My Past

"Fathers knew everything and were to never be questioned. Woman were to submit. This was the only life I knew."

I came into this world to a single, working mother and a sperm donor who had left when he found out I had been conceived. When I was 2.5 my mother began attending a certain church in town because “God had told her she would meet her husband there” – she met my soon to be stepfather. They married and had five children over the next 12 years. I have very vivid childhood memories – the ones from age 4 to 8 are very happy and feel full of love. Then my stepfather decided he had heard from God that he was to completely change his profession which included moving us 1200 miles from our home and him returning to school. There most of the happy memories end. There the patriarchal/quiverfull lifestyle began.

As the oldest child I was responsible for my siblings. Even though we were homeschooled, my mother still worked outside the home, so on top of being in charge of feeding and bathing the kiddos I was also required to help them with their schooling on top of completing my own.   They were my life from waking until sleeping (and during the night if they woke up sick or scared).  Then when I was 15 my stepfather opened his own law firm and I was recruited to be his secretary and help open his office on top of my other responsibilities. 

I didn't start to resent my "place in life" until my siblings that were closest to my age (4 and 5 years younger) began to have social lives…then I began questioning.

Regardless of this all - I was still a teenage female - so where were the boys, where was the dating, you ask?  Dating wasn't an option, talking on the phone to boys was taboo (5 minute limit – once a week) much less hugging, holding hands or flirting. Courtship was in and Joshua Harris wrote the “bible” on relationships. 

When I was 17 I began to start seeing through the facade.  My first act of rebellion (or actually just stepping out on my own two feet) was refusing to join a church that my stepfather had decreed we attend because I disagreed with the pastors on some fundamental theology. In trying to get me to submit, my stepfather took me before the pastors – much to his surprise – they did not make me join the church – only asked that I stand with my family during the ceremony to show support.

Moving on from there, all against my parent's wishes, I moved out on my own, starting dating a fellow former homeschooler, and stopped attending church regularly.  I was blessed with a great job as a legal secretary and supported myself.

Unfortunately (unbeknownst to me) I was still completely under the spell of the way I had been raised.  The thorny vine was completely wrapped around my self-esteem and ideas of what "my place" in life should be.   


~O


Update: 05-12-12


The more I write the more I realize that another issue with the way I was raised is that I never learned how to properly handle emotions.  I got into the habit of just bottling them up and hoping they go away.  Well, guess what - they don't - they just turn into nasty habits of not communicating, not loving ones self, dwelling on the negative WAY too much which leads to the majority of serious conversations being about how "unhappy" one is.  Not healthy at all.  It also makes for remaining positive after realizing things that need to change that much harder to handle like a "normal" person - taking it for what it is (a life lesson) and making strides to change it and being proud of yourself for realizing and changing.