Poem: The Fourth Turning for Generation X

 

Here's a poem I wrote a couple months ago.  As people here know, I have written about the generations for years. I will include the caveat for this too like other generation articles, not all members of a generation are bad, many are good people, so forth and so on. This points to general trends.

The Fourth Turning for Generation X

As the poles started to shift

The wolf arrived back at the door

(we never got used to its hot breath)

There's nowhere to run 

with empty pockets.

Mothers in her second home

sunning under the psalm tree

"You have nothing to show

for your life".

She told me when I hit 40

Perhaps under the Underpass one day

we can smell the burning roast beef

of our memories

VC Andrews books were traded in secret

We were reading about our betraying mothers

The crawling vines on the covers

stretched out for our wrists

Studs Lonigan died at 29

the Tenements had no mercy

Temp Slave continued

adjuncts hired

the union-busting won

and vacations vanished

retirement isn't there.

We've lost friends so young.

Dancing natives on the wall and

heavy pink ashtrays falling onto shag carpet

The lawn chairs folded in a rusty heap

The "me generation" faced

Vietnam, had apple pie and Evel Knievel

flying over those cars like gravity

stepped aside for him.

Slackers working 80 hours a week

were noticed only while sleeping.

We xeroxed zines and drew cartoons

of daily life. Factsheet Five listed them all

with Riot Grrl and Bust. 

Clerks bored stiff, we knew the world

could not be saved. Kurt said as much.

It made more sense to disengage with

Nine Inch Nails our soundtrack of anger

Our love bloomed hotter, with arms wrapped

around leather jackets.

Steinem preached empowerment via career

the bosses were more friendly then

and in the days of high heels

it fooled us. 

I took care of other people's children instead

of having my own. 

Remember when we could talk (in the record stores)

we could joke, laugh and not guard our words

like soldiers on a hill

(don't slip up)

the Prophets kept speaking

never a moment of silence

for the Nomads to talk

Bill and Ted still had adventures

at the peak of history but

then hit speed bumps of social inequity

The mushroom cloud of student debt

Service McJobs for subzero wages. 

Everyone wanted to be a rock star

Dressed in black with silver chains

The stoic faced goths, punks, grunge and metal heads

went into the kitchen to put the hair net on

and red uniform with plastic nametag

that always made our butts look too big

There were wine coolers in the fridge

and passion below the Joshua Tree

The young used to fly free and talk smack

the tyranny of the old held back

Greetings and Salutations through

a broken radio.

Gen Z seems so obedient

(why didn't they ever rebel)

We ran through fields and woods

dodging each other

They never left the basement or the screen

their pasty skin led

to grey auras popping up like mushrooms.

It was time to flee the god of this world

We were already deemed cynics

by pampered idealists.

Fat People are Hard to Kidnap!

A Peep from 2002, front page of comic dairy sketchbook. 

I'm going to share some writing here, the stuff I may try to publish will remain private for now.  I wrote this recently for my writer's group. 

Fat People Are Hard to Kidnap!

They won’t be able to lift me up, I’m too heavy!

 Fat, plump, big boned, fluffy, corpulent, fatso, huge, supersized, infinity-sized.

  You are your own planet with billowing tons of flesh pouring out of its cup to claim you against your will.

 Fat people are impossible to pick up. 

 Calories in and out supposedly control it all but bodies don’t run like cars no matter what the Weight Watchers point system says.

 Why doesn’t the diet magic happen for us all among all the diminishing nearly thin people. No one believes you used to weigh 200lbs more.

 Stephen King called huge people monstrous. The Witch who said Fatter instead of Thinner unloaded her curse with a bony finger. A puff of smoke and 30lbs a month poured in.  The deliverance minister said Satan sent you your body. Your soft arms hug your husband tight, why is round always bad?

The doctors want to experiment, cut, slice dice and throw your stomach away even though food tastes like cardboard and you haven’t eaten a fish, a potato or a hamburger in more than 10 years. You refused Phen-Fen not wanting to be a lab rat, the acupuncture failed too.  Tell the 90lb medical student who graduated last in the class, it’s L. I. P. E. D. E. M. A. not Lymphedema though that comes to the party too. Their blank eyed stare condemns you with visions of those inhaling whole pizzas on My 600lb Life.

A body full of oceans operates different. Who grows old at this size? Make sure you prove them wrong. 

 

 Metabolism a word they forgot long ago.  Lumbering side to side every movement seems to take 20 thoughts but you’re “lazy” not to move more.

Fat is always 57 even when you’re 29!

   

Shave your “beautiful” face that very old women always praised in your youth asking why don’t you force your body to match it?

 The fat boy in Matilda hated that chocolate cake and Mrs. Trunchbull was 50lbs away from putting the shot putt away for good.

  Augustus Gloop wants revenge for chemical farming GMOs and high fructose corn syrup. Factory Farms and Glyphosate sends his blood pressure soaring. Willy Wonky was a skinny penny pinching crack dealer and coke head preaching abstinence at the factory. There's no real gardens among the sickly sweet lollipops.

 National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance or N.A.A.F.A. showed the way out of diet hell but Health at Any Size ignored the obvious. Supersized People don’t run marathons. No one asked why so many grew so fat no matter what they did. They ate bacon and eggs in the 50s, and lived life, their bodies not betraying. 

 Eyes cross from hunger, lunch is 4 hours away.

 Thin Jane in tight yoga pants ate her apple that morning she feels fine, intermittent fasting brings her self pride. It brings you the floor and funny colors in your vision. You drink the glass of water to smother hunger pain but it never works.

You eat lunch they desire you feel guilt with every bite. Boiled cabbage and eat tofu but look like you did other things. 

A rare fat foodie rejecting GMOs, you desire the wild sour dough bread and the seitan made with parsnips. Jars of wheat germ, hummus, and mushrooms of every sort populate your food imagination. The clown with red shoes brings disgust.

Wear your ruby lips and poufy hair to ring your wide round face, short heeled shoes and be vivacious or else.

 Whitney Thores dancing as fast as she can. Chris Farley fell through the jolly trap. He didn’t want to be the class comedian anymore. There’s too many fat people to give the acting job to one in a fat suit!

 Wear hot pink like fat activist Marilyn Wann, screaming fat is healthy when you want to wear black, and walk for miles instead. No one chooses this. 

 A thin woman in Japan on Youtube eats crisps, fried chicken, curries, burdock root, udon noodles, bonito flakes, tofu, a sweet every afternoon with milk tea, and never gains weight. Obesity is a disease of lack not abundance. America grows fatter year by year while starving for real food.

 

The Roulette wheel broke in the matrix and spun onto circus fat lady. Thin women in slacks with legs crossed drink coffee nimbly eating a piece of pie. The spigot filled up the lower body like a giant balloon ready to burst.

Peter Griffin goes on many adventures, but fat people don’t fit in kayaks.

 You can’t stop living for thin tomorrows knowing the fat reality is what you have.

Whose bright idea was it to swell humans up so it would be hard for them to walk? Does God listen to the prayers of fat women? Preacher told the church on the day you missed the revival, Gluttons don’t see heaven, they’ll be burning with the adulterers. That huge woman has the door of heaven closed for good! There's no barbecue in hell!.

Everyone loves a jolly fat woman arms brimming with cakes and children and Mother Earth nurturing, not a childless serious poet who wanted a body to match her art and books. A hyperlexia brain in a cumbersome box. The Gnostics were right to see the body as a prison, spirit imprisoned in flesh.

 

Whitney Thore and The Life of Fat Women

Sometimes there's far more wrong than being fat. That applies to Whitney Thore, she has many problems in addition to obesity. Hey that's true for my life, I deal with a lot more then being five hundred pounds on both the emotional and physical front. Just becoming deaf, is pretty big, and maybe I should post about that a bit. 

