all I do is try, try, try

I'm not one hundred percent sure what I want this blog to be. I have posts on here that are more like essays with facts and sources mixed in with opinions. I also have poetry and book chapters. I think this entry is a little bit more of a journal entry, just a public one. I don't know why I feel the need to write about my feelings and share them with you, especially when they are met with backlash, but I think it has something to do with the messages I get sent every time I post telling me they appreciate me saying what they are unable to because it makes them feel less alone. I've received messages from people my own age, people I grew up in church with, or at least grew up around, and people who I never thought would agree with what I've been saying. I don't necessarily need people to agree with me (that's definitely not what I expected), but it has kind of kept me going in the midst of all the other bad feelings that have accompanied this experience.

I've been getting more and more politically inclined for the past few years, really since 2020, and it's one of those things that you can't put back into a box, you know? Like, once I started recognizing things like the social injustices faced by certain groups of people in our country or the cognitive dissonance I felt hearing one thing at church and experiencing another thing entirely, I couldn't go back to a time when I didn't know those things. If you've experienced that before, maybe you can understand.

Anyway, the more I saw, the more I wanted to learn. And I looked into the history of America and researched the history of racism and ways I could help combat it and make our country a better place to be. I didn't know that was the wrong thing to do until I was told it was. I thought caring about my country meant trying to make it better for all, not just trying to keep it fine for myself (which, by the way, if you are a woman, it's not fine for you). The first time I was told I was wrong and made to feel stupid for what I thought was something good and right, I remember it was an awful feeling. I felt like a complete idiot. Of course, I didn't know anything. Why would I think I did? There was no way I could ever know more than the people I trusted who told me I was wrong and "deceived" and whatever else they told me about how I knew nothing and I never would.

I didn't start out as angry. I began this journey scared. After the initial fire in my chest was blown out because I thought I did something bad, I was scared to continue. I found out I didn't have a safe space to express my opinions and I wasn't allowed to have them openly. So, I pretended. Every day. I tried to fake it until I could go back to blindly following what I was told, like the good girl I always was and always wanted to be. But I had a tug in the back of my mind that I couldn't ignore. I prayed every night. I begged God to help me. I asked him to please lead me down the right path because I was obviously on the wrong one, even though it felt completely right in my heart. I felt like there was something wrong with me, and there obviously was, because everyone who was so close to God saw the world completely differently than I did. I felt so alone and, like I said before, scared.

I'm not going to go into detail about everything here because there are a lot of feelings and experiences that I'm not ready to share, specifically because if I get one more message about how I shouldn't talk badly about my parents when I have not named them and nothing I've shared is explicitly about them, I will scream and then post the messages to show the world the insanity that is being thrown at me. I'm not allowing anyone to speak to me that way ever again, even my family members.

As you may be able to tell from the tone shift, I've moved from being sad and scared to being angry. I don't know that I can necessarily pinpoint when that shift occurred, I just know I've been feeling angry for a little while now. I'm angry because I tried so hard to be what I was supposed to be, and none of it mattered in the end. I tried too hard to make everyone happy, but I stepped out of line and everything seems to be negated. I'm angry, like I've said before, that the church and God and Christianity are tainted for me right now because it feels so hateful and the people who I was supposed to feel safe with are the ones who made me feel like there was something wrong with me and I needed to be fixed. I understand that this is my view, and this is my blog, so obviously it's my opinion about my own life.

Every time I bring up my feelings on this subject, I'm met with: "no one hates you", "no one is mad at you", "it doesn't matter what you believe, we love you anyway", and whatever else, but I'm sorry, that just isn't true. You can say anything you want to me. I've heard it all. You can't hide the things I know you've said about other people behind closed doors. When I was pretending and hiding and trying to be good, I heard a lot of things about people who believed the things I did, and they were not nice. So, I knew the truth. And I knew I couldn't say anything about how I was feeling. And, talking to no one in particular, before you say this never happened, know that you may not remember because it didn't matter much to you, but it meant everything to me and I can never forget.

