Sisters

[R. S. Martin]

I think I've got two of my sisters figured out. I'll call them Jane and Sally. Jane calls me perhaps once every two months or so with a very brief message and never has time to talk. This is fine with me because I don't want to talk, either. I suffer from too many horrendous memories from the horse and buggy community in general where all of my biological family still lives. Sally wrote a letter telling me if ever I need a home I can come live with her.

 

Finally I clued in what's going on. Jane never talks because she's the only one to whom I would talk about my financial situation if I would talk to anyone and she does not want to be liaison between me and the rest of the family. I know this from other situations. Thus she keeps conversations to the barest minimum. Sally is like Mom used to be--so intensely curious to know all the details of everyone's life that are none of her business.

 

The thing is she knows (as does the rest of the family) that I graduated and I suppose she has a sense that I am not well off financially. They (family, community) know education costs "a LOT" and they know I had no money. (Nobody ever paid me decent wages when I worked from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm on their farms and they wouldn't let me take higher paying jobs--though they let my sisters.) They probably know that I got money from the government to pay for my education. (Nobody offered to help me out though they had money for trips and farms and other luxuries.) My family kept threatening me that one day I would have to repay my loan--whether I could or not. So Sally offers me a place to live.

 

I suppose she thinks I am now facing this harsh blood-thirsty monster called The Government who wants its money back. These horse and buggy kin of mine see the government as a cold blood-thirsty monster who will put you in jail until you pay the last farthing, as per Matt. 18 or wherever. Mightn't hurt for them to read something more recent and up-to-date than the NT, if they could get their heads around it.

 

One thing the governments of my country and province do that my own family and community did NOT do is acknowledge me as a human being with the right to life and dignity. This includes mental health and emotional fulfillment. It happens occasionally when I am crossing the major intersection near my place, or interacting in public, that I am overwhelmed with a sense of awe. I feel like someone is doing me an tremendous favour. Then I take stock of the situation. All I'm doing is crossing the street on a green light while three lanes of traffic wait on a red light.

 

The thought of living with Sally has occurred to me because, so far as space goes, she'd have room for me. At one of my lowest points I mentioned this to a person who was working with me re living arrangements. That person reminded me that I had gone to school to get away from all that, and that we would not even consider that as an option. I was so relieved!

 

My guess is that Jane, the sister who isn't talking, is wiser in the ways of the world than the others. She cleans the home and office of a lawyer and babysits for a university professor who got her own education on student loan, too. I know Jane has inquired about the legal responsibility she as my next of kin would be obligated to bear if I could not repay my loan, so she may have made other inquiries, too.

 

She may be aware that there is such a thing as forgiveness programs. She may also know that the horse and buggy people would go crazy if they thought I was getting sucked into such a "worldly scheme" as forgiveness from the secular government. In that case, she would simply refuse to divulge the information. But she would stop from getting the information in the first place so that nobody could pry it out of her.

 

I know she has taken that approach in the past. When family and other church people bug her about my personal doings, she likes if she can say with integrity, "I don't know. We never discuss that sort of thing." This would explain her very brief phone calls every once in a long while. It allows her to stay in touch and confirm that I am still alive but staves off unwanted spills of confidences.

 

Well, it's done me good to write this thing out. In that same letter Sally also invited me over for a meal sometime over the holidays. I felt really conflicted about it. I just don't want to be connected with all those horrendous memories. I want to stay here in the safety of my city where people respect me just because I am a human being. But how to tell her? I'm thinking, since she respects no boundaries whatsoever, no matter how often I tell her over the years that I want no letters, I don't think I have to answer or even acknowledge her letter. After writing all this out, it occurs to me that if any of my sisters loves me it's Jane.

[R. S. Martin]

I just got back from being out for about 45 minutes and there was a message on my answering machine. WHO WOULD CALL LATE AFTERNOON ON CHRISTMAS EVE??? All offices and businesses are closing for Christmas.

 

I pressed the replay button and waited. And waited. Which language would speak to me--English (town friends or business) or Pennsylvania German (family--most likely sisters)?

 

At last I heard the voice. It was Dad's. Speaking English. Wishing me a merry Christmas. I guess he doesn't get it that answering machines "understand" German. The message he gets is in English so he thinks the machine understands only English.

 

Here I'd been enjoying my Christmas season for the first time in many years and now he's got to spoil it by calling.

 

I'm glad he managed to call during the brief time I was out.

