My mind today has thrown me back to teenage years. We are majorly judged by society for how we look, what we wear, how we speak; this is even more evident to us in our teenage years. Enough so that negative experiences can stay with us for the rest of our lives.
My teenage years were interesting, I feel like I lived from pillar to post trying to fight the changes happening in my family life. We had relocated an hour down the road, new school, new home, new family dynamic. It was all so new and change for me has always been a struggle, one I continue to battle with to this day.
It’s currently over 25 degrees in my garden, and you find me wearing full length joggers, feeling self conscious to go out with a vest top on. Just in case someone says something negative. My partner questioned my choice of attire, why long trousers in this heat and it got me thinking…. Why!!!!??? And I was taken back to an interesting experience.
During my time pillar to post, I spent most weekends back in my home town, refusing to accept the new normality I faced. I clung to the one place I felt valued, wanted and comfortable. So every weekend I would pack a bag of whatever came first to my hand, rush to the bus station and hitch three busses back to my hometown, all on time for 7pm Friday club at SMC. Even at 14 years old I felt pressure to be there all weekend, no social life outside of those four walls. Not unless it was with other ‘saved’ people. The outside world was full of darkness; so as a teenager I felt the need to be around what I knew, not encouraged to adapt to a new school, make new friends. No I had to rely on the network I’d built up at SMC because they were clean.
There was a weekend that sticks with me for all the wrong reasons. I’d packed a quick bag, it was the summer, temperatures were high so I’d packed vests and denim shorts as well as some jeans and joggers to keep me going. Nothing that I thought was against the norm in such weather, the vests weren’t even low cut, just round necked and I also wore a shirt over a vest, that was my style back then.
Well the weekend went by like any other weekend, I made Friday night by the skin of my teeth, then out Saturday night for the Glasgow meeting before the standard Sunday morning communion service. Well I thought it was a weekend like any other, I didn’t feel anything was awry. I’d turned up, been present, raised hands in meetings, been polite, got involved with prayer times. Nothing felt awry at all. Yet here I was after the final meeting of the weekend, sitting in a youth leaders car outside my grans, just as I was jumping out the car I was asked to hold on for a minute as there was something she’d been asked to speak to me about. My heart dropped, what was wrong, what had I done? My head, as any bodies would never mind one in as vulnerable a state as I was at this time, went through the whole weekend looking for something, anything that I’d done wrong because there couldn’t possible be a chat about something I’d done right.
Sitting awkwardly, my gran watching from the window waiting for me to go in. Yet here I am, sitting with a youth leader, in her 30’s being asked to stay in the car when all I want to do is get out as fast as I could. What she then said shocked me to my core and upset more than I’d ever have thought. The minister of the branch has asked her to speak to me about what I’d been wearing this weekend, that it was inappropriate for church and would lead boys thoughts awry rather than on God. I was shook. I was sitting wearing a pair of jeans, a standard vest too with a shirt over the top as I didn’t want my shoulders on show given how this was judged by the church. I’d done my due diligence. I then was told multiple reasons why my choice of attire was unbiblical and I shouldn’t wear such clothes to church again. I just took it on the chin and said bye see you next weekend.
Right here is when I began to second guess every outfit I owned, worrying that it was against the rules. That I’d be flaunting myself to others and this was wrong. As a 14 year old girl my insecurities were bad enough as it was. In the house, gran could see I was noticeably upset at something, not your standard teary upset but flustered. I just shrugged it off as nothing, but in my head I felt awful, how could I put myself and others in that situation. What a bad Christian I was. And then it began, my inability to wear whatever I wanted outside of the house began. At school I went from wearing shorts for sports to joggers, vests to t shirts. Anything I could do to be the right Christian for SMC. Now looking back I’m shocked by the impact that one ‘chat’ had on me as an individual, the doubts that slotted into my already crazy teenage mind. I’d made such an effort to confirm, to be present despite the difficulties of living so far away, and still I wasn’t good enough.
It’s hard to imagine myself back in that state, I’ve moved forward so much in my life. Free from the bonds of SMC, however small moments like this morning bring it all back. Why I don’t want to wear shorts to answer the door, why I need to be dressed appropriately to see anybody other than my partner. It all stems right back to that moment in the car. The insecurities instilled in that moment still live with me despite my best efforts to move past them.
When will I finally be free from what they done to me? When will I have the power to say I am truly proud to be me? The me that God put on this Earth to be! My true wholesome self, not this conformed blind follower. I am who I am, everyday I try to be proud of that but the ties of the past have a way of dragging me back to dark places. One day though, one day I’ll be free from it.