Friday, March 30, 2012

My Problem With Prayer: Part 1

Prayer in Christian Science is defined as the desire to align your consciousness with God rather than to ask for something. I was raised to believe the universe was spiritual. Any discord or physical problem was due to my misunderstanding or ignorance of God's perfect creation--something like mathematics, where an error in my understanding can't change the reality of the correct equation. Two plus two is not five, but believing it is five causes problems until I realize the truth.

My ability to pray was put to the test  when I was not quite fourteen. Overnight I developed a bone disease in my left knee that incapacitated me. I spent a hellish year praying--studying the bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and all her many other writings, speaking to my Christian Science practitioner (whom my parents paid to pray for me) on the phone and in person as my infected leg drained pus. I'd never taken a pill in my life, not even aspirin, and I didn't then. I never saw  doctor. I did what I was told: I prayed. My parents and church staked my life on prayer.

I expected to be healed. Instead I experienced a year of bedridden anguish, terror, isolation, shame, and pain. Lots of pain.

Brain scans (magnetoencephalography) on people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder have shown abnormal physical changes. I was diagnosed with severe PTSD at age 33 after leaving Christian Science and my first marriage. It was a relief when I read that the mind-bending, brain-warping trip of my childhood had caused damage that could be measured as physically as the deformation of the fused leg I limped on. (This was after I learned to accept that the physical universe is, in fact, real. That was a hard one. When my sanity came, I thought I was losing my mind.)

I'd been in the habit of reading and studying Christian Science literature like a mad thing. In that metaphysical mindset, how you think about everything is critical. It not only determines your happiness but your health. You spend most of your time as your own thought-police. Ever since I could read, I was encouraged, taught and urged to pore over the bible lesson (inlcuding Science and Health) every morning. I read articles in the  church's weekly and monthly magazines. After I got sick, my practitioner told me to read Science and Health straight through, five or ten pages a day, cross-referencing significant words in Eddy's other writings. Words like run, knees, life. Material life was only symbolic, after all, like warped  numbers written on paper. Over the course of thirty years as a diligent, prayerful Christian Scientist, I probably read every single word Eddy every wrote. I read Science and Health from cover to cover probably--what? Half a dozen times? Ten times? Prayer was a lifeline. Durint the state of receptive, fervent quiet, I ached for just one glimpse of my true spiritual being. It would lift my consciousness into health and peace. It was a mental headlock I welcomed. It was the only way of life I knew or could imagine. Prayer was my only hope.

When I left Christian Science, I stopped praying. Guess what? I didn't miss it. The lack didn't make any difference in my life. When I broke down, fell apart, thought I was dying and prepared to step off the edge of my fearful, sacred world, there was no edge. I braced myself to fall but the world kept going. I didn't have to pray. I could thumb my nose at prayer and at the concept of a "God", mock it, blaspheme it, ridicule it. It made no difference.

The biggest difference was that I stopped being afraid. I still worry about the parent stuff, something happening to my kids. But almost nothing else really bothers me. This is a paradox because I suffered from panic attacks and flashbacks, emotional triggers and five-alarm meltdowns for many years. I'm not immune now, though I'm a lot more stable. But the level of fear in  my life has been negligible compared to the anxious paralysis I lived in all those years, and the trance-state of euphoria I used to "pray" myself into.

So I didn't (and don't) miss praying. (It also opened up a lot of time in my schedule.) But I noticed a side effect. It was difficult for me to hold still. I couldn't just sit and think, relax and chill. I just didn't like to. The time I tried a mild meditation exercise with some friends almost sent me into a full blown crisis. It was too much like prayer. It sent me reeling toward panic and terror. I had to get up and move.

Or better yet...get on a horse and ride. Clear my mind and let the rhythm of hoof beats bring my breathing back to normal. Trail riding was always critical to me; it became my form of meditation, motion without too much thought, activity that let the wheels in my head spin in neutral while I relaxed. It saved me.

More about this tomorrow.  I'm heading into territory that is important to me and, I hope, to you. I welcome your comments & thoughts.

9 comments:

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  2. You're absolutely right that there are physical changes in the brains of people who have experienced severe trauma. Traumatic memories are not stored in the same area of the brain as more normal long-term memories. Instead, they are stored in a part of the brain where they are easily accessible.

    As someone who also has PTSD, I have found meditation to be worse than useless. It sends me straight into a flashback. Strenuous exercise has always worked better for me.

    Please keep writing, and thanks for sharing. Laurie

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    1. Yeah, I thought it was weird that therapists don't give you a heads-up about the panic trigger of meditation & similar "relaxation" techniques. Thanks Laurie.

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  3. One of my favorite quotes, I never really knew WHY I was an atheist until I read this paragraph. This is from the novel We The Living by Ayn Rand,

    "Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I mean. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do--then, I know they don't believe in life."

    "Because, you see, God--whatever anyone chooses to call God--is one's highest conception to the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his own life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it."

    I have always felt that people that believe in God need an "out". A reason for why their life didn't turn out the way they wanted. Must not be "God's plan". That, or you suck at life because you refuse to take responsibility for your own choices.

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    1. Thanks for that quote, Merlegirl. It's true--the concept of a god can turn a process of searching for answers into either magical thinking or self-blame/shame at not being deserving enough to receive them. I was really grateful to find I could believe in human will & life even with its tradegies & shortcomings.

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  4. I know what you mean by 'I stopped being afraid.' Here's my 2 cents worth: I think that when we go through trauma and escalated anxiety, the new perspective that eventually emerges changes how we see the world. Since we've already experienced a worst case scenario, normal fears pale in comparison.

    Now, when a potentially problematic situation comes up, I advance that situation in my mind to the worst case scenario, and almost always that scenario becomes insignificant compared to the real loss and fear that we experienced in the past. Perspective is a powerful thing!

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    1. You took the words out of my mouth. This is exactly what I do, jump to worst-case scenario (the phrase I always use) and convince myself I can handle it. This led me to investigate amputation six years ago when specialists reccomended my knee be fused straight. (The joint couldn't be replaced.) The worst possible outcome was an infection that could lead to amputation (as some do.) When I spoke to amputees I met people like myself who had lived with a fused joint for years and were happy to have chosen amputation despite the complications and limitations. I didn't want another fusion anyway. So my own willingness to check out the idea that was my WORST childhood terror led me to ask the doctors to amputate. Great to hear from you!

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  5. Liz, Thanks for sharing. It is no wonder you feel this way about prayer; the traumatic experience of your childhood disease appears to have conditioned you to believe that it only can lead to pain, which is a completely normal reaction, I suspect. I am fortunate enough to have had positive experiences with prayer and feel it is a useful tool in my toolbox of life. I am glad you are finding other tools to help you lead a happy and

    fulfilled life and am looking forward to reading Part 2.

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    1. Thanks Dory. "Prayer" or meditation are just words, after all. If I'd been raised to find a relaxed sense of peace and reassurement without it being hard-wired to a certain church's party line (let alone to a terrible experience) the term prayer wouldn't set off my alarms. I feel I should throw my angle out for consideration since prayer gets a pass as always being benign even though it's still legal in 38 states to "treat" kids' physical problems with prayer alone. That's where it can get ugly. Thanks so much for reading & commenting.

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