(For an updated view on this, see The Sacredness of Sisters here: https://apostateturtle.com/?p=513 )
I’ve spent the past few days losing my mind. I have a lot of major stressors in my life including an upcoming abandonment, and abandonment is one of my least favorite things in life. Meanwhile, my family is still so deeply engrossed in their cult that I’m not even allowed to know what my nieces and nephew look like, and the fact that I cannot save those children is eating away at my soul even more than the fact that I cannot save my siblings. It’s hard being the eldest because I’ve always felt protective with very little ability to intervene for good. I had hoped that when I escaped the cult, it would make it easier for my siblings to follow. Unfortunately, quite the opposite has happened: my mother had been kind of cocky and allowed me to explore the world, in total certainty that nothing could pluck me from her hand. When I became an apostate, they went into permanent lockdown mode. They are more religious than ever before, and my siblings’ access to the outside world is even more limited. Now, my mother can hold me as an example of a sheep that went astray, and hold my siblings in terror that they will turn out like me. Add in that my sister was already planning to homeschool her kids before the pandemic, and those children will probably never see the light of day as long as they live. I know the life they’re probably living because I lived it. I was homeschooled with zero access to any mandated reporters, and brainwashed to believe that “The World” was evil and the only safe places were our home and our church. What if I’m the only one even thinking to worry about the kids? What if I’m the only one who wants to save them? My social worker has tried to drive home the point that, as I have no concrete evidence and nothing my sister is doing is technically illegal, there is nothing I can do. We would call family services but it would just send my family further into lockdown mode and hurt the children even more. I cannot tell you how many tears I have shed for those kids. I think of them a thousand times a day. And yet, I am powerless to help them. I can’t talk to them. I can’t even see their little faces.
Anyway, aside from the fact that I’ve got my sister bring up her kids with the explicit goal of raising them exactly as we were raised, for some reason I thought that this would be a great time for me to limit my calories. Limiting calories always ends with me bawling hysterically. Apparently I can’t lose weight without sacrificing my mental health. My social worker gave me a sandwich and I felt better. Not great by any stretch, but not sobbing or dissociated into oblivion, which is an improvement. And my friend came to visit. She’s one of those Christians who is not crazy. I disagree with her on some things, but I have total confidence that she and her husband are above-average parents. Being in the hospital means being constantly surrounded by a lot of tragic stories, and it was good to see someone from the outside.
So, if I hadn’t already been in the hospital, I would have been hospitalized over the past couple of days, but a visitor and a sandwich bolstered my spirits. That, and EmergencyKitten.com , which has indeed gotten me through quite a few emergencies in my life.
