Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: axa on February 03, 2008, 06:14:37 AM
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Hi Hermes,
I cannot find the thread where you described your experience at school so I have started a new one as I wanted to respond.
I also went to a convent school run by Irish Catholic nuns. What I learned at that school was I would never be anything. I can still hear the world"...... you will never be anything and you came from such a beautiful family" Well they were wrong but it was a hard battle. I remember the rules, rules, rules grounded in nonsensce. I was ridiculed and punished for asking questions. It was suggested on many occasions verbally and physically that I learn to keep my mouth shut. I never really did and this is the part of me I love. The part which did not give up and crumble under the regime of abuse.
Throughout my life (I grew up in an N family) I have sought out people, unwittingly, who have tried to silence me and deny my autonomy. Sometimes my life has felt like an exercise in showing the world I AM HERE. I see the patterns I played out, going from on arena of abuse to another but I have moved through it. I am left suspicious, cautious, untrusting of others but also able to laugh, learn, engage with others. I think the legacy for me is a terror of intimacy. I made some very bad judgments in the past with whom I trusted and now feel that I need to learn to look to myself for the trust and care I have not experienced in the world.
I am an adventurer though and have not given up..... sometimes I think it is only beginning. Occasionally, I let myself daydream of what my life would have been like if I had been nurtured and loved in my childhood and you know what, I think I would have been joy itself because through all of this I still can be joyful. On the other hand, maybe I needed to go through what I did to know that small joyful part of me that still exists.
Rambling but recognising the voicelessness that was imposed on you in the name of education xx
Slan,
axa
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Dear Axa,
I am so sorry that you were squelched ,at such a young age. I bet that you had a beautiful, adventurous spirit. Those nuns played out their fear and bitterness on you. We,as children, believe the adults ,and that is our downfall,isn't it?
I know the fear of intimacy.
I am realizing that I have to be strong,in order to be vulnerable--a big paradox. Intimacy(letting s/one see me) requires enough strength to be OK ,if they don't like me, reject me or humiliate me. I will not be intimate (emotionally) with s/one if their opinion matters TOO much .
When I know that I can love myself ,without their approval of me, then I can be more intimate. I have experiences the most beautiful emotional intimacies ,lately.
I had cut myself off from people ,for a long time. When I was with people, I was a false self. I was a false self ,to myself ,too, which was worse.
Now, I am trying out my real self and I am touching other people's 'real" selves. It is one of the greatest joys of life.
Love, Ami
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Hi Axa,
Likewise, I went to a Catholic Convent school run by Irish Catholic nuns. Retreats, silence and prayer, with fasting, and catechism, was the norm.
I left, and renounced, roman catholicism some years ago now, and have never looked back.
Aside from the negative aspects, for a balanced view, in my own personal life, the one thing that I remain grateful for, well two in fact, is the moral teaching, which kept me on the straight path in life, and also, the superb education, that I so enjoyed, and benefited from, in my life.
Slan
Love, Leah
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Thank you so very much Axa and CB. I feel the better for your kind words.
The fact that I was at a boarding convent school was all the worse, of course. The day pupils at least went home in the evening to their families. Funny how after so many years those five short years can still trigger those memories.
As I have said before I was fortunate in that I hd good, indeed wonderful, parents. However, it was the usual thing back then, if a father could afford it, to send your daughter away to a boarding school for education.
Having left the voiceless ambience of that school, it takes a little while to find a voice, but one does.
Thanks again
Hermes
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Just a few more lines on the voiceless school. L.
Everything, but everything, was a sin. And certainly if anything was "fun" it was definitely a sin! LOL. We heard a lot about "entertaining bad thoughts" (aren't bad thoughts SO entertaining LOL!), and occasions of sin (geeze we never saw a man from one end of term to the other, except maybe our fathers or sometimes a brother), so any occasions of sin would be few and far between.
But worse than all that was the constant being "put in your place", not being allowed a voice, no dissent, being often wrongly accused, and not being able to even say: " I did not do that". I know some of us were really "downed" because it was obvious we were not cowed by that kind of treatment. Again, as with all tyrants, it is about power.
