My Planned Parenthood Story

Ok, so here's the scoop, folks. Earlier this year, my Representative Dave Camp voted to block funding for Planned Parenthood (he supported the Pence Amendment to H.R. 1) in Michigan. This scared me, because while I've heard stories of other states trying to pass legislation to block funding for Planned Parenthood, I guess I thought it was something I didn't have to worry about, since it wasn't happening to me. Then I realized that it could very well happen to me, Planned Parenthood could lose their funding in Michigan, and then where would I be? This thought scared me into action, so I wrote Representative Camp a letter (I write him letters all the time, and he sends me dismissive replies, so I didn't think it would really do any good, but I felt I had to try). For those of us in Michigan, Dave Camp's support of this bill shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Dave Camp does some good work, but he also often supports evil and archaic legislation like this, so I often have to email him and take him to task for what I see as a gross misrepresentation of his constituents (of which I am one, much to his dismay, I'm sure). But the thing is, with all the talk going around about how people "stand with Planned Parenthood" and how this lack of funding will affect women, something that gets lost, I think, is that a lot of the people who DON'T stand with Planned Parenthood honestly might not know what they are doing and how they are hurting people with their stance. I know this because I was one of those people, once upon a time. Anyway, I thought it might be time to cut through the rhetoric and the jargon and honestly tell my Planned Parenthood story, even if Dave Camp ignores it, because it wasn't enough for me to say "I Stand with Planned Parenthood" anymore...I needed to say WHY. This is the letter I wrote to Dave Camp. I tried to say what I had to say as best I could. I knew there was a good chance he'd ignore it, but I wanted to share my story with you, too, readers and friends, because this isn't just MY story. It's the story of a lot of other women who are afraid to say "I Stand with Planned Parenthood" because they're afraid of what that means.



Dear Representative Dave Camp,



The Pence Amendment to H.R. 1 that bars all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers is a truly outrageous -- and dangerous -- piece of legislation. I am outraged that you supported this horrific bill. Your vote is an absolute betrayal of the millions of Americans who rely on Planned Parenthood for primary and preventive care. For your information, Planned Parenthood is much more than just an "abortion provider" and it is unconscionable for you to dismiss it as such. I have a health condition that causes extremely heavy bleeding and pain so bad I find it difficult to walk during monthly menstruation. My cramps are so bad I wake up screaming from the pain. I have been dealing with this pain since I was ten years old. The only (and I do mean ONLY) thing that has ever alleviated this pain is the care provided by Planned Parenthood - through birth control pills and later the Depo Provera shot when we discovered that the pills put me at high risk of blood clots due to my chronic migraines.



I suffered with this extreme menstrual pain for over ten years because, as you might, I dismissed Planned Parenthood as simply an "abortion provider" and thus did not want to visit my clinic and see if the care they could provide would help my condition. It wasn't until I was twenty five years old and this pain had prevented me from working several days every month and almost cost me my job that I finally decided I couldn't take the pain anymore and I had to visit a clinic and see if any of the treatments they offered could help me. I found the staff and nurses at the clinic to be compassionate and caring, and within the space of six months, I was on treatment that allowed me to function and work like a normal human being during my monthly menstrual cycle for the first time in my life. And the clinic provided this service to me, in effect giving me my life back, free of charge through the "Plan First" program that allowed them to offer these services free of charge due to Federal Funding to financially struggling women like me.



The Planned Parenthood clinic in my town doesn't even perform abortions, but they DO put women in contact with clinics where they can get this procedure, just as they put me in contact with a clinic and a local doctor who could find and remove the cancer I had, thus saving my life. Here is the fact that I ignored for years and the fact that opponents of Planned Parenthood continue to ignore. Abortion is not a medical procedure that Planned Parenthood performs at the drop of a hat and with no thought to the risks. Planned Parenthood is often the last resort for women in my area, since many doctors in this area will not provide even birth control pills and/or the Depo Provera shot, and when I asked local doctors why, in more than one case I was told it was because of because of the minute "abortificant properties" of the pill. Let me put that into layman's terms for you. Because of the minuscule risk that the pill might in a tiny number of cases cause a fetus not to implant into the uterus, no woman should ever use the pill or ever use birth control, even if she is not having sex, even if she is a virgin, even if she is ten years old and doubled over in pain in bed bleeding so heavily that she is afraid to leave the house, a woman must suffer this constant pain and anguish because the services provided by Planned Parenthood are somehow morally objectionable.



Let me tell you what is "morally objectionable" in my book, representative Camp. Forcing women to suffer pain and anguish and yes, torture every month because they cannot afford the medical services that could take away this pain and indeed give them their lives back? THAT is morally reprehensible. Telling women and young girls not to get services at Planned Parenthood, even if the grand majority of them aren't going to get abortions and are instead only going to get treatment for conditions related to menstruation, even if most of them are going in order to be responsible adults and learn ways to PREVENT an unwanted pregnancy before they have to terminate it, even if most of them are going because they already HAVE children and they can't handle the financial burden of adding to their families at this time so they want to take steps to PREVENT an unwanted pregnancy before it happens, and yes, even if a small number of them are going to seek an abortion because they have considered the alternatives and they have made the informed decision that they cannot carry an unwanted pregnancy to term at this time...cutting off funding for the only health care that thousands of women (if not millions of women) can only receive in areas like this at a Planned Parenthood clinic, and cutting off that funding because you somehow believe that Planned Parenthood is somehow morally reprehensible (instead of the lifesaving service that it was for me and that it is for so many other women)? That is shortsighted, uninformed, ignorant, and simply wrong, representative Camp.



