Trigger warning for a more in-depth discussion of my eating disorder issues and mentioning of my (stupid) perusal of pro-Ana websites.
I do not want to encourage any eating disorders. That is not my intent with this post at all. Please let me know if you find it “pro-eating disorder” because I am not in that mindset, despite my struggle.
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This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness week. Unfortunately, what it’s done for me is just made me more aware of mine and the fact that I am no where near a stable recovery (though I am trying).
I slipped up today in my perusing of eating disorder blogs. Usually I’m good and just read the strictly supportive/recovery based ones. The ones that do not encourage Thinking Thin or Thinspiration or any of that harmful talk. I found a couple new ones yesterday that were absolutely lovely and gave me all sorts of smiles.
Today I stumbled across a pro-Ana (a term for anorexia) blog. I didn’t realize it at first because it wasn’t overt like some. I won’t link it here because that just perpetrates the cycle of harm and I will not be a part of that.
What bothered me was the way the blog talked about the Goddess Ana. Personifying a disorder into this figure of anti-eating, rib-showing, thigh-gap encouraging “deity” they could pray to for assistance. I am horrified. I hate that I immediately got an image of what this goddess would look like. And she would be cruel. She would demand constant sacrifice; the blood, sweat, tears, and pounds of her worshipers.
I thought we were past the old days of sacrificing young women to appease the gods.
Apparently not.
We’ve merely moved on to a darker strain of sacrifice. Instead of a quick knife or even a pyre of flame- it is a slow torture of starvation. It is giving that little piece of you daily to a tall, impossibly thin and icy eyed woman who says it is never enough. Just a couple more pounds. Always just a couple more. Her mouth is a black hole and it devours your strength, your health, your sanity with gulping force, the sharp teeth glittering in a border of poisoned words.
And words have power. I give this goddess power merely by encouraging this descriptive personification. I can’t help it. But I will not let such a cruel goddess rule me. I line my personal angels and guardians up around me. I do not look into her eyes or step anywhere near that gaping mouth. I will not dedicate myself to a goddess who demands such a high sacrifice.
I will not.
And I can only hope that other women and girls (and men and boys) will find the strength to turn away. To know that they are beautiful just as they are. They were beautiful all those weeks ago before they heard the call of the Goddess Ana. Before the siren’s song started.
We are stronger than we know.
Be gentle, be loving, be strong. You are worth it.
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Note: I purposely put some tags that may seem slightly “pro-Ana” in hopes that someone will stumble across this post when looking for tips or encouragement. And I hope this encouragement of a different sort, of a truly positive sort, will start the healing process.
Happy National Eating Disorder Awareness week.
pen, paper, and crazy 
❤
Thank you ❤
I had to completely cut myself out of anorexia blogs because of the strength of the triggers. Now I am able to handle them again. But it does make me so sad that people can be so tightly in anorexia’s grasp and there is nothing I can do from all the way over here. Such a cruel beast is ‘she’ xxx
I did that in the beginning too (I know my first couple months on this blog I barely mentioned food at all, much less eating disorders). I wouldn’t go near blogs that talked about it.
Then I felt stronger and sort of slipped into browsing them occasionally it because my anger at how people talked about it positively helps me sometimes. I struggle daily with my eating disorder, but I do not see it as a badge to wear proudly.
I also love the supportive thoughts from recovering blogs too. That’s been very helpful and healing.
Thank you for your thoughts and warm thoughts to you ❤ ❤
It was just a couple of weeks ago that I learned that there were sites like this. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it, but I didn’t. I tend to avoid exposure to the topic elsewhere than my friends’ blogs. It can be very upsetting for us and seeing someone act like there is a diety for this, well that would be very painful to see. Even if I didn’t sometimes find things triggering, I wouldn’t want to participate on sites or blogs like that. Seeing others embracing this kind of stuff is so painful to watch.
You are so right in everything that you wrote in this post. I’m sorry that others would use goddess imagery in this way, only a goddess of death would embrace this stuff. So sorry that sites like this exist.
Good and healing thoughts to you.
Kate
I think it’s even drastically dark and destructive for a goddess of death. I have friends and family that follow various goddesses of death, and the sort of sacrifices they require are nothing so harmful and destructive as anorexia. If you dedicate yourself to a deity, they only want to see you grow and prosper. You are their priestess/priest. Sure, there will be challenges and you will have to go into that dark cocoon to emerge a butterfly, but you will not have to destroy your body and mind entirely to do so. That is just wrong.