  My concerns about this show, is that it puts fat women in such a bad light. It doesn't offer us help or anything concrete to look to.  It's entertainment but what kind of messages about fat people is this show putting out? Is the public going to become more sympathetic to us or less?  Whitney has a lot more problems then just the obesity. The show also shows the limits of the "fat and sassy" stuff. Remember the years when I got in debates with size acceptance people for talking about the limitations of HAES and when I told Marilyn Wann to go visit a nursing home with super-fat people?

On a recent show, Whitney Thore was shown taking a trip with a Fat Women Traveling Group. It exposed a lot to me. Here's a caveat, being so different, I would not fit into the fat woman group either. I am on the autistic spectrum and have anxiety disorders.  Obviously people who can afford travel and a trip like that are in different shape to me. The women seem nice but I am not into twerking and there's no bathing suits that would fit me. Damn I loved the tricycles, I want one, wish I could afford one. You know I found a bicycle company about a year ago for fat people, they even go up to 550lbs.

You can see her problems right there next to them all. She's pretty, she's actually made up well, and all the women were wearing very nice clothing, and looked great. But you can see the personality stuff. You can tell they almost feel sorry for her. Such as when she is talking about her Frenchman. You can see their unease and worry. The immaturity is glaring.

One fellow fat traveler, Rebecca was trying to warn her, like you are falling into this same trap with the guy in France again like with Avi. Rebecca had dated and been conned by Avi too. Being fat you have to be careful in the dating world and I had exploitive men try to come after me too when I was young.

If you are Super-fat, toxic men will try and mess with you. I had strange men attempt stalking on me and other crazy stuff. As past readers here know, I was raised uber Catholic even though I deconverted from family's church which meant I was a late life shy virgin and so not as likely to have sex with them. I also was too autistic for the exploitive men to understand or get with.  These men fortunately rejected me for my weirdness and for being a bookworm.

I was able to avoid exploitive men though or being used by one, and married my first love, but these special circumstances protected me. Many fat women sadly have to deal with these kind of men. Well all women do but with super fat women the risks are higher. How come Whitney doesn't talk honestly about this? She encourages the exploitation of fat women by toxic men in her own man and baby hunger. She's a walking cliche of the desperate fat spinster. She dates men who dump her for thin women, ignores the guy [Lenny] whose actually physically attracted to her and makes the worse dating choices possible. 

 She's definitely no feminist rebel against the system on our behalf. She's taking the crumbs and that makes me mad. I wish we had a fat strong women who wouldn't take crap from men. This is the worse personality for young fat women to watch and be instructed on love lives. This may sound weird from deconverted me but perhaps the nuns and others who instilled all these high ideals in me about love, protected me from some of the worse.  

Toxic men do prey on super fat women. They tried it with me and failed. Rebecca was trying to break through Whitney's wall, because it seemed like she learned her lesson and Whitney was just repeating the same mistake. I got frustrated because I wanted Rebecca to be more direct but she did at least get Whitney to ask if the Frenchman was another AVI....Well yes.

The other women do seem to have more sense of self, and career success and a presence. I do envy their confidence. I see Whitney lacking. Whitney tries too hard. While Whitney has a TV show and fame, she lacks this inner peace and stamina inside, that the other fat women have. It is something I have had to work on, like I got to the edges of it via ACON recovery and going no contact from abusers. I do think of recovery messages all the time in my head. I think Whitney should go into therapy. She is messed up inside too from feeling like she is "not enough", that will mess people up. 

Whitney I think has something odd with the parents she needs recovery from. They don't seem overtly "abusive" [Whitney was never hit, or yelled at or stuff like that as far as we know] but there's some weirdness with Babs I pick up on. I read Babs as having some elements of covert narcissism that have carried over to Whitney. Babs comes out with passive aggressive stuff all the time with a dark undertone. One thing to notice with Babs is while she appears "nice" there are a lot of disguised comments, like compliments with a bite, is the best way I can describe it. Babs has poor boundaries too always saying sexual things that are over the top too, Babs doesn't touch people but crosses people's boundaries that way--the apple may not have fallen far from the tree.

Whitney could have been in a golden child role. Whitney obviously believes she has to perform to please them. She is in this weird trap. It's given her drive, and ironically fame, but she is having problems with all her relationships and doesn't have a calm or peaceful presence.

You can tell she is comparing herself to these women and considering herself not to be "enough", the jealousy is busting out from her to the immense. I am a 4 on the Enneagram, we can be jealous types and it is a "shadow" I have to deal with but damn she is so jealous of them, it's insane, like green eyed monster has taken over, and scared not to be the center of attention. This goes with her lack of inner fortitude. Something is missing there. I see a nice group of women, and she is there to compete and one up them all. They can pick up on it too.  They can see her emotional abuse fueled shame and other problems. They ask her to teach them some dancing but instead she twerks around and destroys personal bodily boundaries slapping all the women on the butt.

I do think there could be some implicit personality disorder as discussed here. The top theories are BPD and NPD, she seems to show multiple narcissistic traits, and that "hot" and "cold" stuff.  She seems to fear abandonment and is unable to spend time alone.  This explains a lot of the weirdness with Buddy where one minute he's the greatest thing since sliced bread and the next she turns on him putting him down. The clinginess, endless demands, loudness, crossing of boundaries and the constant quests for every room to have her as the center of attention, all speak to some sort of personality disorder.

She idealizes Buddy and then trashes him all within 20 minutes. I am often curious at Buddy's past, did he face abuse growing up? It makes me wonder why he is in the abusive dance with her too. One thing with people abused when young is the dysfunctional relationships and even friendships can continue late into adulthood.  This happened to me. Someone taught Buddy that this was how one was supposed to be treated though I think sobriety and probably "recovery" classes are waking Buddy up. I was in a depression recovery and peer group a few years and it helped wake me up to get out of abusive relationships including friendships.

She treats her friends horribly. I feel bad for Ashley and Heather because I keep thinking betrayal is coming girls, unless they remain "mirrors".

I question this show a lot, but sometimes even ask "Why was this person chosen as the example for living happy while fat?" It could be called "My Big Fat Miserable Life." She has a TV show and fame, and you can tell she doesn't feel like "enough" and she has some problems. I think she needs to address. Being super fat can mess people up. You know I deal with some crazy stuff because of it but she's not in a good place at all. 

Fat, sassy and active is possible at stable midsized weights. some of the women at the Fat Ladies Traveling group were midsized and looked like they could maintain a life, though some better focus on weight stability to make sure this does not change. Some were above 300, and probably most likely would face some health issues. 

Rebecca however is near disability, and large enough to be disabled if she is not very soon. I could wear Rebecca's clothing, I have more of a hanging stomach from my fatter past. She looks like she weighs in the high 400s to even low 500s. My last weigh in was 515lbs. Rebecca seems to be a very nice person, and I wish she was the star of this show. 

As people here know I have CFS and complex autoimmune problems most people have never heard of even beyond the Lipedema stage 4.  Yesterday I went to get a blood test, did some gardening --tearing out my cucumber vines that died, two veggie stands, a small estate sale, and cooked curry for dinner. I am exhausted today and in bed, because my swelling got out of control. Add in autism. Autism and autoimmune diseases go together too. 

I am seeing a nutritionist for the extreme uric acid they now think is from a rare inherent condition instead of anything I am eating and focusing now on getting more help. The rehab and clinic thing is complicated. I'm talking now to a nutritionist and others about what I should do. I may need to explore going to a pain clinic. Every time I try to be active at all, the pain gets out of control. The joint and other pain is hurting me. I am being what my brain calls "lazy" right now but laying in this bed has dampened down the pain. It creates this weird cycle in my head that troubles me. There's times I am literally limping at the end of a day.

One issue for me in the size acceptance world, as people here know who have read my much early articles on this blog from the early 2010s, is too many of them denied the health effects of severe obesity.  While I have seen some improvements in this arena, Whitney is definitely still stuck in the old mode. Does being superfat have to be tied to denying reality? Sure I can't stand the diet brokers and fat bigots either but isn't she playing into their hands?