I used to believe that the services provided at Planned Parenthood were somehow morally wrong, representative Camp. I was uninformed and ignorant, and it took me suffering intense pain for fifteen years of my life before I learned that Planned Parenthood provided services that could help me and that they were already helping thousands (if nor millions) of other women. If I ever have a daughter someday, I am going to raise her to believe that it's wrong for women to suffer pain and anguish every month simply because of outdated ideas about women's reproductive health and ignorance about the health benefits Planned Parenthood provides. I'm going to teach her to make responsible choices about her reproductive health, and if she ever needs the services that Planned Parenthood provides, as indeed so many women do, I hope for Planned Parenthood to be there to help her as it was for me.



Along with countless other Planned Parenthood supporters, I am determined to fight against this bill as it moves to the Senate, and to oppose every effort to undermine women's health and access to care. We will continue to stand with Planned Parenthood -- and we call on you to focus on the needs of our community -- rather than politics -- by supporting women's access to their health care providers, including Planned Parenthood.



Sincerely,



Lillian Patterson





If any of you want to "Stand with Planned Parenthood" too, I want to tell you that it's ok. You aren't supporting a morally reprehensible organization by doing so. You're supporting an organization that literally saved my life and an organization that helps women across the country. I encourage you to go to your local Planned Parenthood office and educate yourself about the work they do there, and not just rely on what your church or your school or even your parents might tell you, but to find out for yourself how this organization provides necessary care to women every day.



For those of us who do support Planned Parenthood, I think it might be a good idea for us to start (or continue) telling our stories of why, because I think a lot of people don't know what they're doing when they want to block funding to Planned Parenthood, and before we get angry with them for not knowing the truth, we have to make sure we're speaking the truth and putting it out there. I say this as a reminder to myself more than anything else, because this is the first time I've put so many words to my own story of why I support Planned Parenthood. I hope it makes an impact somehow, for the sake of women like me who don't know what they don't know is hurting and killing them everyday.

I Can Do Bad All By Myself

Let us continue our trek through the land of movies I love that everyone else hates (which would be just about every movie I love, come to think of it) with a stop in Tyler Perry land. People hate Tyler Perry. They hate him. they drag him into discussions thaT have nothing to do with him just so they can bash him. I have seen interviews with him and I honestly don't get what all the hate is about. Is he arrogant? He might be, I don't know te man (and neither do any of you) but lots of people are arrogant and Hollywood loves them. Does he portray stereotypes in his movies? I don't know that either. I can't tell you why people seem to hate him, but I can tell you why I like him.

He makes movies I can relate to. I grew up in a family where the concept of "extended family" was as important to us as it is to the characters in this movie (I spent many months living with aunts, so I can relate to the kids in this movie). I went to churches like this, I grew up with this music, and I know a lot of people like this. All the people I'm talking about here are white. Someone told me that only black people like Tyler Perry's movies, and it's only the self-hating black people too, because they buy into the stereotypes he portrays (and that's one of the nicer comments I've heard). I can tell you I can relate to every word of this script, and I'm not black. I don't get it. I watch this movie, and I see a woman (April) who lives in a house she inherited and puts up with an abusive married boyfriend because she thinks that's all she can get out of life. We accept the love we think we deserve, right? I relate to April. I hear her say things that I've thought myself. I know what she's going through because I went through a lot of it, and the song "I Can Do Bad All By Myself" resonates with me because I read the lyrics and feel like it could be about me. When April finally decides to turn her life around and give love a chance and accept the love offered to her, I relate because it gives me hope that the same thing can happen for me someday. Whatever else this movie is, it's a movie that believes what it's saying. It believes in the concept of redemption, and I love it for that.

I said all this stuff in my original review of the movie but it bears repeating. I love it. Not everyone does, but I do, and that doesn't make me stupid and it doesn't make me a bad person.

An American Crime (movie #38)

I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to watch this. Good lord.

Ok,first off, let's start with what this movie is about. In the 1960s, a young woman and her younger sister go to live with their aunt. Their aunt has too many kids and not enough money and she's suffering because of this,so adding two more kids kind of send her off the edge. All the rage she has inside, rage she'd never let herself pour out on her own kids, suddenly comes out on her niece Sylvia (the eldest of the two girls). The aunt starts beating the girl, getting more and more violent, until one day she flies into a rage and imprisons the girl in the basement. Soon, her children and the neighborhood children join in beating Sylvia, calling it "punishment." This continues for months.