Since you could not put up a defense, in my case I developed "the look". (I am told I still produce it at times LOL). I just looked down my nose at them as they harangued me, and that really just got to them. I never cried, and I remember school friends whispering to me:; "Don't give them the satisfaction of seeing any tears". Neither did I ever cry on returning there after the holidays, as many girls did. I would hear girls crying under the covers in the dormitory at night, and I was determined that I would never do that. So, I was disliked for not giving them the satisfaction of showing any sign of hurt.
Of course, all of this was happening in the name of "religion", "god", "our lord". I call it sheer craziness.
All the best
Hermes
I don't think I learnt anything about morality there, it now seems to me like very amoral teaching.
Sure, from an intellectual viewpoint, the education was good. Still, I feel that a little sympathy towards the pupils, all in that difficult time that is the teens, would have gone a long way to providing a good emotional education.
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Hello again CB:
Yes, I think you would enjoy a trip to Ireland. There are many beautiful places, still a lot of unspoilt countryside. The country has become very cosmopolitan, Dublin in particular. There is a great buzz. You may though find it very different to the Ireland many imagine. The standard of living is very high, it is the most expensive country in Europe (with Finland I think), and it has become a very secular country.
It is a great place, with good points and less good points, like everywhere else.
All the best
Hermes
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Hello again:
Another thing is that my mother also went to a convent boarding school (as did her sisters), and to a different order entirely. M had nothing good to say about that experience either, and she was scandalised by the way the "good sisters" treated the less fortunate, such as orphans. I suspect that in her way M was a free thinker too.
All the best
Hermes
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Dear Hermes,
I think that the WORST abuse is when they do it in the '"name of God." I am glad that I grew up, bascially, agnostic, when I hear of your very,unfortunate experiences. I am so sorry, Hermes. Love Ami
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Well, CB, Ireland is like no where else, and I know you would love it here. The scenery is actually as you see it in pictures, maybe even better, when you are actually standing in it, looking around you. The people are still very hospitable, conversational and outgoing. But be prepared: the Irish have sharp wit, and travel the corridors of conversation at breackneck speed LOL
Quite a few North American tourists come here every year, but I think it is rather a pity that they tend to stay in a big international hotel in Dublin (like The Four Seasons), and they are bussed here and there to the "typical" places, so they do not have much interraction with the Irish, or enjoy the fun of staying in an Irish guesthouse, with the Irish themselves.
I hope you can realise your dream and come here sometime.
Hermes
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Thank you, Ami. That was kind of you. You show understanding of what I am saying.
When I left that school, I hit the ground running, as they say. I went to college, as did a few of my old school friends, who are still friends today. First thing was to have a boyfriend (my,my, that forbidden territory so preached against at the school LOL). So, I went all out. I met, and dated for quite a while, a man of 34, (15 years older than me). He was a professional, very nice, good-looking, great humour, he was very taken with me, and we had some great times. I look back on that time with huge fondness. I think he had ideas of marriage in mind (and he knew my family) but I had other plans for myself! LOL. Anyhow, he did a lot to offset those dreadful school years.
All the best to you
Hermes
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Dear Hermes,
It is so sad that we are "prisoners" of our conditioning until we can "see" (have awareness). Usually we have made SO many mistakes by that time, though(LOL).
We have had so much misery and the misery drives us to face the truth., Many of us seem to have come to the board at this stage.
When I think how "dumb" I was to marry my H with ALL those red flags. Even my NM told me to run.
I had such dumb thinking and I paid for it all-----in spades, as we all did, Hermes.
I think that I can be whole ,now, though. We get second chances. Love Ami
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And Ami, thank you yet again, for taking time from your own awful troubles, loss and suffering to find a moment to post to me. I truly appreciate it.
Hugs
Hermes
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Oh Hermes,
It is MY pleasure. Love Ami
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Ugh, Hermes...I was completely traumatized by an Episcopalian school.
I can't imagine that I would have survived a Catholic one.
(((((((((((((((little Hermes))))))))))))))))
I am so sorry. You must have felt very abandoned.
Stiff upper lips my arse!
love
Hops
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This is a great idea for a thread Axa; thankyou for starting it.
Hi Hermes, CB, Hops and Ami!
Hermes, my thoughts mirror CB's, in that I don't think new members (or old members) should feel obliged to `open up' unless they trust a group of people, and feel ok about that information being posted in a public area. So as much as everyone wants to know you, I hope you do not feel too much pressure!
