I was going to write about a particular incident of bad behavior I exhibited with a close friend of mine, but I decided to widen the scope. No, I'm not going to list out my sins as there probably aren't enough electrons in the universe to transmit that list. This is about actions in my life that bring out parts of me that I didn't realize that I suppressed or things that I knowingly hid. There is a theme here, and I apologize for having it, but it is about an aspect of my life and the effect it had on my personality. The reason that it was suppressed is because it is uncomfortable, for me and those around me.
I've written enough about my depression on my mission. I even knew at the time how I was being indoctrinated and how I internalized it. I went from someone who had a simple gratitude for friends and school to feeling incredible guilt about who I was, and feeling responsible for everyone's salvation in the eternities. My only goal in life was to learn, and how I love learning, and be able to love someone. I went from that to not able to communicate with those I felt closest to, being apart from my very reason of going. Perhaps I was immature. I can buy that. I have some other conclusions that are personal, and I've shared them with the people involved. In any case, something drastically went wrong. I was put in the most beautiful place on the entire globe, and I couldn't get past my own guilt and inadequacy. I won't own up to that. That was put on me by someone else. It was an institutional guilt, drummed into my head. Why it had a damaging effect on me and not my cohorts, I can't say. That was another issue I had. I resented my own emotions too.
When everything fell apart for me halfway through, when I insulted the person I cared for the most, is when I changed how I was coping. I stopped caring about what I was being told by those in authority over me. If I wanted to do X, I did X. I paid attention to what I believed and what I didn't. I wanted to read a newspaper so I read a newspaper. I wanted to read a book about comets, so I read a book about comets. It is so odd looking back at it, seeing such things as rebellious, but it was. I soon earned a reputation as being a rebel. Me. (That sounds so ridiculous to me.)
I kept from being triggered by not talking about it for over 20 years. I believed what I wanted to believe and did what I wanted to do, even though every week, I was told by the institution that I believed in how wrong some of those things were. I kept the cognitive dissonance at bay by just passing it by.
My own historical investigations wore on me though. I read a philosophy book about the atonement that made me question the logic of it all. I tried to make it all fit in, but it was becoming increasingly unsuccessful. The pain of keeping it all in was becoming too much. I had contacted a friend who had left the church and I was working it out in my own head. At one point the thought "How can someone raise their family outside of the church?" passed through my head. Whoa! That wasn't something that came out of me. I never felt that stongly about the church's youth program. I really didn't like it, to tell the truth. Why the heck did that thought go through my head? It triggered some more thought as to why I was having thoughts like that, thoughts that weren't my own. (See what I did there?)
As to my family, I remember a few incidents where they, my kids, panicked about something that we were doing, something that the church, evidently, taught them was a sin. Someone was teaching my kids that their parents are going to Hell for <insert common behavior>. So we had a parent meeting about how we were going to unteach our kids about certain things. In the back of my head, I'm already building up concern about my kids starting down the path that brought me such an uncomfortable existence.
My children were already experiencing some difficulty fitting into the mold that they were given, and one that I never fit into either. I didn't want to burden them with all that so eventually I had to talk to my wife about my concerns and troubles. BOOM!
Fast forward and I still find that some things set me off. This was the most emotional, disruptive time in my life and I can only find solace in talking to Tracy, internet boards or this stupid blog. It is something that I don't feel is welcome with people that I walked with most of my life. I don't want to disturb their lives or disparage something they feel is valuable. I still want to scream out sometimes at how it damaged me and how much better it is without all those trappings, but I don't. I respect them...mostly. That doesn't mean it won't, at times, leak out. It happened a few weeks ago. I had such a build-up of anger and frustration that it burst out in a note to a close friend. Not just once, but twice. Do I feel sorry for doing that? Yes, and I tried as best I could to apologize. I'm not so sure why or what triggered that outburst. It happened though.
I try to own up to my own feelings. I don't like the idea that I'm suffering some form of PTSD because it seems so trivial to what others have to live with. It isn't like anyone shot at me like our soldiers experience. I was never physically beaten. I feel that I was mentally abused, but that it was wrapped in a velvet glove, by people thinking they were doing their best. Why it affected me this way and they thrive in that environment, I don't quite understand. I know that at one point I truly believed. Now I don't. I am still trying to be a good parent, and that it can be done without an institution telling me how to be good. I have that internal to me.
I don't know what triggered this post. Another way to apologize, explain my actions to others? I don't know. Perhaps I never will. I seem to have traded one issue for another. I'll still take this one to the burden I was carrying.
