Posts
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+
- + On Self Evaluation + +
+ Hiya! I'm Skylar, also known by my stage name Alauda Stellaris, also + known as StellarSkylark on most social media. I'm a transgender woman, + a programmer, composer, and songwriter! This is a place where I can + compile and share my creative output. +
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++ CW religion, religious trauma, self-harm +
++ One of the worst things Evangelical Christianity ever did to me was rob + me of the confidence to determine my own moral value. I was taught, as + an explicit article of faith, that I simply did not have the ability to + accurately judge my own value. Only God could do that. And, of course, since + God’s explicit judgement wasn’t going to come any time soon, I had to rely + on the evaluation of others who were considered “godly.” The result is that + I became entirely dependent on other people’s praise in order to feel worthy + of my own existence, and came to powerfully fear learning that I had made a + moral error. +
++ Making a technical mistake is one thing, that’s just part of the process + of learning and growing and finding the best solutions. It’s moral failure + that affects me like this. Combine an external locus of self-esteem with an + encouraged fear of damnation, and you create a girl who breaks down any time + she learns she’s accidentally harmed someone, or made them uncomfortable, or + crossed a boundary she was unaware of, or simply acted carelessly out of an + abundance of autism. These things don’t happen all that often, but when they + do they are devastating to my opinion of myself. +
++ And it’s not simply a feeling of guilt, or wanting to do better, it’s a fear + that by making a mistake I have lost my right to exist, an unconscious core + belief that I deserve eternal torment for my error. When I was small, I used + to punch myself in the head as hard as I could any time I made a mistake, + because I felt that I deserved punishment for it. My parents, bless them, + convinced me to stop doing that, and I am grateful for it. It might have + evolved into worse forms of self-harm later on if left unchecked. +
++ But I have probably replaced literally smacking myself in the head with + mental self-flagellation. I practically dive right down into a depressive + spiral when something like this happens, because I feel like I deserve to + be miserable, like I am no longer allowed to be happy. And I feel that I am + so utterly disgusting and poisonous and awful that I need to be quarantined + from the rest of society, for their own good. So I shut myself off from + people and avoid seeking help dealing with my emotions. And I can never + reveal the details of my mistake to anyone I do end up talking to; what if + they lose faith in me, too? +
++ And so lately I have been working on learning to understand that while other + people can judge the effects of my actions, set boundaries, and etc., they + have no right whatsoever to judge my moral value for taking those actions. + I, and I alone, know what was going on in my head when I did something. + Which means, in the absence of an omnipotent god, I am the only being in the + universe even remotely competent to judge whether my actions make me a bad + person. This isn’t about rejecting criticism, mind; when someone says “hey, + this thing you did bothered me” I want to take that seriously! But I don’t + want it to cause me to doubt whether I deserve to exist. So I need to move + control of the feeling of having value away from an imagined (and extremely + stern and cruel) omnipotent, perfect being and toward myself, seeking to + grow but having compassion for where I am now. I’ve been told that some + people have that as their mental image of God. That god sounds much nicer + than the one I had. But all I have for that is myself. And myself, at the + moment, still imagines that cruel god judging me unworthy. +
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