Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Feline on June 04, 2004, 03:43:27 AM
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Hi
I just got done going to an on our own seminar.
On our own is a survivor support network for folks overcoming mental illness.
I went with a group I help out and go to,Hearts and Ears,
it's a support group for GLBT folks struggling with mental illness. We have a double social stigma,we have mental illness and we are gay.lesbian bisexual and transfolk too.
Now,In most of the seminars during the two days things were cool...I won the On our own art contest!!! 300.00 bucks whoo hoo! And there was a wayy fun pool party/dance.
But for all the wonderful parts, ,the new contacts I made freinds I got and tons of information I have absorbed..
I come home ready to explode..
I have to bring this up.
I've HAD IT with Religious Christian Zealots infiltrating organizations to proseletyze to people .. I triggered several times in groups because of them,coming in to sell thier god, interrupting meetings,
At the hearts and ears meeting,this fundie came in and interrupted us she gave the I'm so tolerant line,so non-judgemerntal. right after she decared she was such a witness for jaysus than she basically told us we belong in the closet and being gay or trans is a mental illness..
Since Hearts and Ears is support for GBLT people with mental illness, some of us have been terrorized and dehumanized all thier lives by two faced bible banging bigots. some bigots were parents,who hated thier queer kids because the bible tells them so.
I noticed during the On Our Own seminars,when an evangelists come around they do thier best to distract, dominate,hijack the discussions. Suddenly it's all about THIER religion,thier desire to make you be like them and it's a religious debate..This REALLY pisses me off. Oh the proseletyzer will say all the right buzzwords to look all tolerant on the surface..but like all abusers they are "clever" they twist words around to get you to doubt yourself,doubt your own perceptions that theyreally are one track pushy assholes who have no legit business at all being in the group session .Like abusers everywhere else,they dehumanize you with sugar on top and if you disagree with thier hateful words they cry victim and call you intolerant.It's like the school bully punching the little kid and when teacher comes the bully says the little kid who was punched made the bully be a cruel jackass, as if the bully is a helpless victim overwhemeed by the little kid with the new black eye....Religion encourages some people become some of the most selfish,manipulating bullying and egomaniacal monsters I face in life.
I can't stand the concept of evangelism. It's no different than a pushy insurance salesman,spam clutteering up my inbox. or annoying advertizements I don't want to hear on the radio or tv.I hate evangelism for another reason, evangelists are not content with no I don't want your relighion,..No ,they manipulate,harass infiltrate , push decieve and obsess and do not listen to others at all unless it's about them and they cannot accept that you do not want thier good news and don't like thier god and never want to go within 100 feet of thier church.. Their so called "truth" is an excuse,They use truth as a codeword excuse to say hateful things to others,because their book says it,and they parrot it,There is NEVER concern about how thier bible sounds to a person who is traumatized by thier religion,or whom is different than they are. It is hateful to tell gays to go back in the closet..,the bible is not a suffiecient rationalization for this kind of emotional abuse and hateful speech. I have been in church meetings in Assemblies of god I was at a vunerable time and had a temporary conversion and it was like a delusion.It almost drove me to suicide.The church abandoned me like a hot potato when I doubted faith,and I faced a horrible depression and the feelings of anger and betrayal all alone in a strage town where I had no social supports. IN AoG these clever abusive bullies of biblical proportions,plan,no,scheme ways to infiltrate groups they don't like and infect them with thier poison gospel or destroy them. They are machivellian ,they talk about how to manipulate facilitators and dominate the discussions.They talk about howe to infiltrate media the entertainment industry politics other religions,and public schools. They see a war against humanity .A war with everyone in the world .Anyone who has a different lifestyle or identity, who does not accept thier god as thier heart ruler..These christianotalibornagains have declared a culture war on people like me, who just want to have thier own voice, to live thier life without abuse ,without stigmas,and barriers,to love whom they love,to like what they like,to be who they are.
But nooo the fundies can't let the non-believers be,and stay away from us.Dominion of thier church is not enough control for them.
