Kitty BITE Back Series Episode 15: Fuck your rules, liMes. It's MY house.. I do what I want (FU2TM)

Heyyyoooo!!!!! I have the strangest desire to play with a baby hippo. I realize I can't do that and that I should leave wildlife alone; however, if I were to see a baby hippo right now... I can't say without a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn't try to pet it!! Anyway, that's neither here nor there (as my mother would say); because, it's never going to happen lol

So I have really shared some deep and dark stories from my time in the cult. I know the stories are very short; but, I need you to understand that every time I sit down to write for this blog, that I relive all those experiences from when I was in the cult. It's unbearable at times. So some stories may be longer, some shorter if I can't write much about it (emotionally). I just wanted you to know that going forward. Anywhoooooo

This week we are talking about the 13th component of Behavior Control under the BITE model as described by SAH, "Impose rigid rules and regulations". I have spoken out about many of the rules and regulations around clothing and things of that nature; but, a long time ago I made a list of all the rules we had to follow as a member of the cult. At the time it seemed silly to make; but now, most of the work this week is done for me lol

STORY TIME!

There are a few aspects to being in a religious cult that I want to cover: standards, church life, dating/marriage, personal life, and your relationship with the pastor/god.

Standards:

•All women must wear a skirt that comes to at LEAST mid calf/shin when in a seated position.

•Men are only allowed to wear full length pants (no shorts or capri pants).

•Men and women can only wear shirts that come past the elbow.

•Women must wear pantyhose, have their hair up off their neck and back, and cannot wear open toed shoes to church.

•Women cannot cut their hair for ANY reason (this includes trims)

•Men’s hair cannot be longer than a half inch, cannot touch their ears, and cannot have sideburns.

•Men cannot have ANY facial hair, this includes stubble.

•Men and women cannot dye their hair for any reason.

•Women cannot wear any makeup for any reason. This includes makeup done to your corpse for a funeral service.

•Women cannot paint their nails, have acrylic nails, or any other adornment.

•Women can only wear cotton, solid color, full brief underwear. (And trust me, the pastor will find out of you wear worldly underwear.)

•Women can only swim in private pools with other church women. They cannot wear a bathing suit. They have to wear a long sleeved cotton shirt and a floor length skirt. Men can only swim in private pools with other church men. They cannot wear swim trunks. They must wear full length pants and a long sleeved cotton shirt. Men and women cannot swim together under any circumstances.

•You cannot have any tattoos. If you join the church with tattoos you are expected to have them removed at your own cost.

•No one is allowed to wear jewelry, this includes a wedding band and engagement ring. This also includes metal watches. Watches can be plastic, rubber, or leather.

•No one is allowed to watch tv, listen to the radio, listen to music, read any book other than the KJV of the Bible, listen to podcasts, talk shows or any other media production that isn’t directly a product of the church.

•The only holidays that can be celebrated are the 4th of July and Thanksgiving.

*Breaking any of these standards is a sin. If the pastor finds out you have “backslid” he will announce it to the church (even in front of you) and you will be shunned (even if you stay with the church). Forgiveness is not a thing. *

Church Life:

Life in the Apostolic Church was very restrictive. The church believed that only a select few people only from churches that the pastor was a part of would be going to heaven. Church started at 9:00am on Sunday morning and ended at 1:00pm. There was a second service on Sundays that was from 5:30pm-10:00pm. There was also a church service Tuesday and Thursday from 7:30pm-12:00am. If you were to miss a service, the pastor or someone he trusted would be sent to your house to see why you weren’t at church. I have witnessed people being pulled out of their homes by their hair to go to church when they were home sick with the flu. After each service all the women were to clean the church top to bottom. From the ceiling fans to the baseboards. When we weren’t having a home church service, we were visiting other churches for service or holding large revivals. Revival services could last up to 6-7 hours.

