Jesus Camps
So I grew up in a fairly religious environment, I was in church from the time I was a small child, and stopped going around 15 or so for reasons that still piss me the fuck off. But between the ages of 17 and 15 I was going to jesus camps every summer.
I went to three different camps, Camp 1, Camp 2, and Camp 3. Camp 2 changed venues when I was 13.
Camp 1, while being wonderful, definitely brought a lot of horrible shit into my life. Like any tween/teen I definitely crushed on dudes there, one being a total asshole. He went out of his way to make me feel like shit while hitting on my best friend. Yeah, he was fantastic. But generally, they weren't pushy about their religion, yes you went to sermons twice a day, and prayed before meals and had devotionals at night, but honestly, it was a Jesus Camp, what do you expect? My first year I had one of the older counselors, she was such a nice counselor my friend and I picked her the next year and she treated us like SHIT. Seriously, I never wanted to go back. Did I mention I got the chicken pox my first year? Yeah. I caught it from this dude who was in my rockets class. The whole class made me a second rocket though and brought it to me in the infirmary. Like I said, I felt very accepted at this camp despite being from a different sect of Christianity (I was baptist while the camp was Seventh Day Adventist) I went to this camp from when I was 9 until I was 15. The only reason I didn't go when I was 16 and 17 was because my dad told me I was "too old for summer camp" pffffft. Anyways, it was awesome other than the usual fucktards.
Camp 2 however was probably the worst two weeks I have ever had, each year the camp was a week long and just filled with people from my elementary school, a place that to this day makes me ill at the thought of going back to. I was ostracized, made fun of, and felt like I was pretty much worthless. I've had a fear of spiders since I was small so this total bitch decided to capture as many spiders as she could and put them on my bed. I couldn't sleep for the rest of the week and still have trouble sleeping if I think there are spiders anywhere in my room. I was seven and eight for the two years I went to that camp.
Camp 3 made me feel like shit on a daily basis. I felt completely ostracized from the friends I had grown up with, and I probably have more horror stories from this camp than any other place I've ever been.
When I was 10 or 11 my grandmother, mother, and physically and mentally disabled uncle came to visit me. My one friend, I'll call her E, had brought a friend with her, let's call her R. Now, R didn't like me, and to be honest she's a total whorebag and was even back then. I think she was asked to not come back for indecent behavior. Anyways, she first off called my uncle retarded. Unless you've grown up with or worked with/dealt with mentally OR physically handicapped people you might not understand how insanely offensive it is to call someones family member retarded. I took it very hard at that age because he was sick and it was a hard time with him, so I ended up pretty much crying myself to sleep. Whenever I went away I would take my baby pillow as a reassurance, not to mention it was comfortable as SHIT. Seriously, best pillow I've ever owned. I woke up with my head and hair glued to the pillow.
Another time I was at the small playground on the camp grounds with a few friends and the older teens came by, we were like 9, and hackled us until we pretty much had to leave. I later became friends with one of them out of chance, pretty cool dude, totally different than he was then.
Incident numero tres happened when I was 10 or 11 again, this was the same year when I got my head glued to my pillow, my parents were late picking me up from camp so I was outside for maybe three hours, and was the absolute last kid to be picked up, other than the one's who had parents working at the camp. When I went to church the next day (camp ended on saturday) I was completely made fun of because of this, thanks dudes!
Fuck This Numbering Thing (four) the day before I left for camp my great grandmother died. My other great grandmother died a few years ago, but no one was going to tell me the other one had died until after I got back from camp so it wouldn't ruin my week. I was at the archery range (hah! it was hardly that) when my pastor yelled "Amanda, I'm sorry about your great grandmother dying!"
"It's okay, she died a few years ago"
"No, she just died a few days ago"
"What? She died?"
Yeah, great pastor. Like I'd be fucking happy when my great grandmother had just died. Asshat. He didn't even apologize, and I'm pretty sure he was kind of excited to pretty much ruin the rest of my week. When I wanted to call my parents because I was upset and crying, they wouldn't let me. And I had to participate in all activities like a normal happy camper despite the fact that I was devastated. Um, for reference, I hadn't seen her in three years and she was extremely ill with Alzheimer's. She called my grandparents house one time and I answered the phone, she cussed me out and told me she would never have such a horrible great grandchild, because she was in a nursing home and thought she had been kidnapped. So yeah, that was great.
And pretty much the rest of the time I was being treated like dirt and ignored by all of my friends, plus, I would always go to camp HATING god, and totally sure of the fact that I did not believe that the god I was trained to believe in could be that evil and that I wasn't subscribing to their bullshit and then I would leave this camp and feel like I wanted to go to church all the time and I was a terrible person if I didn't want to go to church. There was definitely some brainwashing there, and no, it's not okay. I have a lot of anger related to how I was indoctrinated as a child.
