Loving: The Road to Religious Destruction and Self-Discovery

Written By Honey Colon

TRIGGER WARNING: SA and Religious Trauma.

To be in love.

To be loved.

Love was a deep cabinet covered in dust and old mugs and my mom’s favorite kitchen knife. It was the color yellow and played Top Ten Latin Hits from my dad’s car radio. Growing up love was modeled in action. In being clothed, housed, and fed. My parent's love was shown in how they raised their voice or when my bare butt met a belt. Growing up in the church altered how I looked at the world and myself. Purity culture and worship teams and weekend youth retreats. From very early on in my life I understood that I, as a being, was sinful. I didn’t listen to my mom that one time at dinner so, naturally, would lay awake in bed later that night afraid to sleep because god could strike me down at any moment for being so disobedient. I would count sheep or my fingers or the shadows in my room that became evil spirits out to take me down to hell. I was what they liked to say, “a strong-willed child,” I didn’t want to cross my legs during services or hug church members I had never met before. This was not how a nice Christian girl was supposed to act of course. I was told I was always a sinner and would always be and therefore never be worthy of god’s love- but to never stop seeking it (obviously).

I remember when I was around 14 or 15, there was this one youth retreat and it was an after-sermon alter call- an event where the pastor asks the congregation to come and ‘find the holy spirit and forgiveness’ at the front of the stage after they just gave the most stomach-turning sermon for three hours straight- I sobbed and kept thinking of how many times I’ve sinned and how horrible and undeserving of love I was. That’s all I remember thinking, “I am not worthy of love.” At the time, I thought it was a beautiful thing, that I could be so horrible and terrible but something out there loved me regardless. But that’s all it was, regardless. Conditional. I had to strip myself of my own thoughts and ideas and throw myself into something I never truly understood. I would never be worthy of good love because I would never be a good person. I would never be whole.

Later on in life, I took this idea of relationships and ran with it. I attached myself to any person who would show me the slightest interest and when their discontent with me grew I thought it was love that made them so passionately cruel toward me. The more detached I was from the truth the better I was at giving my everything to people who didn’t show me the slightest bit of respect or kindness. I didn’t turn away when my second boyfriend first hit me. I cried and said I was sorry for making him upset. He told me he loved me and that I made him feel things too large to hold in. And, I didn’t say anything when he later violated my body even when I told him to stop. I didn’t say stop the next time- I said nothing. And in my silence, he found an open door that begged to be shut. And even then, still, I believed in love, or at least my foundational core belief of what it was. I believed I loved him so much that I would never love again if he left. But of course, he left and I was left to rot in the remnants of my self-worth and preconceived ideas of what I wanted from that relationship. What did I want? Love probably, acceptance for sure, or maybe someone to sustain my predetermined belief that I did not deserve a good kind of love.

I spent the formative years of my life trapped in a cycle of guilt and shame for how I allowed myself to be treated- only then I couldn’t grasp that these things were not my fault. Again, the remnants of purity culture and woman shaming weighed on me like a rock sitting at the base of my spine. It felt wrong to feel anything other than anger towards men, but it was all I could feel. One time, when I was older, I lied when a partner asked if I had sex before. I said no. Because technically I hadn’t. Not really anyway. My body and heart were not my own because I didn’t know it could be mine anymore. I felt that this ‘thing’ had taken something from me that I could never get back and would be worthless without. The hymen really is such a small and disastrous thing. At least then I thought so.

I left the church when I got older. I struggled for a long time after that, with my own self-identity and worth (that’s its own story for another time). I bandaged my self-hatred in more self-destruction. Finding any drug or drink or person I could and shoved them into wounds they didn’t cause only to be left with welts and burns and loneliness. The fragments of my childhood reappeared like dreams. I’d see a daughter and father walk hand in hand across the street, laughing and jumping through the line in the crosswalk, and I’d shatter. I’d witness friends become lovers and then strangers only to be left with their jackets forgotten in my car and feelings misplaced. Or getting a call from that old boyfriend to tell me he was moving and pretending I was sad when all I wanted to do was tell him I hated him for what he did to me and I’d never forgive him. I shattered and put pieces together in the wrong order and then repeated it all again the next week. I felt too weak to hold myself together and too unworthy to even try.

