Went to church again, and it didn't go well.

Post Reply New Topic

I was sitting in the church auditorium today, and that aweful stabbing feeling in my eye happened again. It felt wooden. This feeling is now comeing and going. Just as luck would predict, I waited for it to get clear in the isle, only to get up out of the chair, so some random guy ran right into my backside. There is something about church where I hate strangers laying their hands on me. The softer they touch me, the more I don't like it. Not other places so much. It's one odd thing, but that's how it is.

When I get hugs, or shoulder pats at church, it annoyes me for several minutes! The feeling of it keeps going a while after they remove their fingers. Babies hands feel good, but I forget them so fast. Adults feel annoying and I often wish the feeling would quit faster. Something about a 'congregation' highlights this for my mind. Anyway, this guy stuck one hand on my shoulder, and the other on my rib cage. He said "excuse me" all loud and friendly. Which.. the loud part starts the specticle feeling in motion. (I'm the kind of person who thinks people are talking about me when they aren't. NO, I can't help that.) This part of my mind already feels like I'm being watched, and suspects that I am being judged.

I went into the bathroom to find the wooden thorn in my eye, and rid myself of it. Some little girl was holding the door open, and of course I opened the prior door so that it ran into someone. (The entry to the bathroom has one door, then another with a small space between.) The doors have someone behind it that I always run into, where they always have to smile and say "OH! excuse me" every DAM time, and I'm a bit sick of it.

It really does get old to be someone's blockage. This puts me into tightened space with someone in it. This is a crowded and large church I was at here. I hate confined space with other questionable humanoids. I already don't like being in a grocery line, and some complete stranger is practicly right up in my face. It makes my space feel invaded. I already don't like most people as it is.

The little girl holding the door open was just stareing at me as I passed. It was so irritating! I said "please don't look at me that way. I just want to find something in my eye." Then some old lady standing infront of the mirror, was waiting for her turn to the stalls, and a spot in the mirror was right there, so I went for the mirror space. She almost steps into my path, as people also do every time that they want to be polight and get out of my way. Every time someone does this. When someone is being polight, they try to move out of the way, and I do the same thing from the start, only for the two of us to get in each other's way worse than before.

I looked very carefully at my eye, and what else did I find but another stupid sticker embedded in the pink flesh corner of my eye. I already plucked 6 or so out of my eye with metal tweezers, but another shows up, and another! It's already driveing me insane at home! I had to carefuly pluck those six at home for several minutes, through a nice dry left eye, and an adgitated right eye. I can't get these two or so. I've tried. I was not very pleased to find them there yet again, and this time I won't turn down a doctor visit, because it's makeing me feel pure insanity! At home, I sit on my toilet seat, with my eyes feeling irritated, while I cautiously shove some pointy metal into the corner. Now, I have to do about my week feeling a comeing and going 'flick'. What timeing, then in public to start pokeing me real good.

Anyway, mother was in the bathroom, and I tell her about the sticker in my eye. She wants to look real close, and takes off her glasses. Naturaly, she doesn't see anything. Yay for me, I get to look stupid all over again, but they were there! I have eye lashes, and I have thorns. Yes, I can tell them apart. In fact, they will poke forward if I run the edge of my tweezers along my pick eye bulb. We went back to sit down, and the church service started. Some man was sitting there wearing a brand of cologn I didn't like. I sank my teeth into my wrist, and then yanked the battery lid off of my cell phone. I was then forceing restraint on myself to not sratch my arm into bleeding with it. Then I looked over to my mother, and her face looked a tiny bit concerned.

My stress levels were obviously makeing themselves apparent on the outside of me. People could notice, and there was little to nothing I could to to solve that. I was anxious with negative emotions swirling around in my head. Now my mother's past sayings and expressions that came in "please don't do that" were makeing it really hard to feel comfortable at all.

