John and I come at blogging from slightly different angles & have been trying out which works best for the site (and the benefit of you, dear readers). Long ago, he told me to stop using the categories as if they were tags and linked me to some very helpful sites about tagging & such. So I’ve been trying to tone them down. Now he’s put up the beautiful category cloud you see at the right, so I can start using the categories as tags again! To this end, I went back & recategorized some of my most recent posts. This caused me to see some categories that I’d not noticed before (like the title of this one) and create some new ones (muahaha).

I was tagging my post about the signs in the police car when I noticed the category for “Getting Over Religion”. And for some reason, I wanted to tag that post under that category (I did not, you will notice, because I felt I would have to explain myself, which I am doing here).

I’m very comfortable with the concept of religion as an addiction. Especially since I feel compelled to describe myself as a recovering Catholic. (I’m not a former Catholic since that implies I’ve gotten it out of my system. I hope to someday be.) Also, I see every day in my husband so many struggles that he just doesn’t have. Part of the reason you find me here at Mind on Fire is that I need some kind of an outlet for my ongoing need for religious expression. It’s like my weekly meeting.

Hello, my name is xJane and I’m a religioholic. (“Hi, xJane!”)

And just as with other addictions, seeing other people doing it is not helpful. Seeing signs about how I should read the bible fill me with rage, honestly (possibly not the response a true addict would have to watching someone else drink/smoke/&c.). Rage because it’s taken me so long to have gotten this far and here they are encouraging people to go back. Rage because they either know what they’re doing and don’t care or have been kept in the dark as well.

I grew up in a privileged enough household that I still feel like the Police represent safety and protection. If my husband starts beating me, I can go to the police (statistics about police & fireman violence against women notwithstanding) and be safe. So if I were to find myself in a situation where I went to the police for safety and found religious paraphernalia, I think that might be just too much for me. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.