I remember those days still where I told Marilyn Wann on a online message board under another name that I was 700lbs and dying. She invalidated me. I did have many things wrong and I went on to live for 25 plus more years. 

Whitney doesn't know it but she is very close to being disabled. 50 more lbs. and she may not be able to walk. I was very tall, almost 6 feet when young so could carry a lot more weight. I lost a massive amount of height and am only 5 foot 7 inches now. Whitney is short as hell so 400lbs on her, would be equal to 500lbs on a taller person. Whitney's clothes would fit me but would all be "too short". If she is as "wide" as me, she is in big time trouble. I still hold to my theory that she has Lipedema. I could be wrong but I noticed the tell-tale sign of leg lumpiness, though she doesn't seem to have the ankle cuffs, when she attempted to go tubing on her birthday.

Her body is breaking down you can see it, and age worsens this. One thing that is unusual about me is I am into health food, and will not eat processed food, desserts, or "normal American food", I already would be dead. I don't see Whitney eating vegetables, salads or cooked food, but microwaved crap out of cans. How come we never see WHAT she eats? That seems to point to some possible problems with food addiction, we don't know her eating and other habits. If she was open with those, it would help others too. How come she shows no interest in cooking, eating, or nutrition? Whitney could even prove what she eats via her show and talk about weight in a honest fashion. If she has satiety issues and hunger problems she could talk about it. I told my nutritionist, I can stick to regular meals during the day, but I have intense hunger all the time. Lay it out on the table. Why hide everything? If she didn't hide stuff she could either get help for medical problems underlying the obesity, or get help for any would be food addiction. 

Whitney could lose her show, from a health crisis alone, a hurt leg, cellulitis bout, or other health issue. She can't keep up now, and age alone will end all the feigned athleticism. She could end up on a walker too. I think she needs a cane now for balance and to walk around safely, but some may disagree with me. I have watched her at the gym and she seems to do little cardio. I am not in shape, but determined even when I did the gym, that one needed to do a sustained activity for 15-20 minutes at least to get some heart and lung benefits. I don't see her doing this. She does a lot of weights and grunts and pulls but no sustained cardio. That was always strange to me, when they showed her exercise segments.  

She is in denial about how bad of shape she is in. They do this to people in size acceptance world, I used to protest it and HAES. There was a healthism in that world and still is where only the healthy are embraced, I used to tell people in NAAFA at 700lbs I was sick and dying, and they'd get pissed because I wasn't presenting the picture of the happy sassy fat woman. As people know my own history with the size acceptance movement is very fraught with controversy. Don't get me started how the fat and sassy crap doesn't work for those of us on the autistic spectrum.

Whitney is stuck dancing as fast as she can. She would do a service more to other fat people and herself if she got real. I have needed endless medical support to even stay alive this long. You don't want to know how many specialists I see. I have something like 7 doctor appointments in the next month. She actually has more health resources then me, she doesn't have autoimmune disease, she can breathe properly [the gym wasn't even possible for me until I was on a strong enough COPD medicine], she has money, she has a loving family. She needs to go to some damn doctors and therapists instead of playing at being a trainer. She is close to being disabled. When that happens, there will be no more show. She could help a lot of fat people having such a platform. It could have been used for so much better. 

He's Right About the Class Warfare but Gets Covid Wrong

 The Great Covid Class War

"Today millions of Americans have fallen into poverty or are on the verge of destitution. Stimulus money has largely been used as a handout to corporations, and over 160,000 small businesses have closed. In March and April 30 million Americans filed for unemployment. Now temporary job losses are becoming permanent. 12 million unemployed people may see their benefits lapse even if Congress passes a new aid deal. Homelessness is spiking, 11.4 million households owe $70 billion in back rent and fees, and 40 million people are at risk of eviction. In some states, food bank lines stretch for miles, and 1 in 4 children are expected to experience food insecurity. 

Meanwhile, Walmart and Target reported record sales. Amazon tripled its profits and Jeff Bezos made $70 billion. Billionaires have collectively made over $1 trillion since March. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft now make up 20% of the stock market’s total worth. The tech industry has achieved an unparalleled level of wealth and dominance. Data, which has been more valuable than oil since 2017, is expected to expand its economic footprint.

“This is not an unforced error or a good policy idea implemented poorly. It is an economic agenda disguised as a health protocol.”

Unemployment, hunger, institutional breakdown, and the destruction of social bonds are not symptoms of a virus. They are the indirect violence of class warfare. The pandemic is a convenient scapegoat for the largest upward wealth transfer in modern human history. Under the pretext of a public health policy, elites have successfully waged a counterrevolution that will result in the erosion of working conditions and quality of life for generations to come. "

I sometimes go to read the "opposite" side of things, and was hanging around Reddit, and saw this article. I DO NOT agree with them being against Lock Downs.  I think the author is ABSURD when he claims that people were being doomsday for the virus to necessitate lockdowns. My own state had the hospitals getting overwhelmed, but the governor shut down the restaurants and other places and numbers of cases were reduced. I know a nurse personally via my UU church, she disappeared once Covid broke, but I heard enough through the grapevine to know Covid is an absolute shit-show. 

 All I know is so many people have gotten it that I know, it's definitely real and serious. One did almost die in the ER. I have several medical appointments coming up and talked over with my friends if it is safe enough to go. 

I cracked dark jokes to my husband, that Amazon was going to take over, because even someone like me who only used Amazon three times in 6 years, was now having to use it all the time to buy non-food items. I know for those who believe that the elite "plan" anything, that we may have the taint of being affected by conspiracy thinking, but I think about the class issues too and how the Covid epidemic is going to be used to make society more totalitarian. The mantras of social distancing and the rest, bothered me from the start.

And they are right, the middle and upper classes made sour dough bread at home maybe in between some homeschooling, while the lower classes were all forced out to their low paid "essential jobs" to work with the public and be at risk everyday. Someone pointed out this was one reason, some facets of the population were not taking the lockdowns seriously, because after all if they were forced to go to work why would they take them seriously? My own household was in a strange place where we could mimick the "at home" life of the upper classes due to husband's gig employment, but he lost work too. How long will unemployment last? In our case, we can keep the rent paid, due to my disability but I'm not exactly looking down a hallway either of economic security.

The destruction of small business concerns me, in my state at least a third of small businesses have closed their doors forever. We will have nothing but corporate businesses and conglomerations left. Unless Biden does a UBI, or something changes, we are looking at millions of homeless people. The working class isn't going to suddenly come up with 5-10,000 dollars to pay months of back rent. From what I can tell, the money-masters and upper classes don't care, you either pay or you are out. Some of my bills have even increased during all this. 

This consolidates power in some very unseemly ways. What's scary is people like this author blame the "lockdowns" instead of looking at the fact the virus is out of the bag and doing REAL damage. I worry about alt-right garbage being promoted under the guise of caring about the working class. Something seems weird with that website.

Are we being betrayed for economic and other agendas? I don't know. Some really awful stuff is going on. I ask myself why a real short term lock-down was never done to end this fiasco once and for all, and stop the virus from spreading.  The antimaskers and others have been the usual pawns to spread death and destruction. How can anyone believe it is "just a cold" anymore when I personally know so many people who have gotten sick or even of people who died--at least 7 friends have an immediate or other family member who died, and some of these people were YOUNG.

 Someone posted this on reddit, and I found myself wondering about this too....

"I will go to my grave believing that the US "COVID response" was at least partially an intentional project of the ruling class to liquidate less productive/vulnerable people. Spending on Social Security and Medicare has long been a target for the oligarchy, but has always been somewhat untouchable.

In the short term, doing a proper lockdown with significant aid to keep people home probably would have been better for "the economy" (corporations and billionaires) by averting the present catastrophe.

How can we explain the seemingly irrational decisions of our very self-interested, calculating oligarchs? Either they are simply incompetent and cruel (certainly true, to an extent), or there's another economic rationale at play.

