a reality when you were following Gods plan. But unfortunately it was true, and I had to find out the hard way.

I had a personal experience with people like I mentioned above. And to say it shook me to my core is an understatement. It broke my heart. I was disturbed. I was sad. I felt like I fell right into a trap. I had the response of "God, how could you let this happen." But over time I've realized that it wasn’t God at all. Each person is human.

The upbringing I had, taught to mask those struggles and to be ashamed of some of the ideas or exposure that normal life brings. I was taught to fear, and to be ashamed of my mistakes. I spent years and years trying to perfect myself in a way that I thought God wanted. I would abuse myself with words like "Why are you making it so hard on yourself?" "Just be better!" "You are a loser. Who acts like that?" I remember this because I recently read a journal entry, and the entire entry was me just beating myself to a pulp. I would look in the mirror and think, 'Dyanna you are not making God happy. You are not doing (x,y,z)…… Be better.'

How sad is that? I was so hard on myself mostly because of fear. I was terrified that if I died I would be going straight to hell. God would never give me another chance because I royally screwed up my one chance here. I was always terrified of what God thought of me. When I was in a good place, I would work my ass off to stay as close to the line as I could, and one tiny slip just put me into a tail spin.

This mentality kept me trapped. Til one day.