To be fair here I always thought that I would make things work with my now-ex partner. He is really sweet and him not being a competent crisis counselor isn’t him abusing me. It’s not him being violent either. It’s not even something I wasn’t prepared for.

It’s a lot of other, completely normal things.

Sometimes people aren’t perfect. That’s pretty normal.

And it’s the reason I left a place that was ok for me in every aspect other than providing me with mental health support. I don’t need someone to be Superman. I just needed someone to be able to help me get help when I was in crisis. And his family was adamant that I didn’t deserve it. Ever. They fought me tirelessly that it wasn’t ok to ask for their help when I was in crisis and their son was in tandem crisis alongside me, freaking out.

I know I don’t need – or want – that in my life.

I know better than to put on my peer, my partner, my boyfriend, to be someone he’s not or have skills it’s unreasonable to expect him to have. And still my heart breaks.

Because I loved him. I think part of me always will.

And his family resisted being there for him, in every aspect, every time, because they wanted to let me take care of him. They wanted to let anyone who wasn’t them be responsible for him. They told me that he was over 18, and thus not their problem. It is a level of irresponsible under the imperfect category that is destructive and harmful.

I don’t hate him. He’s not his family.

I hate his family for mistreating me. And mistreating him.

I didn’t like that he wasn’t very open. Sometimes it was hard to get a real answer as to what was happening. But that didn’t make him a bad person. Sometimes it takes a little more life to learn how to open yourself up without being afraid of the world’s responses.

I’m not ok because I had to move because my family cares about my well being.

I knew it would mean giving up a relationship I loved. But the sacrifice of health is that sometimes. But I also have to mention that my family is still the same.

My mom (love her) still wants to say that she knows all of the Christian things I want to do because they helped her when she was younger. She tells me, “I understand we’re different people” in the same breadth as persuasively arguing with the girl who knows theology very well that “we have the same theological perspective” as rationale.

Honestly, we don’t. I’m a moderate Christian.

And even that’s flexible!

This idea? It’s not just the “you do you” mentality.

It’s inherently communicating “this is a Bible, it’s been messed up by a lot of messed up humans through the years, and I am not trampling on other views on that fact alone”.

Many of the traumatic church experiences I had were at churches where my parents said, “This is a great, healthy church environment with solid theology you’d like” as if to also say We have heard you mention your queerness multitudes of times, your views on relgion, your multiculutralism, your passion for serving the misunderstood – and we think you want a church who neglects you the right to be yourself. So I got heartbroken over and over.

I actually don’t like my parent’s theology. It’s not that I think it’s objectively wrong to have, but rather that it’s harmful to a lot of historically disadvantaged and oppressed groups. I am too invested in my overall ethics to have spiritual beliefs that conflict.

My family means well, though – I think.

They just want to connect with me. They still don’t get what my issue with my old school was. They thought I didn’t think they were a respectable theology program, or that the theology was bogus. I took issue with the exact opposite claim, and my parents still think their child wants to hear ways to have conservative views thrown at her.

But I think it’s from a lack of knowledge.

I don’t think it’s because they are malicious or unkind, or even thoughtless.

My mom and dad were at seminary together. Their child loves theology. I grew up hearing conversations among missionaries and church leaders about faith and God. I love those topics and conversations. I can talk circles around most theologians. (Really.)

(Because even at a ministry training program, their best attempt to dissuade me was to say theology in academic sources isn’t Biblical. I knew that. But the information was highly accurate, and that’s where my “gotcha” came into play with the theologians.)

I won’t use sources to support me that I inherently and boldly disagree with. That’s unethical and unjust to research. Ask anyone in methods.

Some notes:

1. The guy who abused me from 2020-2022 wasn’t similar – he used faith to demean me. My parents just don’t think I understand theology.
2. The family of the guy from 2022-2023 was dissimilarly unlike my parents – didn’t believe in anything and still used that to demean me. The guy himself was neutral and didn’t have much of a foundation of anything.

My parents often don’t see their theology as conservative. They meet the criteria of conservative evangelicalism, and it’s as clear as day to me. I don’t disagree with them as in they can’t believe their ideas, but rather in the sense of those aren’t mine – please don’t force them onto me every chance you get.

My theological views are that I’m ok with the struggles God gives me.

I don’t need to pray tirelessly to heal, and if I need secular medicine or interventions to get through a theological season of turmoil, then so be it. I don’t see secular or spiritual interventions as the end-all/be-all on either side. There exists a healthy medium, or even a healthy coordination of the two, in many instances of this world.

I get that I want to change the world, and theologically – I don’t rely on God to do it.

I’m not ok in that many people want to use my Christianity to force religion onto others.

It’s harmful – religion – telling people if they don’t do this, that, or the other, then they’re inherently going to Hell and cursed for life. Religion often holds the context of one interpretation so vividly that saying anything outside of it is heretical.

I don’t like religion, but I love God.

Religion says medical intervention (in conservative theology spaces) is against God. To take medicine is to deny God’s power over you and deny Him the right to free your spirit.

I don’t like having a mental health SMI condition, but I’m proud to claim it in advocacy conversations to demonstrate my point. A case study of one through solid evidence-based research and analysis is objectively amazing.

I am not ok. I remembered the Counseling Today article about the bisexual woman, and the story seemed so much like mine I wonder how much is coincidental. Sometimes I wonder how many counselors didn’t help me but used me as a point of study.

I am sometimes ok and sometimes not.

For now, I am simply just existing.

XOXO,

Dorothy B