The 1 in 1,000 Americans who have died so far were, in general, older, more likely to be working class/poor, more likely to be from marginalized racial/ethnic groups, and many had other medical conditions. Their needs were deliberately ignored during a global pandemic, and they died. Never forget."

The Social Engineering of Covid19

The Class Split in the Democratic Party

I feel weary from seeing fellow Democrats claim Bernie is an extremist, or could never win. It's hard enough to argue with all the Trumpsters, without adding fellow Democrats to the list. A lot has me worried lately though on the political front.  I find myself thinking this split is going to get Trump in the door again. It's really got me worried.  A repeat of Trump in 2020, would destroy our lives. Please vote blue which ever way it goes for us to be spared that. I may have to take a vomit bag to the voting booth,  if it's Biden or Bloomberg though.

The country will go deeper into fascism if Trump wins. He's already attacked every environmental law and ones that bring good things to people lives. When you find yourself having conversations about leaving a country you have lived all your life in, that says something. I and my husband have had those conversations. However we hit the the giant barrier of poverty and my disability keeping us out of any new country. He lived in Europe and knows it's more expensive. Canada doesn't take disabled people. My health is too precarious to go to a developing nation.


The Democratic party is split in two. I plan to vote Blue to get the Orange faced Menace out of office, no matter who it is, but I am deeply disappointed at the hatred for true progressive agendas in the Democratic party. Some of the moderates outside a few social issues, to me sound just like Republicans. Too many of them flip flopped like Mayor Pete, claiming to be for Medicare for All in 2018 and definitely going back on this probably after his wealthy backers screamed "No Way!". The megacorporations and 1 percent are directing the show.

We need a third party in this country but because the two party system is so entrenched and any third parties closed out, I understand why progressive politicians like Bernie and AOC decided to work within the confines of the Democratic party. The monkey business to close them out like the conveniently malfunctioning voting app in Iowa, seems extensive. Watching Hillary Clinton come out to put down Bernie, like she wants to help re-elect Trump is disgusting beyond measure. Some rich boomers who seem to want to keep the status quo same as it ever was, are only putting up barriers to any true progress in this country.

There are class differences which are splitting the Democratic party. Urban professions and older boomers with higher incomes, seem to go for the moderate or neoliberal candidates. One can understand that they do not want their taxes skyrocketing. People after all do vote often in their own self interests, but even here, Trump has raised taxes to have them go for war mongering. At least Bernie would let us use our taxes to better lives for average people instead of more corporate subsidies and wars. 

Poor people, millennials, blue collar and others like myself support Bernie. While many of these more moderate or neo-liberal people are well intended and are allies on many social issues, economically they are not as keen to any radical changes to the system. Some don't realize that for a majority of Americans, the system is no longer working for them, wages have dropped, cost of living increases to Social Security has flatlined, the jobs are gone, and hope of any corporate involved Democratic politicians making any changes to their daily lives, just isn't going to happen. Many of us realize that Obama gave too much space to Republicans. This helped grow the role of the Democrat party playing good cop to the Republican party being the bad cop.  Another moderate Democratic president like Banker Joe, who will enable Republicans as they grow more extreme will worsen all of our lives economically.

Republicans always scream about the cost of everything and tell people a "better society" is a pipe dream as they pour trillions into the coffers of the billionaires.  Sadly they have gotten people to believe that to improve society would "cost too much", and one can see this influence on neo-liberals and moderates in the Democratic party too. We really have two right wing parties now with the Democrat party having a more moderate "right wing", and a progressive wing. This is a problem. Trump could benefit off the split that is now entrenched in the Democratic party.

Neoliberalism supports capitalism and still believes in that old but now dying concept of the American dream. Old ideas about the "bad commies" here also influence moderate Democrats who are outraged at too many social programs. We are way overdue for a new FDR and investment into failing American infrastructure. What is sad is Trump has plenty of socialism paid out to corporations where more of them don't pay any taxes and his billionaire buddies but people scream bloody murder once someone says maybe the wealth should be shared with average folks and improve their lives and day to day society.

The neoliberal and moderate Democrats still believe in the system. Those with good lives in a system that works for them are going to see the world in an entirely different fashion. For many of the poorer, we realize the system is failing. All I have to do is go down 2 miles down the street to see the shacks, the dead mall, the bridge I am afraid is going to crumble into the river, and know America is not some gleaming suburb like many of these moderates live in, it's becoming a third world country.

The system is not working and this is a HUGE GAP, people who believe in the system are not going to want major changes to it. If they can pay their bills, and live good lives, and have money and savings for their children's college, why upset the apple cart? They see the progressive wing as "radicals" who may upset the nation. Many do preach compromise with the Republican party and I know being the age I am now, the days of bipartisan dealings and compromise were far different before the Republican party became so extreme. Fiscal conservatives weren't necessarily religious extremists.

Some of us have survival at stake. If Trump or others end one social program, Medicare D, or Social Security [SSD in my case] or do the huge 20-30 percent cut to subsistence level checks they have already threatened, my future in America may be short lived. People are dying now from lack of medical care or limited medical care. We know my husband has very limited care where immediate symptoms are treated but there is no diagnosis or long term care. The numbers of homelessness are growing. The same jobs that gave older boomers good lives are no longer there. Millennials are despairing of ever having families or any futures. Suicide rates are skyrocketing up. Gig employment is now growing in number. So many people keep voting for those who want to bring more economic oppression. Obama was in office while disabled people didn't get cost of living increases for over 8 years.Why should people vote for those who have only the same things to offer?

Many of these moderate and neoliberal Democrats simply don't live in the same world economically or otherwise. They are buffered from viewing the extreme poverty in the USA. Sometimes I wonder if some even don't realize it exists. I've met people like that who think America just consists of nice surburban houses and shopping districts with plenty of money. Neoliberal politicians don't  admit the depth of poverty in America. Hillary Clinton in 2016 kept waxing on about the problems of the middle class while ignoring the existence of the working class or poor. In her world, they literally don't exist.

Many moderate and neoliberal Democrats see poverty as only limited to a few "inner city" ghettos and have the empathy to understand that racism is a major problem that has affected African Americans and other minorities and affected many lives. However they still live in this dream bubble that "hard work" can make anyone move up in American society and that America is the "land of opportunity." They can afford healthcare, education and transportation. They have expendable income for different stable lifestyles instead of the people who scramble to live or depend on low income jobs that do constant lay-offs.

What makes this even more complicated is many moderate Democrats are good people, they care about social justice, they are giving people, they have empathy to fight racism and for gay rights, but I do think some don't understand how deeply the system has failed for so many and for the young. They don't understand what it means when young people have lost hope for the future or the fear and angst of Gen X middle aged people who never got to enjoy any stable economic foundations to build a life upon and our realizations that our old age if we live so long will be a very dangerous and precarious one, without any major changes. They don't understand that life in the "ghetto's" is getting harder and harder and there's less jobs for minorities, and that if you drive a little bit even into rural America or further downtown, you can see all the cracks in the facade growing deeper and wider.

Many still believe that education will win the day, and that people can move up in this system, if they work hard enough, and this is simply not true. Meritocracy is not just a religion for Republicans but has influenced Democrats as well. They may remember Roosevelt thinking "He saved America from the Depression" but ignore the fact that on many levels with suppressed wages and globalism, America entered a new Depression 2.0. Here too, classism itself leads to some problems within the Democratic party where "ignorance" and "lack of education" as seen as the poverty producers instead of the injustice built into the system as a whole. As the rules are written for a few winners at the top, and for more to become losers, this is ignored and the myths hold sway about a "level playing field". The moderate/neoliberal Democrat will admit that racism is a bad influence and will stand up for identity politics, but ignore the impact of class.

