My Story Pt. 1

[Doubleshadow]

This is practically a novel, but that's how it is. Sorry! It was too long for one post.

My mother came from a Christian family, her parents were saved when they were still fairly newly married, leading her to Christ at age 7. My father had a Christian mother, and was raised in church but didn't become a Christian until he was 15. I split the difference, I was saved at age 12. My parents also raised me in church, and learned the proper motions for conducting myself in Sunday School. I could mimic my elders without realizing what I was doing with the best of them. As a little kid, this didn't matter much, because I was still so young I had not yet lost my child-like faith. I was baptized in the fourth grade, but I had not actually had a crisis of faith, and I had not actually turned my life over to Christ. I didn't understand it all just yet, I was caught up in the idea that being a Christian was a list of Do's and Don'ts and I was following them enough that it was OK.

During the summer after fourth grade, I made a huge mistake which I have mentioned in previous posts. After discussing this with my mother and my shrink nearly ten years after the fact, I have to admit it is actually a fairly normal occurence. However, at the time, I felt what I did was horrible and it began to haunt me. I felt guilt and shame so horrible I just decided to bury the memory in my mind and never do anything to make people suspect what happened occured. Unfortunately, this was no way to handle the situation. I am weird to begin with, but my oddities were compounded by my fears and self-hatred. The manifestations were generally low key. Dressing funny (nothing matched), amplifying my dislike of being touched (my mom isn't huggy either) to a refusal to be hugged and such.

This worked for a while, but as I got older, it hindered my growth as a person. My mother later told me during a therapy session she could tell I was mentally ahead of my peers, but emotionally behind. I was stuck as an eight year old in some ways. I also was still without Christ, and because I was getting tired of faking in church, I began to rebel againt it. I tried different religions (in secret) and settled on athesim. I was in middle school.

Without Christ in my life and my emotional wall firmly in place to suppress my memory, I became friends with a girl who was a nightmare. She was mean, she was sadistic, she was violent. But to me, she was my friend, and I remembered her as such for years. She was shipped off to another state to live with her other parent late in grade school only to return during the later part of middle school. By then, my memories of being beat on had faded and I was actually glad to see her. Since she had been gone I found another outcast to be friends with through Girl Scouts. She was also mean, and the other girls weren't nice to me because I was a newby in the pecking order, but I stayed. Slowly, we began to get to know each other, and her loving mother, who was the leader, was kind to me. I began going to her church, and we began to get along as time passed. Neither of us were saved, but God was working on us both. When the first girl returned she returned unchanged if not more sadistic. She bragged on the violent things she done out of state, and began to focus on her old past time, me. She and a third girl who had also been an abusive 'friend' were picking on me during class, and I opened my big mouth in self-defense giving the first girl the excuse she needed. For days in music class, I was threatened endlessly, tortured psychologically. I don't think it would appropriate to post exactly what she said, and I don't remember it so well because that memory is also suppressed. They began to follow me around school to learn my schedule and where my locker was. They tried to find me during break period, but I hid in the sanctuary of the computer room. If they had found me during break... I can't even think about it. One day, she determined to to attack me after class. "I'm sick of trying to find you, you're gonna die after class. As soon as you walk out those doors." I was truly afraid (remember, she used to physically abuse me in grade school).

After she left the first time, one day in boredom I began going through some CD's my Dad bought. They were called "Songs for Worship". I was bored enough to try them. One of songs came on, and it wasn't the dull hymns or the juvenile kiddy songs, it was a driving declaration of bold faith called "I'm Not Ashamed" by some group called the Newsboys. It intrigued me, so I began to listen. The songs were Christ reaching out me. I was still emotionally cut off, still stinging from kids mean words, from abusive friends, but then there was the music. It engraved itself on my heart.

I sat in music class trying not to cry because I didn't want to show my fear with the girls laughing beside me. The other students nearby had moved away to other seats, and the substitute could hear it all but did nothing. I was crushed, the teacher was doing nothing, I had no friends, I had pushed my parents away, I didn't like myself, but I didn't want to get pounded especially since she had told me in detail what she wanted to do with delight. I gave up. All alone, all I had was my heart, and it had songs. Songs that told me things I had accepted as a child but rejected in self-hatred and pride. I began to pray. I thought of all those things I had learned as a little girl in tights who wrote in crayon on the inside of her Bible cover. I told Jesus I was sorry, and He could have my life because I didn't want it, and I begged him to help me.

Then Jesus made good on the promises I had abandoned. I felt my fear and dread leave me like vapor as I sat in that chair in music class. No fear, only peace. Jesus was telling me, "I got this. Don't be afraid anymore." My mind was confused, though my heart understood. I tried to become afraid and found I couldn't. The third girl who had been my friend decided to put gum in my hair (boredom), so I had an excuse to leave class. I went into the girls bathroom and tried not cry. A teacher came in, and something inside me forced my voice to tell the teacher what was happening.

I don't remember much of what happened after that. I had teachers escort me to class, and the first girl disappeared. She may have been expelled. The third girl left me alone, though I still had class with her. Maybe she was too afraid to be mean on her own.

At that point, I tried to take my life back from God. I tried to ignore Him. But He still wouldn not let me go. I back slid, became worse than ever. My second friend, I found out later, had been saved at around that same time. Together, we started to walk with Christ without realizing what we had in common. Still, I became worse. I dressed in the worst clothes I had, I threw away clothes people complemented me on. I didn't bathe nearly enough, I had my mom hack off my hair because people told me it was pretty. I was happy when my puppy accidently scratched my face because I thought it would leave a big scar (my mom forced me to vaseline it so the scar was minimal and has now healed). I was still angry at myself over my memories of that summer in grade school. I had asked God to forgive me at the time, which He of course did, but I didn't forgive myself and I kept it between He and I. But God wouldn't tolerate it. I was constantly convicted, always thinking of the shameful, humiliating memory and it's pain (again, it's actually normal, it's just me making a mountain out of a molehill). One day, during my spiritual loneliness, I went into my closet and tied a plastic bag over my head. My self-disgust was overwhelming, and I felt I was prepared to face Hell rather than continue to live with myself.

My second friend and I had started eating lunch together. We had both grown a lot, and since we were both strange people, we more or less just had each other. Her friends abandoned her, and I didn't have any. We began going to Bible Study during lunch with some truly awesome friends shepherded by a wonderful, compassionate women of God. We had discussed suicide before, although I never let on why I was so interested in the topic.

I began to cry, weep and pray as I began to black out in that closet. I told God I was sorry, that what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn't help it. Suddenly, I felt something inside me that is nearly indescribable, I can only call it the wrath of God. I tore the bag off my head and laid on the floor of closet crying and choking. I was warned, I listened. He told me to go tell my parents what happened. I tried to argue, but He sent me to them anyway. They took me to a Christian counselor, who I was mostly honest with, but I dodged the questions that hit on issues that were contained within my memory. I then left for Bible camp after promising my parents I would not try to kill myself at camp.

[shooraijin]

Here is the link to the second half -- please put your replies to Doubleshadow in that thread.

http://www.christiananime.net/showthread.php?t=16989