Wednesday, September 22, 2010

To be a bitch, or not to be a bitch.

Part of me wants to apologize for my last post (since recanted). Then there's another part of me who's all "whatever." Guess I know which side won.

I mean, I do do that. Often. But it doesn't mean I think all Mormons are Morons.

Not all of them.

To be fair, I think a lot of people are morons. Just some more than others. Especially a group of people who yap about humility and then get all up in my grille all "i'm so sad for you," "i can't talk to you anymore," "you should be in church" "oh i just got called to be super-duper-relief-society-president, but i don't know how! i mean, i'm so humble!" "non-members are good people, but they could be better with teh gospel!"

yapyapyap

But what bothers me is that if a few of my "IRL" friends read that last post, they'd be hurt. It was funny but it was seemingly pointed and kind of anti. I guess. I don't want to hurt them, but dammit.

Dammit.

I'm going through a bit of a cycle at the moment. I'd explain but I'm not all that sure I'm comfortable doing that yet. Suffice it to say my emotions aren't where I'd like them to be. For the past two months I've been this fairly happy, take-over-the-world person and now I'm feeling overwhelmed, behind--depressed. For nothing. Well, there are reasons, but still. Not very good ones. Maybe it'll go away after this weekend. Doubt it, but maybe. I've got an arsenal I'm working on to make it go away.

This week kind of sucks. Just too much shit.

Maybe that tells you all you need to know. But it's worse than that. I just don't want to get all attention-whorish on you. Besides, I might talk about it later. I do feel it has something (not everything) to do with my loyalty during my time in the clink.

See? There I go again. Kinda like how much I laughed the first time I heard someone refer to the "crutch." I keep wanting to do that. Not because I think the church is a crutch (well...) but because it was funny. But I don't want to chase people away (hi, annalee). I don't know why that is. I mean, fuck. I warned you people in the beginning. I honest-to-god didn't care in the beginning. And now I do.

I guess I still wonder if my ex-roomie reads this. She has the proper paper-trail, but I don't know if she'd even give my last blog a look after a year of inactivity, yanno? So I don't know. She stuck with me through all of that, I suppose she still would. I'm just a bit more brazen here. A bit. Not as much as I want to be. And though I know now she knows, we barely talk about it. She respects me, and I shut up around her. Except for the time I--gasp--wore shorts above the knee (i know!) and a tank in her presence. Like, it showed my shoulders. And her husband was around.

The jokes, they make themselves. But they're kind of bitchy, especially considering how awesome she has been. So I need to be a nice girl. But I'm fucking tired of always being on my guard to be the nice girl. May as well stick that stick up my ass for reals.

Eric thought I should go totally anonymous on my new blog. I wanted to and I didn't want to. First, I didn't want to go through the bullshit that I would've had to go through just to create a new profile. I have one on wordpress and here and it's just annoying to fix.

Secondly, trust me, there's a lot I would say if I were faceless, just for cathartic's sake (?), but I don't like talking shit about the church and about religion anonymously. I'm not afraid of the church, just the people I love deciding I'm no longer a "good influence" for whatever reason.

Lookit the power the church still has over me. It has the power to take away the few friends I have left.

So in a protest I poke fun. And then, sometimes (rarely) I feel bad about it. Even though I started this thing all "y'all, you're gonna be offended if you're a member."

I worry too goddamn much.

Whatever.

9 comments:

  1. Maybe it all comes down to your definition of the word "bitch." In my experience, there are 2:

    (1) An honest and confident woman who does her job competently; her highest priority is being true to herself; or

    (2) A mean and hateful person (man or woman) who suffers from a low self-esteem or other feelings of inadequacy and consequently lashes out at others in a futile effort to make him/her feel better about him/herself.

    The first one is a complement -- and, I believe, necessary for one's emotional health. The second is a mental illness/personality disorder (IMO).

    Just my 2 cents which is no doubt way more than it's worth.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, but then there's

    (3) A person who says mean things at the possible expense of people she cares about simply because she finds the comment amusing.

    That's where I'm afraid I pop in. I'm not exactly one to call my friends "morons." Perhaps I'm just being a bit more sensitive than is necessary.