 

I know I'm just one of hundreds who have this kind of problem but I do have it and I need to rant time and again. I've had it since birth and things only got worse when I deconverted.

[Amethyst]

*Hugs* Ruby

[R. S. Martin]

Thank you, Amethyst. He did call again and we managed to have a pleasant conversation. "Jane" called tonight, too, and we talked "neutral" stuff for quite a while. Apparently we have another nephew--a Christmas baby. Apparently all my sisters were together today. Almost I wished I could have been there, too, but that would have changed dynamics.

 

It's such a push-pull situation I never know from one moment to the next how they're going to be toward me.

[Wendybabe]

Hi, R.S. You are an amazing person! You have demonstrated so much courage in getting away from the community and acheived an education. I think getting into dept is 100% justified when it comes to education. If its the only option then its better than NOT getting a degree! Education is the greatest thing you can do for yourself. I'm really proud of you!

[babysealclubber]

Are you going to be okay? Financially, I mean. Are you employed?

 

Stay away from home if you're able. And living with your sister? Bah. She may be the nicest among them, but stay the hell away. I've been with my parents for less than two weeks and I'm already feeling depressed again. And my family is nothing compared to yours. Or so I've gathered. I don't want to seem too presumptuous, I've just read a lot of your posts.

 

Best wishes

 

BSC

 

P.S. You said you were never paid well working on peoples' farms. Is there a minimum wage in Canada? Is it applicable to OO Mennonites?

[R. S. Martin]

Hi, R.S. You are an amazing person! You have demonstrated so much courage in getting away from the community and acheived an education. I think getting into dept is 100% justified when it comes to education. If its the only option then its better than NOT getting a degree! Education is the greatest thing you can do for yourself. I'm really proud of you!

 

Thank you ever so much Wendy.

 

BSC said:

 

Are you going to be okay? Financially, I mean. Are you employed?

 

Stay away from home if you're able. And living with your sister? Bah. She may be the nicest among them, but stay the hell away. I've been with my parents for less than two weeks and I'm already feeling depressed again. And my family is nothing compared to yours. Or so I've gathered. I don't want to seem too presumptuous, I've just read a lot of your posts.

 

Best wishes

 

BSC

 

P.S. You said you were never paid well working on peoples' farms. Is there a minimum wage in Canada? Is it applicable to OO Mennonites?

 

Thank you for your concern. According to the reading and other study I've done, I would classify my family's attitude toward me as abusive in the extreme. As also that of the community as a whole. I think that is why I can never get done ranting. When I came to exC I was in such desperate need just to get myself some basic boundaries set with my family that I couldn't begin to address the issues most people rant about when they first come here. At least, so I explain things to myself. So I'm still playing catch-up.

 

I'm on disability insurance. That means I cannot pay back my loan and will have to go through a three-year process of Interest Relief, and then the Loan Forgiveness Program can be initiated. Or something like that is how it goes. I keep visualizing myself writing a best-seller and making a wind-fall that can pay off the debt in one fell-sweep. Such is the stuff dreams are made of and I don't place any bets on it coming true.

 

One day in desperation I asked my school counselor how to live in the city without money. I didn't realize that was a live option but I was having anxiety attacks like I never knew a person could have and some plan of action had to be put in place. I was heading toward the end of my degree and that would mean the end of eligibility for student loan. I had been living off student loan for years. It was my means of survival outside the OO Mennonite community. She helped me fight the system to get me on disability. It was a tough battle because my disability is not visible; mainly mental health issues.

 

Yes there is a minimum wage law in Canada and it was in effect well before I came of working age. However, "our people" did not operate according to such "worldly" government rules. Nor did I worry about such things. I expected to live with "our people" for life so I trusted that so long as everyone else had a home I would have a place to live. Besides, in my life plan, working on the farm was just a stop-gap till I was old enough to be a teacher. That was my plan. But they wouldn't hire me. Year. After year. After year.

 

I lived on hope that next year if not this year. This went on from about age 18 to age 25. It was becoming very clear to me that people didn't want to hire me. That meant there must be something wrong with me--my character, most likely. I had been working hard on my character all my life but I assumed I was missing something important. Desperate for feedback I asked my mother and sisters one day what was wrong with me and nobody would give any real answer.

 

"You talk too much," was suggested. I knew that wasn't true. I didn't talk more than some other people who were teachers. The most common suggestion over the years was that "It takes more than book-learning to control a room full of children." I assumed they were right about that but so what? I daren't claim that I understood children because that would be understood as bragging and we all know where bragging gets you with Christians; you gotta be humble--so very humble, be nobody and nothing, self-effacing. I had to trust that people would see my talent with children.

