Godspousery notes: Fight for what's right.

Dear Reader,

Last weekend, I got into it with someone who insisted that godspouses are all delusional. I started dropping facts on them and establishing that there was a precedent for this manner of relationship with deity. They straight up said they weren't going to read it. That's when I had it confirmed that they were nothing but a troll. When they tried to take the "discussion" to a private conversation, I ignored them. They for some reason decided that they had given me a 'sick burn' when I turned around and posted on my Tumblr feed a declaration that I am a godspouse, that I happen to have mental illness, and the two are entirely unrelated.

Because I do have periods of delusion. They're not delusions of grandure or something like that. They're delusions of worthlessness. When I am dealing with hallucinations due to the Bipolar II with psychotic features, I am reliving the verbal abuse that I had to deal with growing up as auditory hallucinations. It only happens when I am severely depressed to the point that I am borderline suicidal. My delusions of worthlessness happen when I am depressed. The deeper the depression, the more prevalent the delusional thinking that I haven't earned the right to be alive or have a single solidary being care about me. It's all tied to my complex posttraumatic stress disorder in some fashion. 

The godspousery side of things I know isn't delusional. I worried at one point it was. I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation and my dealing with hallucinations of my abusive mother telling me to kill myself at one point. My parents mocked religion and people who had faith were declared to be delusional. This line was one of the central tenents of how they raised my brothers and I. I naturally rejected it. I knew the world was too strange and complex for that to be the case. However, because I was raised with this line of thought literally beaten into me, I worried that my mystical experiences were not real. As I worried about this, the hallucinations got louder and more pervasive. So, I was treated with a dose of Haldol (a powerful antipsychotic). Within minutes, there was silence and clarity in my head. That was when Loki said to me quietly, "Can you hear me now?" I almost burst into tears with relief that I truly was hearing him.

Since then, I have never doubted that my relationships with Loki and Freyr are real. I have my anxieties surrounding relationships pop up. But that happens in my relationship with Beloved too. I worry that I am a failure as a partner. I worry that I'm too needy. I worry that I'm too broken to deserve the people in my life who love me. And I am terrified that I am letting everyone down. All of that is a result of my c-ptsd. It sucks but it is what I deal with on a daily basis. Just as Beloved regularly reassures me that all of these anxieties are scumbag brain being scumbag brain, so too do Loki and Freyr.

I'm not saying that I am the model example of a godspouse. I have my arguments and I get stubborn at times. I am forgetful and they have to remind me of things from time to time. (Just this morning, Freyr reminded me I had my new antibiotic to take along with all of my other morning pills and he suggested I add my afternoon dose to the pill sorter. Being sick sucks, y'all, and it helps when you're half awake to have someone tell you "hey,  don't forget that new medicine that's going to clear up the infection you're dealing with." Otherwise, you're just feeling rotten and forgetting things because you're not awake and ... well, chaos happens in this house because I've kids so I'd have forgotten anyways until it was around bed time.) 

I can't abide willful ignorance masqueradig as authority. That's why I waded into that argumet last week. The guy who started it remains willfully ignorant and refuses to consider that there is a historical precedent for godspousery (even if it goes by different names in different religions). I still made a point of putting out there examples from the mainstream/overculture religion that show that there is marriage and other similar relationship dynamics between us mere mortals and deities. I still made a point to put out there references to devotional literature that is erotic in nature and that the 'smut' one may find on Tumblr or other sites with respect to deities is a legitimate form of devotional writings. I refuted each of his arguments and while he refused to read them, the information is there for others to see.