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Keep Your Drawers Up And Your Dress Down

It’s time for another trip down memory lane, Dear Readers.  Last time, I regaled you with the tale of my childhood and the impact's religion had on me.  In this post, we will be moving on to discuss the next stage in my life: those awkward teen years.  I’ll go ahead and tell you that all those Eighties teen movies Mother made me watch did not prepare me for the realities of teenagedom.  To start, I was certainly no Ferris Bueller.  In fact, from the outside looking in, I was a fairly dull and easy teenage girl.  One who cared more about reading smutty books or fanfiction than boys or parties.  I could probably count on two hands the number of times I willingly left my house between the ages of twelve and fifteen.  If I set my mind on something, then I would carry it out, and for one reason or another, I was determined to be a hermit.    

At the age of 12, I was “saved” at a youth conference that I attended with my Auntie M’s weird church.  I had never been bothered by such calls to action as a child because I always reassured myself that I was too young to make a decision like that but I got caught up in the speaker and the moment and finally went for it.  I just remember feeling frighteningly unsure that anything about me had actually changed.  I was so afraid that I made sure to say the accepting Jesus into my life prayer anytime someone said it around me for the next year and a half.  This was all happening at about the same time that I first developed chronic insomnia and those pesky sleep hallucinations. 

I had no idea what was going on and I came to some terrifying conclusions during those long nights lying awake alone.  I was positive I must be going crazy or maybe I was possessed/haunted.  I prayed and prayed and cried myself to sleep but nothing seemed to get any better.  I was not overburdened with friends and I couldn’t find the words to tell my parents.  I started refusing to sleep in silence always needing a radio, iPod, or television to distract me from the voices speaking in the night.  Looking back on this period in my life, it's likely that during certain points I was suffering from depression.  The stigma attached to mental issues and my steadfast refusal to have others think I was crazy kept me from seeking help for nearly a decade.  
Despite all the crazy things going on inside my head, I don’t want you to think life was all gloom and doom for me.  I did manage to have some good times as well.  I spent several summers at Girl Scout Camp, took two cruises around the Bahamas, and even spent three weeks in Europe.  After School activities and clubs including theater, band, choir, and dance kept me busy multiple nights a week.  I may have possessed a very small pool of influence but I used it to the best of my ability.  Now, I’m the type of nerdy girl that can neatly categorize periods in my life based on which fandoms I happened to be obsessed with at the time.  Mostly Xmen, Harry Potter, and Pop Punk Bands off the top of my head.  It’s weird but I promise it works pretty well.  When at home, I threw myself into the distraction of the Internet.  My issues were always present but I tried my hardest not to let them hold me back from the things I wanted to do and the places I wanted to go.    

By the time I started High School, I had good grades but very few friends or social connections and I liked it that way.  Dearest Brother and I began to get along better than we both reached this point in our lives.  We no longer fought each other at every available opportunity.  My Auntie M and the rest of her family had joined a new local independent, non-denominational church after their original one closed its doors.  It was pastored by an odd, unsocial, slightly ADHD man who liked to call out church members for their transgressions during service.  Let’s call him Pastor John.  I was convinced he talked too much.  The funny thing about independent congregations is that unlike established sects there is no higher authoritative body present to set guidelines or punish rule breakers.  

With no one powerful enough to stop him, Pastor John paid himself and his family exorbitant salaries publicly embarrassed his flock, and fired any staff member he deemed a problem to his lifestyle.   When the community began asking questions, he started his own nonprofit organization to shoulder some of the doubt about his spending habits.  He built a beautiful church building worth several million dollars.  It was repossessed by the bank for nonpayment within less than five years.  As I’ve mentioned before, Auntie M and Uncle Fix It are church stayers.   Ignoring all evidence, they will steadfastly remain apart of a toxic situation until literally forced to leave.  As of this writing they have been proud members for a decade.   

As I moved closer to college, I tried my hardest to be religious while still maintaining my own views and opinions but it was difficult.  I got baptized at Auntie M’s church in a last ditch effort to behave like I was supposed to.  I thought this final act of belief would somehow fix me but it only left me more lost and confused.  My views on issue like sex, relationships, and the historical accuracy of the Bible among other things were all controversial to the rest of my family and congregation.  How could they not be though?  I was growing up as part of a generation that had the entire world at our fingertips.  Who needed encyclopedias?  The World Wide Web could tell me everything and more.  If I wasn’t satisfied with the answers my church leaders gave me than I could go find my own solutions and I was good at it.  So good, in fact, that for a long while, I considered it my one true talent.  Give me a topic and I was like a woman on a mission.  If I could figure out how to be a professional internet based researcher, I’d change careers.  

During most of my religious life, I still felt like an outsider due to the fact that I usually belonged to an out of the way religious group.  I took an old testament bib studies class as an elective in high school and I turned out to be one of three students who weren’t Southern Baptist.  The Southern Baptist Convention is fairly prolific in my hometown but they are far from the only mainstream Christian group around.  We also have Methodists, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Judaism, Seventh Day Adventists, and many others.  Churches here are almost as common as lightning bugs on a summer night.  It's a miracle we can find a place for liquor stores with so many creeping around down here.  However, never quite belonging gave me the opportunity to make my faith my own.  There was no one to really tell me what to think or do so I decided those things for myself.  This helped me avoid the awkwardness of having to completely abandon my foundations when I deconverted.  I had been a very independent Christian for several years before I became Agnostic and then later moved on to full blown Atheist.      

Thank you, Dear Readers, I’m glad to have you stick around to continue the story with me.  I hope to have you along for future installments.  Next time, I will be covering my college years and beyond.  Please feel free to comment or subscribe to the email list that I finally have up and running (I think).  I’ll be sending out updates and polls to help decide important issues like the topics of future blog posts.  I’m quite indecisive.  I could use the help.

Thanks for Reading,
A Southern Atheist

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