Let's take it from the top

I have been in the thick of religious deconstruction for just around a year now, finally feel less crazy about it but now feel wary and skittish about it too. Too many times getting bitten where I didn’t expect a snake. 

I’ve learned a lot about religious trauma and high control/high demand groups and the harms of fundamentalism and other peoples’ experiences and that’s great, but learning doesn’t mean I understand myself, my reactions, or my neglected nervous system any better, so nothing changes, right? So I’m working on that. Very. Very slowly. I don’t get a choice anymore, the last time I tried to push it just a little bit with some body work I ended up worshipping the porcelain god for almost an hour at 4 in the morning because my vagus nerve said “i think the fuck not!!!!” and shut me down the better part of a day. 

Anyway. Slowly. So I’ve read a lot and watched a lot about the BITE model and I’ve mentally dabbled in thoughts about the experiences on it on and off–thinking of different groups i was in and my overal social circle and remembering things here and there that fit those criteria, but I kept shying away from ever actually writing things down or tallying up what amount of the BITE model categories I kind of “met the criteria for”, so to speak. 

Anyway last night I was finally able to do it for the first time, and I scribbled down my tally and then clicked all the right boxes on my interactive BITE model checklist I made, and then I didn’t really look at it and just went and fell asleep. 

I looked at it today. I was stunned. I had believed this whole time that while the BITE model is helpful, it was something I’d only use as a thing to help label why certain experiences were wrong, but not ever to label my overall experience or anything because even though I use the word sometimes, I wasn’t in anything REALLY like a cult, those are way worse. I was just in some unhealthy pressures and groups and media messages and I’m just over-sensitive about things right now, and in a few years I’ll have mellowed out a lot and see my experiences and the good-hearted people behind all my old groups in the much more balanced, kind, and favorable light that they really exist in, rather than my over-compensating bitterness and blinders.

Well, I was surprised. I don’t know what to say about this, because I don’t want to jump to any conclusions or declare I’m part of groups I’m not or lead anyone wrong with false information or a bad idea. I also just don’t know what to say to MYSELF about it either, because like, what is there to say? You know? Either I was in what amounted to a seriously harmful group (objectively, not just to me) or I was not. There’s not like, anything to be said about it. I can’t accept this as one or the other yet because I don’t know how to trust my own judgement and I don’t want to practice right now. And I can’t get an external read on the situation yet because I’m not ready to show anyone the un-checked checklist and then tell them what I remember feeling even though I don’t have many memory examples to share of real events and have them go through with me and check things off and make sure I understand why, so I know if my hunches were right as I filled the checklist out the first time. 

I’m not ready to try to do anything with this on my own, and I’m not ready to talk to anyone about anything related to past things right now (and possibly for a long time, I think I finally had enough of a bad experience with my last therapist while at the same time finally realizing I actually DON’T want to say things to people and I DON’T want to ever talk to people like that ever again and I really really really really don’t want to talk to anyone who doesn’t respond in a way that lets it be a third person perspective of who the memories came from. I know therapy is important and I know I’m probably in some kind of critical risk stage or something since I moved across the country suddenly on a spur of the moment decision I didn’t feel the emotions for anymore less than 3 days later, and I’m starting a totally new life and I don’t even know how much I know about real American and world history and I don’t know what rules for daily life or anything else are rules I SHOULDN’T know and I don’t know what rules I don’t know that I SHOULD, and I have to learn the rules for ALL the areas of the real world all at once, even just how to walk or sit or stand or navigate through a park so you blend in instead of standing out. But I feel like I’m trying to keep my mouth above water right now and I don’t want to spend energy and time and money trying to hunt down someone I would maybe partially talk to, when there are way more critical things to take care of right here first, like biohazard prevention in the kitchen and a dog getting minimum humane care and me getting like, dressed at least once daily and sleeping at least 4 hours a night no matter what bribery it takes to get there. 

Anyway. I don’t feel ready to say anything about these screenshots. I don’t want to say anything about them and I’m MARVELING that I suddenly can realize that I don’t want to talk about something and it makes me uncomfortable. Oh my gosh. Something made me feel uncomfortable! I feel uncomfortable!!!! Holy moly! I feel a little bit of a feeling again! It’s like the quiet warning beep of one of those car-parking sensors, just super quiet and alarm bell but faint, but it’s THERE! LOOK AT THAT, HA! Love that for me. 

Uncomfortable. Huh! I like it. It’s cool to feel uncomfortable again. I don’t know when the last time was, actually, I thought I knew uncomfortable but now that I feel uncomfortable again I think uncomfortable is actually different and what I was feeling was like…shame-dread or danger-shame-fear of consequences or danger, like feeling like I did something wrong and am getting called out for it or waiting for someone to just get it over with and really chew me out for it instead of beating around the bush or going easy for THIS time. Uncomfortable ACTUALLY is just feeling…literal discomfort. I feel literal discomfort, somewhere in my chest, like, lower than my sternum, but not all the way in my stomach, I didn’t know you could feel stuff there. It’s actually just “uncomfortable”. There’s not any urgent-fear-of-consequences or slow-simmering-dread-about-what-something-leads-to. It’s genuinely just, “ooh hey, I don’t think I want to think or talk about that right now. It’s making me feel uncomfortable.” not uncomfortable AND scared. I didn’t realize uncomfortable could be its own sensation! I thought it was just packaged as a truth of every negative-feeling emotion. Wow. Learning things every day over here. Well! Now I see why my brain wanted me to journal this out. I wish so badly it would let me use anything besides the public internet but it’s kind of worth it I at least do get these lessons or breakthroughs. I appreciate being able to go back and see recent events and entries from myself when I occasionally AM more checked in. 

By the way, as a general note, sorry for frequently word vomiting on here and being barely-concealed needy and manipulatively fishing for support on and off all year, ugh. I’ve had a lot of training to be manipulative and a lot of memories of being punished for just being direct, but it’s also not fair treatment to other people, and I’m trying a lot this year to watch a lot of videos, listen to podcasts, etc, from people talking about their same process of unlearning that, so my brain gets a speed-run of exposure to alternative neural options without me having to spend three years thinking some up myself lol. (THIS IS NOT ME TRYING TO MANIPULATE YOU INTO RESPONDING OR GIVING ME ENCOURAGEMENT, PLEASE DO NOT ACTUALLY, I JUST WANTED TO HONESTLY SAY THIS, there’s just almost no good way to do it through written English without always making it sound a little manipulative every time you try to apologize for subtle manipulation. it’s such a trip. i’ve been thinking about that on and off since I was six and it’s never gonna have a resolution because we just can’t do it without involving something visual or auditory to the written text and that. Defeats the whole purpose of written text communication, lol.)

As always, thanks for reading all the way through this, those of you who read or skimmed this post and my other posts like it. I’m glad you’re there and I hope today treats you well. Don’t forget water and food and meds and a jaw or shoulder stretch if you need them!