I was remembering how every morning service had their electronic speakers deafly loud, but I didn't have to wear ear plugs anymore. (Yes, I lost a little bit of my hearing, as some of the babies have.) The prayers with annoyingly long pauses between each sentence, them yucky smells from here and there, people nudging the seat I sit in over and over, the repeated memory and focus whipe outs I would get with crying babies and pen clicks, and people who dog pet their spouse infront of us with their fingers. Ugh.

Well, I felt I needed a minute to chill my brain out, and I got up to return to the now 'vaccant' bathroom. I opened the first door, and another women was behind it for me to run into. Again we get "OH, sorry, excuse me." I simply walk by, bottleing that frustration as best I could, and what she did next was exactly the LAST thing I needed, that people do! She asked If I was feeling ok, and kept persisting for a long moment. You know, that "want to talk about it" method that does the opposite to me than it's intended purpose. I had to lie, and I had to make it good enough so she would go away. So HERE WE GO stepping into the "pretend" crap I hate, even when I'm happy. I had to lie to her 2-3 times, before she would leave me alone! "Yes, I'm fine thanks. 'fake smile'"

AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa!! *felt like diveing off a cliff* Guess what? This was someone colored, so I worried that if I sounded wrong something more would come out her mouth in personal defensiveness. like, "You don't need to (slap here). I was just trying to help, racist. blah blah." I banged my head against the bathroom counter, that eye stab feeling came for a moment, then I went into the lobby and sat down. One of the guys looked at me with an expression I wasn't familior with, so I felt paranoid, and mumbled "you to." After a moment, mother came out with her things.

She said "Some lady with overwhelming perfume just sat by me, and I couldn't stand it." Then she saw how upset I looked, and noticed some emotional restraint to. She asked if I wanted to go home, but I was reluctant, because of her gas tank, and her want to go. I wanted to leave really bad though. I couldn't answer very well either, and subcontiously twisted my hair in knots and balls. "But you wanted to finish church." She went ahead and just took us back here. I was crying all the way back, but it got less as we went. I rubbed my forehead, and picked at the skinn in my scalp, twirled my hair in twists again, and moved my hands around like they didn't have a place to settle for a while in the car. It was relieveing to exit. After a couple of minutes being home, I was finaly able to more clearly explain everything. It wasn't just my eye, that was only the begining of my humiliateing meltdown.

Whew. Your description there is a perfect fit for the church where I grew up, and I remember adult and elderly women bending over and hugging me tightly even though they knew I had been told to never touch women's breasts.

Before ever going back there again, I would suggest either you or your mother have a talk with the pastor, elders and/or ushers there to be sure they understand you expect them to be sure other people always keep their hands and faces a respectable distance away from you ...

... and there is no reason you should have to explain anything about that. Rather, just let them know of your personal desire and need in that particular area.

I just emailed them, and said nobody is at fault, and that I left because I was really stressed out for reasons beyond anyone's know how, and they shouldn't even bother worrying about solveing anything, because there really isn't anything they can do about it. v.v I didn't want someone to get wrongly accused or anything.

That is very considerate of you, and you should be commended for your good attitude there.

That sounds horrible. Perhaps you should go to a less cramped church, or just stop going all together.

I think that just not going isn't really much of a solution. People find a sense of community and belonging in church, not to mention the value inherent of corporate worship (worshipping together).