 

I had worked with children all my life. I loved children. I thrived on explaining difficult concepts to elementary school-aged children. Normally, children seemed to understand the things I explained to them--often it was concepts their parents or teachers never thought to explain because the concepts were considered to be too difficult. I would just simplify the concept to its lowest common denominator and normally the parents and teachers did not object to my explanations. (Apparently I knew what I was doing and did it acceptably.) This would happen ad hoc in the family home or during social get-togethers.

 

One of my sisters (Sally) who was teaching at the time did give me the opportunity to help her for six weeks. It was the tradition to have next year's first graders attend for six weeks in the spring to teach them English, the colour names, and the numbers, etc. Sally gave me the opportunity to do that for her one spring. So far as I know, things went well. Sally was quitting and the school was looking for another teacher. They would not consider hiring me.

 

This kind of thing is rejection on the grand scale from the entire community--not just from my family. I was given work in a factory assembling chains for sidewalk snowblowers. All but one of the workers in that department were single OOM women.

 

The over-seers were getting up in years and were not always able to be on the job. Someone had to be able to go one when they were absent. I enjoyed the work and hoped to work my way to over-seer level. I made an effort to learn all I could about all aspects of the job.

 

It was part time, seasonal work. We were notified by the overseers when there was work. I noticed that one year they failed to notify one older woman who was a slower worker. She had not resigned; they just didn't notify her that there was work. This did not seem fair to me but I had a policy not to meddle when it did not concern me personally.

 

One time after a significant lull, I was notified that there was work. I showed up for work as usual. Something seemed rather strange. I made some comment about being back after a lull and there was no reciprocal comment. Later I saw the time sheets of other workers and discovered that they had been working; I had not been notified.

 

I confronted the over-seer about this. She muttered something about it being non-routine work that I would not have known how to do. I knew the others would have had to be trained in it, too, so her excuse made no sense to me and I asked, "Could I not have learned?" She muttered something in an off-hand manner, "Possibly."

 

She was one of the few people in the community whom I had thought understood me and was friendly to me. Now she, too, was sidelining me. I could think of no personality clashes or any other problems for which they would have treated me like this. It was one more community rejection of me as a person.

 

I was secretly taking courses at the university by then and I feared saying something that would give this away, so I kept to myself a lot. But that should not be offensive. Remember, I'd been blamed for speaking too much; they should have been glad that for once I wasn't saying more than my share. Also, I didn't join in their nonsensical banter because I don't have what it takes. If they were singing, as some of them did sometimes in the mindlessness of the job, I would join in. Or if there was a philosophical discussion. I don't know what they held against me. However, it was clear that I was not going to get any promotions and as school took more of my time I quite that job.

 

Thank you, BSC, for the encouragement to stay away regardless of how "nice" they can seem to be. There interests aren't mine. The bad memories and wounds run so very deep.

[ogilvy]

Thank you, Amethyst. He did call again and we managed to have a pleasant conversation. "Jane" called tonight, too, and we talked "neutral" stuff for quite a while. Apparently we have another nephew--a Christmas baby. Apparently all my sisters were together today. Almost I wished I could have been there, too, but that would have changed dynamics.

 

It's such a push-pull situation I never know from one moment to the next how they're going to be toward me.

 

Yes Ruby, you have done so well to graduate, and get to where you are now. Do you have any other options for a place tio live? Maybe looking after an old person? It's great your friend helped you get on disability. I'm on that, too, and it takes a lot of pressure off, not having to work full time. I work casual, in healthcare facilities, as much or as little as I want. I agree it might not be the best idea to live with your sister, unless necessary. I feel you would maybe lose the independence you have gained, or it would at least feel like you had, being back in that environment.

[R. S. Martin]

Pippa, I've got a good place to stay. I think my sister was just imagining the worst. She probably doesn't know that the government makes allowances for people who truly can't pay. Nor am I about to tell her. It would be just one more juicy bit of gossip against me because they don't believe it is right to depend on the government like this. I sure appreciate all the support of people here not to go live with my sisters. Life for me is more than having food and shelter.

 

Thanks for sharing about your own situation. It's good to know I'm not the only one.

[babysealclubber]

Well that makes sense. Minimum wage is a pretty worldly concept. It's disgusting though, with those hours, and considering how low your living expenses were, that work could have provided you with quite a bit of financial security.