Horrible story, right? Who would think up something like this? Well, I'm sad to say, but this movie is based on a true story. Don't believe me? Read the info here and here. It's a terrible thing, a horrendous thing, and it's not a lot of fun to watch it happen onscreen in this movie. There was a novel loosely based on this case, called "The Girl Next Door," written by Jack Ketchum, and it's one of the hardest books I've ever read. The movie based on that book, also called "The Girl Next Door," was so disturbing that when the Family Video in my town got it in, people protested until it was taken off the shelves. That pissed me off royally, because I think it's an important film and I think people need to see it. "An American Crime" is more closely based on the Sylvia Likens case,and it's easier to watch because it ends with courtroom scenes and testimony and a voice over telling you what happened to each character, which serves to take you out of the story a bit and soften the blow of what you just saw, but it's still a difficult movie to watch.

Ellen Page stars as Sylvia, and Catherine Keener as the aunt, Gertrude Baniszewski. Both Page and Keener give great performances. Everyone in this movie gives a great performance, even the bit players. The torture scenes are painful to watch. But the most terrible thing about this movie is watching the neighborhood kids as they slowly succumb to the idea that it's ok to torture and beat Sylvia. The way that woman gets inside their minds is terrifying to watch. I've seen it happen before, and it's not something I like to relive (again, remind me why I thought it would be a good idea to watch this movie?) At the end of the book "The Girl Next Door," the narrator,one of the neighborhood kids who tortured the girl (now as an adult) says that he wonders how the other kids are doing,now that they're all grown up...and that he wonders the same thing about himself. There's something about being a kid, at the mercy of adults most of the time, that makes you believe the things they tell you, even when you know those things are wrong.

The kids who tortured Sylvia knew that what they did was wrong,but part of being in a fucked up situation is that sometimes you become more fucked up yourself just so you can adapt to it and eventually survive. Seeing them transform like that is haunting, and it makes you wonder about how they fared as adults, and it makes you worry for your neighbor's kids, because if something like this could happen in suburban USA with neighbors all around, what could be going on in your own neighborhood? At least it makes me wonder these things. And it almost makes me wish I hadn't watched this movie, which is one of the best recommendations I can give for a movie. It's that disturbing. It's that important.

From Within (movie #10)

I grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian environment. It was one of those situations where everything was part of God's plan, and questioning and wondering and thinking anything not approved by the church was a sin that would lead me astray and allow Satan into my life. As such, this movie really hit me. It's about a small town not unlike the one where I grew up, a small town where the people trust the local pastor with everything and they believe what he says about God being in control. Well, one day, a young man comes back from the war very troubled, and he meets with the pastor for "counseling," and then he winds up dead, and people blame his mother for killing him. Around this time, the young people of the town find a book that contains evil spirits, and as they mess around with the powers of the book, the kids begin killing themselves. This leads the main character, a young girl named Lindsay, to question her faith. Meanwhile, the pastor doesn't like the evil taking over his town, so he takes steps to stop it, and these two opposing forces begin to converge and the structure that has allowed the town to survive for years falls apart.

I must say, I wasn't expecting much from this movie, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's not so much a demon speaking to these kids as it's voices in their heads telling them to question the things they've always believed, and they can't handle this, so they break down. I've been through that. I had more than one book, I had tons of novels and movies and music,things that made me question the things my church told me. When I first got to college the church I attended here had a "cleansing event" where the pastor brought all his non-Christian CDs and burned them in a bonfire, and he invited all of us to do the same with our books or music, anything that separated us from God by making us think "evil things." Of course, I did it, but looking back on in now, it wasn't that the songs I listened to or the books I read or the movies I watched told me that there wasn't a God, it was that they challenged me to move beyond my narrow little world and look at things differently from the way I'd always been taught. That was hard for me (it still is, every day) and in this way I can really relate to the teens in this movie, starting to think about what they've always believed and scared to move beyond that.

In this movie, the evil is not picky, it talks to the kids starting to question their faith, but it also talks to the hardcore Christians and whispers to them what they have to do to get rid of the evil in their town. The Christians think they're listening to the voice of God, and the other kids think it's the voice of the devil,and meanwhile, the evil book is just setting them all up and watching them fall. It's pretty grim and harrowing.

I never really expect a little low-budget horror flick to make me think like this, but I appreciate it just the same.

The Shepherd

Today hasn't been a good day. I wouldn't be lying if I said that it's probably been the hardest day I've had in months. It seems like all the stress is piling up and ganging up and attacking me at once, and I've been bottling up things that threaten to come to the surface and I don't know if they'd make me feel better or destroy me if I let them out. My boss called me worthless at work last Saturday even though I bust my ass and try to stock as much as I can, and last night he threatened twice to fire me because he said he knows someone is trying to get away with not stocking by saying things are "backstock" (what we call items that are already full on the shelves). I know this isn't true, but the morning people keep saying it's true about me (I don't know why they hate me so much) and you can say all you want "oh, if it's not true, he won't fire you" but Ive been fired before from a job when I was accused even though I didn't do anything wrong. I'm barely scraping by as it is. Losing this job would be devastating for me. Especially when I work so hard to do my job and do it well, and I'm so stressed out about everything else in my life that my job was the only thing that seemed to be going well. I don't need this stress on top of everything else.