I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to chat about boarding school. I attended Catholic School from Grade 1 to Grade 4, and I have some inkling of how bad those places were for the full time boarders.
X bella
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Hello everyone, and thanks for your responsive posts. Hee hee, I love you Hops! LOL
Yes, Bella. I agree there with you. I did feel a bit of pressure, but I can take it!
However, the reason I did not open up much, till yesterday about the school thing, is that I felt that, again, I might be seen to be kind of "religion bashing" (as it was a religious convent school). You can imagine after that kind of brain-washing (or attempted brain-washing in my case), you never want to hear the word religion again. I think that is understandable. I respect everyone's rights to their beliefs, be these orthodox, unusual or no belief at all. But someone else's beliefs do not have to be mine. And even if I had no belief at all, that does not make me some kind of suspect person to be avoided at all costs.
Anyhow, I sure made up for those school-days since LOL. And I have my own beliefs, my ethical standards, which I hope are fairly sound, and an enquiring mind.
Best to you all
Hermes
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Hello Hops:
Yes, it was pretty grim, but rather than abandoned, I felt pretty mad a lot of the time.
One of the many awful aspects was the lack of respect for privacy. Our lockers, beside the bed, were "inspected" arbitrarily, our intimate things gone through. Once a week, we had to write home, (everyone had a writing case, by royal decree!), but we could not put the letter in the envelope and seal it until first read by the nuns. So, the letters were stilted four liners, at best.
Physical punishment, as in the strap, was not used, or at least I never experienced it. I do remember though when a couple of girls, in the chemistry glass, splattered some water or something on the newly painted wall. A minor problem you would think. They were punished with the strap, which was bad enough in itself, but they were shamed by being marched in in front of our class (we were in a senior class then), and the strap applied to their hands in front of us all. Horrible. All of this was accompanied by the usual drone of god's punishment bla bla bla. It makes my stomach turn even now.
Hermes
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ugh ugh UGHH
Speaking of no boundaries!
dirty evil sexual little girls, we must invade their privacy.... horrible.
I would grow up to be a very guarded person. Yikers.
Poo on that whole anti-human system.
Hops
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(((((((Hermes)))))) that sounds absolutely awful... far beyond the strictness I knew in parochial school.
We got "the strap" on the backside, but not into the senior class years...
and the most shaming admonition I recall was directed toward the girls, who were told that we were responsible for "putting evil thoughts" into the minds of the boys if we did not follow the dress code re: modesty.
I'm so sorry you experienced that. None of it is a bit representative of the loving God I've since come to know.
Sincerely,
Carolyn
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Hermes,
I had the birch across my hands, for talking, during week long retreat.
And, another time, I was dragged by my hair to the punishment room, for speaking up for my friend. (Afterward, the nun was packed off somewhere, she was always in a rage, with a red face, all the time).
"The Magdalen Laundry Sisters"
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Kathy O'Beirne's life story ......... in her life story book "Don't ever tell" they used the strap.
gets me on my soapbox!!
Love, Leah
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Thank you Carolyn.
I have to smile, as I remember the enormous emphasis put on "evil thoughts", "immodesty", "the awful consequences of "keeping company" with a man/boy, .... all of which I fear only whetted our febrile imaginations regarding those exotic creatures: MEN!
I hope I can risk a little joke here: "The mother superior is haranguing the convent school girls on the assuredly disastrous outcome of hanky panky with men. She finishes by saying: "" Imagine girls, a whole life destroyed just for one hour of pleasure"". At the back of the room, Mary Jane O'Donnell sticks up her hand. "Yes my child"? says mother superior. Mary Jane says: "Please Rev. Mother, how can you make it last that long".
That joke used to do the rounds at school. LOL.
Hermes
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Yes, Leah. I agree. Absolutely appalling. The Magdalen Laundries, and you know it was not so long ago that the last of them was closed down.
In case anyone wonders, they were called after Mary Magdalen (the sinner!).
The dreadful, dreadful aspect of those laundries was that many of the girls (in trouble) who were sent there, had been made pregnant not by some boy they met out and about, but by a brother, or a father, or other male relative. The church had such a grip on the country that people were afraid to speak up, to denounce or defend. No wonder Ireland has turned to being a secular society.