    I mean, hell. It was funny. I think.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've been out of the church for fifteen years and it still hurts when an old TBM friend wanders onto my blog or FB page and gets angry with me. It's even more hurtful when it's somebody I knew in HS or at BYU, because I thought of them as "friend friends" not just people I was assigned to at church. But the "crutch" makes it too damn hard to have real friends. Sorry you're having a bad week, (in part thanks to the church.) I hope the weekend is better.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It *is* funny but it is also hard to know where to draw the line. I don't hate a single person in the general membership (no matter how annoying they may be). I love many of them. I don't want to hurt them but will not do anything that compromises my personal integrity to protect their feelings -- esp when they step into my territory then cry foul when I confront them about that. That's my mantra and I'm always trying to find the right balance. I'm torn between seeing them as victims and being frustrated with their refusal to wake up. My feelings are very mixed and complicated. I'm sure you know what I mean.

    But I absolutely loathe/detest/hate the organization including its leaders who have deliberately deceived the members. I don't care what "Elder Firstname MI Surname" really believes. They all know what the difficult facts are that they have made a concerted and conscious effort to suppress. They have a PR firm on a huge fucking (term of art) retainer to keep them well informed about the issues that impact the perceptions of their members and others. Their "I'm a Mormon" campaign is indirectly targeting those facts and is incredibly deceptive and DON'T THEY KNOW IT.

    When the people you love are buying into the Emperor's new clothes, it's hard not to use a little humor to point out his nekedness. Ya know? I don't know if that's a bad thing, either. Especially when it's your blog and you gave fair warning. I'm rambling so I'll shut up now.

    ReplyDelete
  5. oh man, do i hear you on everything you just said.

    it pisses me off, too. the deception is SO OBVIOUS and the main reason I ultimately left, wondering why I didn't see it sooner. Why I kept going even though I had a hunch.

    They have an unbelievable power over their people. It's gross.

    I don't appreciate the expectation to just eat whatever shit the leadership feeds me because I've sang "follow the prophet" and heard how he is the end-all-be-all. I wish my friends and family would refuse it too. At the same time, though, I know how hard it is to leave so I want to protect them from that. Which sounds stupid, but whatever. They need to be ready to leave before it can really happen.

    Also, people should be able to laugh at themselves. I mean, shit. Among other stupid names, there IS a "Moron" in the Book of Mormon, yes? And I'd be willing to bet even the most faithful member has done what I do all the time.

    So yes. What you said. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I had thought about starting up a new anonymous blog too, and I did not for the reasons that you listed above. Also, I have hidden doubts and beliefs for a long time. Now that I am finally owning up to those doubts and beliefs in real life I also felt the need to own up to them on the blog. (My last name is not on the blog of course, but my God, I give enough details that anyone could find me...) It forces me to really own what I say.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I understand the hesitation. I shut down my last blog because of harassment. I had this one commenter who just wouldn't stop. She'd leave page-long comments and follow up with a nasty email. I was fielding her comments all day long. I would understand if I was saying something offensive, but really she was just launching herself off the most innocuous things - it was confusing for me AND everyone else reading my blog. Rejecting her comments wasn't enough because I'd still have to read them. And she was MEAN. She said things I've never heard from another person. I spent a couple of days crying over it (fuck that's embarrassing), until finally I just shut down the blog and retreated from the entire internet for about three months.

    So when I started my new blog, I had a bunch of stuff to think about. I have readers who have followed me from blog to blog for 5+ years, and I didn't want to lose them. And I hate feeling like I have to censor myself - what I want most of all is to feel comfortable and unashamed about the things I have to say and who I really am. So I decided not to blog anonymously, but I waited quite a while before allowing comments.

    I still worry that she's going to pop up again. I don't write as personally as I did before, which is a loss for me because writing is so important, so much a part of my identity and how I make sense of the world. I really consider blogging a blessing (gah! that word!) for people like me who will never seek to be published or paid for our writing. But I have limited, censored, restricted now because I have to be conscious of how much criticism I can handle and how my words are likely to impact others.

    So I understand these questions about blogging, but personally I am very glad that you're not anonymous because I want to have a chance to know you in person. Also, here's something I remind myself of constantly: nobody HAS to read your blog. It's THEIR CHOICE to type in your name or click on your link; it's THEIR CHOICE to page through this stuff, and THEIR CHOICE to engage you in debate. There are a trillion places to go in teh interwebs; if they WANT to be depressed or pissed off or cognitively dissonant by what you're saying, then they'll stick around. If not, nobody is chaining them to the chair and forcing them to read your stuff. That's the bottom line, really.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Lisa,

    No, couldn't chase me away..., honesty is addicting.

    I always thought Shiz was just ridiculous, seriously, Shiz? Tee hee hee... :)

    I just don't group myself with the Mormons you describe so I'm never offended.

    Love,

    Annalee

    ReplyDelete
  9. Being a Moron is a "lifestyle choice."

    ReplyDelete