They can't tolerate different kinds of believers andthey can't stand anyone not desiring of thier kind of salvation.Bully fundies won't leave people ALONE until they get thier way. They REFUSE to live and let live.They want control over everyone's mind and life..BUT they won't control themselves nor do they want to be accountable to anyone else.Fundies don't extend equal respect anyone who doesen't want to be like them. And I found out the hard way,over and over .Fundamentalist religion more often than not is rigid conservative and sociopathic because of that intense delusional zeal.I n some fundie churches they plan excecute and deliberately seek to hijack the floor in groups of GBLT,survivors,artists.They are critical of anyone giving support to the poor,kids pregnant moms,ect..better than the churches/When people care through true empathy, The churches are resentful.They snub help that happens without jesus dominating everything they offer.
The fundies triggered me today,I had a hard time staying cool.In the seminar on trauma,which DID NOT focus on religion at all,it was more about sharing our stories and healing and the impact trauma has on society in general.. In the group a bible thumper interupted and started thier pitch,and I wasen't so calm.I had a minor outburst. I said was abused by christians,I was doubted by professionals because the abuser was christian,and every christian who hears my story defends thier "faith" instead of admitting one of thier kin can be a cruel son-of-a bitch even with that jesus monster in control of thier cold selfish hearts. But thankfully the fundie in the trauma seminar had enough of a sense of empathy and tact left in her jesus addeled brain to stop her sales pitch and shut the fuck up..I cried I was so damn scared.I truly hate zealot christians who have no empathy like telemarketers, I wish the bible would be forgotten or rejected ,I wish all the churches would be torn down because the people in them found out they didn't need a control freak god to love them and make excuses for them,because they decided that abusing and converting people was manipulative.
After the trauma meeting,after lunch today, this other fundie infilatrated our Hearts and Ears meeting, When she bragged about being a witness for jesus in the introductions I knew what was going on ,we had another pushy zealot asshole in our midst again. I bit my tounge.
I frankly wanted to attack her and kick her out,of the room violently. I knew she didn't give a crap about us,our issues with being gay or transgender,she didn't care about our pain or struggles with stigma,with society and with bigots like herself,no she just wanted to invalidate our identities because the bible tells her so,and sell sell sell.. .She just wanted to convert us,tell us to be like her and make us be 'straight' because of her religion..She was so dishonest about her intention for joining in the meeting.It made me furious.When she was ignored by the group facilitator, after she said some rude crap,she was still rude waving her hand around interrupting other people.She said,the typiical bible bullshit lines,with a crocodile smile..When members of the group tried to say how here words hurt them,she tried to say WE didn't want to be tolerant twords her!!! She said this shit right after she said basically we should be in the closet because it offends her when same sexes kiss. Well Her intrusive proseletyzing in a group for GBLT that has NOTHING to do with religion, offends me. I wonder..did it ever occur to her the mature response when people do stuff that harms nobody that you happen to not like is to simply look away or walk away or deal with it, or you can choose to not hang around gay people because they might kiss each other? Sheesh this zealot nees to take some responsibility for her stupid lifestyle.I'm not christian so I am not going to make my life revolve around her rigid control freak church dogmas I don't even think are valid or sane. Unlike her,I don't seek to hang out at fundie churches,now that I understand what they are because I realize Ican't stand fundamentalists selling me thier crap playing like they care about me just so they can tell me I'm doomed to be tortured forevcer because I like women,too and am an androgynous cat in a human female body.So why do they INFILTRATE our spaces? Than have the gall bitch about us as if we are so intolerant when we don't wanna hear thier abusive"truth"in our space? Talk about RUDE!!. Did it ever occur to her that some people do not want her intrusive control freak religion aT ALL?.And in fact could she ever fathom some of us have been badly,deeply wounded by"good" christians just like her? Is she aware how good christian family members like her,do see it fit in thier sick selfish hearts and because it is ok by thier tyrant god they verbally,physically even sexually abuse someone's body heart and mind ,and encourage stigmatizing them for "faith in jaaaysus? This woman was so selfish, so obsessed and so determined to proseletyze her bullshit she was totally out of context with the meeting .She was disruptive and attention seeking.She was rude .And she was abusive.I was co facilitating this meeting with Hearts and Ears.
