I was seventeen years old, and I knew what most of the words in the bible were. I knew there was no church but ours, and that ours was not merely a church. I knew that I needed our church to get a wife and children and raise them to be successful, decent, healthy people. I knew that I definitely wasn't supposed to be able to connect with the others at school, and luckily, I couldn't. I knew that I definitely was supposed to be able to connect to the others at church, but despite me, I couldn't. I knew what something was wrong with me and that I wasn't normal. There was something. School and church agreed about that. I knew that that something would keep me from ever finding true love with a wife, a home and children. And I knew that what was wrong with me was me. And I knew I couldn't bear to be anyone but myself. It was like secretly being gay, only I was publicly being me instead. And I knew that there was no place for me and no happy ending. And I knew that I wanted to be dead.
I didn't really want the responsibility of killing myself, but I knew that I didn't want the responsibility of trying to live the next day, carefully not fitting in at school and carefully fitting in at church. And I knew that what I felt wasn't normal because I wasn't normal. But I started to suspect that my reaction to everything was, itself, a normal reaction. And that being ok with everything would not have been. And I knew that no one was in control of everything. No one was there for people like me. No one could do anything.
The doctor was from our church and he knew that there was nothing wrong with our church and so if I couldn't cope I obviously wasn't normal and needed pills. I decided that I knew that I could not take pills, as I needed to sort out whatever it was, and not numb myself to it. The psychiatrist I then went to knew that I should be partying and going to movies and non-church things. I knew that I could never do that, and to do so would lose me my tenuous membership at my church, to match my lack of belonging at school. And so I stopped seeing him, said I was fine now, and continued to want to be dead. And I knew that no one was able to speak with me about any of it. I knew that people had personas to carefully keep up, and that they needed to avoid any appearance of not being normal themselves. And I knew that I had to get through it myself. Me and God. I knew He was supposed to be able to help. And so I dealt only with Him from then on. I knew I couldn't trust anyone else. Not a single person.
And I knew that, if I got through it, with God's help, that I couldn't bear to think of others in my position, being alone. I knew that there must be others, although I had never met any, or if I had, they had not identified themselves. I knew that I wanted to find such people and let them know that there were more of us. How many more? I pictured a miserable seventeen year old, likewise along, perhaps female, and knew I wanted to help her, and live together for the rest of our days.
And the years went by. I endured not fitting in at church, to match my not fitting in to the world outside it. I knew that I was who I was, and that there was strength in my design. And I knew that that strength that had been built into me terrified people, and that any system that could not deal with someone who was only as slightly off-centre as me was weak. Scared. Flawed. Lying. Hiding things.
And I learned that there seemed to be about as many people who could not fit in as could. And I learned that many people get miserable and lost and disconnected. And I listened to and spoke with many of them.
I didn't know there would be so many. Of all ages, races, cultures and genders. I didn't know that mainly only the female ones would and could think and talk and feel about these things openly, instead of drinking and making money and fighting with everyone and hoping to die without ever having to deal. I didn't know that some people were able to cry about it all, and that this helped them a bit.
I didn't know that, as much as I had been raised to be, and naturally was, unable to fit in to the world around our church, that that world would accept us anyway. I didn't know that there was, in human dealings, a small hope for a modicum of fairness and forgiveness and mercy. I didn't know to stop looking for it in Christian circles. I didn't know that I would be kicked out of my church entirely, along with almost every friend and relative I ever had. And I didn't know that we would survive. I didn't know that some of us would simply recreate the same environment we grew up in, only with us in charge. I didn't know that others would find they quite enjoyed churches and groups very different from our own birth culture and would immerse themselves headlong into those. I didn't know that others would love Jesus but never really be happy at any church besides our own, but remain infinitely happier "going nowhere" than going to ours.
I didn't know we'd talk, a bunch of us, using computers, some of which we carried around in our pockets. I didn't know that everybody would be allowed to talk, even if some of us were women and most of us were excommunicated and shunned, forever deemed church defects, rejects and trouble to allow into the midst. I didn't know many of us would share and connect on screens and never meet up in the same room. I didn't know there'd be so many suicides. I didn't know there'd be so much addiction. I didn't know there'd be so many divorces. I didn't know that the things the church folks did to us, we'd generally go on to do to everyone around us. I didn't know the church knew everything all along and didn't care and wouldn't ever openly talk about change, forgiveness of reconciliation. I didn't know there'd be joy possible anyway.
I didn't know I'd meet the hypocrisy, the enforced cheerfulness, the blindly-trumpeted flawed utopian dogma, the need to seem normal and ok at all times, at the workplace, on the street and everywhere else.
I thought that was just a Christian thing.
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