Ahem.
Excuse my soapbox. Heh.
It was one of the most damaging eating disorder blogs I’ve ever come across. But it also made me angry and anger can be a powerful tool, even for healing, if used safely. That was my intent with this post. To channel my anger into something that can hopefully help others.
Thank you for your thoughts ❤
I agree that anger can be empowering and healing and a catalyst for healing.
I wanted to try to be a little clearer on this. My understanding of dark goddesses is that they are about death, transformation, and rebirth, a person with an anthropology degree, not as a practitioner. This stuff, revering anorexia and (non-eating, which is to my mind anti-life), is just all about death and nothing else. Still there has been a long tradition of trying to deify and revere fasting girl/anorexia girls and to make their struggles into something higher than it is. I recall how shocked I was when I read the book Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa by Joan Jacobs. Anyway I hope I was clearer, but I worry that I wasn’t.
Good and healing thoughts to you.
Kate
I see. I only know from a family and personal side of things, being that my area of degree is law. Lol. But I understand what you mean know. Yes, they are more like the idea of the phoenix and the Death card in the Tarot. Not literal sacrifice and pain but transformation and re-evaluation.
I’ve never heard of that book. The only ED related book I’ve read is Winter Girls because they get into my head and make me backslide a bit too much.
I do appreciate your clearing things up. I think I gotcha now 🙂
I don’t read any of the books either. As a historical this book wasn’t triggering to me, but I’m not sure that I could read anything else or even this book now and not be triggered a lot.
Good and healing thoughts to you.
Kate
In searching for blogs related to my situation, I was shocked to see so many sites that encourage these diseases. I knew they existed, but not the amount. I hope someone finds this and it triggers a glimmer of hope and help for them.
As always, wishing you peace and strength. Thank you for sharing this.
JC
I’m glad I was not the only person completely floored by the “pro-thoughts” and “tips” to “help” continue the disorder. I was expecting more stuff like your lovely blog, that would just be relaxed and recovery centered (and hopefully with a bit of humor 😉 )
I just hope that those confused and sick girls/women/boy/men stumble across thoughts more like mine and yours and don’t get further caught in that net of self-cruelty.
“It is giving that little piece of you daily to a tall, impossibly thin and icy eyed woman who says it is never enough…. Her mouth is a black hole and it devours your strength, your health, your sanity with gulping force, the sharp teeth glittering in a border of poisoned words.”
That is a magnificent piece of imagery, and hopefully it will encourage the appropriate shrieking flight from the “Godesses’s” embrace. Well done.
Godess’s. Duh. Spelling malfunction doesn’t reduce the admiration.
Haha, it happens. Not judgment here 🙂
See? That should have been “no judgment”. I’m obviously super awake on this Friday morning.
Thank you. I was hoping that making her seem strikingly real would make it a more powerful tool to show the negativity.
All of the pro-ANA stuff reminds me of the pro-ANA saints who held the line on not anorexia nervosa but something called snorexia mirabilis. Trouble is, the “holy” absence of hunger is actually a common manifestation of starvation (regardless of whether one is a refugee, a prisoner, or suffering from an eating disorder). It’s sick and some of them developed ascetic cult followings. There really aren’t words for the creepy holy veneration of asceticism in the form of medieval ANA and SI. There is nothing holy about this, only pure evil. Modern versions of that are no less creepy and no less evil. I appreciate what you wrote, though stop short of reposting it because I know it will be triggering. Take gentle care.
Yes. I actually stumbled across a free ebook through Kindle that was about “home doctoring”, which I thought might be helpful because I try to avoid doctors whenever possible. I assumed it would be a bunch of home remedies, health eating, some other tidbits of self-care. Technically there was that. But a big part of the book was also this “cleansing detox treatment” that consisted of not eating for 26 days! I was floored! It talked about the healthy aspects of this- how forcing your body into starvation mode is actually “detoxifying”. It talked about the “spiritual” aspects of it, which just disgusted me.
Anyway, my point is it is unhealthy to starve yourself. There’s a difference between a 2-3 fast for spiritual reasons and truly starving yourself. And I actually don’t participate in fasting with my family any longer because it is too triggering for me.
I completely understanding not re-posting. I appreciate the thoughtful comment though. Thank you very much.