Even moderate Democrats will complain about free stuff. We know Republicans have been. One thing to note is neoliberals support often the same war machine, that Republicans do. More and more corporations pay no taxes, which makes the tax burden on individuals even worse. Sadly many of these politicians are corporate funded, which means even within the Democratic party, the agendas of the corporations are pushed well over those of the people. Don't forget Democratic politicians get kick backs and are just as bought off. Hillary doesn't mind more war and corporate subsidies but when a politician like Bernie claims he wants to help families, the disabled and average folks, she says he is "promising the moon".

One sign of this is Bloomberg another billionaire being seen as a viable candidate. They rewrote the rules of the debate to let him come in.  We already had one billionaire with Trump and now the moderate/neoliberal Democratic party wants to push another one down our throats. So a billionaire who is out of touch going to care about the needs of people who struggle in America? I doubt it. There's not only "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" who vote Republican but plenty in the Democratic camp too. However for those who have faced tough times long enough, cognitive dissonance gets them to finally face reality. No billionaire is going to fix a system that allowed them to become a billionaire in the first place. As America sinks into fascism, more compromise and moderation is not the answer.

Bernie's Real Obstacle is not Trump, It's the Democratic Establishment

Will the DNC betray us in 2020?

The Lipedema World is Too Caught up With Crazy Diets Instead of Finding a CURE.

I can't stand Lipedema boards anymore on Facebook, it's diet central, and not just your run of a mill Weight Watchers diets. Some of them have now jumped on the bandwagon of Keto gone extreme, there's now a diet, where people eat nothing but meat. It's called the Carnivore Diet.  

Some of the Keto fanatics have decided that carbs are so evil, that they should be done away with entirely. One woman announced to me that vegetables were bad for you. I am so mal-nutritioned, that doctors ordered nursing care for me three months ago, to get to the root, I had to show diet journals, on exactly what I was eating and more. They realized the cause wasn't what I was eating but medical.

I am having serious problems with anemia, that are scary. The anemia could be related to my connective tissue disorder. My red blood cells are often too small. It is coming and going. Sometimes it makes me break out in extreme sweats. I am re-adding some beef to the diet, trying to be cautious, due to the kidney stones. I am low on multiple vitamins. Yesterday's food included a hardboiled egg, some cooked turnips and carrots, pistachios, a peach, one chicken breast, an apple, a turkey sandwich, and some canned soup that had a little bit of spinach and carrots in it so I am attempting to have the diet be variable for nutrition and to hedge my bets on the nutritional and vitamin deficiencies. Today I had eggs and mushrooms and peppers for breakfast and will have cooked cauliflower with onions for a soup at lunch with a sandwich, and probably left over chicken with peppers, tomatoes, probably cooked in some type of burrito dish or casserole.

I think people who think they can be healthy eating all meat are insane. I would be doubled over with the bowels checking out and it would be kidney stone city. I wonder if they will like scurvy? Are they promoting "functional anorexia" in some Lipedema circles so some women in less severe stages won't get so large? It makes me wonder. Fasting, and extreme diets are the name of the game. I find myself thinking, "Oh great, I have a rare fat woman's disease, where everyone just sees fat, and they have no interest in focusing on a real medical cure, they'd rather focus on starving us all so we comply-body wise".

I have given up on diets. Maybe it's size acceptance, maybe I am just too damn physically hungry all the time. Maybe I got sick of it all realizing it didn't work. Maybe I have to eat a certain way to avoid headaches, digestive hell, and to just stay alive.  Maybe it's realizing severe dieting forced me on insulin or that the diabetes WORSENS when I have LESS food. I have noticed my blood sugars are far better when I eat what I want and when I want it--when hungry. Today's was 125. I know I will stay supersized for life. Diets brought me nothing but shame, blame, misery, and depression, and never worked on me anyway.

I don't want to eat some extreme nutso way, to have a normal body. One woman told me Carnevore is not a calorie restricted way of eating and that it was the opposite of starving and high in fat, and would keep hunger away. She told me carbohydrates cause hunger and to include offal to avoid nutritional deficiencies. I am allergic to liver and know that offal creates very high levels of uric acid so found this advice dubious as well. She told me, "We don't need any dietary carbohydrates." [what!!!?]


For my own sanity, I am going to avoid those boards. Too many women only care about how they look, and the judgment on a supersized person in those circles is too immense. They cry over being 210lbs so 500lbs would not be acceptable. Some do lose fat weight but their swollen legs and hips remain. Some are obsessed about weight to a degree that is psychologically harmful especially to someone like myself whose taken multiple decades of abuse over being overweight.  It makes me upset that the central focus is on the fat weight and not on why our lymph systems have failed. It troubles me that there will be no real cure or help for this disease and people will keep dying, and blamed and shamed for "not losing enough weight."


I still go to the gym by the way, was there twice last week and this Saturday, can do 20 minutes on the arm bicycler, am doing the rope pull which I like to build stamina. I like the gym, just wish my overall fatigue was not so bad, to keep up with.

I have given up on weight loss dreams and find it all absurd and depressing. I made it to my 50s which I guess is something since everyone said I would be dead by 35 for being so fat.  I hope I don't gain weight and need to maintain my mobility but there's no way I am going to sign on to any crazy diet that makes me feel like shit all day long.

There's a certain point where people's advice sucks. I wonder what is going on in the Lipedema world that these crazy diets are being advanced and I am disappointed as hell about it all. It often is not a supportive or good psychological place for a supersized woman to be. If I am feeling this way, how many other stage 4 people  are feeling like I do or even worse because they may be immobile or bigger seeing their health communities betray them this way?  I consider it a betrayal, having crazy diets shoved down my throat. Some seem to be true believers too, like their diet will bring the promised land. Well I know how often people push their false promises. If men, had Lipedema except a few rare ones, the answers wouldn't be more diets, more would be done.

Family as a Sacred Cow

 
I hate the word FAMILY.  Like Henry Rollins, rages about his Dad in his NSFW spoken word act of the 1980s, Family Man,  I spit out the word "Family" like it's a cuss word. It's not a positive thing to me, just read this blog. Even at my UU church, which means well in it's celebration of both mother's and father's day, I stay home. Family is like a religion in itself.

Many of us figured out religion is a sacred cow and we left it. I think the same about family. Not all families are bad, and maybe some have their own happy families but in this society, family is raised on a pedestal, and made to be something it often is not for many people. We are told Mom, Dad and apple pie, and that every home is a loving safe haven. Every church I went to or visited promoted "THE FAMILY TM", as the most important thing, which is ironic given the leader they claim to follow never had a family of his own and seemed be at least low contact with his family of origin.

Family is like a religion almost, where we are given these idealistic pictures that simply don't hold up. My own family history was abysmal, I am no contact from almost the whole lot, religion played a role when I left my family's church at age 17. Going full no contact was a very positive decision for me. I have no regrets. According to the mythos of society, I have broken every rule in "going against family".

Like religion with it's false promises, we are told a "story" about family that does not measure up. I wonder myself why DNA seems to in many cases bring no cooperation or love or understanding between people.Why does it work for some and not others? Such a thing is a mystery to me. DNA seems to bring out cohesion among some people and hatred among others.

The family often is not a crucible of love but one of danger with domestic abuse, child abuse, divorce, martial rape, scapegoating, and crimes of violence. If anything while some bad families are shown in literature, mostly family is romanticized. Father is all knowing, kind and wise, Mother is strong but nurturing and gentle, ready to bring you biscuits and a warm blanket if poor, or ready to bring you some tea and nursing care in a bed with clean white sheets, if wealthier. The Dads on the Brady Bunch, Father Knows Best, Family Ties, always sat down and discussed things openly with their kids and worked things out.  Siblings are shown as having each others backs, and as support for each other through out their adult lives. While some people win the family Lotto, and get great people in their lives they happen to be related to, many do not. Family dysfunction and danger are the reality for many.


