#can't have dog Catholicism without dog Jesus

[canisalbus]

Feel free to ignore this if it doesn't spark your interest but worth a shot. Can I ask what breed of dog Jesus was in your dog world?

I think dog Jesus predates most of today's dog breeds. Realistically he'd probably be some kind of mutt, probably with vaguely Canaan dog looks. But European depictions of Jesus have always been very localized, and I tend to think that in Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque art he'd usually appear as a Spaniel of sorts, although it varies from piece to piece. Gun dogs more often than not.

[bandofchimeras]

religious trauma diaryposting

nah you don't get it. in my house growing up the kids would actually CRY if we heard someone say "oh my god" or cuss. even trying to briefly touch on White Jesus and Jesus actually being a Middle Eastern man got my fam so freaked out about potential blasphemy (????? idk, guess you can't criticize any portrayal of Christ) they shut down this whole conversation we were having about Palestine that was actually constructive.

when I say I grew up Catholic I mean, devout, convicted, delusionally Catholic to the point we engaged in cult behavior. and I want to, and try to respect other people's cultural Catholicism and understand my own family's cultural ties to it but bro....it's ridiculous.

I can't even imagine saying "What if Jesus kinda sucked?" to my dad. Like I do not have a mental picture of what would happen. With my parents you can criticize them, but you cannot criticize the Church. You cannot cross the line of blasphemy. It's draining to try and have a normal conversation bc in order to do so I have to pretend that sex doesn't exist, everything the Catholic Church has ever decreed is 100% absolute truth, and bodily functions are deeply shameful.

I am 28 years old. I cannot waste anymore of my life navigating this insane bullshit.

Cult recovery is so weird when the rest of your family is still in it, I'm just figuring out you can be a person without following some complex set of arbitrary rules. Like you can just exist. I constantly feel like I'm about to be struck with lightning. When I'm around my family they can be so sweet and we can have some fun but there's always a trigger line I have to mind so they don't self destruct and shut down or lash out at me. Neurodivergent religious people are incredibly fragile. And being homeschooled, that orientation was normalized to the point, along with having OCD, I have had to teach myself how to interact with the public without praying in my head for their souls or to God to protect me. It's terrifying, at first, and I still don't really understand people who just exist and don't feel a wracking pain in their core all the time from losing that delusion of absolute certainty in a belief. It's comparative to being told the Sun isn't actually real, it's a big prop in the sky created to manipulate you.

Anyways forgive the drama on main. I feel like a constant outsider and a dogged sense of aloneness, and worry that no one whose out here engaging in pop culture and living their lives actually understands the extent of the psychological damage that comes from being 100% immersed in a harmful cult for all of your formative years and leaving it to become the thing they taught you to hate and fear, and realizing you are hated and feared for having been part of the harmful cult as well.

The only time I've felt close to being seen is reading Hell Followed With Us. I related a lot to Benji's soldier like mentality of adopting new language and concepts immediately, and his hard-line dedication to destroying where he came from to prove he is not on their side, not dangerous, etc. it's fucking torturous. So that book was not fun to read at all. I barely can recommend it and will never reread it even though I am very glad to have read it. Felt a lot like watching the Passion of the Christ.

So yeah fuck off with "why aren't you over that by now?" I don't think I will be over it until I'm brave enough to publicly blaspheme and bathe myself in pigs blood or do a burlesque number on the altar of my home parish lmao.