31 Days of Heathenry - Day 1
Jan. 1st, 2019 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brideoffrankenstein1) When did you become a heathen?
My parents are atheists, so I didn't grow up with religion as such; my dad is almost an Atheist TM but my mum is more fluid about that kind of thing. I'd been quietly into Norse Mythology and mythology in general, since childhood, and I'd wobbled back and forth through my teenage years on whether I believed in gods or not.
My teenage years were a Bad time for me. I had a breakdown when I was fourteen, spiralled into depression and self harm, had therapy [for social anxiety, which I now realise was a symptom, not a root] left therapy, and spent the couple of years between that and university in an increasingly anxious, almost permanently dissociative state. I'd been navigating panic attacks and extreme anxiety [although, ironically, not in social situations], and the few months between the end of my exams and the start of university were a strange, horrible limbo. I think I didn't realise how bad my health was at the time, at all; it was only a couple of weeks ago that I found out that wanting to run away (which I did; I seriously considered it) is a form of suicide ideation.
I don't know quite how it all happened. As I say, i was almost constantly dissociative state. I remember an uncanny amount of crows appearing in my life the summer before university, and I remember furtively doing research at night because in daylight it seemed too scary and too real.
I remember being in my bed in university halls and needing something, desperately needing some kind of comfort or safety or safety net, because life was too much and moving too quickly. I felt like I heard something, a vague sense of there-ness like a hand on my shoulder. After a little research I decided it was Hlin.
After Hlin came Frigg, understandably. I still wasn't sure wasn't all in my head and I'm not fully sure now, but I was less sure then, and responded to things in a way I wouldn't now. When Odinn appeared, as he does, I'd been hanging around pagan tumblr for a while and was aware that he was generally refered to as terrifying - a god who would push you and push you. I remember telling him - or thinking, or almost playacting - not to push me too hard, because I was barely standing up as it was, because I had Frigg's ear. It was only afterward that I started to think he'd heard me.
My parents are atheists, so I didn't grow up with religion as such; my dad is almost an Atheist TM but my mum is more fluid about that kind of thing. I'd been quietly into Norse Mythology and mythology in general, since childhood, and I'd wobbled back and forth through my teenage years on whether I believed in gods or not.
My teenage years were a Bad time for me. I had a breakdown when I was fourteen, spiralled into depression and self harm, had therapy [for social anxiety, which I now realise was a symptom, not a root] left therapy, and spent the couple of years between that and university in an increasingly anxious, almost permanently dissociative state. I'd been navigating panic attacks and extreme anxiety [although, ironically, not in social situations], and the few months between the end of my exams and the start of university were a strange, horrible limbo. I think I didn't realise how bad my health was at the time, at all; it was only a couple of weeks ago that I found out that wanting to run away (which I did; I seriously considered it) is a form of suicide ideation.
I don't know quite how it all happened. As I say, i was almost constantly dissociative state. I remember an uncanny amount of crows appearing in my life the summer before university, and I remember furtively doing research at night because in daylight it seemed too scary and too real.
I remember being in my bed in university halls and needing something, desperately needing some kind of comfort or safety or safety net, because life was too much and moving too quickly. I felt like I heard something, a vague sense of there-ness like a hand on my shoulder. After a little research I decided it was Hlin.
After Hlin came Frigg, understandably. I still wasn't sure wasn't all in my head and I'm not fully sure now, but I was less sure then, and responded to things in a way I wouldn't now. When Odinn appeared, as he does, I'd been hanging around pagan tumblr for a while and was aware that he was generally refered to as terrifying - a god who would push you and push you. I remember telling him - or thinking, or almost playacting - not to push me too hard, because I was barely standing up as it was, because I had Frigg's ear. It was only afterward that I started to think he'd heard me.