Perhaps a smaller church would serve you better, though. If you go to a really big church, chances are that there are multiple services throughout the day. When I was in grad school, I attended a little church that had two morning services, always opting for the second (larger attendance) service, which I was comfortable with. People tend not to wake up in time for the early service, so obviously it's a bit easier in terms of crowds. The church I attend now is a HUGE church, but attendance is extremely low given the size of the building. The only problem I have is with congestion in the nursery/pre-school section picking up my kids. I play piano with the praise band, so I'm usually hanging out until most people have left, so most everyone is gone by the time I get back there or my wife has already gotten the kids. My "home church" has really expanded its attendance and is getting ready to break ground on a new building to accommodate the crowd, but as I was growing up the crowd was never a big issue. Depending on the level of activity in a smaller church, you can expect a wide variety of different things. Some of the more conservative congregations are dominated by li'l ol' ladies with blue hair who really don't like their music loud, and NOTHING beyond the traditional. Personally, I think these people are really there more for show, but I also think you can still have genuine worship going on regardless of the format; this will appeal more or less to you depending on what denomination you belong to and liturgical preferences. I like my music LOUD, but then again, I'm a musician. Not all congregations are the same, hence you might be better served visiting several different churches.

Good luck to you. I do hope things will get better!

Ah yes, my dear departed grandmother!

"Grandma Kohler" (someone else) was a true sweetheart, though, and her baked goods always went for the highest dollar!

Do you ever enjoy going to church? If not I would suggest maybe not going....I mean if its a horrible experiance most times you go then maybe it would be better not to so you dont have to get super stressed every sunday. The main reason I stopped going because I decided religion in general is not something I am into.....but when I was a child and went to church with my mom and such It always did make me feel rather akward and quite uncomfortable a lot of the time.

I never liked it. If I was liveing by myself, not going would be simpler. If I'm still liveing with worried mother after she retires, my devoted Grandfather will be liveing with us. He might go on and on about me going to hell or something like that if I want to stay home. 'sigh' Staying home with him around will be even less an option, I think.

The idea of going to hell for "not going" to church is 0ld sko0l.

Everyone who IS a Christian SHOULD go to church. That's a given. But the Bible says you're saved through faith, not through going to church. If your grandfather gives you a hard time about it, just nod and say "yes sir" and let him go on thinking whatever he wants to think--there's no use in arguing about it. The safety of your soul is between you and God. Don't let anyone mislead you about that.

Well yeah I had to go to church for quite a while after I decided I did not want to follow the religion....so I can understand how that is. I am not sure how old you are but if your old enough to move out you could try that or if you're that age they should respect you enough to leave you alone about it. Also I don't know how religious you are but I am pretty sure church is not a requirement to be a christian.

But that sort of contradicts the third commandment...

EDIT: Unless of course the OP is protestant.

Remember the Sabbath day? No, no contradiction at all.

The Sabbath is the 7th day of the week, kept holy by refraining from any and all work. It has nothing to do with church attendance.

Christians worship corporately on the 1st day because Jesus was resurrected on the 1st day of the week. Meeting together for worship benefits the Christian community because it affords a sense of unity--a social activity as well as a spiritual one (yes, I recognize that we aspies are prone to social anxieties, something I'm affected by myself; hence the OP issue). Not once does the Bible specify that any one day is proper for Christians to set aside for worship, though I do think keeping a day of rest and worship on the first day rather than venerating the 7th day is a distinguishing feature between the Christians and the Jews. Personally I think keeping the Sabbath in addition to Sunday worship is perfectly appropriate for Christians as well. But the problem you run into is keeping Torah requires complete obedience to all of them, not merely the ones you like or find convenient. I would, however, view the Sabbath day equivalent to any moral law, hence why I think Christians ought to keep the 7th day as holy by avoiding any creative work. Yet that still pertains to the 7th day, not resurrection day, the 1st.

Any way you look at it, whether keeping the law or holding to church tradition, you still can't find any Biblical rationale for condemning people to hell for missing worship on the 7th day, the 1st day (which isn't even mentioned as a day of worship in the Bible--that just came out of church tradition), or any other day of the week (my family attends church for two services on Sunday and one service on Wednesday. Many churches also have midweek services of some kind).

So the point of church assembly is not to keep your fire insurance up to date. The point is Biblical instruction (we hope) and a show of corporate solidarity. It's important. But struggling with you will not deprive you of God's grace.

how did you get thorns, stickers, and other things stuck in your eye?