Pride Month: A Different Perspective

What's up everybody!! It's Violet again. I haven't been on here in about 6000 years, I'm aware. I've been meaning to post for quite some time but I never could figure out what exactly to post about. Nothing came to me, though I spent many a night in front of a blank screen, waiting for the muse to strike.
Last night, though, that beautiful human being known as Kayla posted a blog that inspired me tenfold. Well, maybe that's the wrong word, but here we are so what else can I call it?
Basically, as you probably know, Kayla is bi. I've known that for months now, and as you can see we're still close friends. But what you might not know is that Kayla and I have vastly different views on some things, one of which is sexuality. Now, we've been friends for just about 8 years now, and we know each other just about as well as anyone can know anyone, so something like this doesn't have too big an effect on our friendship. However, the secret to keeping our friendship so strong is that we're always open and honest with each other, and when I talked to Kayla about some concerns I had about her post, she very generously and graciously invited me to make my own post about the subject. Sort of give both sides of the argument if you will.
I thought that was a fantastic idea, and I'm extremely grateful to her for suggesting it. It takes a special kind of person to allow and even encourage open debate on her own blog about a subject which is difficult and very sensitive, in general and especially to her personally. So before I begin, I want to extend a huge thank you to Kayla. Thanks for being such an incredible human being. (Or as we Oliver Woods of the world would say, a real baller.)
With that said, let's get into it!
As I've mentioned before, I'm Catholic. I take my faith very seriously and it's honestly the most important thing in my life. Most people know that Catholics don't believe in gay marriage, so it seems obvious to say that I don't agree with the way Kayla and basically everyone else in America sees marriage and sexuality. What most people don't know, though, is why Catholics don't believe in gay marriage and why we think living a gay lifestyle is wrong, or even what the Church says about it. Most of the time when I talk to normal people about it, or when I watch tv or read things online that talk about it, I think there's sort of a caricature of Church teaching presented, and the actual teaching of the Church is quite different from what most people think it is. This isn't going to be a theological or philosophical thesis or anything, but I think it's important to present to you exactly what my Church teaches about homosexuality.
Catholics think that having sex with someone of your own gender, or actively and willingly entertaining sexual thoughts about someone of your own gender, is a sin. Why? Because these actions are against the natural law, and against the very essence of what marriage and sexuality are intended for. Let me attempt to explain.
Most people in the modern world see marriage basically as a declaration of love and promise of fidelity to your boyfriend or girlfriend. A way to really make the relationship official. A lot of people think it's unnecessary or outdated, "just a piece of paper." Sex is something fun that two consenting adults can do, either to show their love for one another, or just for the hell of it, depending on the people and the situation. As long as you both consent, it's fine, and you don't need to be married to do it. If you do it with the same person enough times, and like doing it, you might marry them. Marriage is nice, we think, but the vows we make aren't unbreakable. And the point of marriage is basically to spend the rest of your life with the person you love. Well, until you fall out of love with them.
             Catholics have a slightly different view of marriage and sex. For us, it's something sacred.  When two people get married, they are promising each other that they will remain faithful to each other, whatever happens, until death. They're promising to be together for their entire life. We believe that these marriage vows, if taken with full consent of both parties, can never be broken. We're allowed to divorce in cases of abuse or infidelity, but we aren't allowed to get married again without an annulment, which you can only get if a valid marriage never happened in the first place. For us it's an unbreakable vow of love and fidelity, no matter what.
       That's a huge promise to make to someone. And why are we asked to make that promise? That is to say, what's the point of marriage?
       Well, there are two purposes (what we call "ends") to marriage. One is what we call the unitive end. This refers to the love between the husband and wife, which mirrors the love between Christ and the Church. This is what it means when we say that husband and wife shall become one flesh. Basically, the point is for them to help each other get to heaven. It's not a selfish love, it's a sacrificial love. It's all those little things you do for your husband or wife, the tiny sacrifices you make to keep your marriage strong. It's called the unitive end because the two of you are one in your goal to get to heaven, and one in your love for each other.
      The other end, the primary end, is what we call the procreative end. This refers to the most fun part of marriage- kids! And this is something that is so often missed by so many people. Everything about marriage is geared toward the creation and education of children. It's all about creating the best possible environment for children, bringing them into the world and then raising them to be good people.
     As for sex, it serves both the ends of marriage. It's an expression of love that brings the husband and wife closer together than they can be with any other person. The two of them literally become one flesh. Here is where it gets really insane. Remember how I said marriage was sacred? Think about this; in marriage, a husband and wife get to participate in a sacred mystery- the mystery of creation. Their love reflects that of God for the Church. It also reflects the love between the persons of the Holy Trinity. And from their love, new human beings are able to be created and formed. This is the whole point of marriage, and if you miss it you're missing out on the most beautiful part of marriage and romantic love.
   By its very nature, and by that I mean literally the way it works, sex is designed to be between a man and woman. Our bodies are complementary to each other, just as our souls are. This is what makes marriage so strong, but it's also what makes sex between a man and a man or a woman and a woman contradictory to natural law. Our bodies literally aren't designed for that to work.
    Sex is also inevitably designed for procreation. Again, look at the mechanics of it. The whole point of it is for new life to be created.The point of sex isn't pleasure, although that comes along with it. It isn't even love, although that's an important part of it. The very essence of it is that it unifies a man and a woman, and that it creates new life. We find ways around these things, but they are artificial.
   This is why Catholics can never accept gay marriage, birth control or divorce as legitimate, as I hope you can now understand. By doing so we would be saying that marriage isn't what we know it to be, and that sex isn't for what we know it is for. It would be affirming a lie as the truth, and we cannot do that, no matter how hard it might be to hold the positions we hold in the world we live in.
   But just because you're LGBT+ doesn't mean we hate you. We understand, some of us firsthand, that LGBT+ people don't choose to be that way. That doesn't mean we believe God wants you to be that way, or that we even know why He allows you to; it only means we acknowledge that we are all broken and flawed in different ways and we don't always choose the areas in which we struggle.
   Honestly, I don't know why God allows people to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, any more than I understand why He allows people to be anxious or depressed, or why He allows us to struggle with addiction or sexual deviance or any other host of things. Why does one person struggle with something, but not another? None of us know the answer to that question. All we can do is live our lives according to His will as best we can.
    It's difficult. Sometimes it feels impossible. But it's not. I know that through personal experience of things Kayla knows about but I am not ready to share publicly.
I wish this could've been a more personal post, but I felt that it was important to get this out there. I love that Kayla has made a place here where both sides can be presented.
So, in conclusion, thank you to anyone who bore with me and to all people out there who might stumble across this, you are loved in a special way by God and I love you too <3 Stay strong and never give up!