The premise of the Apostolic Church is to be baptized in the name of Jesus, repent, and speak in tongues. According to my pastor, if you didn’t do all 3 of those things, you weren’t going to heaven. If he thought you weren’t serious about those 3 things, he would scream at you over the pulpit and speak in tongues (saying it was the lord who is speaking through him and only the pastor knew how to “interpret” the language) calling people out by name to come to the alter and let him pray over you. It was expected for you to do one or a combination of a few things: drop to the ground and convulse and speak gibberish (in tongues), be standing and convulse and speak gibberish (in tongues), bawl and cry out for forgiveness, or even fight against him (in this case elders of the church would come up to you to help cast the demon that was resisting out of you). Apostolic people are commonly called “holy rollers” because well, they would roll on the floor when praying or worshiping. I cannot speak for anyone else but I can say that I did these things out of fear with full consciousness to keep from having the pastor try to rebuke demons in me, get in my face and scream, get people to touch all over me and pray, or any other super invasive act. I successfully “spoke in tongues” for the first time on September 11, 2008. I had tried so hard before so people would leave me alone. I watched YouTube videos of other people “talking in tongues” and memorized some of the phrases. When the time was right, I would start saying them and wait to see if anyone noticed. This took months. Finally, after coming back from a week long church camp where I was pulled from school to attend, I repeated the phrases loudly. I was ready for this to be over. I was tired of being talked to like I was sub human; like I was “missing” something greater. The pastor shoved a microphone in my face so the whole church could hear me “talk in tongues”. I was “saved”. I started laughing hysterically; with my eyes closed. I laughed hysterically for about 10 minutes. I couldn’t stop. I had them fooled. According to my pastor, I had the laughing spirit (from god) which was rare. When he announced this while I was laughing, I realized then: all this is fake; and, I’m getting out as soon as I can. But until then, I had to keep fooling them.

Dating/Marriage:

In a world were a woman’s purpose is to serve a man for the rest of her life, you can imagine that dating and marriage would be a large part of the church. It is customary to get married as an early teenager and have your parents sign for you to get married. But the process to get there is a LOT. If a guy wants to start dating a girl in the church (Note: this is the process no matter how old you are) he has to go to the pastor and ask permission to date the female. The pastor then decides if both the male and female are spiritually dedicated enough to start dating (basically you need his permission and he bases it on if you are following his rules). If he decides no, then it ends there. If he decides they can date, he arranges a meeting with all parties (including parents) and talks with them about the responsibilities of staying strong in Christ while in a relationship. At this point, he assigns the couple a chaperone. This person is to accompany the couple on any and all dates, times they hang out, and any time they are together. The chaperone is to report the “progress” of the couple. Basically the chaperone is a spy for the pastor. During this time you cannot touch at all (hugs, kisses, holding hands, sitting close enough to touch, ETC). You can date for a period of 6 months. On or before 6 months, you must decide to either break up or get engaged. The male asks the pastor for permission to ask the female to marry him. The pastor makes the ultimate decision here. If he decides they can, the male would (with the chaperone present) ask the female to marry him. Women are supposed to be submissive and agree with the male authority figure in their life so they are almost under obligation to say yes. You can only be engaged for a period of 6 months or less. Then you have to have a wedding. Only people who are in your church may be in your wedding. The pastor will preach at your wedding (basically a church service that you get married at). He usually preaches about heaven and hell, standards, and fire/brimstone. And remember, only music produced by the church is allowed; so, all the songs at your wedding are church songs. Your dress must follow the elbow length guideline mentioned above. The dress cannot have any adornments (beading, jewels, or fancy stitching). The men cannot wear bow ties and the color of their coordinating outfit must be a “masculine color”. The first time you are touching is when you hold hands at your wedding. The first time you are alone together is right after your wedding. The first time you exchange phone numbers and text/call each other is after your wedding. When I was a teenager, I showed interest in a guy at my church. I was told that I was too ungodly for him to consider a relationship with me. So I have never gone through this process; but, I have seen other people go through it. A woman is to be sexually obedient to her husband. However, any position except missionary and oral and anal sex are sins and cannot be done. Basically the woman just gets to lay there and be penetrated until her husband climaxes like a real life sex doll. Sex i s not just used for reproduction. A woman is to be available to her husband’s sexual needs at all times and she cannot refuse him. They believe if you’re married, your husband can’t rape you. Once married, you move in together and usually immediately begin having kids because birth control is not an option. The woman is to care for the children and the home and not have a job or work outside the home. She is also to homeschool the children when they become of age because public school is ungodly and worldly. This was interesting because I attended public school and my single mother was a public school teacher. We were constantly told that we risked going to hell for disobeying the pastor and his standards he set for the church.