I sympathise with you, and know how you must have felt. More than the actual strap or birch, is the shame of being struck.
All the best
Hermes
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(((((((Hermes)))))) that sounds absolutely awful... far beyond the strictness I knew in parochial school.
We got "the strap" on the backside, but not into the senior class years...
and the most shaming admonition I recall was directed toward the girls, who were told that we were responsible for "putting evil thoughts" into the minds of the boys if we did not follow the dress code re: modesty.
I'm so sorry you experienced that. None of it is a bit representative of the loving God I've since come to know.
Sincerely,
Carolyn
Hi Carolyn,
Yes, if a catholic girl, got "into trouble" or was raped, then it was only the girls fault, she was the hussy, and so, the parents would pack the girl off to the Magdalen Laundry where the girl suffered, therein, with the strap plus more. The baby was taken off the girl and sold, by the nuns, to rich people. They made a lot of money. Kathy O'Beirne's book exposed the whole sham.
30,000 women, during the 20th century alone, suffered, being institutionalized, for life,
until the doors of the Magdalen Laundry closed in 1996.
Too late for thousands, however, a few found their voice, and spoke out, including Kathy O'Beirne.
Shocking, but truth.
Love, Leah
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Hermes,
My N Dad cannot understand why we have all turned our backs on the RC Church. He even got his priest to threaten me.
The priest told me on the phone, that he was going to write to the P--e and have me excommunicated !!!
To which I replied " can I have a certificate please "
The fact that I renounced RC twenty years ago, makes no odds to them, but, it makes a heck of a difference to me.
Love, Leah
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Hi Carolyn,
Yes, if a catholic girl, got "into trouble" or was raped, then it was only the girls fault, she was the hussy, and so, the parents would pack the girl off to the Magdalen Laundry where the girl suffered, therein, with the strap plus more. The baby was taken off the girl and sold, by the nuns, to rich people. They made a lot of money. Kathy O'Beirne's book exposed the whole sham.
30,000 women, during the 20th century alone, suffered, being institutionalized, for life,
until the doors of the Magdalen Laundry closed in 1996.
Too late for thousands, however, a few found their voice, and spoke out, including Kathy O'Beirne.
Shocking, but truth.
Love, Leah
Thank you, Leah, for sharing this... I didn't know.
Such sad, true stories of rigid legalism and corruption.
Growing up Lutheran (both church and parochial school), my religious training was full of instruction re: the vile practices of the RC church, vis the sale of indulgences, etc., and the numerous challenges which Martin Luther had to overcome in order to bring the Reformation to pass in Germany...
and yet I saw just as much hypocrisy and lack of grace in this supposedly grace-based environment as anywhere else in the world or history...
and so, I have no taste for religion, not in any form.
Thank you again.
Love,
Carolyn
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Hi Carolyn,
Organized religion was never original. Man made for a patriarchal system.
I don't do religion, at all.
Personal relationship only, as in being born anew, per the gospel of John, as a non-conformist.
I care not about being exterminated!!!
Love, Leah
PS >> As in my thread, last week I think, I will not be controlled from the grave by my NDad, in buying indulgences each week from a priest, and, made to sacrifice my life to prayer, for the purpose of his soul, being lifted from the nether place (with radiators!!).
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Leah,
I only wish that my head had been out of the clouds enough to recognize that years ago, but the combination of home life with my mother and the rigid straightjacket of parochial school effectively squashed my ability to think freely and.... well, basically, create any original thought. Thank God that's over!
Our version of the Lutheran denomination was the strictest of its sort, long before the days of the more liberal synods available today. No pants for women, who must wear head coverings within the sanctuary, all male leadership, etc, etc...
and to this day, my dad is totally sold out to this nonsense.
Love,
Carolyn
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Carolyn,
That's like the Brethren, they are strict, with code of dress, and also, women not allowed to speak
until they have left the church building. Still, today, in 2008!!
Well, my NDad sent someone to put me right, but, I saw him right, off my doorstep! I refused him entrance into the sanctuary of my abode.