Love, Violet

Pride Month As a Queer Christian

Heyo, everyone!

     So, for the first time in a while, I'm actually lightheartedly remembering to write a post. Whoo-hoo!

      Anyway, so, at some point or another I'm going to create videos for that YouTube channel. Trust me, I'm working on it. It's just taking a while because I need to make videos when I've got a lot of alone time. Meaning, I have to wait until my family is out of the house.
     Why's that? Well, other than the depression and anxiety and ADHD talks which they don't know as much about, they also don't know I'm bi. Demi? I have no clue, honestly. The labels are so confusing.

     Like, I know I like guys. That's always been apparent to me. Liking girls was too, but it was really hard to acknowledge that because I repressed it for so long. Why I did that will be explained in a moment. Now, the other thing is, I'm still figuring out the sexual attraction thing...
     So, there are all these people out there that are "good looking." That always was just like, "Um, okay." in my thoughts. Physical appearance didn't do much for me. Still doesn't really, not on most people. More so now than it used to be, but I don't know if that's age and hormones or society and peer pressure from high school. Possibly both. Anyway, you know, sex and stuff like that will probably be nice, seeing how much I enjoy kissing my boyfriend (which he'll probably tease me about once he sees this). But it's still not really that important to me. I find cuddling and things like that with Felix way more enjoyable than kissing sometimes.
     From all this, I know I'm bisexual (liking two different genders) and also demisexual (being sexually attracted to someone after a strong emotional connection). But am I also like, ace or something? Like, I know there's one out there where sexual attraction doesn't really matter. Well, I mean, more that they don't care for sex, don't really need it to be happy. Or just don't want it.

