Hey Awesome! Not only was my childhood difficult and painful, but I can look forward to it adversely impacting my health over the course of my life. Out of 10 possible adverse experiences that people can have as kids, I score 9. I love scoring high on tests!

Info courtesy of the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Study:
http://www.acestudy.org/
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/ace/index.htm

The questionnaires are particularly interesting. Now I just want to know about the adverse effects of religious upbringing...

Craft Corner

So I made a quilt for some friends who are having a baby. Their baby shower was today. It was nice. They went through a really rough patch recently and I'm glad to see that they're doing well, and are happy.

I'd never made a quilt all by myself before so it was a bit of a challenge, but it turned out really nice, and they seemed happy about it. I did some of the applique by hand, and I can see the appeal of hand quilting things. I did this one by machine, because it was just straight lines, and I didn't have a lot of time, but I can see how hand quilting would give a perfect result, and that would please my perfectionistic self. I even managed to put a new binding on it, after I accidentally cut off the self-backing fabric with the rotary cutter. Note to me: get a bigger olfa mat.

It's nice to have enough sewing skills that I could just decide to make a quilt, and research some techniques, and then just make one. I've been enjoying learning all different crafts this year - crochet, and knitting, and quilting. In some ways it's an odd part of female only culture that I'm not always part of. Today I went to a baby shower, took a quilt I made, and talked to other people there about sewing, knitting, and crochet. It's like everything else, in that most things simply require attempting them. Even if I don't get it right the first (few) times, then at least I can get better at it, and learn some new stuff, and the next time I will be more competent.

I realize that what I like doing is learning. As long as I keep learning new things, I'm happy

Recovering from Fundamentalism

I've been thinking lately, about how incredibly relieved I am to finally be done with what I called my "existential panics". They started when I was around 8, and continued until last year (I was 32). They could be triggered by anything, darkness, being awake alone late at night, thoughts about existence and life, thinking about eternity, thinking about not being a christian, thinking about trying to be a christian again, and so on.

When they first started they scared the heck out of me, I would break down crying, sometimes in the middle of supper, or at school, or just anywhere. I would start thinking about eternity, and how long it was, and about whether there was a god or not, and what would happen after i died if there wasn't a god, and what if there was a god, and i was bad, and there was eternity to be punished with no hope of relief if I got sent to hell. It was absolutely terrifying. I remember being comforted by my mother, who would encourage me to just have faith, and to believe.

I couldn't articulate why I was questioning god. I guess even then some of the inconsistencies must have at some level been clear, but it was nothing I could articulate beyond "what if there isn't a god?"

Even as I stopped being a christian, and moved firmly into agnosticism these anxiety attacks persisted. The feeling that I couldn't survive them was overwhelming, the hopelessness took days to get over. I became afraid of being alone ever. The first time I tried to read the selfish gene I had to stop, because it made the panics worse than ever.

It was a conscious choice to decide to overcome that fear. I had to learn to let myself think about what it means to be a finite being. To be able to think about the history of the universe, and the future of the universe, and to see myself as a cosmic spark somewhere in there. Richard Dawkins' spotlight analogy was very helpful. I deliberately spent time reading books about the origin of consciousness, and about evolution. Essentially, what I've spent a year doing is deprogramming myself from the fear and superstition. On some level it was an act of faith, trusting to reason instead of superstition. I had to give myself permission to go against the indoctrination; to decide that whether or not there is a god, I was unhappy living a christian life, and I was unhappy being afraid of eternity, and I was unhappy with the guilt, and the self-hatred, and with the false face of christianity.

I can't say it was easy, and how I wish that The God Delusion had been written earlier, so that I could have had such a manual for deconversion right from the beginning, but it was worth it. Embracing the natural worldview lets everything be just as it is, instead of having to read a "deeper meaning" into everything. It is such a huge relief.

I see christians I know struggling so hard with appearing to be a good person, and I just feel pity for them. They don't even see that they could just be a good person, to them it's all about seeming so to the other christians. I remember that, and I never want to go back.

Happy Darwin Day!

It's good to walk upright, isn't it?

Sbarfs and ISPs

Apparently my ISP is something out of a Douglas Adams novel. Apparently calling them, or adding another service and paying more only draws attention to myself, at which point they cut off my service, now for 3 days, and counting. How aggravating! Their customer service is also divided into billing and tech support, and each one can only do certain things, and they can't even transfer you between departments, just put you at the beginning of the que for the other department.

In better news, the sbarfs are coming along well. I have finished two sets (a hat and scarf for the cousin-baby, and a scarf and ear-warmer for my aunt). Only two more sets to go. Now I just have to figure out how to make a masculine set out of lion suede.

Recently, our local cable added channels, so we've spent all weekend watching old war movies. They're showing a month worth of Oscar nominees and winners. Spouse One and I are suckers for movies of all kinds, so it's been very entertaining. Although we are overtired, and should go to bed. We both had horrible migraines today, and so movies and crafts were the order of the day.