Musings of a "not so good" Christian

When I was a child I never felt that I fit in with my peers. I did not like the same things other boys liked, sports, whether participating or watching, held no interest for me, aggressiveness, competition, were also not part of who I was. As a result of this and my extreme shyness I was on outsider to “male culture.” Thus I lived with a feeling of disconnect from a very early age.

As I entered my mid-late teen years my feelings of alienation from others in my school became intense and consuming. I grew to hate many of my contemporaries as nasty, shallow, and repulsive. I became fascinated with the occult and with witchcraft for a period of time because I believed it would give me power to get back at those that were harassing me. When the book “Carrie” written by Steven King was published I read it at least 4 times, praying for the power of telekinesis so that I could do to my classmates what Carrie did to hers. I was living vicariously through my new hero.

Messed up, right?

I was messed up. I also began to come to the realization that I was something that was an anathema to American culture at the time. I was terrified of this self-revelation and I knew that I needed to hide and deny this part of me. And while I had a deep hatred for my persecutors, I had an equally, if not more, intense hatred for myself. I stuffed down my feelings, all of them, the disgust with myself, my hatred of others, my pain of rejection by peers and father. All of them became locked away. I did not want people to see me, the real me. For I believed that to see me, the real me, would cause people to reject me even more.

All of us want to feel accepted, then as now, so do I. The problem that we can run into is that we, in our pursuit of this, become actors in our own lives and create a character that we hope is more palatable to those around us. When we do this, we lose who we are.

For the majority of my life I was who I was not. .