Sunday, December 05, 2010

Deconversion five years on

Five years ago- at about this time in fact- I was driving to work after a weekend in which my mind had been racing. As I drove down the slip road onto the A48 at Cardiff Gate, there came a sudden moment of absolute clarity. I no longer believed in God. Before I doubted, vacillating between faith and terror of a world with no God in it, suddenly there I was on an empty lonely planet, in which I was merely a collection of atoms doomed one day to be no more me....

Five years on. I am still just a collection of atoms. I still yearn sometimes with sighs, sometimes with tears for those days of certainty of faith and hope, of joyful religious experiences and friends united in purpose and values. But I also rejoice in the loss of guilt and puzzlement and the gain in the simplicity in which I now see the world. I have new friends, with new common values and purposes. I have experienced life in ways that previously would have been closed to me to even contemplate. I have explored and laid down the guilt and the fear that for so many years tied me in knots of anxiety and depression and though I have not yet defeated it totally, victory is within my grasp.

Five years on and I have few regrets.
Five years on and I celebrate today as a liberation, and mourn the loss of those positives my belief was attached to, but not the loss of the belief itself.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The anger of suicide

One thing that has always struck me, as someone who has had suicidal thoughts over the years, that one of the things that prevents me from ever completing is the knowledge of what it would do to those round me. For me, therefore, the danger in losing that brake is immense.

Earlier today, I nearly lost it, through anger...and realised after that the saying that I often hear of suicide being the ultimate angry act can be so true. It is the ultimate in the last word, no one can come back and scream at you, lay guilt on you, and you go in that knowledge. "Those who drove me to this, all will finally realise the consequence of their actions."

They say that when people make up their minds finally there is a period of calm, relief, and I can identify with that too- at last you are in control and no one can take that control away.

I know I will not complete, that I am underneath one big coward and will just carry on drifting through this world as I am.
But for all that it is becoming an unbearable fantasy as a way of terminating this permanent pain that seemingly nothing else will stop. I have to fight this fantasy and not allow it to feed on my distress and avoid the danger of anger like I felt today.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Blissful ignorance

Watching the Pope's visit has been a strain
It has tickled my limbic system, my emotional memories
To produce pain of loss

Once I would have been part of the throngs
And my part would have been the quiet stillness
The moments of peace and tranquillity
Where worship and silent moments
Surrounded by the hand of God
I would have knelt and been enveloped in love
In blissful gnorance of truth

No more
Once revealed, cannot be undone
Now no more
Today all I can feel is loss
And what I know
Cannot heal or mend
The emotional pain

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Settling in

We've been in the flats a few months now and it is slowly starting to feel like "home." At first it was a nightmare of hideous proportions, with wistful dreams of the home I had lost coming nightly to haunt me, but now, with the courtyard landscaped and soothed by hubbie and my room featuring a chosen print and my books, my heart warms to it. Finally.

And son1 is determinedly learning to manage, in his own way, at his own level. Emotionally most importantly, cooking and cleaning will follow, he manages a quick hoover and beans on toast, probably more than many 21 year olds do. Son2 is slowly elevating my blood pressure by his exam brinkmanship; if he gets into university though, I will miss his funny loving presence here, one more loss to navigate.

And work and family continue to demand and strain my ability to live happily, but at the end of each day, I snuggle into my bed, in my home once more, safe and sound and settled. And I rise in the morning ready to face another day....

Sunday, February 28, 2010

2010- strange year

So In November I had a mad idea
Two flats were coming up for sale next to my mother in law
We should buy them, I said to hubbie, use it as a way to move towards Son1 getting independent

So here we are, three months later, minus one house, one dog who sadly died of kidney failure at 18 but plus two flats
Hubbie and I upstairs
Son1 and 2 downstairs

Not been plain sailing
Son1 ran away the other day (armed with 2 ham sarnies and 3 packs of crisp)
Son2 has withdrawn more away from us
And I have lost things beyond words
The sunsets, the sights and sounds and smells of the home I love
Now I live in the city, the droning of the cars and lorries on the main road ever present
The sirens of ambulances dashing up and down
The garden notable by its absence

But this is not for now
This is for the future
The way ahead, the path for son1 to learn how living lone can be

Will it work?
No idea
But to not try would have been foolish beyond doubt

So as I become accustomed to new noises and sights and sounds and smells
I keep in mind that distant goal
That one day I can slip away
Without the last thought being of panic for son1
And allow the last thought to be
Of what I have done and how I have danced my way through this life

Here's hoping