Thread by @EverGenuineRe

So, some of my followers will have undoubtedly wondered why I participated in the #secondcivilwarletters tweets.
This will be a thread, as the reasons are complicated.

It all started with Alex Jones.
tinyurl.com/ycgo6xeb

For those of us who were raised as fundamentalists and Republicans who were not to leave the party when we grew up - we learned our politics not only from debate club (private/public/homeschool) but also from people like Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and Glenn Beck.

When many of us grew up and finally escaped "the box" (as one has called it), or "the cult" as many of us have come to refer to our upbringing; we found other ""talking heads"" that we could learn from, and we listened to various voices such as NPR.

For some of us, it was a very drastic change to leave behind the world of The Drudge Report, Breitbart, Fox News, Limbaugh, Beck and Jones.

For some of us, it was a very easy switch and we didn't look back.

I will likely never forget how these men negatively impacted my growing-up years and how they stunted my growth due to their bigotry, racism, misogyny and anti-LGBTQIA biases. Limbaugh in particular, and later Beck and Jones had much to say about women like me and my sisters.

My dad worked with reporting (that's really an oversimplified description of his job, but I can't get any more specific), and wanted one of us children to grow up and either be journalists or follow in his footsteps. UNTIL, he found out said child was intersex & disowned her.

One of the big things in fundamentalism is following the Bible *to the letter* but never forgetting "the spirit" thereof.

We were also indoctrinated similarly about the Constitution and about the South after the Civil War. - Learn it, ignore the bad stuff, build on it, move on.

From the time 24 hour news was a thing, my mom was hooked and while my dad was not home, it was on all the time. There was no shielding us from the news, because my dad was military and he may be sent out and we needed to understand without asking why times infinity.

This caused some upset when I was still a toddler and overheard news about Beirut and thought that the Navy war games not far off shore from where we lived meant that our country was being invaded and we had to run for cover or we'd all die that very minute.

My parents *still* laugh about that. "Remember when [my name] went to the beach with us and the ships were doing wargames? *maniacal laughter* and she thought Ghaddaffi was coming to kill us all? *more laughing*"

Ya'll, that shit ain't funny.

You'd think parents would comfort their child(ren) and say "Oh honey, I know, it was scary but this is what happened..." and even explain, to the child's best understanding, what was happening on the news and where it was -- right? That's what rational, loving, parents do?

That's not what mine did. Mine calmed me down and told me that it's okay because that's far away and other people... yadda yadda, and we should probably pray about it because a lot of those people aren't Xtians and are going to die and go to hell.
TO A FUCKING NEARLY 2 YEAR OLD.

When Fox News came about, it wasn't much indistinguishable from ABC News, NBC Nightly News, CBS News or CNN. *in the beginning*
The slow slide wasn't noticeable to some people, but to people who were stuck watching it by proxy - we picked things up.

Problem is, as a fundamentalist child, you cannot question your parents. Questioning = rebellion and that means your ass is grass and will get beaten, if not worse for questioning the status quo. Most fundy kids figure this out fast. I kept trying to reason though.

Most people would have given up facing that, but I kept trying because our descent into full on fundy mode took about 6 years. I was 6 when we were in so deep I didn't see a way out while I lived with my parents. I was honestly scared of growing up.

When I was that young, if mom didn't have the news on, she had on CBN's Pat Robertson or Liberty University's channel with us listening to Jerry Falwell. <_<\ />_>
So, in addition to news, I was getting the talk about the world possibly ending in 1988/rapture talk and ITEOTWAWKI.

When most kids are asked at school what they want to grow up to be, by age 8, I wasn't even sure IF I was going to grow up PERIOD.

I was sure either the rapture is real and pretribulational, or maybe posttrib - and we'll live through hell before we die & its coming *SOON*.

Normal, rational kids shows were often banned, so we didn't get the same exposure to life that most kids did. We were socially isolated (though they deny this) and our outside exposure was church, library and sometimes the doctor and sometimes the vet. ESP when we homeschooled.

Before we homeschooled, they got caught up in the 80s and 90s satanic panic -and the LGBT / AIDS panic that you hear nutjobs like Jones go on and on and ON about on his show, or second hand from friends poking fun.

As kids, we didn't know what they meant. We were that sheltered.

We had shows and games and toys forbidden to us because it may either make us gay, or was a gateway to Satan. #iwishiwasjoking #satanicpanic #gaypanic #fundamentalists

As kids, we were more familiar with Arminianist and Calvinist arguing points in church than AIDS or "Gay".