I was writing topics and points in the discussion with a magick marker upon a big post it pad easel thing.I misspelt alot I was so pissed. It took everything I had in me to stay cool.
If these fundamentalists want to instigate a friggin "culture war" with people who just don't want to be told who to be,what to believe,what to feel think or whom to love.when they are not violating anyones consent or hurting people, who just want to not be stigmatized by society at large,folks who want to live thier life without being denied a place to live,to work,to get healthcare,scapegoated ,shunned,abused,dehumanized and even sometimes killed...
If people like us in Hearts and Ears are evil demons, needing conversion, to be someone other than who they are..they can stick it where the sun don't shine.
If these "good christians" want to silence our voices because we are not like them,than FINE... what they are saying is
they are my ENEMY And they want to make war upon my very being,my voice, my identity and my happiness and control who I can love...They are saying they are an enemy to my heart ,an affront to my humanity, values and spirit, a danger to my safety,the safety of people who are not bigots and a threat to my future relationships,my happiness and joy in life.
If the church will not leave people like me alone..I will fight them than.They made the first move. It is they who refuse to let me live,refuse to let me,refuse to let me love my way and find happiness as I know it and express my spirit as it is.I will fight against manipulating bigots zealots,fascists proseletyzers and thier oreganizations. .I will stand up with my entire being for anyone who is being harassed by fundies and belittled and manipulated by a church. Any religion that thinks biblically instigated abusive fighting word speech is "truth" and advocates torture eternally(hell, original sin) because they believe god says to torment ,scapegoat,and bully gays,pagans, non believers,liberals, is corrupt and has no good in it. The fanatics who go on thinking this is not abusive speech they are gonna have a big problem with me if they try to peddle poison around me.I've had it with the religious...I am really disgusted with christo-bullies All this cruelty in the name of 'christ' to bring this partly unconsious tyrannical fantasy of christian domination ( aka as dominionism. kingdom now) to force themselves on culture,humanity and the world to make it be like them....Such,selfish souless assholes..these armageddon freaks.
Any belief system or organized religion who's leadership and agenda is set up to deliberately target and manipulate unhappy, lonely,vunerable people,who are losing hope,who have little support,who are afraid of the unknown, insecure,curious,..and takes advantage to insert a belief.. and urges people through subtle language and rigid authoritarian structures,to mistrust thier own empathy and perceptions,thier very identity and language and voices so they can alter and control thier sense of right and wrong is so abusive it boggles the mind,yet this is LEGAL..Any church that manipulates people's social interactions ,personal identities and applies psycho- enviromental pressures and sophisticated hypnosis techiques with a fancy sound stage, any church using NLP and subliminals ..to convince thier parishoners to accept moraly repugnant things as ok, by inducing open eyes trances to encourage them to abandon thier inner locus of control and thier humanity togive it up to god(church leadership)and become a zealot bully for jesus,a salesman of evil faith masquerading as good like any abuser does cleverly peddling words of hate and domination to hurting people as if it was love and truth ..Any church that takes a human being and turns them intoa one track delusional witness a church propaganda machine.Any preacher looking to create his oewn army of faithful deployable agents who will heap psychological torture and exclusion upon thier own children and family are sociopaths..(alot of GBLT people face the wrath and manipulations of fundie parents and family when they come out,) These bigot parents willingly sacrfice thier own child's sanity,hope,self acceptance,and relationship to them on the altar of thier dogmatic church and it's hateful doctrines of it's stinking caracass of a god. And these fundies do not want to see how abusive this is to a person because they are COWARDS.The churches are so much in denial about this it's scary. And thechristians wonder why some people can't stand thier hateful christ creature of looove..LOook at the rotten fruit it makes in the human heart it's so sweet to believers,it's like spiritual antifreeze and it's poison to the heart!!!.
Any religion that warps the human heart this badly is at it's CORE.. sociopathic, inhuman. And I cannot tolerate this evangelizing trip these fundies do when it is so intrusive and abusive.