So yeah. Bad day. And I'm so tired of trying to have hope in the midst of a sea of people who keep telling me to have hope like it's easy to do, or like it's not something I'm already trying with every fiber of my being, while I get sicker and sicker and still don't have insurance and still have so much debt and still see people losing hope all around me and giving up and dying, and I want to tell them to have hope, but I know how trite that sounds to me and I want to give them something real, so I try my best only to have people mock my words or tell me I'm a drama queen. I'm about to stab the next person who says something like that to me.

See? Now I'm threatening to stab people. I want so badly to be a good person. I want to be the kind of person I expect others to be. It's so much harder than it sounds, and I'm so tired of trying and failing. When the author Renee Alston wrote in her book "Stumbling Toward Faith" about her husband, her description of him touched my heart in so many ways that I read it over and over and over again to remind myself that there is good in the world, even when I can't see it for myself:

there was so much that was shattered and broken in me. i was distrustful and skeptical, and i pushed love away because i was terrified of it. the thought of being hurt kept me from taking risks, and kept my life protected and safe.

my husband came into my life with great gentleness. he never forced his way in. he never insisted that i give him anything that i couldn't give. he simply sat with me and waited with me and loved me.

i learned from him the wonder of being loved. he has stayed with me even when i have begged him to leave. he has respected me even when i have yelled at him and thrown things at him and refused to respect myself. he has held me when there were no words to be said, knowing that to say them would only trivialize my pain.

he walked with me through the process of intense therapy, of nights when i slept in the bathtub or the closet, too terrified to be with another person; too full of memories to be in my own bed. he has watched me sign "no suicide" contracts and visited me in mental hospitals. he has nurtured the small wounded parts of me and always believed i would make it.

i have held on to his hope for me when i have had none for myself. i have held on to his love for me when i have felt unloved and afraid. through him i have learned that there are places in me that love can reach. through him i have been willing to begin to be loved. through him i have learned the worth of letting people in. because of him i began to open up to others again, to be brave.

he has been the beginning of my ability to believe.

That description tugs at my soul. It reminds me of what I'm trying to be for other people, and for myself, a friend...someone who is there for people and tries to give them hope; and I keep trying to remind myself that even if it seems like it doesn't matter, it does matter. So many people gave up on me. I want to be the kind of person who will not give up on someone else. I honestly don't feel strong enough, like I don't have one thousandth of the resolve I need, and the light I try to shine looks so small in the face of the darkness. I try to remember that it's important that I'm shining a light at all, but it's hard to remember that when all I can think about is what a horrible job I'm doing and how messed up my life is (and how bad my grammar is when I keep putting prepositions at the end of my sentences).

Have you guys ever seen Pulp Fiction? There's this part I keep thinking about, where Samuel L. Jackson's character says this:

There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. Now I'm thinkin': it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.

Maybe that's it. I'm the tyranny of evil men, but I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd. It doesn't seem like enough, but it's going to have to be, because it's all I've got right now.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's all hot. Just because I'm not sticking it in there doesn't mean that I don't find it beautiful."

The title of this post is a quote from Adam Lambert in his infamous Rolling Stone article. I read that quote, and I thought it was the most awesome thing OMG EVER, so I wanted to use it somewhere, but the thought crossed my mind that if I did, some of my friends would be pissed off at me. I've been this way all my life, always finding friendships with people who don't respect me, or who put me down all the time, or who just basically treat me like garbage. I don't know why it is. Someone told me that as humans, "we accept the love we think we deserve," and I think that for me, there's a lot of truth in that. Maybe a part of me thinks that I deserve to have friends who cut me off in mid-sentence to mock what I'm saying, or to roll their eyes at me and tell me "that makes no sense" when I speak (even when what I said makes perfect sense, thanks) or who tell me that I look like shit and they don't want to be seen in public with me, or who wait for me to tell a story that I think i s so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes to tell it, and then when I'm done roll their eyes and say "that was stupid." I could go on and on. I seem to have a talent for picking relationships with people who don't respect me (and most of them wouldn't even recognize that they do this if I tried to talk to them about it...I know because I HAVE tried).

Part of being self-aware is realizing that I need to change some things, but the hard part is knowing that I have to work on ME, because I can't change anyone else. I have so many issues that I don't know where to start some days, but until I'm capable of seeing any good in myself, no one else is going to see any good in me, either. So onward I go.

I wrote this message for a friend, and I posted it on a message board awhile ago, but just to remind myself (and because maybe some of you might want to hear it, as well) I'm posting it here, too. I love you guys.

Someone posted this passage from the children's story "The Velveteen Rabbit" the other day, and I haven't read or thought about that story in years, but when I read these words again, they hit me so hard that I cried, because they describe me so well:


"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very nappy. But these things don't matter at all. Because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."


