In physical pain again

In physical pain again, as I try to deal with the severe nerve damage caused by my abusers overdosing me on speed.  They had the inside of my vehicle so saturated with dope that I found it difficult to drive home.  I keep praying that I don't get into an accident when I am so under the influence of this stuff that I totally space out to reality.  Anyway, it is the same old story--the excess stimulants/speed irritates a nerve in my lower back that runs down to my left leg causing chronic spasms and fiery, excruciating pain.  I am really "high" right now, but I believe it may be partly from my own self-medicating from inside my brain (yes, I can do that), as I haven't taken any pain medication (other than Tylenol), since I learned that my dosage of Vicodin was tainted with speed.  Speed is ultimately responsible for the pain, so the end result would be an aggravation of my pain, even if the opiate qualities of the drug did kick in.  I thought about asking my health care provider for some Flexiril, but I don't like how it makes me feel.  I feel quite high already, thank you, and that tells me that a lot of pain is being blocked.  Even so my muscle spasms and nerve pain are severe, and I don't know if I am going to be able to do anything today besides lay in bed. 

I am not surprised by the overdose that I was force fed.  I know my abusers well enough now to know exactly how they act and respond to any action on my part.  They are truly sons, daugthters and fellow travellers of Jose Maria Escrivas--sadomasochists who delight in giving pain and enduring pain, who truly believe that pain and suffering is the ideal antecedent and goad for religious experience and conversion. 

I had a strong hunch that I was going to be punished for my most recent major decision, just like last week I knew that I was going to be punished, and sure enough, some lame Church bimbo who was so passively feminine that even her kids ignored her (oh but she believes that she has power--she belongs to a very powerful religious organization, and all she has to do is sell out her mind, morals, and soul)  threw so much dope on my back that I came down with a debilitating migraine and had to skip yoga.  I probably will have to skip yoga again, but inside, despite the pain, I am happy.  I am happy that I am so free of these hateful religious zealots, and I am happy that God gives me the grace and strength to act freely, even though I know that my tormentors will lash out punitively at me, causing pain and suffering.

They won't change my mind.  They can damage my body and brain, but I already have accepted the fact that my body and brain will never fully recover from the abuse I already have endured at their command.  They cannot touch my free will or my soul, and I reject them and the patricharchal paternalism and abuse they represent, live by, and force upon others.  They think that they are going to tell me that they only abused me to get rid of the evil spirit so that I could cooperate more fully with my destiny.  They are going to replay tapes of the speaking evil spirit and hope that my sheer horror at the evil that resides within me will change my mind.  But it won't.  Because evil cannot cast out evil--the words of Jesus proclaim it--and any so-called Christian who reads and prays on the gospels should know that.  The suffering and abuse that has been inflicted upon me is evil, and it can never cast out the evil spirit that dwells within me.  There is a historical term that describes this intention--Inquisition.  Yes, thanks to a resurgence of patriarchal conservatism in the Catholic Church, and the flourishing of Opus Dei, the Inquisition is alive and well in the 21st century--with a few postmodern twists such as forced psychiatriac hospitalization and psychotropic medication.  Stalin would be proud, Opus Dei!

I am reminded of the class psychology experiment that I learned while still in high school.  In it, the overwhelming majority of "normal," "good" test subjects would continue to administer supposed torture shocks and pain to an individual, as long as someone with authoritative credentials kept telling them that it was okay, or necessary, that the victim was overexaggerating, or any other plausible excuse.   No Christian who has a personal relationship with Christ should ever fall victim to playing the torturer in such a scenario, but all the smiling, smug, superior, and self-triumphant Christians who have taken part in torturing me have done exactly that, and yes I know who they are at the time they "shock" me, and I know what they are feeling, and they are legion.  Only one, just one, Catholic Christian ever played his part while his feelings were opposite that of his role, and I could tell that he felt compassion and pity for me, and that he was shocked by what Church "authorities" had done to me.  It was right after I had been released from six months incarceration in jail, and he had gotten on the bus to "spy" on me (the previous day I had met a fellow former inmate on the same bus line and she tried to hook up with me, but she was a junkie and I wasn't interested).  That isn't to say that I have been unsupported, because I have felt supported by feelings of compassion and pity from quite a few other  people--NONE of whom were Catholic or traditionally Christian or even "religious" (though maybe one or two are eluding my lithium damaged memory). 

Anyway, I bring this up because yesterday I felt supported by compassion and shocked outrage from another Christian for the first time in years--and he was in clerical black!  You see, the whole reason I was punished by the overdose of drugs yesterday, and am in such pain today is that I have formally announced my intention to enter into the Episcopal communion.  I do not feel healthy enough to write down my reasons for my decision.  For now it suffices to say that I have been thinking upon it for years, and a couple of days ago my mind snapped affirmatively.  I never make hasty decisions, and I always advertise my thoughts and feeling before acting.  Years ago I told a Catholic priest that I would leave  the Church if the abuse continued (I cannot remember his name either, courtesy of the lithium), and my mind snapped to that decision while I was incarcerated in an abusive jail setting, courtesy of Opus Dei.  Upon release from jail, I tried going into one Catholic church to pray, and was nauseated by the smell,and knowledge of what had been done to me in the name of spiritual direction, and had to get out quick.   I have not been in a Catholic Church since, and have no personal intent to ever enter one again. 

So even though my body hurts, and I am too high to do much of anything, I am happy because I am free--free to choose and free to act, and all the imposed and punitive pain and suffering in the world cannot take that away from me.