Today I  have had a terrible shock!! Talking to some wonderful Australian survivors on SKYPE the conversation got around (somewhat inevitably) to catholicism! 

Very diplomatically, and sweetly they tentatively asked me about my existing connection with the catholic church, it seems that over there they thought I was still a catholic!!!!!! 

Horror of horrors! I had no idea that this would bother me so much, but bother me it has, it feels like the worst thing anyone could see me as!!! 

The whole misunderstanding comes from my rather flippant remark that say I am A “Recovered Catholic”! I have always seen it more like having recovered from the disease and indoctrination as well as the abuse of the church.

Rather like I am a recovered alcoholic and addict! 

But it seems that it is misleading and people had thought I meant I was still in the grips of the narcissistic regime which is the catholic church! SHIT!!!!

I can’t let even a hint of that be doubted, a fate worse than death for me!

So let me be very very clear!! I am a dyed in the wool ATHEIST, maybe with a hint of a Buddhist slant in there somewhere, but not even a tiny morsel of catholicism! 

I think it is an abusive, destructive, disgusting narcissistic organisation, and I am happy to be well and truly rid of it! Hence the change of title!

Now the very thought of it has made me need  lie down!

Hell in a handcart

I  have been waiting for some kind os inspiration before I talk about the popes resignation, and the latest cardinals scandal etc.etc. etc. 

I didn’t get any! I think my cynicism must get very much in the way of it!

But I  did have one  thought. Inspired by the “amnesty” offered by the outgoing pope to people in Spain who had ever had an abortion. 

This  was this spectacle at “World Youth Day” in 20011 where hundreds of wooden confessional booths were set up in order to hear confessions of the people attending.It would appear also that if they even attended  the day, they would receive a “plenary indulgence” something that would shorten the time “sinners:“ would have to spend in purgatory to atone for their sins! (Priests used to sell these indulgences! but in their newly acquired sense of ” benevolence” they seem to be giving them away!).

In the past, any woman who admitted to having an abortion would be automatically excommunicated, and only very specialised priests were allowed to “lift “ that ban on the women.(hopefully not the ones who got them  pregnant in the first place)

But once again, in the new wave of “kindness” the Pope had decided that if they attended this special mass in Spain, they would be absolved from those sins, and would not be excommunicated! (nothing at all to do with the huge drop in their numbers, or the distaste that people are feeling for their man made narcissistic law of course) It was  a sort of ”special offer” perhaps they they did a “buy one get one free” for people who had more than one abortion,with  a special rate for pensioners or students who are unwaged? It was only on offer for that one day, like all good sales, so if you missed the bus, or got caught in the traffic, - excommunication for you!

But you have to hand it to them for sales drives, this has to take a prize..

 And so I though perhaps we might look at doing a similar pantomime .I am quite sure we would be much better at it too.

We will tell the catholic church that if they “throw out” their pedophiles, and encourage them all to gather in one place ( if we could attempt to find a place big enough, perhaps the Siberian tundra would fit most of them?)   Then we might, (just might) cut them  some slack.

We could have a special rate for people who only raped one child? (or maybe a buy one get one free offer here?) 

Maybe a different rate for abuse that didn’t quite end in rape because the priest couldn’‘t manage it? 

What would we offer for having ONLY had to perform oral sex on a priest while still at school?

If there were several priest lining up to pass that child around like a piece of meat, what price their “indulgence”

How about threatening to kill the child’s family if they spoke about their abuses? 

Should we offer a special “dispensation” for those priests, bishops and cardinals (and popes) who, in their vast wisdom decided to lie and cover up crimes against children for the “greater good” (THEIR greater good)

Where would we fit in the priests who always with an eye to the main chance, abused deaf and speech impaired children, or disabled ones? do they get special treatment too?

And what about the hypocrites? the ones who preach hell fire and damnation, setting themselves up as some sort of moral benchmark for others while they indulge secretly in their own gratification? perhaps cardinal O’Brien should tell us what HE thinks we should do with people like that?

How about destroying a child’s future, their potential, their peace of mind for ever? - green stamps?

