kate + lemonade
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.
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.)
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.
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:”
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.)
“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.
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.
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.
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.
email: kate [at] katelade.com