Family systems are often part of the control system as much as religion and the majority are run on authoritarianism. "Family" is defined in a certain way too, which ostracizes LGBTQ people, the single, and the childless. Families are utilized for social control, focusing on conformity, and compliance with social norms. In Western culture especially American culture, children are pitted against parents and vice versa. Some even say it is wrong for a parent to be a friend with a child. Why? I could have used a couple friends instead of living with two "enemies". While some cultures focus on cooperation and learning as prime directives between parents and children, this one focused on "helicopter parents", "discipline" and "obedience". Guess which cultures probably have happier relationships between family members.  Also look at the competition of our society, our families have become competition clubs where the "winners" look down at the "losers". Is the family a cell in the matrix of control with religion as an overriding control mechanism?

One thing every ACON that goes no contact has to do is ACCEPT THE REALITY you have been given. One has to rip the rose colored glasses off their face and take a look at what you got. You may dream of Hallmark moments, reconciliation or redemption as show on television but if you are dealing with narcissists it's never going to happen. The myths, messages and lies about our family in this society is something every ACON who wants healing has to contest. Not every parent is loving, not every sibling cares. Some of us end up with roulette spin of bad people who care nothing about us.

It can be hard even for a post no contact ACON, to see how family is constantly shoved down our throats, one of the worse is that it is assumed that everyone has one. This is kind of damaging in an era where there are more single and childless people then ever before. Some people are exploring the ideas of found families, friends you turn into your family because DNA has been proven to be limited in it's ability to bring forth compatible personalities and peaceful relationships. Perhaps family is just a social construct. We know that human beings weren't just limited to nuclear families but once had fuller social circles in tribes. Definitely among the religious right, the change in the definition of traditional families is giving them fits.

With my husband I have told him maybe mankind needs to evolve beyond families. it is a biological prison. We don't have children in our case-- He laughs, we can have these interesting off the wall conversations and says, "What do you want people living in communes with numbered uniforms?" and I joke and say "Yeah that would have been better!"

Family is Overrated

Deconversion a Year Later: Email to Online Christian Pal

I've been a lot happier since deconversion and feel like I can enjoy life now with out life being a long list of rules and edicts, and one thing that made me happier, was being free of the idea that I always had to worry about being "perfect" and could just be me. Being freed of the narcissists freed me from toxic religion and yes the two are intertwined.

I had a Christian online acquaintance of some years,  I wrote this email too. They were into heavy conspiracy and bible prophecy like me, but remain within fundamentalist Christianity. They were shocked I deconverted but stayed civil with me. They came to me first asking questions, and I decided to have an open and honest discourse. We parted ways at the end but things were kept civil.

It was interesting to write how and why I left to them and new thoughts about God.  In his system of religion, he told me in the nicest way possible he believed I was going to hell but I understood, after all I had believed the same as him before. Writing this email exchange back and forth definitely helped to solidify some thoughts further. Some parts of this email have been edited or changed for clarification. I have included only what I wrote him.

"There's other problems with Christianity too, that I have faced, the very notion of a God needing a blood sacrifice to forgive sins is wrong. I hope this doesn't upset you. I believe now this is the tenets of an ancient barbaric culture instead of truth and reality. I believe everyone has the right to their beliefs. Someone like me definitely understands personally the attraction Christianity holds for people since I was in it myself.


I studied my way out with intense bible study, and more. Guess that's the best way I can explain. There was so much injustice in the bible that went against my conscience. Read Ezekiel 9 where babies and children are ordered to be killed by Yahweh. In Samuel 12, God has David's wives raped for punishment for his murder of Uriah.  More and more I came to the conclusion it was man-written, and the God formed inside had the positive yearnings of man like love and caring for others, he also had negative qualities as well--capriciousness and the desire to be worshiped. Why wasn't slavery outlawed in the Ten Commandments or rape? These things bothered me more and more.

Prayers never had answers, the whole religion became one of false promises. I am happy I stood up for justice, against war and against Trump on our shared Christian websites, but I was pretty alone in all these things. I got caught up into the conspiracy though, be careful of the path I took.

I can now see my cognitive dissonance all over our Christian websites. I wrote posts about how the religious right abused the poor, and told other Christians to "follow Jesus's teachings about the poor not the religious right's". I really was a closeted liberal trying to be a born again Christian.

The more I examined Christianity, conspiracy, bible prophecy and what I had been led to believe the whole thing was collapsing for me. I started questioning that something was wrong with the whole OPERATING SYSTEM. I was looking in other words for a religion that did not exist. It was not pure or standing for human freedom. The Bible became more of a confusing, contradicting mish-mash. The more I studied it, the more I questioned it. It obliterated reality, it did not describe it. The classic battle between science and religion raged in my mind.

I deconverted facing myself in a mirror, realizing I could not love a God that horrified me. It was like a villain. It was mean. While Jesus showed kindness and compassion, and I probably will have a soft spot for many of his teachings shared in the New Testament outside of the warnings of hell which hopefully were later added, Yahweh was not a very nice character. Even Jesus is turned cruel in Revelation when one is told in Revelation 14, that there will be so much violence on earth from God's wrath, that rivers of blood will flow.

In another area of life, I was writing about abuse, namely severe narcissistic abuse. I had gone no contact from my own narcissistic family including a mother who I believe to be a sociopath. I lost every family member. With growing trepidation, I realized the Christian God treated people just like my abusers. This included demanding perfection, Stockholm Syndrome threats--"Love me or burn in hell" and other attributes. I always felt like I was walking on eggshells in a religion that did nothing but remind me of constant imperfections and failings. This article summed up many issues I had with God.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/is-the-christian-relationship-with-god-healthy/

Also please google Theramin Trees on YouTube, and watch his videos
especially the one regarding "worshipping narcissists" and "Creating
sickness"I am not technically an atheist but an agnostic now. I do still ponder various forms of theism. The Christian God because too limited, too much of a human creation to me with it's vindictiveness and genocides in the Old Testament. Jesus's sacrifice was an evolution out of other ancient pagan religions that demanded blood and human sacrifice. This  is far more obvious in Catholicism then Protestant and evangelical churches. As you know I am ex-Catholic as well, and we were taught to really believe we were drinking Christ's actual body and blood.

http://historicalhoney.com/8-ancient-cultures-practiced-ritual-human-sacrifice/

http://formerfundy.blogspot.com/2009/10/human-sacrifices-and-death-of-jesus.html

Reza Aslan who wrote the book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth believed that Jesus was an actual human being who fought against the opressions of Rome, that had divinity and legends added to him later. One thing described in that book that stands out to me, is how Aslan makes it clear, that Christianity the religion was born out of the crisis of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. With Jesus, I look at the decent teachings and imagine a man teaching those as a good moral teacher like others, we have had on this earth and realize so much could have been added by the church system later to consolidate power and money.

Scientists have discovered that there are a trillion galaxies, in the knowable universe and this is just the area where our telescopes and radio technologies can reach, so the Christian god became too limited to me. I still consider the possibility of there being a God, though he or she or it, may be beyond human understanding. One atheist vlogger, Darkmatter2525 on youtube, did a video where he had two religious people and an atheist die, and show up in front of God. He had his "God" character state to the Christian, "So you want to believe I torture people!?" and the God figure is very upset. What part of humanity even went so low as to even think of a place like hell, that didn't even exist in the Judaism of the Old Testament?

I've seen a lot of evil in this life as you know. Even then, with my life on the hard setting compared to the American lifestyle, millions have had it far worse. A concentration camp victim even once wrote, "When I see God, he will have to apologize to me". I used to worry about something, I'd pray for money for a bill or help with something else and then think of the people starving in our world or who had everyone they knew blown up under a bomb and think what makes me so special? It all felt like whistling by the graveyard, begging for the game of chance to spare us. There can be a certain classist narcissism in segments of American Christianity like when a middle class housewife brags of praying for a parking space and finding it. One wonders then about the ones praying to stay alive of terminal cancer or of those who have lost children, and it seems to all be a confusing muddle. Intervention to me, because a joke., While I had loving people come and help me in this life, many times, God seemed indifferent to many people. Thoughts and prayers devoid of action, didn't help anyone.