It all came to a close one day, as all horrible things do. I found myself split and broken and tired and decided it was time to help myself. It took time, as all wonderful things do, but I began to open the parts of my mind I had sealed up and tucked away. I started therapy and working on my sobriety. I didn’t do it alone, even though I wanted to. I had friends and family and strangers that knew enough to see I was trying. And as long as I tried I couldn’t fail, not really anyway. My story is long and complex, but the spark notes get the point across the same. Slowly I became aware of my habits as not only physical but also psychological. I had been through too much and processed none of it that my brain created pathways into determined behaviors and ideas. I thought I was undeserving of love because everything up to this point had never let me believe otherwise. And believing otherwise would force me to unravel myself and see my core. I was never allowed to think or feel or be outside the perimeters of my cage. Semi self-made and the other external forces I had no control over. The things I could not control I feared and resented because they reminded me constantly that there was no way out. You have to take into consideration I was told from childhood a man however many years ago died for me and took all of my pain and that if I wanted to be worthy of his forgiveness I would have to model him. I had to be willing to die for this burden that wasn’t even mine. In my mind, the only way through it was through death. I had experienced the mental death of an alter call and done enough drugs to feel my ego disintegrate, but how come it was never enough?

I was raised to believe I could only be ‘one thing’. Maybe two, as long as it appeased the church. But the need to make everyone happy no longer felt as fulfilling as it used to. I was a shell of myself because I had no idea who I was or what I wanted. It never occurred to me before that those things mattered. I found solace in leaving the church behind. I found peace in knowing I was experiencing the world as I wanted to see it. I also found it difficult to unlearn all the things I believed were truths. Opening myself to new people and ideas was easy, but I quickly understood that they could not exist at the same time as the old ones. I had to acknowledge the parts of me I was hiding.

Shadow work sounds witchy and weird, but it’s actually quite the opposite. The ‘shadow’ is a mirror, the part of ourselves that we don’t like, the ‘I’ that experienced the trauma, the person who holds all the boxes that we swore we’d never open. I started shadow work with my therapist. For the first time, I began to see myself. All of myself. We need this shadow. It’s the part of our minds that keeps us safe from trauma or harm- it takes the first punch. When we relive triggers and experiences our first instinct is avoidance or fear. This is the shadow working. What we forget or don’t even know is that without it we would not be true conscious beings. We use it in growth or healing like a partnership. We can not move through these memories or feelings without acknowledging that the shadow lives within us because it is us. Moving those boxes around or opening them begins the path of forgiveness. Towards ourselves, towards others, and towards our shadow. I no longer feel weighed down by my memories and feelings because I no longer resent the part of me that experienced it. I can see what it was and how it was unfair, but I can feel how it doesn’t live inside me anymore. I’m good friends with my shadow.

I still have bad days and triggers, but I’m not scared of them. They are equally a part of my journey as all the good. I am not afraid to love and be loved. My nature seeks it now. It fills me now. I shed the idea of a one-dimensional love and relationship and found the world expands when you keep your heart open. I am not the things that have happened to me. They live within me and maybe always will, but they are safe with me. I don’t hold onto resentment or shame like a security blanket because I don’t have the space for it anymore. My heart is too full and too big.

Give yourself time and allow others to love you. They can show you little things that can help you love yourself. The road to deconstruction or healing is not linear or even the same for everyone, but know that wherever you are in your journey you’re doing great. Below are some Shadow Work prompts and little things that you might enjoy.

Take care,

IG - honeyycolon

(and happy cancer season! ♋)

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE(4673)

National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Hotline: 1-800-662-HELP(4357)

National Institute of Mental Health Information Resource Center: 1-888-826-9438