Seems like my acceptance of people's beliefs or non belief, has caused a few Christians to email me, telling me I am angry, that I have changed (sort of lost the light, if you get my drift), and that I have some pretty crappy friends (atheists, liberals, etc.). Oh and the trials in my life are minimal and I should not complain. Let's see: a husband that slept with prostitutes, attempted suicide, choosing a lying church over my nevermo family, shunned and black sheeped for being a Mormon, figuring it out was a fraud, shunned and blacksheeped for leaving the church, having a TBM husband who could leave me at any moment. My God living in a cave sounds very appealing sometimes. But yeah, I am acquiring a mailbag similar to Benson.

There is always someone who has gone through something worse than you have... but it doesn't invalidate your pain.

When I was a kid, my babysitter was named Savannah, and she was an illegal immagrant from Sierra Leon. She was actually a tribal princess on the losing end of their civil dispute/war.
From what I overheard (she didn't talk to us kids about it, but our trailer was small and had thin walls) she watched her parents & siblings get dismembered & killed in front of her. She managed to escape & get smuggled to America. She ended up poor & out-of-work in Minnesota & my parents would give her some money (no where near min-wage) & food to babysit us kids (we were a poor trailor park family, so she was paid poorly out of neccessity, not bigotry). Eventually her uncle (one of the ones on the side of the uprising coup) found her and forced her to come back to Sierra Leon. We never heard from her again (it is likely that she was tortured & killed, or forced to marry one of the uprisers).

So when I feel bad, I do think about her, & the crap she went through. But all that does is make me not talk about my problems to other people because I feel like they are too small.

When, in reality, talking about problems helps people work through them.
Judging/Ranking people problems as large/small leads to people feeling disregarded & alone.

I don't believe that we have the right to tell others not to feel bad about something (or how quickly to recover, or stop grieving). Sure, you can tell them not to complain, but really you just mean don't complain to me, because I don't care.

I'm sorry you've gone through some crap. I wish you luck in your continued efforts. While there are many people who have been through worse, keep in mind that there are many who have been through less. No problem/hardship is invalid, no matter how "small" someone may have told you it was.

We're here for you, & you can complain to us all day long :-)

P.S. for frame of reference, I'm probably one that has been through less than you, & I complain plenty, so I defintely wont judge :D

I am just stunned that a person would minimalize another's experience. I am still in shock and awe because I would never verbalize that to any human being. The fact is, is that she does not know much of what I have been thru and she does not understand leaving the Mormon church and how it screws up almost everything as far as the way you think and how to trust anyone again.

Thanks justrob for your kind words :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2012 05:44PM by tiptoes.