Arrrgh!
I'm so mad,frutsrated and disgusted at all the ,hard hearted, manipulating hypocrite pushy fundie assholes I could Hisspit! These kind of delusional semisociopathic people are in control of our government now,like they have been maneuvering to do since before the REagan era,,they are killing democracy inverting good with bad,They lust to have thier theocratic kingdom of bullies and slaves and clay pots to smash right now,these people have infiltrated everything and they push and manuever until they make it in thier own image.. Zealot bigots smooth talked humanity into starting the culture war with itself ,to make the world in the image of an authoritarian bully sociopath and destroy the natural instiinctual urge in humans whio are not bullies to support each other in thier unique ways, these bullies want to colonize and destroy love and empathy itself!!
And I am sooo pissed off and the excuse making,in denial " liberal" christians(the good cop in the good cop bad cop game these bullies with bibles play) who because they know it's not right, don't evangelize,and infiltrate or mix church with government policy,who don't act like hypocrites most of the time,who can stand a little diversity, I could yowl..
Oh, I wish they'd get off thier collective passive-agressive mealymouthed humps and demonstrate clearly,loudly and PUBLIC to denouce and reject the warped bible quotin' dominator doctrines of these bigoted churches and bullies for jaaaysus railing for my demise and the demise of countless other people in pulpits,pastoral creeps so adept in the dark art of mind control misusing the sorry contradictory xtian bible to motivate,instruct and mobilize thier ,loveless,loyal deployable agents,the mindless obedient,rude,oblivious,sadistic salespeople/propagandists Hell bent on bullying people and excusing themselves for it ..These zealots target people who have been traumatized for being simply different or dissagreeing because they know they are weakened and in pain the bastards..Why don't more people shout down the bible thumpers who misuse the humane concepts of free speech and religious freedom? Why don't more people be intolerant of bigots who recruit and who seek out the sick,scared, vunerable,to con them until they believe and obey and change who they are for the demands of power drunk preacher control freaks because of a very evil book,edited by roman tyrants and would be world conquerers ,to make'cultural war' on us so they'll have thier horrible all the same, god approved hierarchical control game of"kingdom now"...GGrrrr, Arrgh.
Too many people are unaware or unwilling to fathom the dark theocratic intentions for domination in f some of these churches and the destruction they seek of humankind and advocate for with very slick language. Too many people are afraid ,ashamed or too proud to see how they are being used,lied to and manipulated by people they are taught are "good",I hope more people wake up and realize thier god of love has been hijacked and warped into a monster,thier bible made into a mind warping piece of Roman church/state propaganda.. ever since The Roman Empire adopted Christianity through the tyrant Constantine.
Our freedom.peace safety and right to be who we are is threatened by this sick belief system because of what it does to people's hearts who believe in it and push it upon thier kids and anyone else within earshot..
I just had to say this.I really want to cut my arms up..to be honest.And I have only done it once this year.. I feel so much pain right now, but I thought I'd try to talk about it here first.
Feline
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Feline,
I can feel your horror and trauma at the ugly intrusion into your seminars of these infiltrators with another agenda. My question is, how do they get in? Can they get kicked out for being disruptive? What's the screening process required to attend these meetings? Are there any "bouncer" type people or security guards? It sounds like there's a crying need to be able to weed out troublemakers and disrupters. For instance, this newsgroup is screened. That's the only reason you don't see a bunch of disrupters here.
bunny
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Hi Feline,
I am so sorry you had to go through that. I agree with Bunny, it seems like people who would act that way should not be allowed into that seminar. Please don't let them affect your self worth! Push them out, ignore them. What do they know of Jesus and what he stood for? I do not consider myself Christian, but I am familiar with Jesus' teachings. I don't believe Jesus would EVER have approved of their behavior.
Feline, please, please take good care of your beautiful self. Your soul shines brightly and I believe it can transcend anything that they say to you.
Bless you.
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Limits exclusion...this is where it gets soo sticky.
On our own is a consumer run group for people who have been or are insiide the mental health system.
And of course some survivors tout religion as thier path to mental health,They are as vunerable to conversion pressures as anyone else.
