Like I grew up essentially being a homeschooled church kid (who was also abused too) living in a rural rural area, not like a suburb like actual countryside. The homeschooled part is kinda just more that my parents sorta given up on trying after 6th grade. The church kid part was mostly enforced by my parents to try to have a social outlet for me. But at the end of it I just don’t know how to talk to people, which has its own set of negative consequences.
It gets worse when any resemblance of community around here is steeped heavily in religion of the evangelical variety. So even if I wanted to I couldn’t do anything without being told some nonsense about how everything wrong with me is that I’m a ‘lost sheep’ that needs to reconnect with god. Including going to get therapy, because I’ve heard that some of the professionals here is on that BS too.
And the more I’m thinking about it, the more I feel like I’m completely screwed out of having a relatively normal life. Not to mention I found a way to unintentionally self sabotage the first relationship I had.
And this just turned into me rambling about my situation.
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You are not screwed out of anything yet. You are as lovely as any other life on our planet and you deserve to be happy. You seem to be aware of what’s wrong with your situation and you seem to be young, which is lovely because you still have a lot to look forward to. Work for your happiness and work to take a step toward the kind of life you want. Be patient and decisive until you can achieve it, and look out for yourself. Nothing is impossible and you are awesome. Start surrounding yourself with the kind of people who can love you for who you truly are.
I think most of this is lovely and kind, but this usually helpful advice
Start surrounding yourself with the kind of people who can love you for who you truly are.
overlooks that KhanCipher said this is something that is specifically a trouble area
any resemblance of community around here is steeped heavily in religion of the evangelical variety. So even if I wanted to I couldn’t do anything without being told some nonsense about how everything wrong with me is that I’m a ‘lost sheep’ that needs to reconnect with god
KhanCipher is here, so not totally without community, but the irl part is a point of struggle when KC is surrounded by culture steeped in the religion KC left.
I grew up in many different places learning different languages meeting lots of people, (think army brat) and that fucked me up royally. Always being the New kid at school made me an easy target for bullying. Since I was moved around so much as a kid and had to interact with tons of different people one could assume I am a social butterfly.I am not.
What I am trying to say is that there is no normal, we are all quirky and unique with different sets of circumnstances and tragically that makes us all the same. Hang on! You will find a way.
I live now in an ultraconservative religious place (no choice) as an atheist but managed to find three friends and a spouse in the time I have been here.
It’s okay, I also felt severely emotionally and socially stunted due to my upbringing, you can turn things around especially since you understand the issue. If you can move away, I’d do that.
Can you leave or are you stuck there
Yes and no, it’s a bit complicated on the financial side of things.
Short of it is that I still live with my parents (we’ve come to an understanding that there was a lot of fucking up that happened, and they’ve also left religion too) and my 3 siblings. 5 of us are working, and I make the most out of everyone, and also the most stable income. The financial problems are that city (a rural city mind you) has decided that they’re all of a sudden going to start enforcing building code after years of not giving a rats ass, since there was a seemingly astroturfed movement to start gentrifying the city in a way.
So we’re staring down a $30,000 cost to have repairs done on a house that we know for a fact has a lot more wrong with it than what city has cited as being out of code.
I think your impulse to start with therapy is a really good and healthy one. Can you do therapy online? I wonder if Open Path Collective might be a good resource for you - sliding scale, lots of modalities and specialities to choose from, etc.
Fwiw, I don’t think you’re screwed out of a normal life. I was raised in evangelical church, went to a christian school for 8th-12th grades with the “Beka Book” textbooks. My life 25 years after high school isn’t perfect and I struggle quite a bit, mostly due to childhood trauma and (until recently) undiagnosed ADHD & autism, and I don’t have many friends, but I’ve got a really cool kid and a wonderful partner and some amazing pets.
I believe in you. ❤️ Happy to talk anytime, please feel free to DM me. 🤗
I’ve known that I should be going to therapy for years now, except I really just don’t have the time to. To explain, I work night shift at a factory from 11pm to 7am, and I have to drive about 25mi one way to get there so I leave the house about 10pm to get there and get back home around 7:40. And I try to go to sleep about an hour after I get home, and how much sleep I get isn’t exactly consistent, some days I get up at 4pm, some days it’s 5pm, and most of the time it’s normally 6pm by the time I actually get out of bed. Most places around here open anywhere from 8-9am and close from 5-6, so i’m already kinda SoL on scheduling alone.
And this isn’t getting into the last time I tried to seek therapy, it wasn’t really going well at all, and one time the therapist I was supposed to see had called in that day and the office didn’t tell me until I got there, and told me that they’d call me to reschedule. It shouldn’t take much to figure out what part didn’t happen, but the therapist I was seeing was kinda on the path of thinking my whole problem was just that I just needed to get laid. Which comes back to op about what i said of the quality of therapists i’ve heard that we’ve got out here…
Oh yeah, that mental health office that did all that is the only one within 5 miles of me.
I just want to say that despite these odds and negative upbringing, it’s cool you still found a way to socialism(or at least hexbear).