So I was thinking about this the other night, in the midst of about a week without sleep (and with very little hope...it's been a dark week) and these words came to mind, so I started praying them:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Recently, I've started praying the serenity prayer at work. Like I said, I haven't slept in days, and I'm so stressed out and such that it seems that drinking and drugs and razor blades have never been as tempting to me as they are right now. I was thinking how weak I was that the temptation had never seemed to bother me this much in the past, and I'd never been overcome with it like I seem to be right now. Then last night it hit me...of COURSE it seems like the temptation is stronger now than it was before. Before, I always gave in. Now, I don't do those things anymore, so I know what it feels like to struggle against something that used to rule my life so strongly. It seems harder now because I'm fighting, and fighting is always harder than giving in.

I actually cried, I was so relieved to be able to see it that way. I have such a hard time seeing myself in a positive light and seeing myself as strong, because even typing those words seems alien to me. I'm not strong. I'm not anything good or noble or righteous, not the way I should be, because I'm surrounded by tangible reminders of every ugly failure I've ever had. But the thing is, these scars make me who I am. I shouldn't have made them, it was wrong, it was bad, blah blah blah, but even if it was wrong, they're here now, a part of me, and scarred skin may be ugly, but it's also stronger than regular skin, because something about the process of knitting itself back together makes it tougher than it was in the past. I may be ugly, but these marks show that I have lived, and that I'm still here to tell the tale.

So I thought about the things I can change, like my attitude, the things I can't change, like the nasty comments and opinions of others, and how the hardest thing for me has always been knowing the difference between the two, because I want so badly for other people to like me and see something good and worthy in me that I always think if I try hard enough, I will be good and be righteous and people will see that and finally, I will be good enough. It never works out that way, though, and because of this, every negative opinion hurts that much more because it reminds me again how I've failed and how I'll never be good enough. But there again, that's looking at things backwards...if nothing else, people's negative comments should remind me that no matter what I do, someone somewhere is going to disapprove, and I can't live for the opinions of others, I have to live for myself, because I'm the only one who has to be around myself 24/7 for the rest of my life. And as I was musing on the words of this prayer, I started praying it, over and over (I do that sometimes, pray the "Hail Mary" or the "Our Father" because those are the ones I can remember, and they help me focus on God and keep going) and I realized that "The Serenity Prayer" is probably the best thing I could pray to myself at work and throughout my life, when I'm surrounded by other people and their opinions, things I can't change, and motivated by the desire to be whole and accepted more than any other thing. If nothing else, God accepts me where I am, and I'm doing everything I can to put one foot in front of the other and keep going and survive, and I'm feeling every sling and arrow because I don't have drugs or alcohol or anything else to numb the pain like I had in the past. I'm realizing how much pain hurts when you have to actually FEEL your emotions. But this is good. It means I'm still alive, still becoming. All things new.

Coming Out

Someone asked me to post my "coming out" story here, since I keep going on and on about how mine is different. It is. I'm not like most people; I can't say "well I realized that I was attracted to people of the same sex at X age" because for me, things didn't work out like that. Someone asked me to write "What the letters GLBTACQI Mean to You" and this is what came out. I apologize if it's incoherent (and it's going to have more profanity than I typically use in this blog, because it's been the sort of week when I use profanity quite a bit).

Yeah, so when I was younger, I realized that I never fit in and never belonged anywhere, and I blame my mom for a lot of that, because she never let me go to school or get out of the house and socialize and be around other people and learn their language. So anyway, I felt like an outcast, and when I was fast becoming a rabid reader in my pre-teens, I read every book I could possibly find about gay people. I figured I wasn't one of them (since, you know, I didn't want to have sex with women, but then I didn't even know how women HAD sex, and I didn't want to have sex with anyone, even though sex dominated my thoughts as a kid, it was a skewed view of sex as pain and degradation, so even though I felt like it was a part of me, I didn't want any part of it) but anyway, yes, I figured I wasn't gay, but I figured that everyone hated gay people and everyone hated me, too, so we had something in common, so I should read about them. So I did. that's when I discovered Harvey Milk, and how he was the first openly gay person elected to US public office (other gay people had come out and told people they were gay after they'd been elected, but Harvey Milk was elected when everyone knew he was gay, meaning he didn't hide it but he told everyone about it because he was loud and mouthy but most people seemed to like him anyway). I read about him, and I read his speeches, and I became obsessed with him ("yes you did," said Lillian's friends list, "and we're all still paying for that, so many years later") because he talked about hope like it was a real, tangible thing that could keep people going when they had nothing else, and I had nothing else (I wasn't even allowed to leave the house) so long before I discovered Jesus, I discovered Harvey Milk, and I tried to have hope that someday, I would be able to break free from my prison (because that's what my home life was) and live. It took me years, but I managed to do just that, and forgive me a moment of blasphemy, but I'd have done well to hang on more to the message I got from Harvey Milk than most of the messages I got from church, because churches fucked me over and fucked me up royally for years. But anyway, gay people were always important in my life, so it bothered me somewhere deep down knowing that I was supposed to believe that they were going to hell (well, if they had sex and were happy, they were going to hell...if they stayed celibate and beat themselves up over every homosexual thought, they could stand a chance of being righteous one day maybe if God chose to love them more than they deserved or something).