Maybe there should be a top indulgence prize for causing children permanent brain damage impairing their immune and metabolic systems, and shortening their life span? Maybe double  points or a trip in a popemobile?

Maybe we should give some sort of credit note to popes who desert a sinking ship in the nick of time before they are made to face their cover up  crimes,  or cardinals who “step down” after they get found out

On reflection I have decided that there is only one thing for them, If I believed in Hell (apart from the hell they put people like me through) Then we will need to take delivery of an awful lot of handcarts.

Beware the "disrespectful " crisps!

You know how, with Facebook and blogs and messages and stuff, one thing very definitely leads to another? 
Reading this latest absolute nonsense from the catholic church, who have gone ape-shit about crisps in "Pret a Manger" being called " Virgin Mary " crisps (you know, in the same shocking way that a Bloody Mary without the vodka is called a Virgin Mary!)  I came across a site I didn't know existed "Protect the Pope.co.uk"! 
Of course I was curious, and tapped into it, wondering how on  Earth anyone would want to protect this criminal,or how he could possibly be defended. 

 And horror of horrors! it really is just that! a site completely devoted to answering catholic critics, "defending the faith" and filled with nonsensical vitriol and half truths, and many  half baked accusations of course. 
I couldn't wade through all of the garbage in it, it was clear exactly what it was, and it's contents whipped me straight back to my own indoctrinated childhood when catholics  then also  considered themselves a "persecuted minority" 
Of course  they do - it is a personna that they thoroughly enjoy, and perpetuate. It seems to  give them some sort of perceived  credibility, but worse, it allows them to divert attention  from their many many misdemeanours! 
 The thing that made me laugh,( as well as cry) , was the "blessing" wished on all who had "defended the faith"  by complaining about the "virgin mary crisps!" They said that catholics had put up with this sort of persecution long enough! 
"We have been passive for too long in the face of mockery of our faith and discrimination against us catholics"

PLEASE!!

Apart from seeing the  ridiculousness of the whole bloody issue, I cannot help seeing AGAIN an organisation that simply, constantly, and laughably misses the point!
A bit like when twenty thousand people marched in London to protest against the pope's visit, while being supported by many more thousands who couldn't physically be there, the catholic church totally missed the point (or chose to!) that thousands of people are absolutely sick and tired of them, and sulkily complained like a child in the kindergarten playground that "these awful people used very bad language"!
Surely not a a reference to the wonderful  creative, and completely pertinent posters that screamed :
"Fuck off  back to the 14th century" and 
"So you are offended- So fucking what"!
Instead of getting those very clear messages that an awful lot of people hate their religion and it's narcissism, they choose to be self righteously indignant  by our use of language, and the name of some bloody crisps! It seems to me a clear indication of their mentality.
But I do have to agree with one thing, and it is very very rare that I would agree with anything this dreadful organisation has to say, and that is  "They have been passive for too long" damned right they have!

Passive and hiding by their perceived persecution as their priests and bishops rape and sodomise innocent children.
Passive in the face of vatican's lies and cover ups, despite the irrefutable evidence of complicity leading right back to their "holy" father.
Passive as poor countries , with indoctrinated people driven by fear are bled dry by the demand of "supporting their pastors"
Passive as Dutch boys in catholic institutions were castrated to "curb their homosexuality" after being raped by their priests.
Passive as disabled children's bodies were systematically defiled by priests in the catholic institutions where they were supposed to be being cared for.
Passive as thousand upon thousand of clergy abuse survivors began at last to be able to come forward and talk about the tyrannical church that has seen them as little more than an irritant, and collateral damage.
Passive as many of those victims committed suicide because the burden of their shame was too great.
Passive as their church even attempted to discredit many of those survivors dismissing them as liars or mentally deranged.
Passive even in the face of huge statistics and damning evidence showing the enormity of their crimes.
Passive rather like the sheep at the end of my lane?  or those German people who didn't "notice" the holocaust? 
Damn right they have been passive too long, time they grew some balls (no apologies for  the language) and re- joined the decent human race -  outside their cult.
I have always stopped a little short when asked what  I hate about the catholic church?
I have pussy footed around and said things like "well not the people of course, just the hierarchy"
But I am beginning to wonder why, anyone on this planet would fail to see that if they lie with wolves and vipers they will be judged as being the same as them.
Another site I inadvertently get mails from is the "catholic answers forum" where they arrange (expensive)   Caribbean cruises for people to go and be taught by priests and the like  how to "defend their faith" presumably to watch out for "Circumcision sausages" "Bethlehem blinis" "Papal Pizzas"
Best thing they could learn is to Wake the F... up!

