Perna, I respect your opinion and appreciate that this is the way you perceive things. That's okay. However, I've seen my own aunt pass away at too early an age because she was the perfect icon for what a true, old fashioned Minister's Wife should be. She was also a martyr. Like I said, she died at too early an age for me to know all the ramifications and reasons for the way she lived and why she believed and behaved the way she did.

It was her husband, my uncle and the self-appointed family patriarch whose Christianity I've had to fight against and improve upon most of my life.

Much of my own PTSD and lack of self-worth came from being married to a control freak for 11 1/2 yrs. It's been a long recovery road for me to realize that I DO have a mind of my own, that my ideas and opinions aren't rediculous and that I do have just a bit more self-worth than what he "allowed me to believe" about myself. I've also come back to my Faith and I KNOW there is a loving God that never abandons me... all contrary to what this man crammed down my throat for those 11 1/2 years. Then there was the 18 years prior to my marriage to him of having the grandmother calling me a ***** and me never measuring up to what my mother "wanted to make of me." My mother taught me self-deprication. Once, only once did my father respond to me after I announced to him that I didn't love myself, that I was wrong in my thinking. He responded that I "should" love myself like I loved him and my mother. I couldn't have been more than five years old so I didn't understand. Then for the rest of her life, my mother contradicted that statement with her actions. She didn't have any love for Self but she made up for it with a lot of misplaced pride for Self and arrogance.

All of these people were sincere in their beliefs. None of them were "fakes." So... maybe now you understand a little of where I'm coming from and why I believe that addressing God's commandment to "love our neighbor as our Self" is important.