Abandonment

Number 21

This will be a touchy subject all around.....hope I can express myself thoroughly enough to make my point.  There have been many times I have felt abandoned in my journey through life.  I remember once when I was left at the store when I was young....I can look back on that one and laugh.  My parents had 10 children......many competing interests.....it is a wonder I was not left places more often!  LOL 

I felt abandoned when I was entered middle school.  It was change that I do not think I was ready for, mature enough to accept and so many classes.  I did not feel prepared for that experience, and felt like I was dropped of and expected to find my own way through things with NO guide.  It was an awkward time in my life, as with most children at that age.  I remember friendships realigning and more definitive boundaries being created.  I do not look back on these years fondly....bullying started, unfeeling teachers surrounded me, and my self concept began to deteriorate.

I felt abandoned my freshman and sophomore years of high shcool because the bullying took center stage.  I felt helpless, hopeless and infuriated.  Friends helped the situation....my mother was my compass.....I survived.  The bullying was personal, situational and institutional.  I have shared many of those instances in prior posts.  

Most recently I have felt that religion abandoned me.  I do not mean God.  I mean religion.  I had inklings of this abandonment in high school when the Bishop would pull me into his office and ask me about my "sins" that I was purported to have committed.  The last handful of years, I have tried to "pray the gay away".  By that I mean I was to read my scriptures faithfully, pray to God, be obedient, and serve faithfully and all my problems would be resolved.  I endured long enough (I think).....to find out that this formula did not work.  What I have found is that more and more people have put that formula to practice and it did not work for them either.  It makes me wonder how many other people are conducting the same experience, not finding resolution, but continue to endure?  Did religion abandon me.....or did I simply abandon it? 

I do hear people remark that I took the "easy" way out.  It is hard to hear that because the unfeeling person that makes a comment like that does not realize the amount of things I have given up (social network, friends, acquaintance, organizations, family).  I do feel abandoned but many because of my separation from Rachel, the church and family/friends.  Not sure there is much I can do to improve that.  I do know that my children and Rachel had feelings of abandonment.  Some choose to talk about it others do not. 

My hope is that future situations allow me and those around me to not feel so abandoned.  I am working through that in many ways and I am not sure if I will ever attain that.  Here is hoping......