“And words have power. I give this goddess power merely by encouraging this descriptive personification. I can’t help it. But I will not let such a cruel goddess rule me. I line my personal angels and guardians up around me. I do not look into her eyes or step anywhere near that gaping mouth. I will not dedicate myself to a goddess who demands such a high sacrifice.”
This paragraph, in particular, grabbed me. Perhaps it was risky to personify her, I don’t know, but it looks to me like in doing so you also gave yourself power. You’ve drawn her out and seen her for what she is. Brilliant writing. Your words touched me. Thank you for sharing them.
I’m glad it was able to touch you. That was exactly what I was hoping with this post. I knew it was a risk- but I was hoping the power of the positive would overwhelm the negative.
Thank you so much for stopping by.
I struggled with an eating disorder for 4 and a half years and it literally ruined my life! I don’t know I even managed to graduate college with good grades, because I was at the lowest point I have ever been in! I am glad to see that other people are addressing eating disorders because i feel like they get so stigmatized and really there are so many aspects that go into it…not just a desire to be thin! That’s the reason why no matter what weight I reached it was never good enough….the whole thing was that I was able to have the control and dealing with so many other things around me that i couldn’t control I felt like it was the only thing i had to hold on to. however, i am in recovery and doing very well because I changed the entire way i lived my life. I had to realize that women are supposed to have curves….and one thing that really motivated me was the fact that I know I want to have children some day and in order to do that I had to stop the eating disorder behaviors! I have now turned to eating healthy and exercising in moderation, but I do continue to struggle some days and so I am glad to know I am not alone!!
That is wonderful that you made those steps towards recovery.
That is such a hard thing to do and it really shows your strength and bravery that you are managing to realize the impact and results.
I still struggle with it every day. I think a lot of people who fall into that pit of despair with eating disorders, it ends up being something that is with them for life. Even just looking over your shoulder.
The trick is pushing it back and not listening. And you seem to be handling that beautifully. I’m very happy to hear that.
I hope things continue to go smoothly for you. Please remember that there are always others who struggle and reach out if you need to. Having support makes it much easier.
Warm and healing thoughts to you.
Brilliant writing. It’s pained me to know that someone I love dearly has struggled with anorexia. You have such a powerful voice. I wish you and everyone else who suffers from eating disorders all the best. (I wish I could say or phrase that better…)
Thank you.
It is always painful to discover that struggle with anorexia; whether it’s yourself or a loved one. I’ve had friends struggle with it too and it’s such a hard and deep pit to climb out of. I wish your loved one all the best. Support is the best thing you can provide. It really does make all the difference.
Warm thoughts.
It is so sad to see that these sites still exist, and that people are still in that dark place. I’ve been there, and it hurts so much to see other people that are there too. I would just like to share that there IS hope, that there IS a light at the end of this dark tunnel. I’ve made it through, I know how hard it is. But it is possible, and your life will be so much better once you get through! It’s worth all the pain, all the struggling. You can do it! Every one of you! Never, ever lose hope ❤
What a lovely supportive statement. Thank you so much for sharing.
Wishing you well… Congrats on being FP’d!
Thank you very much 🙂
It’s devastating, especially when I think about so many teens and pre-teens exposed to these sites. Actually, even in my early 20s I found them hard to resist.
They are seductive in their darkness. I can only hope that those in the “limbo state” of pre-recovery will find posts like mine to encourage them towards positive support and healing.
Your bravery is inspiring. Please continue to be a light, there are so many of us fighting this particular brand of darkness and it’s so hard to stay away from the pro ana sites. Thank you.
I’m honored to be providing a light in the darkness. I know that darkness is overwhelming and can even be seductive. I hope that all can find the support and healing they need to come towards the light.
It does get better.
Warmest thoughts to you.
This is brilliantly candid- thanks for sharing. While I’m not personally familiar with the world of eating disorders, I do find the consciously misguided allure of self-destructive behavior, as you described it, to be relatable. I think many other people fighting many other struggles could relate on some plane, too.
Good! I’m glad to hear this could be helpful in multiple facets of recovery to many struggles. My hope in this post was merely to help guide people towards a positive path of support and healing.
Thank you for sharing and I wish you well.
Wow – I had no idea about the “pro” sites. Now that’s sick.
I’m sorry you are having to struggle with this, but glad that you are using it to help support and educate others.