Hell, we didn't even know what feminism or a feminist was back then - other than they were all things our parents didn't like, and Rush Limbaugh went on and on about every Sunday after church (we were overseas so his morning program was our afternoon program)

circa 1990-95, my parents went off the deep end. More CBN, Fox, Liberty U, and next thing you know, they've shown us the rapture films from the 1970s that have scarred at least 2 generations of kids. We even watched The Cross and the Switchblade and I don't know why. o.O

When most people, at NORMAL, non-fundamentalist churches were getting actual community news and plans for the week in their church bulletins - we were getting actual fake news, rapture countdowns and *more* in addition to the normal hymn list, prayer requests etc.

Hoaxes like finding Noah's Ark in Turkey, or the hell hole in Russia, Janet Reno saying that our church and our beliefs were cultic and we should be monitored -- and then we'd get similar rhetoric when we were trapped in the car and had no choice over the radio.

We came back stateside end of '95. From there to '00, my parents got into the Prepper scene for Y2K. They found Glenn Beck. Alex Jones, Breitbart, Drudge Report.

Dear G-d, they sank deeper into the muck.

Throughout this time, my dad kept trying to teach us about journalistic integrity and how to find truth in articles and track down the source and whatnot to know if what we're reading is really real.
YET.. so many conspiracy theories. How many? :

While they did that, I managed to somehow wriggle out of 12th grade, with horrible gaps in my education because my homeschool material was Old Order Mennonite and everything geared towards educating girls was technically stopping between 8 and 10th grade. 11th and 12th was a joke

Back then, the only places taking homeschoolers for higher ed or jobs were the military (no thanks), or unaccredited fundamentalist Xtian universities. I said no thank you, that sounds horrible, what next?
I went to work, though my parents held to the stay at home daughter model.

Aside from babysitting/nannying from 10th-12th grade, I worked until I married and moved overseas. I had a 7year LDR with my husband, because my parents were A) mad I didn't have them arrange my marriage B) that's how long it took for him to finish school, uni & have a stable job

So, that said, I worked 8 different jobs plus volunteer work. Often 40+ hours a week on minimum wage, which was $6.25 where I lived, then raised 25c., my last job I got three raises and at the end made almost $10 an hour.

Home free? right? I'm just biding time? Right?

WRONG!

My dad still made us come in after work and watch Fox News with them, and debate subjects we felt strongly about, and we'd then get punished if we didn't agree with him/their views and the "clear biblical standard" on subjects. We were even graded on our arguments.

There was a time where, if they said some off the wall theory about some news story - we knew where they got it from... but once we all got married and got tf out of there, we didn't go visit or talk a whole lot because they abused us in many ways.

I've been out for 11 years this month. Technically 11 years and two weeks.
90% of the time, I have no idea where my parent's insane theories on news come from now. I have to literally track down things they tell me only to find the source, then find the real news story..

There have been times I cannot find the story because I am looking at legitimate news sources and their source was somebody tied to some bot farm out in back woods Ukraine or Russia or Khazakstan somewhere who just made some shit up for the money they get from clicks and ads.

OR, they got it from The Daily Mail UK, which I've had blocked now for two years, or Russia Today, or Chinese News.

Were my parents from 20 years ago to meet the parents of today, they'd flip OUT and be scared. Russian and Chinese News? THAT IS PROPAGANDA?!

NOT ANYMORE.

While my parents aren't MAGA sorts, their entire family (aside from one great aunt and another who refuses to discuss politics) are. My sisters and I don't talk to family any more because of how disrespectfully and rudely they've treated us, even before they knew our politics.

I was kinda mad about it, but after seeing how they stalked me online - I blocked them all, and said f*ck it.

I got tired of the emotional labor and the actual labor when they'd send me some racist news take about something that supposedly happened near me and wouldn't listen

when I found out the news was literally fake, there were no such people living anywhere near there, there were no murders, and I was even sending the ""news"" reports to Mimikama to check over multiple times a week while I also searched.

Snopes isn't trusted by these people.

MIMIKAMA isn't trusted by them either.

When I left home, I wasn't even sure of what I believed IRT the endtimes.

However, I had it drilled in my head that the world was getting worse and worse and we were careening towards hell in a handbasket. ALL MY LIFE.

It has been an active, radical act of love for myself to choose things I like to do and enjoy doing them for no other reason than it is FUN. Not because I have to, not because The Bible Says So. Not because Daddy said to do it or my mom did.

