I realize it's 9/11 and I had intended to have radio silence, but I had this dream and am writing this down to remember it.
I'm not sure if I'm going to publish it yet, because it could be twisted (when it's just a dream!). If I do and remove it later, just know it's not because I'm hiding something, but because it feels too vulnerable - but remember, it was just a dream.
A very significant one, at least for me - and strangely validating - and perhaps also could be for others watching this evangelical Trump nonsense, too.
Something similar happened to the events of this dream, once, although it was completely different circumstances and it did not end the same way - meaning I did not say/do these things, nor were any police called - I guess it's a "fantasy" ending lol.
Anyway, here goes ...
My grandmother was still alive and my daughter was young, probably around 4 - but it was as if COVID was going on. My mother came and picked my grandmother up for church to have prayer for healing from lung cancer.
Me: "Granny, please ... put this on, please. If' I'm wrong, your still safe, but if you're wrong, you catch COVID on top of cancer and die sooner."
Granny: "I'll be fine. They're going to pray for me, I have faith. I'm going to get well."
Me: "I want that to be true, too, Granny, but how can I take care of you if you don't do what you're supposed to do? I have faith too, but God expects us to use wisdom. Which means we don't do things like handle snakes in church or walk in to a room full of non-socially distanced people and not wear a mask during a deadly virus pandemic. Please? Please, just put this on."
I kept my voice down, but was holding out the mask.
Everyone walking in the church started laughing at me: "She's crazy, see? Her mother's right."
Granny: "Chrystal, just go home, I'll be fine."
Me: "Granny, Trump said, on audio tape, that he purposely downplayed it, please, listen to me. Didn't you hear that on the news? Didn't Fox News tell you that? Please, just take it, just in case?"
Granny: "Chrystal, go home, I have faith." ... and then walked inside.
I turned around to see my mother and the pastor's wife had gotten my daughter out of the car and walked in past me.
I ran in and said to my daughter:
"Honey, come on with Mommy, please. You can come with Nana another day" -- and tried to take her from my Mom.
My mom would not let go.
Mom: "Help, she's attacking me! XXXXXXX, your mommy is attacking me!"
Me: "No, Mommy's not attacking Nana. Just give me my daughter, please, Mom. NOW."
Mom: "No, she's better with me. They're going to pray for her, she won't get COVID. None of us will. Our faith is too strong."
My daughter starts crying.
Me: "Oh, I know, honey, but it's okay. Just come on with Mommy. You can come back another day, okay? Just not right now."
But while my arms were around her, I dug my nails into my Mom's arm so she'd have to let go.
Mom: "Help!"
Me: "Yeah, no, somebody help ME! I'm surrounded by crazy people who think prayer saves them from COVID, won't follow social distancing restrictions and wear a mask, but think I'M crazy for wearing one, and that they can just abduct my daughter from the car, and know better than me how to raise my daughter, just because they're addicted to their own personal Jesus!"
People rushed over.
Me: "Anyone touches my daughter, you go down, you understand me? I'm walking out of this church with my child."
Pastor's Wife: "She's crazy, she's demon-possessed - call the police!"
Me: "Do it! Call them! I don't care how much money you have versus me, or how much you wave the Jesus flag, or even if the police believe you lot - in the end, legally, she's still MY child and you had no right to take her out of the car and bring her in here, without my permission!"
"This thing is real, I type health reports for a living. I'm sorry you don't believe in it and believe prayer will save you, and that Trump is your Messiah in graven-image idolatry. I pray too, you know, I believe in Christ - but sometimes prayer doesn't save you, especially from the consequences of your own poor choices! "
Then I leaned over and whispered to my mother ...
Me: "Now, you listen to me. If she catches this and dies, you die - are we clear? I am sick of your bullshit. You couldn't raise a cactus, you crazy old bat, what makes you think you could raise my daughter? And stop blaming Dad for your crazy - you're both crazy as hell by your own merits. I did not grow up in a vacuum, if I'm crazy, how do you think I got this way?"
I then ran to the car with my daughter, who was crying and didn't understand.
Me: "Honey, I know you don't understand this and what it must look like, and it's okay if you're mad at me, but I AM trying to protect you. Don't worry about Nana, Nana is okay, she just didn't get her way, that's all. But everything is going to be fine, but let's get you home and into a bath."
And then I woke up, my heart was beating so fast.
In fact, the other day, I released a struggling wasp from a spider's web, risking being stung despite a moderate allergic to wasps (severe allergy to honeybees), because I couldn't stand to watch it struggle, with the spider already on its way - it just made me so sad :(
However, I then realized you can't control what you dream, and in fact, the dream was therapeutic - just my mind's way of resolving the unresolved, helping me feel less powerless from a past similar situation, long ago - as well as it didn't end with me feeling the like crazy one, in the end?
That is not to say ALL evangelicals - but most do have a tendency towards group-flock behavior/brainwashing and swallowing whole one person's subjective interpretation of the bible and events, without question.
Many people - especially if white and wealthy - get away with even criminal things if they just wave the Jesus flag for cover - and you're crazy if you don't go along with it.
Now, for the first time in history, we're seeing just how dangerous some forms of evangelicalism can be - and using Jesus' name as a get out of jail or the mental hospital free card perhaps isn't going to fly anymore.
At least, I hope that's the end result of all this, someday.
And even if people still don't get how crazy this mentality is, I know now, what I didn't then ... though I have my trauma issues, to be sure - they are the crazy ones - (brainwashed) mob rule does not make the mob right.
Jesus was never meant to be used as cover for a multitude of sins.
PS - And now, a song about being group-gaslighted, and the video itself includes apparent church approval of the common practice of gaslighting any naysayers.
Though she has apologized for the effect it had on the other members of the band, she has not, and will not, apologize for saying it - and quite honestly, I don't think she ever should.
Radio stations refused to play her song, there were mass smashing of their CD, she received death threats and was smeared as crazy and a traitor, and the Dixie Chicks were smeared as "Sadam's Angels" and "Dixie Sluts."
Regardless of whether or not that's true, "Shut Up and Sing" was the name of their documentary on the subject in 2007 -a phrase that was revisited when Taylor Swift finally spoke up against Trump - and a phrase that only female artists tend to hear when they speak up politically, as opposed to men.
This song was released in 2007, and discusses the ability to forgive, but the enduring trauma the experience has made on her life.
Despite the fact that GW Bush has since said he received bad intel and has apologized for the "mistake" of the war first in Iraq - and it is popular knowledge that the "pre-emptive" strike war towards Iraq instead of Afghanistan was bogus - the band has never recovered to the popularity it once had, and they have never received public apology or reinstatement of no wrongdoing and being criminalized and black-balled for for exercising their right to freedom of speech.
The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Chicks) - "Not Ready to Make Nice"
Forget, I'm not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I'm still waiting
I'm through with doubt
There's nothing left for me to figure out
I've paid a price, and I'll keep paying
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell, and I don't have time
To go 'round and 'round and 'round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
'Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should
Why can't you just get over it?
It turned my whole world around
And I kinda like it
With no regrets, and I don't mind saying
It's a sad, sad story
When a mother will teach her daughter
That she ought to hate a perfect stranger
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better
Shut up and sing
Or my life will be over?
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell, and I don't have time
To go 'round and 'round and 'round
I probably wouldn't if I could
'Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell, and I don't have time
To go 'round and 'round and 'round
I probably wouldn't if I could
'Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should, what it is you think I should
Forget, I'm not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I'm still waiting ...
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