Blessings on your recovery – and congrats on the Freshly Pressed! Well deserved for your courage.
Thank you very much for the thoughts. It is disturbing to discover not everyone is trying to go towards recovery. But I think it is the case with a lot of illnesses (especially mental). My hope is to reach more people who are stuck or in that “pre-recovery limbo” and guide them towards the positive. Show them that getting better is possible and the support you need is out there.
I appreciate you stopping by and your kind words!
I was inspired by your post. Your writing is beautiful! I too have struggled with aligning my body to society’s perceptions and am trying my best to just be happy with the way I am. Posts like your always give me the support I need. Thank you!
I am so glad to reach someone like you. That was exactly my goal 🙂
Please continue to disregard society’s demands and be happy with yourself just as you are. You are beautiful, strong, and worth everything!
Warm and healing thoughts!
My cousin suffers from an eating disorder and is finding it such a struggle to get better. To think that people would worship something so painful (because I know she is in pain) is horrifying.
I pray to the good guys that she and everyone who suffers gets better, and can see how beautiful we all are as individuals.
I am sorry to hear about your cousin. It is horrifying to see the negativity out there trying to prevent healing. But there is also incredible support and positive thoughts as well. I hope your cousin is able to get the support and healing needed.
I am praying to the good guys right there with you. You are absolutely right- we are all beautiful. Warm thoughts to you and yours.
The first time I came across a website, skinnygirl or something, I was beyond appalled… I mean, who in there right mind would want to encourage girls to starve themselves? we’re talking about still developing personalities, and your contribution is to go down and give them a few kidney punches? wow..
Thank you for posting this. You’ve written it in clean, powerful and caring words, more than anything, it sounds like you’re speaking from the heart. So, thank you. We need more sensible voices out here. 🙂
It was appalling to me too. Mostly because of the high number of websites like that (blogs, tumblers, twitters, etc.). I don’t consider myself an idiot and I figured there were one or two out there in general. But before doing this post, I did some searching and it was just…overwhelming.
And you are completely right, these are usually girls at such a sensitive and developing age. It isn’t remotely healthy.
I’m glad my post struck you in such a way. I am so incredibly happy that this post was able to become such a powerful contribution to the world of eating disorder recovery. I never imagined it would be Freshly Pressed!!
Warm thoughts to you 🙂
Amen. Eh, no pun intended.
Actually, the ‘Godess Ana’ was somewhere sometime how somebody with anorexia perceived her illness… and the concept was something anorexics could relate to back in the days (I’m talking 10-15 years ago!) when pro-Ana really was a place for anorexics to find each other and relate to someone…. the whole thing got viral and at some point it became ‘hip’ or something. Horrible… I have a long history with eating disorders and I left the whole ‘ED support scene’ when 15-year-old twits started telling me I wasn’t ‘strong’ enough…. The irony of course being that I was the one diagnosed with anorexia, they were normal-weight stupid girls. And I just got plain tired of the whole thing.
Hm. Interesting. I’m not really sure I completely understand where you’re coming from, but I’m not in the habit of censoring comments, even if I don’t agree with them.
I appreciate your stopping by and warm thoughts to you.
I’m glad these pro sites and blogs weren’t around 25 years ago when I was a teen struggling with an eating disorder. Very disturbing! Congratulations of being freshly pressed!
They are surprisingly harmful. I’m sorry you went through that struggle.
Thank you very much!
Warm thoughts 🙂
I feel that we should be linking to sites which are “pro-ana/mia” because it exposes the thoughts and behaviors of people who are ill and gives us insight on better ways to diagnose and treat them. I don’t think it’s necessarily “pro-ana/mia” to link to those sites.
That is perfectly acceptable as your opinion. I will not be doing so on my blog though. For two reasons:
1. I imagine the blogger would get a lot of negative and hurtful comments about how “wrong” her blog is. She doesn’t need this. It is not healing. The internet can be a cruel place.
2. It doesn’t truly accomplish anything to show the specific pro-ana website that inspired my particular post. If you were to do a simple search, you will find a whole slew of them for your own insight.
As I stated in my post, I only think it will perpetrate the cycle of negativity.
But I thank you for your thoughts. I certainly can understand where you are coming from and I don’t mean to be disrespectful.
It just isn’t going to happen on my blog, which is mental-health centered and tends to have an audience that is easily triggered and harmed by such thoughts.