     It's all really confusing. Sometimes I wish I hadn't gone to Catholic school, not really for any other reason than that maybe I could have figured this out sooner. That I could be happier with who I am, sexually. It wasn't until junior year I started hearing about more sexualities and orientations than just being gay or trans. Then in college I relaxed enough and became more confident, meeting more people who were accepting of me as a person, plus more of the LGBT+ community, which made me realize "Wow, I really am bi." Seriously, I was just sitting a few months ago, contemplating life like I do sometimes, when it hit me like a brick. I'm bi!
     Right after that, I messaged Felix, because I was so confused. There were so many things that could be wrong with that. Acceptance being the main one. Like, I'm a Methodist who went to Catholic schools for 14 years and a Christian college that has mixed acceptance of the LGBT+ community. Anything in the LGBT+ community was frowned upon. So who could I tell, who could I trust? I didn't think anyone would hate me, but I didn't want them to treat me differently. It was hard enough finding friends who were okay with my mental illnesses. Were they going to be okay with me being queer, too?

     I got really lucky, in the range of people knowing and not telling others or judging poorly me for it. So far, out of my friends, six people know now. Maybe seven, if one read my blog. I sent them a link to this a month or two ago, saying, hey, I write this blog, you should check it out. It was kind of my roundabout way of telling her, because I know I can trust her, I just didn't know how she might react.
     Seriously, round about talking is pretty much the only way I seem to be able to come out. Like, after Felix, I told maybe one more person straight (*silently laughs*) out. Then I started discussions with two friends to see where they stood and told them after when I'd built up the courage. Although, I'm not sure if I told one straight (*silently laughs more*) out. But she reads this blog, too, so if I haven't told you, I'm sorry! But she did help, too, so I'm very grateful to that. With the other friends, I sent Thomas Sanders pictures to one in a group chat (the others in it already knew) and then to another I related myself to a tv show character that all the fans have deemed bisexual (he is, though, it's only a matter of time before he realizes it).
     Any other personal friends of mine who still read this blog: Please, please, please, don't tell anyone. Talk to me directly, don't ask anyone else. My family doesn't even know yet and I want to be the one to tell people I'm bi/demi/queer. That's my thing.

     At some point, I'll come out to everyone. I've stated before that this blog is under a pen name of mine. So while I'm coming out here, on my other social media, I'm still "straight" in most everyone's eyes. Honestly, I'm debating waiting until I'm married so that the backlash isn't as bad. I mean, no one can really say anything when that happens.
     But I freaking swear, if someone thinks I'll cheat on Felix just cause I'm bi, s*** is hitting the fan. Whoever came up with that pathetic warped view makes me seriously annoyed.

    Anyway, here are some videos I've been watching recently that have been helping me feel more content with myself. Because like I said before, being a Christian and queer is tough. But one quote from one of these videos stuck to me: "The fact is, God made me this way. I find it hard to believe He'd create me just to hate me."
     Just because I'm bi/demi/queer, it doesn't mean I can't be happy being me. No matter what, It's important that I'm proud of who I am. And you should be, too. And that includes anyone else who's not in the LGBT+ community as well. We all need to be proud of who we are.

     I hope this helps anyone else out there! Whatever happens, it's okay. You're not alone. And whether you know or don't or questioning or whatever, it'll be okay. No one knows you better than you know you.

     I'll be back soon! See you in the next post.