Even today, I got stuck at a loss for words trying to explain to a therapist why/how I don't look at my job as a parent/spouse as FUN, because, with the way I was raised - it is just a thing that is done. It is done by parent people and you don't do it because you love it.

It startled me to be asked why I do x -- because it's fun?
No.. because it has to get done and somebody has to do it.
But do you enjoy it?
Well, I don't NOT enjoy it, but it's not particularly fun either.
Why do you do it?
Because it has to get done? I don't honestly know.

Yes, I love my kids. Yes, we have fun. Yes, I praise them and we mind Ps and Qs at home, even with the little people. BUT - I didn't think of parenting as this thing we jumped into because it was "fun" - but because as married adults, that's what you *do*.

Dropping 26 years of brainwashing is hard, even 11 years out!

So when Alex Jones pops up and says that people like me have planned since the elections to have this "second civil war" - yes, it's funny. It's sad, it's terrifying, but it is HILARIOUS.

1. There is no substantiation for his claim.
2. What has he been sniffing to get to that?
3. Does he not know how many of us literally sat and cried for weeks after the election because we saw what was happening *today* down the line?
4. If we really did - we'd not tell the news.

When we were indoctrinated, we were told about the set binary gender roles. Men went to war. Women stayed home with the children; unless they were single with no prospects or widowed - those women went to work.

We ignored the truth of the 1940s because it did not fit the agenda.

We ignored the truth about the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf Wars and oh my gosh we PROTESTED against allowing women to serve in the front line during the last few wars -- because -- something something Biblical Gender Roles.

My parents were *legit* scared yesterday, thinking we were on the cusp of an antifa led civil war in the US.
They are still so scared and upset that I am pro-antifa. Especially because I am a mother. They are afraid I think BLM is a major thing we should throw weight behind.

They are legit ANGRY I am pro-flag protests. (why wouldn't I be? They taught me what respectful protest was, and this IS IT!)

Their lives are nothing but fear, and have been nothing but fear for over 40 years!

As someone who is mariginalized in mutiple ways (immigrant, third culture kid, educational neglect, raised fundy, disabled, bi and FEMALE) -- it is not "punching down" when I wrote those fake letters.

It's poking people like my parents with a stick to wake the hell up.

It's laughing about how far I've come.
It's a frustrating reminder of how far I need to go.
It's a reminder how much "news" isn't real, and that many can't find reality if they tried.
It's punching the assholes perpetuating this shit and saying STOP.

It's giving me a reason to think and giggle, rather than fight my brain, the PTSD and the indoctrination for another day, so that I can pick myself up and fight HARD for the rights of others that my family want so badly to deny.

As much as that may bother some of my ally friends - I'm sorry.

However, you didn't have to live with psychological, emotional and physical abuse to tell you how to live your life today, what a proper role you should have, and that you'd either be dead or raptured by now.

You weren't warned with an ass beaten by various items that your rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft and that going against your country is the same as going against G-d, or that going against your parents is the same as going against G-d.

Sometimes you need the breather & laugh

simply because you're watching the people who taught you how to dominate and subjugate the American Government be in power and begin to dismantle the hard earned rights that have been fought for for the last 30 years.
You've got allies on the left saying you're overreacting,

allies in moderate middle telling you it's a conspiracy theory -- and there you are with your other friends who were raised the same freaking the fuck out because the dominionists, theonomists and Ayn Rand followers are at the wheel behind a madman.

So excuse me for having a giggle instead of giving up, or wallowing a little more because I really don't know how else to fight today, when my brain is screaming "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" -- which isn't wrong, but certainly isn't an immediate danger.

Excuse me for taking a break from actual tears and feeling helpless because my state senators (one of which is in Russia today) don't give two fucks for what I think, and will probably be re-elected because my state is so very red and our dems are so beaten down.

Excuse me while I watch my world burn, and the ERA get dismantled, school systems argue that children don't have rights to literacy, or equal rights to be no longer segregated, or that LGBT people can legally be discriminated against.

Sometimes we must fight with humor.

When you were raised to admire what Gilead stands for in the Handmaid's Tale, it's a bit morbid to fight day by day against people aiming to reach that goal - who think it's a good thing - when you're already run down from escaping that life, the one your allies say can't happen.

It has happened. It is happening, it can happen again.

Fight with all your might, even if all your might is a morbid gallows humor joke today.

Whatever keeps you alive is what is best. You know what is best.

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