In college I really desperately wanted to go to the gay group on campus, but I was too afraid to go...I went to a few meetings, but I was so messed up that it didn't have much of an effect. The only thing that wore down the stupid walls I had built in my head was years and years of being around gay people (because I stand by this: I always did love them and never thought they should have to change, even when I tried to change myself in later years, even when I beat myself up for my sinful thoughts, even when I hated myself, I never hated them, and I hated myself for not being able to think what they did was sick and wrong like I was supposed to think...how fucked up is THAT?) And after years of being around gay people (and probably convincing every single person in my church that I was gay because I look back on my pictures from back then and I dressed like the biggest fucking dyke I've ever seen...but that was more to cover my body and not ever cause a man to look at me and think about sex, because that was a sin and that would send me to hell...just ask my church...) one day, after I'd walked away from the church and started kind of seeing this guy, I was watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I'd seen a million times before, when suddenly it hit me that I had a crush on one of the girls in the episode. Just like that. It never occurred to me before, but I think that's because I spent so much time in a screwed-up mindset about sex that I never thought there was anything positive about sex...I thought about it all the time, and I had graphic pictures in my head that nothing could erase, but I knew next to nothing about what sex really was and what it really could be...does that make sense? I saw that I had a guy who found me attractive, and suddenly I stopped thinking I was ugly and sinful and evil, and I stopped seeing my sexuality as something ugly and evil, too. So it wasn't until I had a guy who was sexually attracted to me, a guy I liked who was nice to me, that I could begin to see anything positive about sex, and it was then that I was able to open up to my crushy-gushy feelings about another girl (yes, I'm saying that it wasn't until I was in a sexual relationship with a guy that I was able to see sex with a girl as a good thing, yes, I know how stupid that sounds, this is why I've never said it before, no, I don't know why I'm saying it now...wait, yes I do...blame Dani).

So anyway, after this guy broke up with me, I got my first crush on a girl who I knew in real life, and then I had my first relationship with a girl, and even though it was messed up, I wouldn't trade it for anything, because it made me realize that there was always something missing when I had sex with a guy (I liked looking at him, I still like looking at guys and especially at naked guys but when it comes to actually having sex, I most certainly enjoy having sex with women more). So that's when I finally realized that I don't just empathize with the letters on that alphabet soup list, I'm ONE OF THEM.

That's the long answer to the question, of course. The short answer is that "GLBTACQI" means to me that we have WAY TOO MANY letters in our acronym.

This is the Way the World Ends

So some of you wanted to know what's going on with me. Well, for starters, my old campus minister gave me a ride home from the store today.

Those of you who remember my old campus minister might be cringing right now. You'd be right to do so.

I shouldn't have taken the ride, but it was raining, and...yeah, I shouldn't have taken the ride. Pneumonia is better than this. Still, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

His kids were in the back seat (the two oldest, Nate and Sam, and man, they've grown...they're so cute!) so he couldn't get too in-depth, but I know this drill. I used to meet with him for "leadership training sessions" and we'd run into people he's met before, and he'd talk with them, all nice, and as soon as they walked away he told me everything that made them leave the ministry, and all the sad sins that ruled their lives since they left...so I'm sure he had some choice words for his kids after I left. But while we were in the car he just asked me how I was doing, and he said he's seen me around town, and it's sad for him to see people who used to be active in the ministry now involved in things that could damage their souls and the souls of those around them, and he remembered what I was like back when the campus ministry was the center of my life, and he hoped I'd return to God. I said that I was happier and healthier now than I'd been in college. Then he just asked me where I worked, and the conversation was over.

So why am I sitting here seething now?

Because I gave SO MUCH of myself to that church, and I got so little in return. I got insulted, told that I wasn't a good witness, told that I shouldn't cry in church because it ruined my witness, that there was something wrong with me, and that he didn't want new people coming into the church to see me. And even after all that, I still stayed and served and tried to change whatever about me wasn't worthy. I never quite made it.

Well then the straw came, the proverbial one that breaks the camel's back, and some of my friends might remember it (my friend Rachel should remember it, since she's the one who woke me up and made me see how bad things had gotten the night I left the church...I don't know if I ever told her that). See, the campus minister kept giving sermons about how he was proud of this guy in our church for "sharing the truth" and how for the first time in his campus ministry career, he found a good reason to read the student paper. You know why? Because this guy, Aaron, was the editor of the student paper that year, and he had badly written an editorial about why gay marriage was wrong, and suddenly every week, the campus minister found time to have "let's all praise Aaron" sessions, and I was getting tired of it.

