Salty Plums

I grew up in a very religious household. Several times each week my Mom would sit with me and my sisters and study the Bible. When we were very little, it would be more picture drawing and more stories about Jesus. As we got older the messages would be more adult.
Our Bible studies would include stories that included the messages like masturbation was wrong in God's eyes and that we should be ready for the day when God would bring about a new Earth, in the form of Armageddon.  They also included attending meetings three times a week, for hours. The fellowship was what I always enjoyed the most. I fit in and made friends; but gradually my rebellion, will and guiding forces that put those feelings into me pulled my mind in other directions. By the time I was twelve I told my Mom that I did not want to attend. It has and continues to be a goal of my Moms to encourage me to attend since this time when I was twelve to now.

When I was eleven I was molested. When I finally disclosed this to my Mother a year later I was told that it was a "dream," and sent out of the room while my parents discussed it with members of our religion. It took me until I was twenty years old to forgive my parents for this incident. It changed who I was at that time. I was a teenage girl who did not know how to change the way that I felt or even recognize it. Needless to say, I was very wild and sexually promiscuous at a young age. Ditching school was a daily event--to hang out with friends.  This was at fourteen and fifteen years old. While I thought nothing of using drugs or sneaking alcohol I was still very bright. I excelled at school-making honor roll and participating in my schools journalism program.
When I got suspended from school in eighth grade for selling drugs at school the Principal told my Mom that I should be a lawyer and that I had saved myself from expulsion. I was also suspended for fighting.
When I was put on prescriptions(Zoloft, Trazadone and eventually Paxil) for my behaviour they made me even more carefree. I was eventually removed from school and home schooled. I know now at this time that my Mom did not know what to do with me, and in her mind she was doing what she thought was best for me the entire time. I did end up graduating with my class.

When I was twenty I forgave my parents for doing this to me. I decided that I wanted to have a relationship with them, and that I did indeed love them. From that point on, I knew that the decisions that I were making where mine and mine alone to make. I did not have the incident from my childhood to blame any more. I could not bring myself to forgive the religious organization, yet. I had no interest in the teachings, or the people.
I always felt guilty. I always felt like I was apologizing to God, no matter what I was doing. It was wrong, because I wasn't doing what I was "supposed to be doing". I was also very young, so at the time, I was not even able to process the feelings of guilt as being just that. It truly was guilt, and I was sure that I was sinning every moment that I was living just by leading the lifestyle that I was living.
The result of these feelings was that I had very low self esteem. Like I said, I see that now. I often wish that the me that I am now could go shake the me that I was in my twenties. It's funny, because life doesn't work like that. It happened and it can't unhappen.
I have my own relationship with God now. I realized that I had all along, and all along he was with me. Keeping me safe in situations that were not safe. I don't feel guilty for what I am not doing any longer, I feel free. 


This is part of my story.