I don't want to make anyone feel bad, necessarily, but I want to make you think about what your actions say rather than the words that come out of your mouth. People know if you think they are heathens, stupid, wrong, lost, or whatever else you want to say about them. You can say you love them, but you really want them to change into someone you can love, you don't love them as they are. That's how I feel about it. That's my opinion and my experience.

I'm not trying to bash the church, that's not what I want to do at all. I'm just trying to explain where some of this anger comes from. I think it's also that I put so much of my life and my time into church, and I feel like I was never accepted for who I was there. I'm working things out with God, and I'm figuring out what my next steps are, but it's been a hard time. After a whole lifetime of hearing about God and the bible, and even reading it myself, but never asking many questions and just going forward blindly, actually figuring out what I believe and why I believe it is a scary place to be. I'm trying to remind myself that it's okay, and I'm trying not to feel like I'm going to hell at every turn, but I think according to what I learned growing up, I technically am. It's very scary. But also I'm angry that I feel like I can't go on this journey because I'm worried I'm going to die any second and then be burning in a lake of fire for all eternity. Do you see where I'm coming from here? Like, I think we need to give people some room and some reassurance to take some space and time to figure it out between themselves and God without condemnation. I don't know, maybe it's just me who feels this pressure.

I'm hurt by some of the members of my family who sent me messages after my Donald Trump post... They assumed the worst about me immediately. They jumped to the extreme of me bashing my parents and saying bad things about them in my post. I've said this before, but I was not thinking of them when I wrote it. Why was it members of my family who jumped to these conclusions immediately? Do they really not know me at all? The truth is, they probably don't. I've kept myself a secret for so long. I haven't felt safe, to be honest. Maybe that's why I'm saying too much on the internet now; I have so many feelings built up inside that I need to tell people all about them. I went from hurt to angry pretty quickly when I got those messages, and I'm still feeling both at the same time. I'm not ready to talk to them and I don't want to see them. And I feel bad because I'm supposed to be kind and forgive and turn the other cheek and all that, but I'm also no longer allowing people to treat me any way they want to in the name of God. It's not okay, it never was, but now I'm not afraid to tell you to absolutely leave me alone and never speak to me again.

I was thinking about one of the messages I got from a family friend after my post the other night that said: "I know you know where to find the truth! If you want to be truly fulfilled in this world, you need to go back to your roots." They stressed at the end of the message that they were not criticizing, but instead sending me the message out of "love". But I'm not sure we know what that word means. Also, my post was about Donald Trump being elevated as a Christ figure and being called the savior of Christianity and about how he's actually a horrible person we should not be exalting or voting for, and I received messages telling me I need to go back to my dad's home and my dad's church and find the "truth" again. Like I'm not a Christian anymore because I don't like Donald Trump. Like, I can't possibly make decisions for myself or know anything. Trying to make me feel stupid, all over again. I think he's destroyed Christianity, at least the way I felt about it my whole life. I also blame him for creating a rift in my family, though I received messages telling me I'm responsible for that also, so who knows? I guess we'll never know who's committed worse crimes, me or Donald Trump?

Maybe I'm writing this here because I feel like I can't talk to the people I want to say these things to. Maybe I want to be heard and seen finally. Maybe I'm hoping someone will finally understand me, after so many years of waiting for me to be different or ignoring the problems so they wouldn't have to deal with me. Maybe I'm just trying to get out some of this anger and hurt. Maybe it will help you to know you're not alone. I don't know. I also think that, at this point, I can't do anything that will make it worse, so I may as well continue to do what feels right. It feels right to continue to be open and honest about my feelings on here. I don't know where I'm going from here. There are a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of things that are making me anxious about the future. But, right now, in my personal life, I feel the best I ever have about myself. I'm working on my health, I'm more confident than I've ever been, I'm enjoying my job, I'm not depressed every day, my anxiety is manageable, and I'm working on myself each and every day. For now, that is enough. I hope the people who love me on some level, even if they are disappointed in me, will be happy about that.

XOXO,

Abby