I understand what drives all this, people want a God that cares. Deconversion boards are full of people who tell stories like, "I just wanted God to show love or that he cared". People want rescued from the endless horrors this world offers. Humanity suffers from the giant pressure of knowing of their own personal demise coming one day and perhaps this has sparked off a madness of sorts. Add to this the grief of losing loved ones and wanting to see them one day, and this is one reason religion has kept such a strong hold.

The story that some people ate an apple or "had sex" [The Gnostic's theory about the Garden of Eden] or attained human consciousness with "knowledge of good and evil" where humans moved from animal to human consciousness in the story of Adam and Eve to describe why humans need to be punished so severely no longer cut it for me. God could forgive without blood, so yes, I asked if the Christian god was a positive force or not or if it even existed or was merely a human creation. So I am not an atheist but an agnostic who dreams of a better God, or "Source" as my fellow UUs call it. I do not think Christianity is valid anymore in describing the nature of reality. The Being that drowned million of babies in the OT in the flood or threatens with eternal torture is not kind and compassionate. I believe this is a very human creation. I have returned to the Unitarian Universalist Association.|

 Satan is the comic book nemesis to keep the whole machine running. Good and evil dictate that some is wrong with a religion especially in fundamentalist Christianity where most burn, and most human beings end up in the worse circumstances possible. So much pain and horror are then unleashed. Here I will recommend a book for you by David Quinn called Ishmael. I read the first but plan to read the whole series. I realized Christianity and other religions were built on the nation-state's desire for a strong-man-God to match the strong-men of the newly growing civilizations that came with the invention of agriculture. Reza Aslan in his book, God: A Human History makes it clear, that God and religion massively changed after the invention of agriculture.

Evil sadly is enabled in religion and reality is distorted to the point of harm. .In my case to recover from the narcissistic abuse, I had to learn to define reality and deal with what was actually true instead of what I wished to be true. This impacted all of my life.  Being handed magical thinking and distorted reality especially in fundamentalist Christianity, did me a great disservice. It taught me to live in denial, and ignore and not confront what happened to me. It was like a lullaby that lured me to sleep, giving my narcissists far more power and control over me, as my religion told me to be submissive, accommodating and forgiving of abusers. I was told to be passive, to be accepting--none of them accepted me, to forgive and forget and told never to talk about the negative which by the way had the reverse affect of worsening depression and negativity and blocked me from the good. Just like my narcissistic family told me to deny reality, sadly my fundamentalist religion did too. In my case, I had to wake up on both fronts and deal with what was true.

While there are good and kind Christian people and some are in my life, I saw a lot of evil enabled in Christianity. With scapegoats,and abuse victims, I noticed without fail, that their abusers were the ones to be forgiven and redeemed even without repentance and the abused were often the ones told they were wrong for making a stand. I started questioning the idea of perfection and a started to ponder why would a perfect God expect imperfect beings to be measure up to his standards? It seemed unfair and that seemed narcissistic as well. I would ask questions like, "Where is the love and compassion as humanity is just put under a giant threat of burning in hell?" and also came to the conclusion, "I don't want cold, cruel and scary gods who demand I be perfect or perfect by proxy--Jesus, to be accepted and loved.

The Christian religion doesn't work for me anymore. Some have found love and meaning in it but for me personally it no longer worked. I found the God of the Bible cruel beyond measure. I also had the personal revelation of when I went no contact from a family that scapegoated me for decades, Why did I belong to a religion that honored scapegoating? While Jesus had good teachings, I wondered about the entire system of atonement and the good and kind son, being forced to submit to an oppressive father demanding blood and extreme obedience. Why were humans stuck in this parental paradigm of oppressive fathers that were owned submission unto death? Also the idea of Justice in Christian theology, made no sense to me either. The price shouldn't be blood for ANYTHING. That is brutal animal like desires. No enlightened being of any worth or conscience would demand
blood. We consider mob bosses who demand vendettas or blood for pay-back to be sociopaths. Why shouldn't we expect better of our God?

Some people have questioned the idea  of God and explored it deep, even asking if a god or Gods, could be some super-advanced alien intelligent life. How would we know? Star Trek even conceived of "Q" an alien being that had no limitations.  Christianity's definition of God became too limited for me.  The only conclusion I could come to is that the Christian God is a human creation since it has so many negative attributes of humans, positive ones of course appear as well. One question to ask yourself too, "Can this God even truly understand human suffering when it does not understand human limitations?" Even Jesus inside had to know he would rise again, being spared the worrisome thoughts about future non-existence or where he would end up. Some liberal theologians say God became human {Jesus} to learn empathy for human beings, but then why wasn't hell closed down and the system changed then? Yes I know this can be complex. The idea of blood atonements stopped making any sense to me and is a negative outcome of complex human history.

I believe a "Creator" God is possible, but a God that created trillions of galaxies is going to be something greater, better and more complex then a limited Christian god that demands blood sacrifices and gets upset over some people wearing two kinds of fiber at the same time or other sins as detailed in the bible. If such a God exists, the god of a trillions of galaxies and other life in the universe, it would not be petty, it would not be demanding blood atonements. Native tribes believed in a "Great Spirit", the Skihs have their version of God too. There are other religions that believe in a God outside of the blood atonement/sacrificing Abrahamic religions.

While I do believe a Creator God of some sort is possible, I do not see this God as intervening due to the nature of this planet. I do not know the reasons why or why not. In the UU, I can explore different facets and theories about the divine. Some atheists are at the point they cannot believe in a God at all. I have seen this quote before.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus


Another point I want to make, I realized as I went deep into Christianity, I could not be happy knowing millions in hell were burning. My husband never converted, you see. I am glad he never did now but at the time, I thought if he goes to hell, I could never happy.  Only a tyrant would separate a couple in love over beliefs.

We used to make jokes with each other, as a Christian, I would say get saved and get in the easy way, but he would joke you can come rescue me, a la that movie "When Dreams May Come." This brought questioning to me too. There was too much that didn't make sense here, and too much that was absurd.  I thought "Who was I being saved from?" and "Who was causing the original problems?"and questioned a religious system that wanted to rule me by fear.  When I was a Christian, three non-Christian close friends of mine died and according to my churches, they were now roasting forever in torture, I had witnessed to them all, so they heard the gospel, so no get out clauses there. The cognitive dissonance became unbearable. How on earth could I love a Being who was so eager to hurt the ones I loved. What was I to think?

If I died, and this stuff was true and I somehow ended up in heaven--yes I know you believe I am going to hell now for sure---and there was even one person I loved roasting in hell, I am the type of person who would push down the barricades no matter what it took to rescue them. For my husband, who I love beyond words the same would apply. If your God does exist, and it sends me to hell over all these thoughts and beliefs, well then it is better I am not with it anyhow."


*******************************

Well that was the core of the email. I am a far better off person a year in. It helped clear my mind so much. Some of us who do deconvert, have lingering fears, that our religious indoctrinated in us, but I know this will get better as time goes on. My life in my UU fellowship has been a happy one. I want religion to be a positive force in my life, that no longer divides me from people. Fundamentalist Christianity is very harmful on a multitude of levels. We were taught it was a "sin" to question our beliefs even which keeps many people in a lot longer. I know there's more positive forms of Christianity and some will say that I did encounter the most toxic, and that is true. I was a Catholic too, and left that church as well earlier in my life. I no longer believe in the religion as a whole but I hope I can get some Christians even to think about toxic elements in their churches and religion that are bringing harm to many people. With religion, one wants beliefs that are life giving, not life harming. One should ask yourself whatever your beliefs, if they are bringing more love and kindness into your life or not.

Deconversion Articles

Update: I consider myself a Christian today however I do not go to church at this time. I left the UU in 2023. I do not regret deconstructing organized religion. The churches do have serious problems.