Personal Life:

From birth, you are indoctrinated to believe that your pastor and father are the ultimate beings on this earth. The only person above their authority is God/Jesus/The Holy Ghost. If you have a father, he has the final say on decisions made in the family. If your mother is a single mom, your pastor has the final say in decisions made for the family. I joined the church when I was 10 and my mom was a single mom. So she was to consult the pastor for big purchases, changes in employment, moving, and any other major decisions. My mom was more independent and had only relied on herself for approximately 8 years. The pastor would call my mom out during church and tell her she needed to quit her job. She denies this ever happening. But the truth is, she just wants to believe 1. Those people in that church are good and 2. That she could never be douped like that. In my free time, I was forced to canvas for the church. The pastor assigned us routes in town and gave us pamphlets with a message of hell, fire, and brimstone. On Saturdays the women of the church would put on our uniform of a solid color long sleeved shirt with *insert church name here* and Sister (insert first name here) embroidered on the shirt. I felt ridiculous. I was canvassing for a church that I didn’t believe in, with a faith full of hate and judgement. Kids were communal property when it came to discipline. The pastor had handmade wooden paddles covered in duct tape in the lobby of the church. If your toddler or child was being too disruptive or crying or anything that he deemed inappropriate, he would call your name and your child’s name over the pulpit and tell you “spare the rod, spoil the child” and expect you to go hit them with the paddles. The screams of little children coming from the lobby were deafening when their parents would oblige. However, if the parents didn’t handle it in a way that the pastor saw fit, he would get off the pulpit, take your child and march off to the lobby where he would use one of the paddles on their bare bottoms. I’ve seen children left with bruises on their bottoms because of the corporal punishment being used. So I told myself: Note to self: don’t have kids until you can get out and get as far away as possible. You would think that your undergarments would be a private matter; and, that you would have free will to choose them. No. If the pastor suspected you were wearing anything other than solid colored briefs, he would have his wife take you to a stall in the bathroom to check your underwear and she would report back to him and tell him if you were wearing sinful underwear or not. This also included push up and padded bras. If you weren’t wearing sinful undergarments, there was no apology for the humiliation. If you were wearing sinful undergarments, the wife and pastor would talk to you about how you are jeopardizing your place in heaven over worldly undergarments. This happened to a friend of mine in the church. She had on cheeky panties. The pastor suspected it. She played to drums for the church. The pastor’s wife took her to the bathroom during service to check her. When she came back out, the pastor said, in front of everyone during service that she would be “sat down” (unable to play the drums during service) until he saw a turn around in her. Until he saw her character become godly again.

Your Relationship With Pastor/God

Above all, you were supposed to have a fear of god and the pastor. He never came out and said that he was gods equal, but he did say that he could interpret tongues, hear directly from god what he wanted us to do, and he knew everyone’s soul and if they were going to heaven or hell. To say I feared my pastor was an understatement. He would tell us stories about how he was in a gang in Cincinnati, Ohio when he was younger. He told us that he had killed people. He had tally mark tattoos and what seemed to be dots/drops on his face (gang tattoos). He told us a story at least once a week about how he was on trial for murder and they just randomly didn’t have the evidence to prosecute him so they let him go. He says god told him that was going to happen. He said Jesus walked him through the wall of the jail and told him “everything the light touches is yours and it is your job to bring these people to me.” So he became a pastor. This was all very frightening at a young age. Like other churches, they believed in tithe and offerings. However, this was a little bit different than what other churches do. You were to give a MINIMUM of 10% of your check to the church. This was to pay the cult leader’s salary. On top of that you were to give offerings to cover the church’s bills. On top of that you pledged so much a month for the church for new projects, renovations, church fund, or bonus for the pastor. On top of that you were to give 10% of all your income to the cult leader. This included groceries and other items that you bought. If you bought 10 apples, you had to take one to him. If you bought 5lbs of hamburger, you took him 1/2 lb. I saw families of 5+ who couldn’t make ends meet and were living in public housing or with family, on food stamps, on SSI, on disability, and still being told that if they didn’t give him 10% of everything for his pay that they were going to hell. I’ve known single people to give upwards of $2,500 a month to the church. He also had no problem in listing off names of people who were behind in their tithes and offerings and he would call them out over the pulpit during church.

I lived this life for what seemed like an eternity. I used drugs to escape the feeling of hopelessness. I attempted to commit suicide not once, but 3 times by the time I was 17. I hated my life. I would have rather died than stay in that church. When I believed in god I would pray that he would let me go to sleep and never wake up because what I was experiencing on earth had to be less bearable than whatever afterlife I had in store for me. To this day I don’t believe in any god. Because if the god that I was taught about actually existed, he wouldn’t stand for what liMes is doing with his church.

Do you or anyone you know have strange and arbitrary rules that they are required to follow to be accepted by a group of people? Rules that negatively impact your life? If so, PLEASE get out, get away; as far as you can. Call me, the police, someone you trust who isn't in the group, and please, be safe.

-Jezebel