One week, someone from my hall, an RA that I knew named Zach, wrote a letter into the paper saying that he didn't appreciate the "anti-gay marriage" rhetoric, because he was gay, and it wasn't just that the article was wrong, it wasn't written very well and the arguments in it were stupid (which they were...gay people can't bear children, gay people don't have sex the way most people do, the bible says it's an abomination and Romans says it's unnatural, blah blah blah please shoot me now). Aaron wrote a "response" in his "letter from the editor" section about how it's sad that people don't want to hear the truth, but that's not his fault, and if they have a problem, it's a problem with God, not with him. So I sat there thinking every week, "Dammit...I hope no one who's gay is sitting here listening to this, because they might think God doesn't love them" (yeah, I was thinking that, never underestimate the power of denial). But it ate away at me, and I didn't say anything, and then I finally wrote a letter to the editor myself, saying that it was one thing to share an opinion, but it was quite another to spout off without any love or respect for those on the other side of the issue. Aaron called me at home after he got that letter, saying it's unfair for me to attack the paper that way, and maybe I needed to talk to my campus minister if I was having problems with God's word. That night, I talked with some of my friends (Dani, Rachel, and Matt) and that's when Rachel told me that she hoped no gay people went to that church, because if they did, they must feel totally alone and unloved right now.

THAT hurt. I thought about that, and turned it around in my head, all through the church service that night. I thought about how before, the sermons were just hurting me, and I'd been hurt enough by this church not to really care anymore, but now I could see the impact their words and message had on other people, too. Zach was someone I really liked and respected, and he deserved better than that. I didn't want him to think everyone in the church felt the way Aaron did. That day, my letter was published in the paper (in spite of what Aaron said in his call) so I was prepared for someone to say something nasty to me at church, but no one did, no one even came up and said "hi" to me, and I had to hold back tears the whole time, because I knew what I had to do. So finally, after the service was over, I told my campus minister I didn't know if it was healthy for us to focus on "Gay = BAD" so much in every single sermon, because it's like we were losing focus on everything else (like, y'know, the gospel and other unimportant things like that). He replied that this WAS an important issue, people didn't realize how damaging homosexuality could be, even if it's genetic, that's all the more reason to fight against the temptation, gays are like alcoholics so why don't alcoholics get a parade. So I threw some really weak arguments at him (let him come at me today, I have way better things to say, but back then, I had nothing, and I ended up shooting blanks at every person who fired at me...I still have the scars, and I bet they don't have a goddamned thing). I told him that I don't think it's helpful to compare alcoholism and homosexuality, since even sociologists recognize that associating sexual orientation with sin can be harmful, and even some Christians believe that perhaps the bible verses used to condemn homosexuality could be interpreted differently, and that even if people aren't "born gay" that doesn't mean they shouldn't have equal rights, because people aren't "born Christian" but our rights are protected...

And he just said, "Lillian, it's sad what some people choose to believe" and walked away.

End scene.

Kind of anticlimactic for a conversation that put an end to five years of my serving in and giving all my extra money to his church, don't you think? Is this the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper? I thought I'd at least earned some yelling and screaming, for Christ's sake.

That's how it ended, and this is where it stands now, I suppose. I'm better off when I'm not in an environment like that, because I'll always be a freak no matter where I am, but it still stings (especially when something opens up the wound this way, and in a small town it's hard to avoid running into people who hate me...I know they still hate me even when I can't hear them saying it, but I can at least PRETEND it doesn't exist when I don't have to look at it).

Sigh.

I think a long bath is in order after I finish my laundry. Something to calm me down. I get my test tomorrow, so we'll find out what my cancer is up to in a few weeks. I'll just keep on trudging, I guess.

Bridging the Gap: Synchro-Blog Entry "Common Ground"

My post today is part of a larger initiative of more than 60 bloggers all coming together to share their thoughts on how to 'bridge the gap' between GLBTACQI people and the church. You can check out the other links at: www.btgproject.blogspot.com

What I'm Doing

This blogging initiative is one I'm proud to participate in because it touches my heart in a unique way, and I'm excited to read what everyone else has to say on this issue, because for me, the realization that I was a lesbian is what brought me back to God, not what turned me away from God, so my journey is different than that of most people with whom I've discussed this topic. I always tell people that I think it might be helpful for GLBT people and Christians to try to focus on the ways in which we are alike instead of focusing on our differences, but that sound slike a cliche, and I don't think anyone understand how hard that is for me to say or what a difference it has made in my life. Perhaps if you understand more about me, you'll understand why this is so important to me.