Warm thoughts
In college I remember being shown how the internet can be a wealth of knowledge but the diversity of the knowledge out here is at the fingertips of anyone using google or following this link to that link and so on. In my class we were given specific examples to search, the first being a pro-ana site. I was shocked that anorexia was seen in a desirable light and promoted.
It takes courage to share the experiences we live through, the ones that shape us. Keep up reaching out providing a welcoming warm space for those not on their road to health {yet}. You’re like the lighthouse bringing boats safely home in letting others realize and see in a non judgmental way, that they are not alone. You give hope and hope floats.
Wow. You make me sound like this beautiful ideal. I hope I can live up to the expectation.
It’s hard to stay positive, and I know for a fact that I don’t do that 100% of the time (which is pretty obvious by my up & down posts on my blog). This is an ongoing recovery for me and sometimes I backslide.
But I like to think that sometimes my thoughts are strong enough and positive enough to help others, like in the case of this post. I would like to be that light in the darkness, however flickering it may be.
Thank you for your kind thoughts. They mean a lot.
I think being real is more important than positive all the time or a beautiful ideal. I’m not always positive in my life either nor am I an ideal anything. I’m perfectly imperfect, flawed, but that also allows growth and change.
Backsliding, dealing with the down times are the whole of you and help others in knowing you’re not just putting on a shiny polish to this, your being a whole person. People don’t trust others who are shiny happy all the time, or at least I guess that’s my experience. A friend once told me that there is beauty in our scars, it’s what makes us human and able to look at others through a compassionate heart. By not wanting to link back to the other sites, bringing negativity and potentially making matters worse for those powering those sites, you see how it’s more than simply passing judgment, it’s about healing and to first do no harm (that’s the creed we in medicine [strive] to follow).
Brene Brown has some good books about this (Daring Greatly is one of them), shame is a silent epidemic in our culture, when we feel too shameful to share our experiences we bury them under layers and the shame and fear eats away at us…when we finally reach out to another or for help, to be met with empathy…that kills the shame. It’s not perfect or always 100% either, but a process, a journey. So is life, so is healing. We’re not here to see through people like transparent films flapping in the wind, we’re here to see them through.
Do No Harm is a Pagan creed as well 🙂 That was exactly my mindset in not linking her blog. I knew, despite her flawed reasoning, that leading others to her would likely lead to negative and harsh comments, which she does not need.
I am hoping that my blog simply comes across as real. Whether struggling up or down, this blog is place of mutual support and that is my biggest goal. I think I’m managing to accomplish it so far.
I’ll have to check out those books. They sounds interesting.
I did not know there was a goddess for such a thing. You sound like a very strong individual and my hopes and wishes goes out to you to working your way out of this!
You can do it!
Thank you for your thoughts.
I’m not sure if the intention of the blogger in referencing “the goddess Ana” was in the sense of literal worship, or just as a figurehead to look towards. It’s hard to know the mind of someone else. I just hope she can find healing thoughts and the support she needs.
Such a beautiful way of putting things. Self worth can’t be measured by how big a gap is between your legs or how many ribs are showing. I hope that anyone with anorexia or an eating disorder can overcome it and recover fully because there’s nothing better than being able to appreciate life again. x
That is true. That simple appreciate of life is the real struggle.
Thank you for your thoughts!
this was incredible. the description of “the goddess Ana” was very intense!
Thank you very much. I had hope it would be striking enough to stick with persons and encourage healing.
Thank you so much for sharing your struggle. Good for you resisting the pressure! I struggled with an (almost) eating disorder for years, which I have mostly kicked. It is so hard when we are constantly surrounded by advice, images, and encouragement to lose weight, eat less, work out more. Stick with it resisting the goddess! (Powerful writing also, although the topic is more important)
Good for you for not sinking too low into the black hole of eating disorders. It’s very difficult to climb out.
I think a lot of people today struggle with some sort of eating issue, especially in any 21st century Westernized nation. It’s the media, social pressure, all that jazz. It just isn’t healthy in encouraging us to just love ourselves as we are.
Thanks for stopping by!
Reblogged this on nealr25 and commented:
I am not pro Ana. But I am fighting that same fight, not due to wanting to lose weight. I have no idea how I ended up where I am, with my ribs showing slightly and my hips quite a bit. I may look great right now, but I do not feel healthy. I can only get one meal down a day, if that. I gag from most of what I eat, I try to finish whatever it is that I made for myself, but frequently am unable to. I’m already full from just a few bites. Yet each morning I wake up starving and I can’t stand long enough to make food. I am stuck in a cycle of being unable to overeat, unable to gain the weight back. Unable to finish a decent meal.
