Things I Think About - Silencing Triggers
Well, I got my panties in a bunch this week, and I said something. I struggle with that whole "is it worth it?" question and am of two minds. First is the "beat a dead horse/feed a troll" perspective. But bigger in my backbrain and much more looming is the "stop silencing me/I'm not afraid of you/I have a right to an opinion" perspective.
As a female who spent my formative teen years in a small town, I was expected to be quiet and demure. I was mocked for my instinct to pursue knowledge, even more so for having opinions of my own and *gasp* speaking them out loud. My instinct became to clam up and not share the things that interested me with others because I expected to be made fun of.
This technique was highly successful against me when I was a teen. Laugh at me or imply I'm stupid and I clam up. Either because that response made me unsure of myself, or because I wasn't going to share things I cared about with assholes. So much of my personal life didn't happen out loud. The things I cared most about were rarely shared or communicated or given as an opportunity for someone else to make fun of me. So, the more I cared about it, the less I gave others the chance to hurt me/mock me/dismiss me in relation to those things.
Half of the reason I write this series of posts is because there are stores of topics I was _taught_ not to talk about, to the extent that it became difficult for me to get to know people and share myself with others. My willingness to speak up may have skewed the opposite direction over the last decade or so. And having taken rhetoric courses, I'm aware that how I was treated by the large majority of those people in that small town was a tactic to produce exactly that result from me: "Shut your mouth."
"Fuck you. No, I won't."
My family moved to said small town when I turned thirteen. I was homeschooled, and I am more grateful every damn day that this was the case, as this town was small enough that there was one school for two towns that housed K-12 all in one building. Pretty sure graduating classes were less than 90 people, and know that academic performance wasn't a high ranking for the school, in general. In short, I was less tortured and had a better education due to my mother's impulse to use her teaching license to homeschool.
My interactions in the community consisted primarily of my church youth group (20 people max, ages 13-19), our home school group (involving two or three other families), and community programs (4H and community theatre). While I certainly wasn't socially sheltered, moving to a small town by that age pretty much ensures that you'll never be seen as "one of them." My mom has been there an additional 15 years to my experience and she's still considered a new guy.
To make matters worse for me, I was female. It took me many years to realize that women talked differently in this town than the one I came from in Iowa. Any opinion from a woman was voiced with uncertainty, with deference. There's this interesting MN thing where people will make a statement, but voice it in the form of a question, with the last few words going up in pitch. Or suggestions were voiced with a bunch of maybes used, or uncertainties, or phrases like "if you want."
This form of speaking wasn't built into me. I make statements and claims. I have opinions of my own. When suggesting activities for things like youth group, I would say "We should go bowling" instead of "Well maybe we could go bowling?". It wasn't until my junior year that I had an opportunity to say to another one of the girls, "Just because I have an opinion doesn't mean we have to do things my way. I'm just used to saying what I think directly. I'm fine with being outvoted." Found out from her that this simple speech pattern had convinced all the girls that I was bossy and controlling, and she was surprised to find out my directness was not the same thing as insistence.
Thing is, all the boys phrased things the same way I did, if not more aggressive and/or an additional flavor of mocking someone else's ideas. It was my gender that made me "bossy and controlling" more than the words I actually used. And I was constantly a target because of it.
In none of these situations did anyone ask me a question or engage me in conversation. These experiences were never about talking, agreeing to disagree, or becoming better at understanding, communicating, debating, etc. In every situation, I was told through passive aggressive wording, implications of stupidity, or outright mocking to "Shut your mouth."
The aspect of all this that makes me feel like an insane person is that these experiences all came through the church. I grew up in a church that was loving and thoughtful. A church that put a lot of effort into programming kids with Bible verses and basic Christian doctrine. I grew up encouraged to nerd out about and discuss theology. I enjoyed it. But this small town church... This church was all about cool kid clubs, judging others ("Catholics aren't real Christians", "you won't believe who I saw go into the liquor store", "those jeans make you look like a tramp"), and keeping up appearances.
And I became so buried in this fucked up social behavior that I went quiet. I withdrew. I became trained to hold back and keep my distance. This was a huge handicap when I finally went out into the real, much bigger and more interesting world.
In learning to re-embrace the part of myself that speaks my mind directly, I feel particularly compelled to do so when issues of theology and Biblical principles are involved. Having spent my elementary years in a community of believers who encouraged thought, opinions and learning in an environment of love and acceptance, I have close to zero tolerance for the other form of christianity. Christianity based in popularity, judgement, and appearances is one of my spout off triggers. No, I will not shut up. Yes, I do think there is merit to christian theology based in the LIFE and EXAMPLE of Jesus.
When a Christian community does not reflect Christ's values (ministering to the poor, treating women like equals, abandoning riches for the sake of what is good/right, etc), I tend to not sit quietly by. Two seriously flawed theology/logic triggers for me being "we can't afford to give poor people insurance or any other kind of government assistance" or "I'm pro-life but could care less about the kid having education, healthcare, food once it's born".
