26 Comments
User's avatar
Happy Healing Heretic.'s avatar

I experience this feeling every time something 'goes wrong'.. but I'm gradually coming to the place where I can honor my little-self's fear, but also reassure them that it's actually ok and the bad-magic from stepping outside the umbrella isn't real. Difficult things happen and it's just life. It helps to remember they happened back then too.. the umbrella never us actually protected from the 'rain'.

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

The umbrella never protected me either. That's what I told my friend, and thankfully, it really resonated with her.

Expand full comment
Chantale R.'s avatar

I get this feeling sometimes. A friend of mine experiences this frequently and acutely and it causes huge mental distress, and every time I can't help thinking "your God is an arsehole if he's going to punish you like this"

And then I remember that was my God too and I wonder why it took me so damn long to wake up to the toxic crap that is a "loving God" sending people to hell and punishing them for not believing because there are so many reasons not to 🤷🏻‍♀️

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

I told her that. I don’t want to worship a god who is vindictive.

Expand full comment
Chantale R.'s avatar

Right?! If God really is love then people need to be free to walk away, and there would be no punishment, no "I'm doing this for your own good" abusive crap. It's hard to untangle hey. If there really is no fear in love then there is something seriously wrong with a system that uses fear to control

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

Exactly. “Free will” is just “choose me and you’ll be fine, choose me and I’ll torture you. But it’s your choice!”

Expand full comment
Chantale R.'s avatar

haha! so true. so ridiculous.

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

I meant “don’t choose me and I’ll torture you” but the other way works too.

Expand full comment
Chantale R.'s avatar

I figured! But it's almost even more true the way you wrote it 🤣 (I need to laugh lest I descend into rage 🥴)

Expand full comment
Elysha's avatar

I don’t really want that right now either. It’s hard for those few really close and real relationships that just aren’t the same now. I resonate so deeply with your poem “I feel you” in ‘Unbeleive’. Those relationships didn’t survive my authenticity. I wouldn’t go back and I won’t change to be back in the relationships, but I grieve them. I grieve what I thought they were. I grieve the genuine moments of honesty that now seem lost.

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

Me too, friend.

Expand full comment
Elysha's avatar

Things that have been hard in the deconstruction: The judgement that I feel and perceive. The lack of questions asked of me from people I thought I had strong relationships with. Realizing the things I fell in line with were not necessary, but constructed and now that I’ve listened to my feelings and left the constructs those relationships I built have crumbled too.

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

Yeah, that's really really tough. I've made some great new relationships over the years, but I've never had anything like the close, in-real-life community with a bunch of people you get at church. I don't actually want that right now though, but I know some people really really do.

Expand full comment
June's avatar

Tithing was really hard for me to deprogram for similar reasons. Basically, tithing was taught as protection. So if you don’t tithe, you won’t be provided for or bad things will happen that will make you broke.

Expand full comment
Stephanie Ascough's avatar

Oh yes. My husband’s family recently told him (when we were struggling financially) that it was because we aren’t tithing. We aren’t even going to church, so...

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

I tithed faithfully for decades, and I was pretty poor the entire time. I'm doing better now financially than when I was a dedicated tither. I'm also single instead of married. It's almost like the church and my husband were holding me back or something. Weird.

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

Oooooh! Yes! And sooooo many times I got *just* the exact amount I needed and gave all the credit to God. (never mind all the times I DIDN'T get the money I needed or I got too much or too little—ha!)

Expand full comment
Nya S Abernathy's avatar

It's hard for me to deprogramming perfection and sometimes certainty. Like, I want to deprogram the "right" way and reprogram to the "right" thing. But girl, that's the whole point. There isn't this magical, singular, key-to-the-universe way of being. There just isn't. I think there are recurring themes that we can pay attention to, but there isn't a singular, precise, perfect "way to be/believe".

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

I couldn't agree more.

Expand full comment
Chantale R.'s avatar

I realised just yesterday that the belief I need to forgive abusers is still so tangled up in my head. So much toxic teaching on it and it’s always the victim who has to forgive and never the abuser that needs to repent and make amends. I feel like I’ll be wrestling this one forever

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

So much toxic teaching!!

Expand full comment
Sarah G. Young's avatar

The thing I can't deprogram is "What if they're right?"

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

I feel that. For me, there's just so much toxicity that even if they're "right" (which I don't believe they are, even intellectually), I want nothing to do with a god like theirs. And it's not like any/all of them agree on how you get to heaven anyway. A prayer? With what words? And how do you know you really meant it? And what if you still do something wrong? I said a prayer back in the day, so if it's "once saved always saved" I'm good. :)

Expand full comment
Stephanie Ascough's avatar

I couldn’t agree more. I was just thinking on MLK Jr day that toxic authority systems and beliefs I grew up with still tend to overlay how I see Black leaders and friends-like if I don’t do XYZ then I’m a terrible ally/anti-racist/justice-seeker. Basically, I must obey them or I’ve failed, period. White evangelicalism excels at getting us to focus on the individual while stripping away the dignity of humanity. I fucking hate it!

Expand full comment
Marla Taviano's avatar

I fucking hate it too. Thank you for sharing. xx

Expand full comment