Who I Am

Now here's the deal. I'm one of those people who's never fit into the church as a whole, no matter who I was or who I was trying to be. I tried many different denominations, and no matter what, there was always some reason that I didn't "fit in" at the church. I talked too loud, I laughed too loud, I watched the wrong movies, I listened to the wrong music, I wore the wrong clothes, I didn't seem to be able to believe the right things (or I shared my doubts about things everyone else seemed to believe without much effort). I never had any reasons growing up for why I was such a square peg in a round hole, so I spent my time trying to change myself to fit the environment I was in. I looked at the people around me and tried my best to dress like them and talk like them and modify my beliefs to fit what they believed. Much to my dismay, this never seemed to work, because I was always denying some part of myself that made me who I was. I'm the kind of person who can get more spiritual truth out of a zombie movie or an Elton John song than I can out of a sermon. I've always been this way. For whatever reason, God uses pop culture to speak to me, and that's something powerful, and to deny that is to try to suppress a part of me that is vitally important to who I really am. The point of this isn't to say that going to church and listening to a sermon is something that doesn't affect me at all, it's to say that whatever truth I need to see about God I see more clearly in the things that resonate with my soul, and it's not a bad thing to go to church or to read the bible, but to do those things purposely as a way to suppress the part of me that needs to listen to music and watch horror movies is to ignore a vital part of what drew me to God in the first place. Once I began to believe he existed, I could see him all around me, and I could hear him singing in the words of songs I'd loved since I was a child, and it was like I was seeing everything with new eyes. Then I learned that this music and these books and these movies weren't part of the life experience of most Christians, and in fact were thought to be sinful by the people in the churches I attended. I spent years going to rallies, burning my books and CDs, asking forgiveness for watching movies, and growing increasingly frustrated that no matter how I tried to change myself, I was still different than those I saw around me who seemed to seek God and instantly become able to blend in with those around them. I left church for good one year when I decided that I was never going to be "good enough" to fit in there, and I swore I'd never go back.

Who We Are

The thing is, when I was 25, I fell truly, madly, and deeply in love with another woman, and I realized that this was a problem for many reasons. I'd read all the bible verses that Id been taught to believe would condemn people to hell for feeling the way I did and acting on it. Oddly enough, I realized that although I'd pretended to leave the church and never look back, I still believed everything I'd been taught, I just believed that it excluded me from ever having a relationship with God, so I tried to live as though it didn't matter to me, when really, it did. I started seeking out other GLBTACQI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally, Curious, Questioning, Intersexed...wow that's a lot of letters) people in my area, and when I met them, I started getting what I call "nudges from God," slowly leading me back to him. I talked with these people, over and over, and I learned that somehow, miraculously, many of them went to church, they believed that God loved them, and they didn't spend every moment worrying that they were going to hell because of who they were. this boggled my mind. Something that a lot of people don't understand is that I've felt like I was damned to hell and completely hopeless since I was four years old, long before I was ever aware what "gay" even was. I've never fit into a church, and for years, that had nothing to do with my sexuality, it was simply a side effect of how weird I was. I had never felt worthy of God's love, and it was only recently that "I'm gay" was added to my list of reasons why. It was a big reason of course, because I'd been taught that there was no way that someone could be gay, be in love with someone of the same gender, and still be a Christian. As soon as the idea that I could be both gay AND Christian was introduced to me, I was ready to read all the books I could find, revisit the bible verses I'd heard, and start listening to my Christian music again, because a small spark within me had been rekindled and I had hope once again that I was worthy to sing about God's love.

Who They Are

Trying to find a church that will have me while I'm on this journey has been difficult, but one of the biggest revelations for me is that this would always have been difficult for me, whether I'd been gay or not, because I'm a weird little person who doesn't fit in with most people, and that's who I've always been. In college, I hung out with a small group of similar weird people, and they're still some of my closest friends today, even though we're spread out all across the country and we have very different religious beliefs. Something that I've had to learn, over and over again, is that when dealing with other Christians, it's just as important that I accept them as it is that they accept me. Read that sentence again. I sure need to. I feel a sense of rejection whenever I end up not fitting in at a church, but the truth is, it's taken me years and years and years to get comfortable being in my own skin, so I can't possibly expect other people to be comfortable with me in five minutes (or even five months). If I come into every church situation expecting the Christians to be hostile toward me, for whatever reason, I'm going to be stooping under the weight of the massive bag of chips on my shoulder, and I won't have time to see those people as fellow human beings, with their own flaws and struggles and concerns and lives.

Common Ground

Mother Theresa has been quoted as saying "If we judge other people, we don't have time to love them," and I'm realizing more and more every day how that applies to my journey back to the church. If I'm going to get anywhere on this journey, and if I really think church is going to be an important part of this journey, then I need to cool down and start trying to understand who these other Christians are. They may not agree with my "lifestyle" (whether that includes who I love or what movies I watch or both) but I probably don't agree with everything they believe, either, and if we stand there glaring at each other counting all the ways in which we are different, we're never going to have a chance to find any common ground or any reason why we should love and accept each other. I'm realizing that expecting other people to understand and accept me hasn't worked in the past because I haven't been willing to understand and accept them, either. That hurts, because a lot of hurtful things have been done to me in the name of religion, and I feel like I'm trying to minimize the damage that's been done to me when I say that I need to try to look past their insults and understand them as people, but the truth is that no matter how badly I've been hurt, that doesn't give me an excuse to expect the worst from people, because I can't control what any other person does, I can only control what I do, and what I need to start doing is recognizing the beauty and importance of every person I meet, even when we disagree on just about everything. After all, I spent years wishing someone would look past all the labels and try to see me and love me for who I am; how can I refuse to at least try to do that for other people? This attitude has made it easier for me to at least try going to church and to at least try to understand people. It's helped me to understand myself a little better, too. That douesn't sound earth-shattering or monumentous, but it sure is a good place to start.