EMDR should stand for Emotions Moving Destructively (through) Rachel.  The last week or so, I've been so angry.  And no, it's not my period.

Some sexual shame and gender identity issues have risen to the surface, along with a handful of forcefully forgotten memories.  These memories involve a lot of religious parenting in my childhood, religious teaching in my adolescence, and religious abuse in my twenties.  I'm not gonna get into details because this blog is public, and if I die before age 40 from a mysterious murder and my parents hire a private investigator to collect the details, they could find it.  And - since they are still evangelicals - if my parents found it, my mom would cry and my dad would go into his office and type up some bible versus about my disloyalty.

Then they would hire a psychic medium so they could sit across the table from me (my dead-self) and “have a talk.”

In this imaginary scenario, my dad, “God”, Scottsdale Bible Church, Dave G. (an abuse pastor I worked for in Los Angeles), and a handful of memories are merged into one masculine authoritative voice.  This means the trauma is not really about my dad specifically, but the collective father-ish archetypes of my past.  It’s what I like to call: The Black Cloud.  My memories of Patriarchy-Gone-Bad mush together into a Icky Black Smoke symbolizing dominance and silencing.  It wants me to suppress myself and keep me submissive to its desires.

In this soap opera, The Black Cloud of Shame is represented by my dad (dressed up in Darth Vader clothes)...but you can easily replace the word “Father” with “Evangelical Authorities” or “Rachel’s Fucked Up Conception of God” or “The Mystery Force” that will never approve of me in my current state, and demands obedience to its unattainable ideals:

Father: Rachel, I can't believe you did this to us.
 Me When I'm Dead (MWID): When you say 'did this,' you mean not lie, and use my history to help people, is that correct?
 Father: I can't believe you want to destroy our reputations and make claims about things that aren't true.
 MWID: Even though they are true?  Let's remember I was there.
 Father: What will your grandparents think about this?  And our bible study group?  And my employers - what will they think about this blog of yours?
 MWID: These are the narcissistic questions of a man (or god or system) who thinks the world is obsessed with him (or it).  Dad, no one cares about your daughter’s thought life.
 Father: You've ruined your mother's life.
 MWID: (sigh*) I've ruined mom's life a hundred times already.  It's a shame I'm that powerful.
Father: What you did was so selfish.  It's so sad you thought this was Ok - I wonder what I did wrong when I was raising you (sulking*).
 MWID: I blogged about that, remember?
Father: You're obviously mentally unstable and remember things incorrectly - those things never happened because I refuse to acknowledge them.
 MWID: Oh yeah, I forgot the world works that way.  I must've had too much therapy.
 Father: You are so naive - spreading your secrets and false interpretations of this family.  What an unchristian thing to do.
 MWID: Did you notice my podcast subscription to Ex-vangelical?

And because I don't want to deal with this really uncomfortable conversation (even as a dead person), I'll just sum up all my anger and rage and desire to expose historical secrets by saying this: The Black Cloud People could be bullies...but really smart, mind-strategist kind of bullies.  Gggrrrr!

There.  That's good enough.

 (...contemplation and long pause...)

(...more thinking and pausing...) 

Angry Rachel: Actually, maybe I do want to go into detail...maybe I’m feeling to sassy and empowered to protect them.  Afterall, my parents and their church friends will never actually read this.  This site is unadvertised, hardly searchable, and never uses my last name.  Also, look at how pathetic I am!  As a grown 35-year-old woman, I'm still letting dysfunctional loyalty to an evangelical community dictate what I want to blog about...gross.  This needs to stop.

Insecure Grieving Rachel: Oh dear, but if they found this blog.  Oh dear Gawd.  I suppose they would tell everyone they know to pray for me, which is so irritating, because it's just a passive form of rejection.  "Pray for her...pray for her because she's not who we wanted her to be, she has become her own person; all this female independence, honesty, and self-esteem is just disgraceful.  Pray for her to come back to her senses.  In Jesus Name, Amen."  Ugh, I can picture it.  It stings.

Conclusive Adult Rachel: I’m too all over the place to spill my guts on the internet.  And I don’t want to do anything that could harm people I love.  I love my family.  And I love the light in all humans...even if I can’t see it, I trust it’s there.

No need to say more.  No need to give details.  This was healing enough.