Fat and Malnutritioned: Honey Boo and My Diet When Young

Deep fried Oreos? Those sound gross to me. I feel sorry for this girl, because I think what chance does she have with the average American diet?   Why are they eating cheap macaroni and cheese on a reality show salary? Of course they lost the show when the mother decided to date a child molester. 

There's many thin Americans eating the processed foods too and not getting as fat as Honey-Boo and Boo and her mother. Honey Boo-Boo is basically eating the diet of mal-nutrition that is creating more obesity. Potatoes, and eggs and macaroni and cheese and way too much sugar.  The typical American diet especially for the working class and poorer.

They eat processed foods to the hilt. I get unhappy with my food choices when we are lower on money. Food pantries give you the worse foods too. Some of the worse weeks, I have more intense feelings of hunger. I've seen rich people eat, they have side dishes, salads, pickles, and good breads on the side. Those things are wiped away when you are broke.

Eating frustrates me. I joked the other day, I wish I could go back to college just to have the pantheon of available food in your average dorm cafeteria. I lost 80lbs one year of college without even trying just because I had plenty of good food to eat like an open salad bar at every lunch and dinner. It's hard to describe the type of hunger I get when poor. It's like the body is hunting for food, it doesn't have. There's been times, where I have said "Screw it!", and gone and bought a SALAD with my last five dollars on earth because I have felt so desperately hungry for nutritious food.

I am actually DIAGNOSED with mal-nutrition. It's on my medical records. The doctors think I have some kind of mal-absorption problem but never having had weight loss surgery, my body is anemic--severely low on B-12, and severely low on Vit D and others. I eat vegetables and fruits. I reintroduced eggs back to my diet slowly--still on fence with that, and yesterday vegetables and fruits in the mix included an apple, a soup that had zucchini, pablano peppers, tomatoes and tomatillos in it. Dinner had more of the peppers and tomatoes in it too. So I try to include what fruits and vegetables I can.

Many are not educated on nutrition. I am and constantly frustrated. The good foods always DISAPPEAR FIRST because they are what I want to eat. I hoarded zucchini all week to put in tonight's dinner and a package of frozen spinach. I'm making  ground turkey lasagna with it and putting grated carrot and cottage cheese in the concoction. I casserole things to death to spread the food out.

 My poor diet as a child and later impacted me. It set me up for a lifetime of obesity. My mother controlled the refrigerator with an iron fist, even putting locks on the freezer because my brother loved to steal ice cream. She counted every slice of lunch meat and cheese and crouton in the kitchen. While my mother could cook she was not educated in nutrition.

Ironically as a fat child, I had severe hunger pangs all the time. Examining what I ate for breakfast and lunch for years, so wonder I was not doing well and grew fat.  It was the worse diet ever for a future woman with PCOS and severe insulin resistance. 

Here is what I had to eat everyday literally for YEARS:

Breakfast was two slices of toast with margarine, and a bowl of sugary cereal like Life cereal or Honey Nut Cheerios. I was not allowed to cook an egg, or make a sandwich for breakfast and trust me I tried to ask over and over. This breakfast was worthless for a pre-diabetic teen and actually brought severe hunger pains, by 10:30 in the morning.

Lunch was always a bologna sandwich with mayo and a leaf of lettuce on Italian white bread, the kind with the sesame seeds on the outside. With this came potato chips and three Oreo or Chips Ahoy cookies in small plastic baggies. My GC sister would get gold fish crackers with her lunch but those were "hers" and the rest of us were not allowed to touch them.

During Lent, remember my family was Catholic, the sandwich would be a tuna or egg salad sandwich.

When my mother decided I was too fat, the sandwich would be cut to a half and a few carrot and celery sticks would get thrown in the baggie instead of the three cookies.  Then the hunger really rolled in.

The numbers and amount of the food always stayed exact. I remember being so hungry in high school from the carb rich breakfast, I would eat some of the sandwich on the bus. When I had my own money, I was so tired of the same lunch for years, I would throw it away and buy some hot meal at my high school. Sometimes there would be salad bar. I went to Catholic school with no school cafeteria so outside of an occasional hot dog day, there was no hot lunch or other offerings. In high school, my parents refused to pay for any hot lunches demanding we take food from home, so unless I had my own money I was stuck with the repetitive lunch.

Dinners were better and would be some type of red meat --lots of steaks, roast beef, fried pork chops or chicken and mashed potatoes. There would be glass of milk or diet Pop.  My family would eat spaghetti on occasion with meat sauce and shakes of parm cheese out of the green can. Rice a Roni would pop up from time to time. We would have turkey and ham on holidays and home made deep dish pizza with Italian sausage, green peppers, onions and mushrooms every Saturday night.  Sunday morning she would make breakfasts with scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, Bob Evan sausages, bacon and those orange frosted cinnamon rolls out of a can. The vegetables were usually green beans or corn out of a can. In high school my mother's cooking talents expanded so at times I would get these fancy party salads of a taco salad with sour cream and , and a layered salad with bacon and cheese and peas every once in a while. She would make chocolate including almond bark and tons of chocolate sheet cakes during various holidays. Much of the cooking was done for company and not us.  It was a high carb, high meat, high fat, high sugar diet.

As a cook at dinners,  she was very good at it. So a lot of the food would be tasty at dinner time but it definitely was not the best for my body. The daily grind of cereal and bologna sandwiches did me no favors either. When I was away at college I would eat more soup,  salad, and hard boiled eggs. This was my best time of eating in my whole life. Even at the sandwich bar, I would pile on the veggies like an early version of Subway. My time in college was the time of my lowest adult weight. I never went to totally normal was down in the lower 200s for a time at nearly 6 feet of height. I had no inkling of what would happen to me later but knew then, I grew more tired and swollen from walking for miles--I had no car, then my friends did. I loved to walk for years and even as late as 1994-1995, could walk for a few miles and think nothing of it, before the weight took over.

When I got poor in my twenties, and had no money for groceries, my diet hit a rock bottom for years. Ironically during my weight gain of 400lbs I had the least money for food. My diet was ramen noodles, commandeered school lunches while substitute teaching in child portions, often some mystery meat buried under gravy and some limp peas or white meat chicken nuggets. It also included some eggs, and cheap pasta. I bought food at a discount store, and did not know how to cook. One dinner I remember getting is paying 2 dollars for these cheap fried Chicken wings at a Chinese restaurant about a block from my house apartment and paying 50 cents for a little carton of rice to go with it. My diet worsened when I moved to Chicago. My job had long long hours and I remember eating only once a day on many days or twice, and literally having to scrounge. We were allowed to eat some food at the group home, but it was low quality cheap food. There were no salads or vegetables. Just fried chicken, sausages, bacon and rice, turkey ham and fried egg sandwiches and more sugary cereal. I don't know how some of those girls managed to stay thin on that food. Later on the way to disability came dumpster diving. I remember days of eating nothing but a package of cheap ramen noodles and some green onions, I had managed to save. How sad.

 Money was so extremely tight. Sometimes I would get a decent meal out once in a while, a salad or a stir fry like on Payday, but the rest of the time it was grind of cheap carbs. Working stoves were rare in the slums and for two years I had to eat whatever could be made in a microwave or on a hot plate. Let's just say that is not the healthiest food.

I look at Honey-Boo Boo's diet and know that is the mal-nutrition diet many poor people in America are getting fatter on. What chance does she have? You know they pour endless chemicals into the food. My diet now frustrates me. I fear weight gain because of the money being low. Its far better then it was years ago though. My eating has to be so controlled even for the sake of the diabetes. There's too many cheap turkey bologna sandwiches and cottage cheese even now. I would rather have more salad and hot cooked vegetables. There is a lot of soup made in this house. I do what I can.

This is the unspoken reality of obesity in America. Cheap food makes you fat. Lack of nutrition makes you fat. Some act like changing the diet is so easy, but there is a real financial edge to all this, like it or not.