I went to the hospital on Friday, just because I have  asleep apnea problem, nothing too serious, and I was quite relaxed and ok with it all.

The consultant decided I need an operation to clear my airways because I don't breathe too well, and that should make a difference to me. So far so good.

Then the rather condescending nurse took me to the "pre-op" department for routine tests, and it was found that my blood pressure was very high .O.K , I can deal with that, not too worried. But the nurse decided that I was probably a bit anxious "dear" about coming to the hospital. I didn't bite but did as I was told "Go straight to your GP on the way home  "dear" to get them to deal with it " 

"Can't I make an appointment  for next week "I said? "Oh no "dear" we need you to deal with it now, before the weekend"  we can't operate until it is down." So off I went, drove over to the doctor's surgery.

 He hardly looked at me but  said "I don't think I will take it now, you will be too nervous and worried" -  "No I am ok " said I, "I'm quite relaxed" . "No you will be a bit anxious"   he said. "I am not anxious, I  just want to get on with it."-  "Now would not be a bad time, when you are anxious after rushing here"  "I am not anxious I am fine" - "Why don't you take  your own blood pressure at home for three days, in your own environment, where you feel a bit safer?" - "I don't feel unsafe!!!" -"No -but sometimes we get a little worried about these things, best to do it when you are relaxed" 

I didn't argue any more, he certainly was putting my blood pressure up!

I wondered what he had seen when he looked at me? What do we all see when we look at people? Aren't we all a little too keen to make assumptions? I guess on my notes it says I am a sixty five year old grandmother, have asthma, bronchiectasis, IBS, GORD,vitiligo, and an underactive thyroid, so therefore did he see  a neurotic old lady who is frightened of the doctor?  

I wanted  to tell him a little story.

That I  was adopted (probably paid for) by a catholic nutcase, grew up in an indoctrinated abusive  environment, was raped by a priest when I was child, was an alcoholic by the time I was fifteeen,  self harmed, attempted suicide, messed around with food. Ran away from home to be married at seventeen,to a violent inadequate man. I was beaten senseless by my ex husband for years,survived an attempt on my life, had six children, was left alone with them when they were all under twelve, no money, no family, no home. I got a job, then went back to school, got a better job, brought up six kids alone,got a professional qualification, became the head of a large teaching organisation, teach in 124 UK prisons, including all of the really secure ones, buried one of my children, began to tackle the narcissistic catholic church in my sixties, made a speech in front of twenty thousand people, set off hundred of lanterns in front of the vatican, shouted at the papal spokesman co - founded Survivors Voice Europe, travel all over the world for work and to  connect with survivors. 

I am a survivor, a born fighter, don't look at my notes or my grey hair!

Get that sphyg out and take my fucking blood pressure you  wimp!
But I didn't, of course, and I went home and took it myself

 My lovely daughter told me this story today, about a bullying.

A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stamp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty is was.

 She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bully’s another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home.

So many correlations here for abuse survivors! 

Most of us have been crumpled, stamped on,got really messed up, sometimes to the point of being almost ripped to shreds.

Trying to "unfold" ourselves we see the dirt and the scars.

The pedophile priest is one of those  bullies.

The church he represents have honed their bullying tactics for millennia.

Power abuse is their  sinister form of bullying 

How many times do we have to tell the church that "sorry" is offensive! It doesn't matter how many times they say it, the scars are there for ever! 

They need to MAKE AMENDS!

But then don't we all know that bullies are always also  utter Cowards. 

Twenty Five years ago today, I lost my beautiful oldest son Nick,who died in a car crash and was just nineteen. 

It broke my heart.