Wonder if the priest has sent that letter off? No sign of my certificate, arriving in the post. :)
Love, Leah
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For reference;
Books:
> Kathy O'Beirne -- "Don't Ever Tell" : Magdalene Laundries
> Paddy Doyle -- "The God Squad"
> Mary Rafferty -- "Suffer Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools"
> Frances Finnegan -- "Do Penance or Perish: Magdalene Asylums"
DVDs:
The Magdalene Sisters
Stolen Lives
Website:
Justice for the Magdalenes http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/ (http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/) and tracing stolen babies sold for adoption.
Leah
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:) Leah
Your certificate was lost in the mail, perhaps? :lol:
I know that there are corresponding troubles on the other side of the legalism coin... where the ultra liberal religious folks fail to confront where confrontation is absolutely required...
but at least those people have a chancce to come to know God first as the loving Father and Saviour He is, and not as the angry old man "up there", just waiting to catch them in some fatal flaw.
Love is so much a better motivator than fear.
...and these "Brethren" :? sound like a nightmare!
Love,
Carolyn
P.S. thank you for the reference list, which I see here now.
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Oh Boy could I get off on a rant here. Impure thoughts............well that was the worst thing of all. Sadly I was a bit of a slow learner and did not acquire any impure thoughts until my late teenage years..... spent a lot of time trying to figure out what they were though. Until I finished secondary school I was physically beaten regularily. My big mouth did it, I just could not keep silent. Shame was a real weapon of choice in my school. I had such a sense of shame about being female not to mind anything else. I had a real sense of being dirty but could not figure out what it was about. I think now it was linked with being a sexual being - nasty!!!!
I did not learn any values from those women. I saw them abuse and play out their sadistic games on the most vulnerable. At one level I was lucky in that I came from a "respectable middle class family" the real victims were those who were from low income families, they were fair game. I learned that prayers were words that were trotted off and meant nothing. I listened to sermons on how loving God was and then witness the speaker abuse innocent children with their vitriol.......... really makes me want to throw up still.
Anyway, my legacy from the nuns was a sense of shame and a determinitation that they would not win........I did become someone, I became me!
Hops,
Got a big LOL here when I read your contribution...... nothing like the venacular in an unexpected forum.
Axa
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Carolyn,
Yes :lol: lost in the mail :lol:
The Ultra Liberalism certainly is a flip side issue, and I sometimes get flack from that too!!
I just grip onto my dear Bible and try to work out my salvation, knowing, that I am loved by a loving Father, and my Saviour.
But as a girl, I feared thunderbolts and lightening, for just a wrong thought, i.e. coveting a desire for a sweet, however, that is in the past, as I choose not to look back, now that I am healed.
It was a long healing process, after I was born anew, 2 painful years, to know in my heart, that I was free, indeed.
I was told when I got saved that all my problems were over!!! Oh boy, they had only just begun!!! Added to which, my FOO and my marriage.
Thanks.
Love, Leah
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Hello T.T.
Thanks for your post. No, I am not an American citizen (likely they would not have me anyhow LOL). I am Irish, born in Dublin, educated in Ireland, but lived most of my life on Continental Europe (as in the mainland).
All the best.
Must get off now, as I shall be travelling all day tomorrow.
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Hermes
All the very best for your day tomorrow.
Take care now.
Slan
Leah
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Hello T.T.
Thanks for your post. No, I am not an American citizen (likely they would not have me anyhow LOL). I am Irish, born in Dublin, educated in Ireland, but lived most of my life on Continental Europe (as in the mainland).
All the best.
Must get off now, as I shall be travelling all day tomorrow.
Oh contraire, contraire!
America lets everybody in! Even my ancestors!
tt
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Just to thank everyone for their responses, and indeed for having this thread about my "voice". Much appreciated.
Hope everyone is doing well today.
Hermes
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Again thank you all for the responses, and for listening to my account of those voiceless years. I still have some friends (just a few) made back at that school. And I hears news now and then about some of the others. It is telling that none of them want anything to do with religion, at least not in its organised form. I daresay that, like many people here, they have their own beliefs, which they keep to themselves. When we meet we talk about more interesting and fun things, with the odd story now and then about the more outlandish aspects and experiences in that school.
Best to all
Hermes
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Dear Axa,
Your experience was just horrible. My heart goes out to you, Axa. It is a lot of shame and pain to overcome.
Love Ami
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Yes, Axa, I agree with Ami. It was horrible, and demeaning, and unnecessary. And all about power and repression.
Hermes