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My higher powers

December 31, 2022

Al-Anon and other twelve-step programs seem to require faith in “God.”

For example, step three is:

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

Since God doesn’t exist, how can anyone take a twelve-step program seriously?

Here’s my solution.

I use “God” as shorthand for higher powers, plural. This lets me embrace the program without deluding myself.

Read more →

11 ways God is like an abusive boyfriend

December 10, 2022

Update—Jan. 28, 2023:

This video says everything I wanted to say and more.

Video: “Worshipping narcissists” by QualiaSoup and TheraminTrees.

/end of update

Here are some beliefs I used to have about God (as a child raised Christian) and my partner (as a woman in an abusive relationship).

1. He sets the terms.

You’re entitled to your opinion. He’s entitled to be the voice of reason and authority.

For example, if he says he loves you, he loves you. That’s what “love” means.

(If you say you love him but you also disobey his express wishes, you don’t really love him.)

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Categories are like clouds

September 17, 2022

Categories are only useful for comparisons.[1]

We can’t evaluate categories by how well they describe their contents, because categories never provide absolutely accurate descriptions of the things they contain. If they did, each thing would be a category of its own.

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The glass is already broken

August 20, 2022

A few months ago I knocked one of my favorite glass teacups off the shelf and broke it. I was having a bad week, and this made it worse.

Then I read this passage by Mark Epstein, a psychiatrist, about his encounter with “a renowned Thai forest master named Ajahn Chah:”

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My favorite writing on the internet

July 30, 2022

Your Life in Weeks by Tim Urban

Wait But Why, May 7, 2014

Thanks to this post, I keep a life calendar in Google Sheets. It’s a satisfying memento mori, and helps me see the shape of my life as a whole.

(This website, reviewmylife, offers a free template, but I haven’t tested it: Weeks of your life calendar – free Excel download.)

Read more →

The don’t-want list

July 10, 2022

“Next time you set out to build something, make a list of the things it won’t do before you list all the things it will do.”

—37signals[1]

You could call this a don’t-want list, or an anti-feature list.

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A note on The Gift of Fear

June 19, 2022

In my first post on abuse, I said not to read the domestic violence chapter (chapter ten, “Intimate enemies”) in The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.[1]

I’ve changed my mind.

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I’m a spiritual atheist

April 3, 2022

Note: This post is a work in progress. I’ll remove this note when it’s done.

Although I’m an atheist, and always will be, I have had a spiritual awakening.

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How it feels to be in an abusive relationship, part 3: The final part

January 30, 2022

This is part three in a series on how it felt to be in an abusive relationship; see parts one and two.

In another journal entry from many years ago, I wrote:

I’m afraid of so many things, I might as well be afraid of my own shadow.

Read more →

How it feels to be in an abusive relationship, part 2

December 5, 2021

This is a letter to my younger self. This is part two; see parts one and three.

The whole reason people are in abusive relationships is that they will put up with practically anything for the sake of the relationship.

What people don’t understand is the fact that you’re willing to “put up with it” is the result of abuse—not a personal failure to stand up for yourself.

Read more →

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email: kate [at] katelade.com