I didn’t want to drink,or use drugs,  but I didn’t want to live either. I was suicidal, and I blamed myself for Nick’s death.He had surely been taken away from me because of my “unworthiness”.

(thanks for all of that self loathing catholic church)

That perpetual  feeling of being of “no consequence”  of being worth nothing was the legacy I had  from the catholic church. Not only being abused by the priest when I was a child, but by the cruel and vicious lies that are their indoctrination, and that go in young, and go in deep,  and take years to undo.

I can’t pretend I was good at being a parent, I didn’t have the skills.My ex -husband and I were  inadequate people who perhaps should never had children, but we did,  and they survived, I think more by luck than good management.

And I love them more than my life. 

Left alone with six of them under twelve was not easy! I simply tried my best. 

When the kids were teenagers ,and doing very well at school,( they are all very clever.) I instilled in them the need to get the best education they could, and made sure they worked hard, I knew that education and knowlege  was their ticket out of the sort of life that I’d had. There was lots of love and laughter in our house.

Although  my faith was non existent, ,and  I  had a real mortal fear of  the church , sickenly, I still  had a desperate and rather pathetic need to belong somewhere. Rather like a dog who has been treated badly, it still wags it’s tail and tries to be near it’s cruel owner, because it is the only pack it has ever known, and being part of a pack is a fundamental human need . 

My three boys had been  alter servers, and on Sunday I marched all of my kids down to the front of the church, it was  almost like a statement I think. Although I always felt  guilty and unworthy, and loathsome, I knew they were Very Important people.

  Years later when I was working in New York, I was working with some prostitutes, they had the most beautiful babies, dressed in designer clothes, with gold earrings and bangles, they smelled wonderful and were so happy and well cared for. Their Mum’s however had nothing,and  were all HIV positive, they lavished all they had on their children.I absolutely understood them, although  I didn’t ever quite have to prostitute myself, I would have done if it had been necessary. 

   Nick’s  funeral was in the catholic church,because that was all I knew,I had no other language,  and because  I wanted all the pomp and ceremony befitting my son, who didn’t deserve to lose his life because of my “sins”.It would have been in the Vatican if it had been possible.

  The priest who conducted the requiem had known Nick as a server, and made a few jokes about he and his brothers being the ”A team” of the eleven am mass. He also remarked about an occasion when Nick was due to go on a trek from school, but turned up in his jeans, despite them not being suitable. He joked about Nick’s insistence on wearing them, alluding to teenage fashion! what the stupid man hadn’t been sensitive enough to pick up was that Nick ONLY had those jeans, we were so desperately hard-up.

      My Mother didn’t come to his funeral (she said she wasn’t well enough) a cousin  told me afterwards that  she had said that Nick had died because he was liable to “go off the rails”, and god had spared us that. 

If that were true, then that would have to be one sick bloody god. Nick was a very good, gentle, funny, kind, human being. But nothing surprised me by then about my Mother, or her ludicrous religion.This is the woman who had me praying for the death of a cousin so he didn’t marry a divorcee and live in “sin”, the same one who disregarded me after I was abused, because she was too “priest obsessed” to care.

Of course,  she was a product of her own upbringing in a church which relies upon it’s “flock” to always obey, never question, and keep their mouths shut! 

But I can never forgive her that comment about my son. 

The pain I have felt throughout my life from the hands of the church and a pedophile priest, pale almost into insignificance beside the pain of losing a child.

     I have always been a fighter! But losing Nick took the stuffing  from me, I had always managed to fight my way out of a corner, but this was more than I could bear, I wanted to die and follow him, and look after him, but I also feared that I would never see him again, he was so good, and I so loathsome and dirty.

 Time doesn’t heal, if anything it gives you longer to miss someone.

Having your heart broken means just that- it is broken, not a little shop-soiled.

But things do get better,of course, and you are able to function, after a fashion. Survival is instinctive and that instinct kicked in. 

And it  was thanks to this awful time that allowed me to lose this pathetic desire to “belong” and to begin my “de-programming” from this inhuman religion that destroys so many lives.

So heres the thing!

My recovery  was absolutely nothing to do with divine intervention!

