the temple
01/28/2012 11:56 p.m.
i grew up southern baptist with a mother who can only be described as one of the monsters in my life. i was baptized twice, being swept up twice in religious ferver in 2 different churches. i did believe wholly that god was there, and it was my single-handed actions and inactions that both destroyed and saved my family and home from everything. as a child the word of god, distorted and skewed through my mothers teachings was both fearsome and real...praying with sweaty palms for every sin i felt i'd committed, begging, chanting prayers at night that the house would not burn down just so that i could sleep. daily, hourly, by the minute praying that my mother was not angry that day..and that i wouldnt cause her fury to rage at any point.
sex is wrong unless you are with your 'right man' or 'right woman'. masturbation is evil..just as evil as beastiality and homosexuality, and sinful thoughts are as good as real sins. nature abhors a vaccume..and a lack of god in your life is a vaccume that will allow demons and sin into your mind and body and life. these are actual teachings that i was taught from a very early age. your body is a temple to god, tattoos, peircings, masturbation, gluttony, harming yourself...all defilements to the temple and to god.
by the time i was 18 i had tattoos, peircings, a weight problem/eating disorder, i was a self injurer and covered in scars, promiscuous after having been violated at 16...and god no longer mattered to me. we were not on speaking terms, if i believed at all.
my mother was neglectful and depressive, rageful..a hoarder. our home conditions were atrocious. my mother was overweight, vindictive, abusive physically and emotionally...and by 20 she and i were so distant i couldnt remember the last time i even touched her, let alone hugged her. i had moved out, and she was just a monster from my past, that i called from time to time to find out about how the rest of my family was doing.
i have had an eating disorder since i was 15. i am 30 now. today it is under control, tomorrow it may not be. today i have a problem with substance abuse, tho i've never spoken those words out loud. 3 years ago, in what can only be described as the ultimate act of control and self abuse, i had myself sterilized so that i cannot have children. now i am with someone who DOES want children and that act has come back to haunt me. the scars that cover my arms and legs and stomach and ankles and any other body part easily accessible and hideable..they too haunt me..even as everyday answers for coping that i STILL have not learned to do.
a couple of months ago, desperate for money, i got a gig as a nude model for college art classes. im ok with taking my clothes off in front of people..and have been since my 20's. why? because i am hyper-sexualized and see sexuality as a strong point of mine. and tho this wasnt sexual in nature, in a way it was...and so i felt comfortable doing it. it was a positive experience. perhaps the very first in my life. seeing how other people truly saw me...and the art that was made from MY body, curves and all...there was a beauty to it, regardless of the fact that the past had covered me with scars and filled me with hate for my own skin and bones.
i dont know why im writing this, as i cant tie it up neatly and even make an narrative out of it. these are but a few of the facts of my life...and only one observation...that the body IS a temple, but its a temple to me. it is MY home on this planet...whatever decorations i have put on it, what ever abuses have done to it, whatever MAY become of it...maybe it will bear children one day and give them life...maybe it wont. maybe i will be skinny, or maybe i wont...but it is not inherently evil, nor good. it is only mine...