I went to three different camps, Camp 1, Camp 2, and Camp 3. Camp 2 changed venues when I was 13.
Camp 1, while being wonderful, definitely brought a lot of horrible shit into my life. Like any tween/teen I definitely crushed on dudes there, one being a total asshole. He went out of his way to make me feel like shit while hitting on my best friend. Yeah, he was fantastic. But generally, they weren't pushy about their religion, yes you went to sermons twice a day, and prayed before meals and had devotionals at night, but honestly, it was a Jesus Camp, what do you expect? My first year I had one of the older counselors, she was such a nice counselor my friend and I picked her the next year and she treated us like SHIT. Seriously, I never wanted to go back. Did I mention I got the chicken pox my first year? Yeah. I caught it from this dude who was in my rockets class. The whole class made me a second rocket though and brought it to me in the infirmary. Like I said, I felt very accepted at this camp despite being from a different sect of Christianity (I was baptist while the camp was Seventh Day Adventist) I went to this camp from when I was 9 until I was 15. The only reason I didn't go when I was 16 and 17 was because my dad told me I was "too old for summer camp" pffffft. Anyways, it was awesome other than the usual fucktards.
Camp 2 however was probably the worst two weeks I have ever had, each year the camp was a week long and just filled with people from my elementary school, a place that to this day makes me ill at the thought of going back to. I was ostracized, made fun of, and felt like I was pretty much worthless. I've had a fear of spiders since I was small so this total bitch decided to capture as many spiders as she could and put them on my bed. I couldn't sleep for the rest of the week and still have trouble sleeping if I think there are spiders anywhere in my room. I was seven and eight for the two years I went to that camp.
Camp 3 made me feel like shit on a daily basis. I felt completely ostracized from the friends I had grown up with, and I probably have more horror stories from this camp than any other place I've ever been.
When I was 10 or 11 my grandmother, mother, and physically and mentally disabled uncle came to visit me. My one friend, I'll call her E, had brought a friend with her, let's call her R. Now, R didn't like me, and to be honest she's a total whorebag and was even back then. I think she was asked to not come back for indecent behavior. Anyways, she first off called my uncle retarded. Unless you've grown up with or worked with/dealt with mentally OR physically handicapped people you might not understand how insanely offensive it is to call someones family member retarded. I took it very hard at that age because he was sick and it was a hard time with him, so I ended up pretty much crying myself to sleep. Whenever I went away I would take my baby pillow as a reassurance, not to mention it was comfortable as SHIT. Seriously, best pillow I've ever owned. I woke up with my head and hair glued to the pillow.
Another time I was at the small playground on the camp grounds with a few friends and the older teens came by, we were like 9, and hackled us until we pretty much had to leave. I later became friends with one of them out of chance, pretty cool dude, totally different than he was then.
Incident numero tres happened when I was 10 or 11 again, this was the same year when I got my head glued to my pillow, my parents were late picking me up from camp so I was outside for maybe three hours, and was the absolute last kid to be picked up, other than the one's who had parents working at the camp. When I went to church the next day (camp ended on saturday) I was completely made fun of because of this, thanks dudes!
Fuck This Numbering Thing (four) the day before I left for camp my great grandmother died. My other great grandmother died a few years ago, but no one was going to tell me the other one had died until after I got back from camp so it wouldn't ruin my week. I was at the archery range (hah! it was hardly that) when my pastor yelled "Amanda, I'm sorry about your great grandmother dying!"
"It's okay, she died a few years ago"
"No, she just died a few days ago"
"What? She died?"
Yeah, great pastor. Like I'd be fucking happy when my great grandmother had just died. Asshat. He didn't even apologize, and I'm pretty sure he was kind of excited to pretty much ruin the rest of my week. When I wanted to call my parents because I was upset and crying, they wouldn't let me. And I had to participate in all activities like a normal happy camper despite the fact that I was devastated. Um, for reference, I hadn't seen her in three years and she was extremely ill with Alzheimer's. She called my grandparents house one time and I answered the phone, she cussed me out and told me she would never have such a horrible great grandchild, because she was in a nursing home and thought she had been kidnapped. So yeah, that was great.
And pretty much the rest of the time I was being treated like dirt and ignored by all of my friends, plus, I would always go to camp HATING god, and totally sure of the fact that I did not believe that the god I was trained to believe in could be that evil and that I wasn't subscribing to their bullshit and then I would leave this camp and feel like I wanted to go to church all the time and I was a terrible person if I didn't want to go to church. There was definitely some brainwashing there, and no, it's not okay. I have a lot of anger related to how I was indoctrinated as a child.