I am, thankfully, and will ever remain firmly,  happily, seriously atheist!

Nothing that I have experienced in or out of recovery has given me any reason to change that opinion. Nor would I want it changed.

Isn’t it completely magical  to know that I am made of stardust !! Amazing to think that the atoms that make me up have probably been around for 4.6 billion years, that all things and people are connected!! 

That “I am a child of the Universe no less than the trees or the stars and I have a right to be here,” 

To be able to see that the garden is beautiful without the fairies at the bottom of it! 

To know that I am the mistress of my own destiny, that being “decent ” is an inherent part of being part of the human species.

That no one person  has the right to subjugate another . 

That Nick was also made of that stardust! That he is all around still, there in my other children, in his niece and nephew, still with his friends, and their remembering him, in the knowlege that even in his short life, he managed to touch so many people. In the trees and the flowers in the sunrise and sunset - and in our hearts.

It was LOVE that did it! from  my other children and my husband and friends. And it is love that continues to do it, more friends, and now thankfully  fellow survivors helping me make sense of a world where this dreadful religion has created  a “sub culture” of abused human beings like me and sees them only as collateral damage.

   One of the last things my son said to me was :

 “Mum I am really proud of you” and I  did not deserve it.

Since then I have tried to work on deserving it,- not there yet! 

The Joys of Sobriety

Many years ago, when I first got sober, I went to a meeting of other addicts who were about the business of saving my miserable life! 

On the wall there was a bright yellow and red and white poster advertising a convention for addicts in New Orleans  that year. 

It had wonderful images of jazz musicians and It shouted from the wall "

"Come and celebrate the joys of sobriety"!

It was so uplifting, but a little unrealistic! 

I had six kids, no money,no husband, no family and was in the early traumas of realising that I was  a dyed in the wool addict and would die if I didn't grab this chance with all I had. 

That poster stayed on that wall for years, and it inspired me!  I can still see it vividly now, although in reality it faded and got tattered and ultimately was taken down.

It stayed on the wall as I stayed on that  path trying to make sense of life and sobriety. And it gave me hope, despite the fact that I had nothing. I was grateful for  each day, let alone a trip to New Orleans! 

And  it's message has always stayed with me, and is one that I try and conjure up as often as I can. It is one we utilise in Survivors Voice Europe, when we gather together and celebrate the joy our survival.

Because it is no use surviving to be miserable, in the same way that it is pointless getting sober to feel deprived or depressed .

I am not at my best in January! I have a very unpleasant tax bill, a wealth of other practical things to deal with, a worry about my daughter in law who has a big fight on her hands, and my son who is so frightened, the bloody awful grey English weather,which upsets my asthma, but more importantly and painfully, a very difficult anniversary of the death of my son Nick who was only nineteen when he died. 

For years everyone used to call me on the anniversary of his death,18th January,  and although I was grateful that he (and I)  was being remembered, I dreaded the day coming, because it was full of shared grief. After a while I dreaded Christmas coming, because January would be there straight after it, and then I dreaded December, because Christmas would come and then January! When I started to dread November, because December would follow and then I  would have January I realised that something was pretty wrong.

I realised that Nick was no more dead on that day than he was every other day of the year, that each day I could remember him, and indeed can't not, I asked everyone to not make a "day" of it and gradually I could restore my balance and not rule out October too! 

That was a while ago, and now I find myself grateful that even after 25 years people still send me messages, I am grateful for that "day", when I go to his grave I see someone has been there before me and left flowers or even an unsmoked cigarette! His friends still include us in their lives,  There is a shared knowlege of what each one of us is feeling, and for me now, that  is comforting.

In the night I woke in a panic, I always have "clergy"  dreams at this time of year( It infuriates me that the bastards can still even get into my dreams! ) I started to do all the things i know I should do to stop the depression form coming on, I did some deep breathing, I read something inspirational,I tried to meditate,  and then I got up!

I am English, and there is only one thing that will cure all ills! A cup of tea!

And  the memory a very vivid picture of some jazz musicians in New Orleans 36 years ago encouraging me to "Come celebrate the joys of sobriety" 

I need all of your good thoughts right now.