It baffles me how Christians think the church actually provides for the poor in their community. In my many years in youth group, we did a food drive ONCE, for christmas. Yeah, that's a fantastic substitute for food stamps, WIC, MN Care, what have you. Instead of monthly support making sure a person survives, let's let the _church_ pick and choose what people need and how often. Puh-lease.
You know what kind of ministry I usually see from churches? The kind that involves travel, often to foreign countries. But then, in a judgmental church, it's your own fault if you aren't financially viable. Maybe if you worked harder and loved god more he would give you more money.
Yeah, that approach to theology pisses me right the fuck off.
So, two days ago, I responded to a post from a girl I knew in that particular small town. She's a nice person who is rather soft spoken. She posted a political article favoring the government shutdown because "Obamacare" would ruin our country. While I did not feel a need to "stand up" to her directly, I am very deeply bothered by the presentation that hating "Obamacare" is a christian principle or stance. As this individual is now a youth leader who posts about Jesus, I responded to the article directly.
Yesterday, her husband, someone I was never fond of when I knew him in highschool, responded with his typical bullying MO. He never asks questions. He never engages with facts, information or even opinions. He leads with laughter, with mocking, with statements of disbelief that anyone could say something so stupid. He is a chauvinistic bully of the first order, and ALWAYS HAS BEEN. He is very comfortable in his big fish/minuscule pond status.
And I was reminded. I was reminded of how he always treated me this way. I was reminded of all the times I was set up to fail and then mocked for months following. I was reminded of what it was like to be a girl in that small town. I was reminded how many christian leaders in that community could give two shits about love and ministry, and care far more about moral superiority and authority. I was reminded that outside perspective was undesired. Do not interrupt the status quo. Be ashamed for having thoughts of your own.
Well, fuck you, buddy. It's nice to know that 15 years later you're still the same douchebag you were as a teenager. Way to grow up and be a responsible, loving example to kids. Thank you for calling me names again, for reminding me of "my place", for mocking me, for reminding me that people in that town do NOT grow up, they just get meaner.
While it is highly unfortunate that I felt the need to break contact with her in order to avoid EVER talking to her husband again, these people are the reason I have no interest/deep distrust in small towns, will never darken the door of a church again, and still struggle to share aspects of myself with others.
I may stray to the other extreme these days in speaking up. But I spent so much time fooled into "Shut your mouth." Being told that as a woman my opinions were less valid and needed to be phrased in an unassuming way. Fighting with myself to overcome programming from jerks who don't give two shits about me in the first place.
Fuck you, dude. I will speak my mind. You are not and never will be the boss of me. Enjoy that minuscule pond of yours.
As a female who spent my formative teen years in a small town, I was expected to be quiet and demure. I was mocked for my instinct to pursue knowledge, even more so for having opinions of my own and *gasp* speaking them out loud. My instinct became to clam up and not share the things that interested me with others because I expected to be made fun of.
This technique was highly successful against me when I was a teen. Laugh at me or imply I'm stupid and I clam up. Either because that response made me unsure of myself, or because I wasn't going to share things I cared about with assholes. So much of my personal life didn't happen out loud. The things I cared most about were rarely shared or communicated or given as an opportunity for someone else to make fun of me. So, the more I cared about it, the less I gave others the chance to hurt me/mock me/dismiss me in relation to those things.
Half of the reason I write this series of posts is because there are stores of topics I was _taught_ not to talk about, to the extent that it became difficult for me to get to know people and share myself with others. My willingness to speak up may have skewed the opposite direction over the last decade or so. And having taken rhetoric courses, I'm aware that how I was treated by the large majority of those people in that small town was a tactic to produce exactly that result from me: "Shut your mouth."
"Fuck you. No, I won't."
My family moved to said small town when I turned thirteen. I was homeschooled, and I am more grateful every damn day that this was the case, as this town was small enough that there was one school for two towns that housed K-12 all in one building. Pretty sure graduating classes were less than 90 people, and know that academic performance wasn't a high ranking for the school, in general. In short, I was less tortured and had a better education due to my mother's impulse to use her teaching license to homeschool.
My interactions in the community consisted primarily of my church youth group (20 people max, ages 13-19), our home school group (involving two or three other families), and community programs (4H and community theatre). While I certainly wasn't socially sheltered, moving to a small town by that age pretty much ensures that you'll never be seen as "one of them." My mom has been there an additional 15 years to my experience and she's still considered a new guy.
To make matters worse for me, I was female. It took me many years to realize that women talked differently in this town than the one I came from in Iowa. Any opinion from a woman was voiced with uncertainty, with deference. There's this interesting MN thing where people will make a statement, but voice it in the form of a question, with the last few words going up in pitch. Or suggestions were voiced with a bunch of maybes used, or uncertainties, or phrases like "if you want."