-Kayla

A Moment to Vent and Breathe

Hey, everyone,

     Distractions happened again. Honestly, I have recently been considering taking meds for my ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Mostly because ADHD can only be helped so much with coping methods. I mean, especially since going to college I've noticed my ADHD getting worse as coping methods have slowly stopped working as well. Motivation only takes you so far and I've been lacking any lasting motivation for a while. Don't worry, I'm planning on going to a therapist at the same time. My family is actually taking steps for me to do so at home now.

     Anyway, for the main point of this post... I honestly don't know what to talk about really. So this might become more of a venting post. Lately, my past has been coming back. I guess it's bound to do so when summer comes around. The same thing has been happening since Junior year, when the whole mess of Senior year started. For anyone's reference, Senior year is when I started this blog and when everything happened to me that I mentioned in the "My Story" post.
     Recently, I unfriended both Nora and Carmen on FB. I'd actually found Carmen and sent a friend request to her, which she accepted, surprisingly. However, nothing really came of that afterward. But I digress. Ultimately, after a while and a lot of thinking, letting them both go was the right choice. And it's not for the thoughts or reasons I'd usually think.

     In the end, yes, I did let them go for my own mental health. Just seeing them appear on the active list on Messanger would cause me terrible bouts of anxiety. But, honestly, I let them go for other reasons. Carmen was simple. I knew she most likely would never come forward and talk to me unless I initiated it. Afterall, that's how it was when we were still friends.
     Nora on the other hand... She was different. We'd known each other for years. Honestly, that's probably the only reason I waited so long. I'd been wanting to do that for months now. Longer than that, really. But I couldn't because our families know each other. And from the reaction I got afterward (keep in mind, she still hasn't contacted me at all about it herself), I was right in my thinking. Members of my family don't get my reasons.
     From what I can gather, they believe me to be holding a grudge. That I can't let go and I've been dwelling on it. I don't understand that. Because I don't think they understand the whole story.

     Even before I found out that Carmen and Nora talked behind my back (twice), I was in a heavy depression. I looked to them for help as I cried almost every night, feeling like something was wrong with me. My family didn't even notice. Or if they did, it was brushed off because they didn't see all of it. I've been told I wear my emotions on my sleeve, but back then I was better at hiding things. Times when I did say something it was just brushed off with their saying "It's just life." and "It's normal to be stressed, you just need to learn to handle it better." Is it any wonder I don't trust them?
     [deep breath and exhale]
     Senior year still bothers me. Not because of what they did, really. That just made everything worse, like a catalyst. No, it bothers me a lot mostly because it seems "cursed" in a way. Like, I can't talk about it really with anyone anymore. I mean, I can, but I feel like they're brushing me off too or I haven't told them yet. And it hurts.

     It hurts knowing I have friends who I know I can trust now. Because I just can't. I can't because I don't know if they'll do the same thing. If they see the demons still lurking inside me, will they run, too? And if they don't... I still feel that way. I still feel like everyone's going to cast me aside at some point because friends just don't stick around me. There's always someone else, someone else to take my place. Even if they don't realize it.
     All of my friends tell me different, especially Felix. They do everything they can to convince me otherwise, but on my bad days... On the bad days, the feelings inside morph. They take the best feelings I have inside and try to twist them around, make me have doubts. And I hate it because I know they aren't true and yet I can't stop it from happening. I don't know how.

     What keeps me going is hope. Hope that tomorrow will be better because today might end well, but those bad feelings are like chains. Always weighing me down until I can cast some off in the night. True, some stay, but for a while it's bearable again.

    Sorry this post was so bogged down. I've been meaning to write, but lately everything I've written has a dark twist like this. Even my stories I write for fun. I'm thinking of journalling, but I'll have to find a way that isn't typing, but also can't be found by prying family members, innocent or no.
    Tomorrow is a new day. Maybe I can write a new better post then. But plans are also busy, so I'm not sure about that. Monday at least, I'll certainly try.

I'll be back soon,

-Kayla