 

As long as we're all confessing about getting help, I may as well chime in that I took help because of a mental disability (it was exasperated by familial stressors as well.) It was academic, not financial, but the idea is the same. I understand what's going on.

 

Medication helped me tremendously. Is that an option for your condition?

 

You're obviously a very intelligent, caring person, and given you're background, I would imagine you have an ability to work harder than most. When the supervisor never called you back to work, I hope you don't compare yourself to the older woman at the factory. I refuse to believe that there was any connection.

 

Also, being rejected at the school couldn't have been because of your lack of ability. I have a friend who teaches, and he's not exactly brilliant. I don't mean to deride the teaching profession, but if he can do it, someone such as yourself can certainly do it. Don't let these rejections keep you down.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know that it is the best time to be searching for jobs, but I hope that you are able to find something soon that suits you and keeps you happy.

 

[R. S. Martin]

BSC, thanks for your support.

 

The unthinkable happened. "Sally" showed up at my door unannounced. Apparently she hired a driver to get to town for an appointment and while she was in town anyway she decided to drop in and see if I was home. She said she didn't know which was best--to drop in unannounced or call ahead. It seems it never occurred to her that she might be unwelcome either way.

 

This was one of those days when I decided to sleep in till noon, hoping to get rid of a migraine, or prevent it from developing into a full-blown headache. So about 12:00 noon my landlady knocked at my door at the top of the steps. No problem. I figured she wanted to come down and do laundry. If I don't answer she just comes down, closes my bedroom door, and does what she needs to do. This time she called me and said I had a visitor--one of my sisters.

 

Oh boy! what do I do now? It's not fair to get landlady involved in my family feuds; I need to deal with this myself. But I wasn't ready to meet visitors so I asked if she could stay upstairs till I was ready for her. I heard my sister's voice agree. Only one syllable but I recognized it as Sally's voice. When I went upstairs through the front hall to use my washroom she was sitting on a stool waiting for me. It was Sally alright and there was a box with my name on it waiting with her. Food, I supposed.

 

It turns out she brought a full three-course meal for our lunch in the case that I was home and would agree to having her. I decided I might as well please her and eat her stuff than make my own breakfast. I quickly decided to attend the free lecture at the university this afternoon so that she couldn't stay very long. And there's the assignment I have to hand in today. I don't have time for visitors.

 

Do these people ever know how to bungle up one's day by "loving" the "sinner"! Concentration would be so much easier if I didn't have to deal with HER and all she stands for.

[babysealclubber]

It's tough.

 

When dealing with my family, I alternate rapidly between feeling pity or anger towards them. On the one hand, they are unwitting victims of religion, and their intentions (to the best of my knowledge) are not malicious. On the other hand, 'good' intentions and ignorance don't stop them from being harmful, or at the very least, painful to be around. It's as if they were blindfolded, they just can't/won't see themselves and their behavior as destructive.

 

Of course they see the same thing in you.

 

Reading your update, it occurred to me that to most outsiders, your sister's visit would seem like a caring gesture. And as a snapshot of the situation, they would be right. Taking a broader view, I suppose it's really about being able to decide who is allowed to be involved in your life.

 

So I guess the big question is; are we destined to be permanent victims of the ovarian lottery? What choices are there?

[babysealclubber]

As an aside, I used to get intense migraines as well. Painkillers wouldn't touch them. But after a couple years of trying things, my doctor gave me some caffeine pills, and they took the edge off.

 

If you haven't already, at least try it. I had the pills, but IIRC a cup of coffee had close to the same amount of AI. Just thought I would throw that out there.

[R. S. Martin]

Thanks for responding, BSC. I went to the lecture. It was good. The lecture was about ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is when we impose our own values on everybody else and think there's something wrong with others because they don't think like we do or don't like the things we do.

 

I've known that concept for quite a while but he analyzed the feelings of ethnocentrism and what behaviours these feelings lead to. One feature of ethnocentrism is the ability to turn off empathy, which he calls "catastrophical dehumanization." I don't know if the fundy Christian ability to turn off feelings of empathy for their atheist/exChristian family members is "catastrophical dehumanization" or "satanical dehumanization" or just plain old "dehumanization." However, treating a brother, sister, parent, or child (or any other biological kin) like an evil monster just because he/she does not believe in god is definitely dehumanization of some sort.

 

Thanks, prof, you gave me a new tool.

 

BSC, I have meds for migraine. I just figure if a few hours more sleep will take care of it, that's the best route to go. It seems to have worked this time.