There were a lot of options for this post, unsurprisingly. The first option that came to mind was good old BnK, and they did indeed make my life hell, the kind of hell that comes from the deepest kind of friendship betrayed. But I already blasted B in a non-challenge post last night, so I figure I can do something else tonight.
After BnK come the deans* of my former college. They put me through the kind of hell that religious fundamentalists come up with when the power they hold goes to their head. I got kicked out of school for giving my fiance a blowjob, plus the other assorted touchings and holdings that tend to come with that sort of activity. He, of course, got kicked out for getting a blowjob. And to this day, I'm not upset about getting kicked out of school. Sexual activity of any kind was prohibited there, and he and I knew that when we signed up. Indeed, it was against our own standards as well as the college's. It was how they treated me after that, that put me through hell.
You see, they ostracized me. They isolated me from everyone I knew. I wasn't from Watertown, I was from Indianapolis. I moved to Watertown for the sole reason of going to school there. So it follows that everyone I knew there, every friend I had, was a Maranatha student or faculty member. They forbade me from coming on campus, aside from the mandatory counseling meetings I was in for almost two years after they booted me out. Why would I agree to mandatory counseling from a school I was no longer enrolled in? Because they were, effectively, holding my life hostage. I struggled with depression far, far more then than I do now. I needed my friends. And they used their power to keep my friends from me. Now you may say, "Well, that is what they do to all expelled students to keep from corrupting current students." Which is what I thought at first, until I compared the way they were treating my fiance, who was kicked out at the same time for the same reasons as I was, to the way they were treating me. It went something like this:
Him: "Hi deans, may I come on campus and hang out in the coffee shop with my friends as long as I want?"
Them: "Sure! And it's nice to see you again! And you don't have to worry about being in dress code."
Me: "Hi deans, can I walk through the coffee shop to say hi to my friends on my way to or from the mandatory counseling you have me in?"
Them: "No. And make sure you're in dress code. And if we see anybody talking to you we will be very, very unhappy."
You see what I mean? This went on for TWO YEARS. About a year after I got expelled, I married my fiance. I should have been eligible to return to school that spring, but they didn't want me to. "Wait until the fall," they said. "You can come back in the fall." So we got married that spring. Then we went to apply for the fall semester. "Oh, you guys are newlyweds, you really need time to get used to being married and all that." Keep in mind, this is the school that had just that year changed their rules to allow students to get married mid-semester. Before that, the rule was only that you couldn't get married within two weeks of the beginning of the semester. We obviously fell far outside that timeline. They really had no reason to keep me out. I had done all the things they requested, had been doing them for nearly two years at that point, and still they treated me like an outcast, requiring me to be in dress code, informing me of what church I was allowed to go to (the one in town, so they could keep an eye on me. Literally. They said "We want you to go to Calvary so that we can keep an eye on you."), not allowing my friends to meet me off or on compus.
If you wanted to know what was the absolute biggest thing that made me first question Christianity, it was the deans. The deans who kept saying "we just want the best for you, Katy." The deans who kept saying, "we know God's will for your life, Katy." The deans who kept saying, "we are your authorities, Katy, even though we kicked you out of our school." The deans who kept saying, "we are showing the love of God in our actions towards you, Katy." Of course, that wasn't the sole reason I started to question my faith, but it was the biggest thing that started me down that road.
So, there you go. Renee Westphall and Doug Richards are two of the biggest hypocrites I have ever known, and they made my life hell.
*you may have noticed that I do not include Rob Cronin in my scathing indictment. That is because, as far as I could observe, he did not agree and did not condone the attitudes or actions of the other two. But for some strange reason, the Dean of Students and the Dean of Women held all the power at my school, the Dean of Men had literally no say at all. For example, if I called to ask a dean if I could come on campus and got him on the phone, I cannot count how many times he would be like, "Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem, just let me go check with Miss Westphall or Mr. Richards." And then he would come back and have to say, "Sorry, but it looks like coming on campus would be a bad idea at this point." He knew there was no reason to keep me away aside from vindictiveness, but he had no say, none at all.
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