And they may not realize they are acting as agents for church selling wares when they are just doing a testimony for what"fixed" thier life..at least for now.
It's hard to detect the hardcore infiltrators and sep[erate them from the new converts who think god just erased thier mental illness symptoms.(which ironically IS a part of the conversion syndrome and the altered states of consiousness it produces). They look pretty much like anyone else(except the punks and goths I was one of three at the conference)until they have opened thier mouth and already provoked the hell outta some people(including me) and made the group get distracted onto the topic of religion.
I really think evangelists are narcissists,at least while the belief is in control of thier minds and it controls thier moral compass and empathy .Because thier god is a narcissist and they just don't see it.
If we screen out proseletyzers it's gonna be hard,what crieteria can we use? We can't say are you a born again? and turn them away.It is discrimination on the basis of religion.What if that born again is a consumer working in earnest to change the system and god is not why they are there.?
One of the foamers WAS a consumer apparently, and she had a right to be part of the consumer/survivor momvement because she has been in the system and wants reform too.
If I was in control of the seminar security ,anyone who demonstrated they are compelled to "witness" about thier god and people came up to me and notiofied me there was a person trying to convert members,I'd watch them..If they than go into our group or conference and hijack group time to go off topic into proseletyzing or witnessing hoping to convert someone..They would get the boot out of not only the groups but barred from the entire seminar immediately and be told to leave now.And I'd revoke thier hotel room.So they'd have to leave physically.So they wouldn't hang around the water table and hallways and harass people...And depending on how disruptive they are,they'd be banned from attending future conferences for 2 years( because the average stay in most cults and fundie churches for new converts is about two years so hopefully they'd have cooled off on thier zeal by then and could maybe participate instead of instigate) Because proseletyzing just divides people, distracts ,upsets people and proseletyzers do aim to usurp the conversation,that is why they are there,they want to witness. And thier too obsessed(infected) and blindly narcissistic(effect from infection or natural part of personality with the supresssion turned off) to see the problems they are causing.
But also there is the problm of the misguided tolerant,"open minded" "voice of moderation" crowd. The good intentioned but gullible who do not understand that the fundies want a culture war,and they have an agenda,and they are organized,trained depoyable agents with no inner locus of control left,being hard-headed psy-ops soldiers for a church.
They may or may not be mental health consumers.But this does not matter once they use our space to witness for church.
There are some folks who really,stubbornly want to belive narcissists,abusers,bullies and people made into bullies by religion ,whether they are acting consiousaly deliberately intentionally or not,
Can still be compatible interacting with any groups fighting for equality acceptance and striving to reform a controlling social institution or system.
People caught up in being controlled by a controlling church seeking to dominate are not compatible with our cause of spreading diversity equality and respect of persons..
God says he is no respecter of persons and his zealots demonstrate that so well.
These good hearted but stupid moderates want everyone to be like themselves too.They want people like me,to be tolerant of intolerable people as if tolerating thier abusive tendancies and enduring them,could make them behaveand stop being a jackass...It's because of a utopian ideal that sounds so nice on paper but in practice it only serves bullies.. All inclusivity cannot be done in a world where certain people they'd want to include are incapable of practicing respect,accepting differences equality,empathy,and self responsible emotional maturity in ANY relationship because they are indeed unwilling to stop pushing themselves and thier abusive tendancies upon others..
I mean lookit all the sesitive good hearted but traumatized people here and all the horrid totally unjustified emotional struggles they go through with thoughts of guilt,shame,self doubt and fear when they abandon a narcissist and say no more of this abuse,and get away from them..
In the trauma group,they said something important that stuck with me,
Abusers tend to get you to doubt your own senses and perceptions of who they are by warping your perception of who you are. So,the things they say or do that harmhave a dual purpose to convince you what they do to you is normal,so you never learn to get away from them,put boundaries and limits upon their behaviors and change how they treat you by saying no,and refusing to participate in the abuse dynamics.. And the other purpose is to harm you.