This form of speaking wasn't built into me. I make statements and claims. I have opinions of my own. When suggesting activities for things like youth group, I would say "We should go bowling" instead of "Well maybe we could go bowling?". It wasn't until my junior year that I had an opportunity to say to another one of the girls, "Just because I have an opinion doesn't mean we have to do things my way. I'm just used to saying what I think directly. I'm fine with being outvoted." Found out from her that this simple speech pattern had convinced all the girls that I was bossy and controlling, and she was surprised to find out my directness was not the same thing as insistence.
Thing is, all the boys phrased things the same way I did, if not more aggressive and/or an additional flavor of mocking someone else's ideas. It was my gender that made me "bossy and controlling" more than the words I actually used. And I was constantly a target because of it.
In none of these situations did anyone ask me a question or engage me in conversation. These experiences were never about talking, agreeing to disagree, or becoming better at understanding, communicating, debating, etc. In every situation, I was told through passive aggressive wording, implications of stupidity, or outright mocking to "Shut your mouth."
The aspect of all this that makes me feel like an insane person is that these experiences all came through the church. I grew up in a church that was loving and thoughtful. A church that put a lot of effort into programming kids with Bible verses and basic Christian doctrine. I grew up encouraged to nerd out about and discuss theology. I enjoyed it. But this small town church... This church was all about cool kid clubs, judging others ("Catholics aren't real Christians", "you won't believe who I saw go into the liquor store", "those jeans make you look like a tramp"), and keeping up appearances.
And I became so buried in this fucked up social behavior that I went quiet. I withdrew. I became trained to hold back and keep my distance. This was a huge handicap when I finally went out into the real, much bigger and more interesting world.
In learning to re-embrace the part of myself that speaks my mind directly, I feel particularly compelled to do so when issues of theology and Biblical principles are involved. Having spent my elementary years in a community of believers who encouraged thought, opinions and learning in an environment of love and acceptance, I have close to zero tolerance for the other form of christianity. Christianity based in popularity, judgement, and appearances is one of my spout off triggers. No, I will not shut up. Yes, I do think there is merit to christian theology based in the LIFE and EXAMPLE of Jesus.
When a Christian community does not reflect Christ's values (ministering to the poor, treating women like equals, abandoning riches for the sake of what is good/right, etc), I tend to not sit quietly by. Two seriously flawed theology/logic triggers for me being "we can't afford to give poor people insurance or any other kind of government assistance" or "I'm pro-life but could care less about the kid having education, healthcare, food once it's born".
It baffles me how Christians think the church actually provides for the poor in their community. In my many years in youth group, we did a food drive ONCE, for christmas. Yeah, that's a fantastic substitute for food stamps, WIC, MN Care, what have you. Instead of monthly support making sure a person survives, let's let the _church_ pick and choose what people need and how often. Puh-lease.
You know what kind of ministry I usually see from churches? The kind that involves travel, often to foreign countries. But then, in a judgmental church, it's your own fault if you aren't financially viable. Maybe if you worked harder and loved god more he would give you more money.
Yeah, that approach to theology pisses me right the fuck off.
So, two days ago, I responded to a post from a girl I knew in that particular small town. She's a nice person who is rather soft spoken. She posted a political article favoring the government shutdown because "Obamacare" would ruin our country. While I did not feel a need to "stand up" to her directly, I am very deeply bothered by the presentation that hating "Obamacare" is a christian principle or stance. As this individual is now a youth leader who posts about Jesus, I responded to the article directly.
Yesterday, her husband, someone I was never fond of when I knew him in highschool, responded with his typical bullying MO. He never asks questions. He never engages with facts, information or even opinions. He leads with laughter, with mocking, with statements of disbelief that anyone could say something so stupid. He is a chauvinistic bully of the first order, and ALWAYS HAS BEEN. He is very comfortable in his big fish/minuscule pond status.
And I was reminded. I was reminded of how he always treated me this way. I was reminded of all the times I was set up to fail and then mocked for months following. I was reminded of what it was like to be a girl in that small town. I was reminded how many christian leaders in that community could give two shits about love and ministry, and care far more about moral superiority and authority. I was reminded that outside perspective was undesired. Do not interrupt the status quo. Be ashamed for having thoughts of your own.
Well, fuck you, buddy. It's nice to know that 15 years later you're still the same douchebag you were as a teenager. Way to grow up and be a responsible, loving example to kids. Thank you for calling me names again, for reminding me of "my place", for mocking me, for reminding me that people in that town do NOT grow up, they just get meaner.
While it is highly unfortunate that I felt the need to break contact with her in order to avoid EVER talking to her husband again, these people are the reason I have no interest/deep distrust in small towns, will never darken the door of a church again, and still struggle to share aspects of myself with others.
I may stray to the other extreme these days in speaking up. But I spent so much time fooled into "Shut your mouth." Being told that as a woman my opinions were less valid and needed to be phrased in an unassuming way. Fighting with myself to overcome programming from jerks who don't give two shits about me in the first place.
Fuck you, dude. I will speak my mind. You are not and never will be the boss of me. Enjoy that minuscule pond of yours.