When You're Angry With Christians (And You Have Every Right To Be)

    First off, I find it necessary to note, that I AM a believer. However....
   
    After the first time I got exorcised, I became angry with God. Very angry. with all we had gone through in our relationship, I couldn't believe this was happening. Here I was, in His house, being called a thief, and a prostitute, by His people. After I had kept Him so close, for so long, in the darkest of places? I felt a sense of utter betrayal.
    By the SECOND time i got exorcised, I was beyond livid! There was no way any God that knew me would say any of these things to these people! "We exorcise the demon of theft out of this young woman!" "we exorcise the demon of prostitution out of this young woman!" It hurt. There is no ego wounded so badly as in the case of such a God smack.
     I was none of what the church kept accusing me of. Those churches did not know me. I was new there, or a random passerby. The THIRD time someone attempted to pull me into an exorcism, I was hip to the jive, and did not allow it. He thought it would cure my schizophrenia....
     This was the final straw, and what would inevitably lead me to conclude that God, Himself, did none of this. God did not tell His people bad things about me. They were just zealots, hopped up on a good book and maybe a little too much free will. What God HAD done, was created me. he created me, and schizophrenia and he gave that to me as a gift I would only begin to unwrap at exactly that point in my life. If I weren't meant to be, I wouldn't, and i cannot allow some misguided church people lead me to believe otherwise. Not even for a moment.
    Fast forward to the present day. It's been several years since anyone had any plans to vacate demons from my body. And it's gotten to the point where, God and I? Back to being homies. The church? Well, it can pretty much leave me alone. After lighting some of my ancestors on fire for being herbalists and midwives, I should have known it wouldn't be all that much better in the modern age.
     If you happen to be christian, please understand, I'm probably not angry with you, so much as the institutions you may uphold. I'm maybe a little disgusted. People leave catholic schools hating God, and it takes a special kind of evil to get someone to hate Him. I still pray, but I don't want to pray with anyone else. And so I only find fellowship occasionally. I avoid services. I avoid groups of Christians.
     As Christians, I think this is symbolic of unattended responsibilities to learn to accept those with mental illness as His creation. We see a "problem" and we want God to solve it for us. But, what if God saw a different problem first, and this thing we don't want to see for the challenge that it is, IS the solution to that problem?  What if we are flaking on God when we ask Him to do away with our tests?
     If you're angry with Christianity, I totally get it. The list of crimes keeps being added to. Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Witch Hunts, Genocide.....
     If you Are a Christian, I sort of get that, too. Maybe they've never exorcised you, you like not feeling cast out. The moment you're the one they start throwing stones at, things tend to change. Please do not allow your groups to continue this madness. IT IS OK to defy the church. Jesus chased people with a whip in one. IT IS OK to call out your fellowship when something is not right. And it may just be your test.

Returning to the Light

Getting Craftier

     Sales are slow in the summer! But my little shop survived anyway. More due to the generosity of my customers than my own perseverance but alive is alive either way, and I won't be taking it for granted.
     I've diversified my inventory, but my main focus has taken a sharp turn toward cosplay items. Not that I ever didn't do cosplay items, just that I've now got the confidence to make more of what I want to make. I've made leaps and bounds in the learn-to-run-a-business arena, but living with schizophrenia, I have to take these things slow to avoid being overwhelmed. I'm still a little nervous about the future, I've got to admit. Making ends meet is a challenge.
     Learning to use Pinterest is an even bigger challenge! (The wiki says I can follow my Facebook friends, but I can't find anything on Pinterest that will allow me to).
     In November, my store will have its first birthday.  Its come a long way and it's still got much farther to go!
One of my recent pieces

No one ever said it was going to be easy

No one ever said art would be easy. I may enjoy it, but it's still not easy.  Sales are not always consistent. You have to learn how to BE a salesman as well as an artist. Marketing is another skill that comes in handy.  Starting out has not been without its bumps! Running an online store was never something I planned on doing, but here I am!  It's worth it.  Finding balance is a constant struggle, but I won't be giving up anytime soon.
     Those two business classes they made me take in high school and college sure are coming in useful and I can't say I ever expected that.  I'm learning, I'm growing, and all while making mental illness look good. I'm not the best there ever was or anything. Just the best I ever was.

A little about myself: Disclaimer

     I'm not normal. I never claimed to be. I will not apologize for not being so.
      I am schizophrenic. And since I first started getting diagnoses, there has never been room in the mental health closet for me. It wears on me in a noticeable way, making the alternate name for the classification, salient syndrome, that much more fitting.
     I am an artist. But only after years of being a traveler, experiencing the symptoms of homelessness. I have always been an artist but being a traveler is limiting in what you can have as you'll have to carry it. My life has been just as atypical or abnormal as I am, and any art is merely a consequence or result of that. I like things aged, dingy, unclean. I like them worn and haggard. I cannot help but to distress almost everything for this reason. I don't know if the symbolism reads through, or not.
     There are a lot of great and inspiring artists in the world. And I'm sure many of them are mentally ill. I am just another one of them. No artist is probably normal, I'd imagine. That sight comes with a knowing that will twist you in some way. Maybe there are art forms that don't require you to be broken somehow, but for the most part, transmuting pain, ugliness and decay, into beauty and elegance, requires one to be aware of all of these things on a deeper level. To trigger a reaction within others, you've got to relate to them first. Or they've got to relate to you, anyway.
     But
     How can you not relate to any artist, as vulnerable as they are in their moment of expression, as raw as ever. We've all been there. I'm not sure I'm broken really. Just that I was given a kaleidoscope eye upgrade with which to view the world.