I don’t like to see this much bone, and I don’t like to feel the way I do. I need food in my life, I love food. I miss craving it. I wish I had cravings again. Then I’d know my body is on its way to recovery.
Its not a choice I made. It just, happened for me. And I don’t wish it upon anyone. May you eat healthy and be able to give blood.
Is it bad that I go things that trigger me on purpose? I know how horrible it is for my health, but I went straight from anorexia to binge eating disorder, and I’m just as unhealthy as I was when I was underweight, but way more miserable and way less self confident. I definitely don’t worship some weird “Ana Goddess”, but I do miss ana and want her back. Anything is better than how I feel now! Thanks for you post though 🙂
I’m sorry you’re struggling. I hope my post was helpful. I appreciate you sharing your struggle. That’s very courageous of you.
I think we seek out negative/triggering topics a lot just because it’s sometimes easier to feel that triggering feeling that just sit there and struggle. Don’t punish yourself for going there, a lot of us do. It’s human.
I hope you are able to find the support and healing you need. I know that feeling of wanting ana and craving it. It’s so hard to turn away from that path. That measure of control can be satisfying. But loving yourself is also immensely satisfying.
Please be gentle to yourself. You are worth it.
Warm and healing thoughts.
What a well written blog!
Having been a friend watching two people I love with battle with eating disorders, I can relate to how strongly you feel about people NOT getting involved in anything pro-Ana. As a person on the other side, I felt helpless and frustrated because I couldnt help. So imagining how any eating disorder sufferer feels is beyond comprehension! If only more people, sufferers or supporters of those suffering, would see it the same way as you do now. Take each day at a time and you WILL get there. x
Thank you for stopping by.
You sound like a great person to have as support. That’s one of the best things to have when struggling with this sort of thing. That support makes all the difference. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it really is a big thing to just be there and not push the person away when you find out about their struggle.
You are so right and I also really hope that more and more people will find that path of healing, recovery, and support. It doesn’t have to be any big gesture, even something small means the world.
Warm thoughts 🙂
There’s plenty I could say, and it’s all really been said before, but there is something I -must- say: Thank you. Because I needed to know that this could get better.
It’s my pleasure to be able to show that side of things. I know it’s hard and that deep black hole is slippery as hell and next to impossible to climb out of, but it can be done. And it is utterly worth it.
I hope you are able to walk down the path of recovery with as much healing and warm thoughts as possible.
Eating disorders can be easy to hide and your article increases awareness so thank you for your post!!!
Glad to be able to do that. It is very much a secret illness.
Much thanks 🙂
Reblogged this on Oyia Brown.
I lost a best friend to anorexia when she was 19. She struggled for 8 years. It enrages me how so many teenage girls glorify skipping meals and being thin at any cost.
I think it’s brave and admirable of you to be able to talk about your experiences and try to use them to help others. Good luck to you.
❤
I am very sad to hear that. It breaks my heart to hear about the ones that couldn’t fight it. I can only hope she is at peace now.
If my sharing and words can prevent even a single person from losing the struggle, then it is all worth it.
Thank you for sharing and warm thoughts to you.
For me, my anorexia was rooted in lack of self worth and lack feeling loved. I found it to be a cruel obsession based on the idea that if I could only be a little thinner I would reach a point when people would like me. Of course, that never works. Having left anorexia behind me few years ago I can only share this bit of advice: You are loved. You are cherished. You have been fearfully and wonderfully made. My own experience proves to me that there is a God, and that He does love us, and is willing to restore us. I pray that you too can know His lavish love too.
Thank you for your thoughts.
I do not practice a religion that follows a “god” with any named gender, but I understand the support that religion provides. It can be a beautiful thing, no matter the name. For me, organized religion is extremely triggering due to a childhood of it being used as a weapon, so I tend to dodge it on a personal level.
But I do appreciate prayers of any kind.
Warm thoughts to you.
I’m sorry for that.
It’s quite all right. It isn’t anything to do with you. I try to walk that line of not being alienated by the whole religion itself. I respect all religions and their followers.
I love having theological conversations. I only have issues with it’s used as a tool of threat or judgment.
You and me both.