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the brain does not differentiate between overt or big trauma and covert or small, quiet trauma—it just registers the event as “a threat we can’t control.”
(girls are a whopping 92 percent more likely to experience sexual guilt than boys)
To summarize, first, the researchers are finding that purity teachings do not meaningfully delay sex. Second, they are finding that they do increase shame, especially among females. And third, they report that this increased shame is leading to higher levels of sexual anxiety, lower levels of sexual pleasure, and the feeling among those experiencing shame that they are stuck feeling this way forever.
they eventually got so good at denying their feelings that they could no longer access them, even when they wanted to. They couldn’t touch their anger, their sadness, their pain; they couldn’t even feel happiness.
there is a kind of heat in religion—“vitality, passion, emotional temper, will, force, movement, excitement, energy, activity, impetus,” all coming together to create a “consuming fire.”4 Still today, I yearn for it. There are few places in this world that we can go to feel like this.
Neither my mind nor my immune system understood at the time that every part of us is a part of us. That we cannot separate our bodies from our spirits from our minds from our hearts. We are one entity.
For the first time, somebody saw me. And somebody gave me permission to see myself. Permission to admit I was suffering. Permission to ask for help. Permission I was not yet able to give to myself.
I had never been somewhere where all I had to do to be accepted was walk into the room. Where my mere existence was enough. It was everything that I had thought the world should be up until this point, and nothing of what I had found it actually was.
But being sexually fulfilled in a context that would lessen me intellectually? I didn’t want that,”
I stopped fighting with God because I thought he made me in a way that set me up to fail, and started thinking about how I could better reflect what he had made me to be, and accept it as a gift.”
I had absolutely every opportunity to be fully okay. I had every opportunity. And it’s still something that, every once in a while, leaves me at the doorstep of destruction.
A woman’s worth lies in her ability—or her refusal—to be sexual. And we’re teaching American girls that, one way or another, their bodies and their sexuality are what make them valuable.
Honestly, I believe what I believe because I’m unwilling to part with the assurances that the faith gives me,” Chloe continued. “Even though my faith is nothing like it used to be, I can’t not believe these things.
I was just really looking for guidance from God: ‘Where would you want me to be, God?’ ” “What if God was asking you the same question?” I asked. “What if he was waiting for you to tell him what you wanted?” Katie laughed under her breath. “It’s funny because it really never occurred to me that maybe he was letting me choose. It never even occurred to me that he would be saying, ‘And here’s your life; do what you want.’ ”
What are you afraid of?” “I don’t know,” Jo looked up, squinting into the sun. “Condemnation, shame, Hell, death, eternity, responsibility, commitment, being responsible for something I can’t handle, that I’m not ready for, not being able to receive what God’s will is, making mistakes, disappointing people, making the wrong choices, ruining my children, not being lovable, getting older, I can go on for days. The fear is palpable.
At the beginning, often all that those of us who let go of a shaming worldview know is that we are tired. Tired of hiding ourselves, tired of hating ourselves. We yearn to be who we are, to live honestly and authentically. So we start to run. Toward what? We don’t know.
“the gap”—the expanse of space between the way in which we used to look at ourselves and the world, and the way in which we will come to see ourselves and the world once we’ve found our footing
I don’t know what the other side is yet, but you know it’s kind of—It’s like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He throws the pebbles down the chasm, and you see them hit something, that there is an invisible bridge. And then he can find his way across the rest of the thing. That’s where I’m at. I’m just kind of throwing the pebbles out to see the next step I can take. Then as I get more confident and realize that the world isn’t going to explode, I can visualize the other side. (Val)
Either you get married or—” Eli searched for the right words. “You get a lot of cats.” He laughed. “I have one cat. I’m working on it.”
I knew it didn’t feel right anymore, but I didn’t know why. So I didn’t ever slow down. I would run myself to the point of exhaustion, which also helped with the nightmares. The nightmares were still there, but they started to go away just because I was so tired all the time.
But for the most part, I’m talking to people about these really small, intimate experiences that influence their lives more because of their frequency more than their size.
I think the more you tell your story, particularly within safe spaces, the freer you are.
But if there are things that you can’t tell anyone, they have power over you.
I felt alive again. I was walking around and trying to figure out everything from scratch. And it was a good place to start doing that. It was a safe place.
And I didn’t have any sense of—I hadn’t learned to read things critically yet, right? So I was like, ‘Here’s this thing recommended to me by people I trust who are good. I should read it, and I should do it.’ I just took it in. I was like, ‘This must be true . . .’ ”
“What did God say to you?” “He said, ‘We’re going to go somewhere new. But I can’t take you there if you keep looking behind you wishing that things were like they used to be.’ ”
searching the space around me, telling God the things that I am sometimes too distracted to uncover
you raised me on a theology of kindness. You taught me to be on the lookout for those getting a raw deal, and when I found them, to love them up.
And so, I did talk about what happened. And I was angry. And I didn’t let go.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to take it all on, because that’s how you show people you love them.’ But meanwhile, I just wasn’t a person. I had no self. So much of myself was underground.” “It’s hard for me to say ‘No, I’m not in the mood,’ or ‘No, I’m tired,’ or ‘It’s been a hard day at work.’ Which are valid reasons not to do something. But for some reason, they’re not valid for me.
“The more I had the space to keep becoming a person, the more confident in the goodness of God I was,”
Love this.
