u/BriarRose-Has-Thorns

I realized that my extended family are all enablers of my grandfather (mother's dad) this past weekend at my mom's wedding, and now it makes sense why she enabled my dad for so long. The entire time people were walking on eggshells around this man, trying to appease him. It kinda disgusted me. I cut that man off 7 years ago. I was told I should forgive him and then he'd apologize. I told them if he can't apologize while accepting that forgiveness may not happen, then he isnt truly apologizing to me. I was also told if I give him a hug he'd apologize to me. Um no. Anyways he was an asshole, I ignored him, he ignored me. Fine by me. But having family trying to get me to essentially fawn over him so that he would talk to me was bizarre. And it made everything click into place for me.

I already deconstructed or so I thought several years ago and since have been exploring other religions and spirituality. I grew up Christian (nondenominational) and was heavy in the faith until high school I became a Christian who doesn't like the church then finally sometime after college realized I didn't believe anymore. I am now 27 and in therapy trying to go through all my trauma (father is an abusive narcissist, mom enabled him until more recently when they finally divorced). The topic of Christianity and spirituality came up and the more I say things out loud the more messed up they sound, especially pertaining to being a woman and purity culture. I now identify as nonbinary (never felt woman like as a kid either but it was my "god given role" so did my best to fit in). But for the sake of making it easier I will refer to past me as female as that was the identity I was forced to take on.

Things that are messed up:

-Being read The Princess Kiss about a girl saving her first kiss for marriage as an elementary schoolers.

-Being put in Secret Keeper Girl's the 8 Great Dates at a church where they told us how to be modest in dress and actions as well as saving myself for my husband and how modesty includes being subservient to him essentially.

-Being in a young preacher competition where several winners were chosen, all the men were 20-25 and all the girls were 14/15/16 and all the adults kept mentioning how the men were good marriage candidates to us (YIKES!)

-Being taught that you can tell if a woman is a virgin and therefore it was important I had my virginity until marriage and that it would hurt and bleed and I would have to bear it the first time.

-Being taught I should never withhold sex from my husband, that I would be a bad wife if I did. Pretty much being groomed to accept rape from my husband.

-Had a boyfriend bear and a purity ring. The boyfriend bear is there so if you have any impure thoughts towards a boyfriend you can just hug the bear until they go away and it had a little pocket for me to put letters in to my future husband. I think most people know what purity rings are.

-The whole China plate analogy used in my purity classes. I went through several as a teen.

-Being told to decorate a plate with everything that represented us, good and bad and then being given a hammer to smash it and rearrange the broken pieces to glue on a wood cross. We are no longer ourselves, our identity is now in Christ.

-Having moments I thought maybe I liked a girl then immediately started praying for God to "take away those evil thoughts".

There's more and more I keep thinking of but when I was discussing the purity culture out loud I said "I was essentially- no not essentially I WAS being groomed to accept marital rape." And after saying it aloud I had to sit quietly and process it because I knew this but it hadn't fully hit me. I was groomed my entire childhood. I had my identity taken from me. I was told be what God and my husband wanted me to be: a quiet, subservient stay at home mom. I wasn't allowed to dream of anything else. I wasn't allowed to be anyone else. And I was being groomed to be the perfect wife for a man who could abuse me and I would accept it to be a good wife. It really finally hit me how much I lost as a child. I never got to explore and find my identity. In fact it wasn't until adulthood that I discovered so many things about myself and even now have been trying to figure out who I am completely.

There's a lot more to my story but this recent thing just hit me so hard, has anyone else been hit with the full weight of how Christianity truly damaged them years after deconstructing?