Abusers are clever and sadistic and they do misuse language.Abusers want you to be somehow unable to see how the false beliefs about yourself the abusers have taught you have replaced your own intuitive understanding that an abuser is indeed abusive and doing harm to you. The co-opted beliefs and agenda of abusers hold you captive to more abuse as long as you think these things abusers do and say about you or others is normal .entitled to be tolerated,or true or even justified....
This can apply to the moderates in the seminar,they have co opted abuser beliefs to a degree and are oblivious .Thier utopian ideal of _All _ inclusivity fits right in with the ugly wants of any abuser looking for a person to dump thier poisons into .. Some think a proseletyzer is entitrled to be listened to,tolerated and given time because they have accepted the idea that pushy sales people aren't pushy salespeople if they do it for church. They'd slam the door on an insurance salesman,but they won't tell a god peddler to shut up already,I already know the story of your god yadda yadda...can we move on to the real purpose of this meeting now?
And some well meaning people have accepted the idea that tolerance that does not extend it's warm blanketed welcome to intolerable people and behaviors is no longer truly tolerant.They think it's hypocritical to exclude ANYONE. And they don't understand the bullies they accept undermine thier ideals for them and hurt the very people who need help and support the most..
Now I am well aware our country is founded on freedom of religion,but the evangelists take that freedom to barely legal limits sometimes they go beyond the law.This talking advantage of rights annoys me.These people are not rational. They want what they want and they don't care whom they trample to get it.
And frankly that is not very spiritual behavior ,
It's very narcissitic and abusive.. and sadly churches profit greatly from it.
My intuition says to exclude evangelists,zealots and proseletysers of any religion from On our Own conferences.. They are not there for our cause.
At best they are divisive,disruptive,jerks ,at worst they are deployed agents acting for the organizations contrary to everything meaningful we are working for.
But that would look too harsh for some,especially those gentle misguided souls who run the conferences.
I would hope the moderates in the Survivor/consumer movements wake up to the co-opted abuser beliefs in our midst in any shape or agenda it takes and reject thisinherent banality in thier utopian ideals of loving and accepting everyone,incuding those who will undermine you..,and wake up soon.Because the sooner 'moderates' understand not everyone in this world or this movement can handle the required decency.humility, and empathy it takes social sanity of mutual standards of respect, equality and right to self personhood in practice among different kinds of personalities,beliefs ,genders orientations of people the sooner we can quit fiddeling with narcissists and other assholes ,and reach out to those who really need us ,who welcome a place to be who they are, a whole person reating to others without fear or risking being traumatized converted,intimidated,and dehumanized or stigmatized ..
The truth is certain religions teach stigma,dehumanization and guilt as part of thier doctrines.These beliefs because of what they teach people are incompatible with the ideals of human rights,diversity, sane tolerance,dignity and equality.The followers of these beliefs that act like bullies must be excluded,from groups that embrace repect of personhood and diversity and that's not my fault.
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Hi Feline
Just want to quote you something from an amazing book I'm reading (a real "book" thumper here!)
"Amoung the ancients, for centuries before the Christian era...it was common to picture divinities with features of the opposite sex, denoting wholeness. For example, Horus (the for- runner to Jesus) was at times depicted with the "locks of girlhood." The male gods Bacchus and Serapis often appear with breasts and Venus, godess of love for the Romans, is sometimes depicted with a beard. ...A deep point was being made. In ancient philosphy and religion before Creation, God -all life - was seen as Father and Mother in one. Only by slow development did "GOD" become Mother and Father separately... The belief was that human beings too were androgynous before they were split into separate sexes..''
Thought this might be interesting. I really understand your fury. Evangalism is less of a force in Canada but it's growing. Very scary business. Less
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Feline,
You have a good idea of kicking people out once they have become disruptive. But, as you point out, there are those who don't want to exclude anyone no matter what. This causes a huge boundary problem, since it permits disruption and trauma to the people who are trying to get something positive accomplished. So my response to this would be to stop attending these seminars since they're open to these idiots, whose needs are put ahead of everyone else's. There has to be a baseline standard of behavior in groups otherwise they become chaotic and just retraumatize people.
bunny