Tw: religious trauma. I know everyone has different experiences when it comes to this, this is based off some of my experiences. 🫶🫶Religious trauma and crisis of faith is a big deal. This is not based off TNN canon. It's a hard and taboo thing that alot of people face and deal with. This is just a story.
Take care of yourselves x
Also homophobic idealogies warning
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"this was nice" Vivian said walking Siobhan out to her car. "We could do this again if you wanted to, no pressure though" Vivian offered.
"I'd like that" Siobhan said to her. She found that Vivian was an easy person to talk to. The conversations they shared were never stagnant.
"Just give me a call, let me know when your free and we can plan something" Vivian sounded a bit nervous. Usually this would irk Siobhan, if it were anyone else it probably would. But because it was Vivian she found it quite charming. She knew she wasn't nervous about Siobhan's reputation, she'd made that abundantly clear in their conversations. It was an awkward kind of nervousness. She didn't know how to end the conversation was all it was.
"Viv?" Siobhan asked. She kicked herself as soon as the words came out of her mouth.
"Can I hug you?" The words felt strange and foreign coming out of Siobhan's mouth. But she felt as if she needed it. She needed some kind of strength to go home and face her supposed lover. She felt pathetic for feeling this vulnerable and she hoped that some of Vivian's strength would rub off on her.
Vivian smiled in confirmation before engulfing the petite woman into her arms. Siobhan was cold. It was a contrast to their light-hearted conversations shared in the warm atmosphere of the coffee shop. How could someone feel this physically cold? It was the type of cold that Vivian associated with her patients that were coming to the end of their life. Did this remain true in Siobhan's case?
Siobhan however, she felt warmer, safer after the hug. It contrasted every other part of her life. Every part of her past and present was cold and unloving. This hug gave her a small glimmer of hope for the future.
Siobhan was raised in a particular way. Her parents were particular people. They were very religious and so Siobhan was raised religiously. It came with all kinds of expectations and rules to follow.
She doesn't remember finding religion to be limiting or restricting until she was a teenager. Until then, she believed that god had handcrafted everyone so they were perfect and he loved each and everyone person as individuals. She believed in the niceness of the world.
She thinks back to her first period. She was 10. Her mother was disappointed to learn that Siobhan had started menstruating. She sat Siobhan down and explained what it was all for. Siobhan was expected to have a child with a man and raise them. But it was also when her mother told her that she should allow men to treat her how they pleased. Her mother had explained that it was easier to submit and let me take control of her, it was the way that god intended. This made it easier for her to handle Rogers abuse in the present day, even if she wasn't sure that she believed in God anymore.
Her mother also explained to her that it was important to never see women as sexual figures. It was the late 90s and LGBT relationships were frequenting the media. She didn't want Siobhan to think that was acceptable. Only men, were allowed to see, and use women as sexual objects. Women weren't allowed to see each other as such and neither were men. She was taught that god would hate her if she ever acknowledged her attraction to women.
She knew she couldn't, so she refused to let herself see women like that. The older Siobhan got, the worse her father treated her. She became numb to it eventually, which is what lead to her hard shell and cold interior. Siobhan's father saw women as evil temptations with malicious intentions, and I suppose in a weird way, Siobhan internalised this and carried it in her soul.
If god was all powerful, why would he allow such abuse? Why would he provide people with temptations that ultimately lead to pain? These were all questions that circled Siobhan during her crisis of faith.
She knew Vivian didn't carry this pressure with her. She had told Siobhan about her childhood and how she was raised. She was raised to believe in herself and understood that she was bigger than her body and more powerful because of it. Siobhan thought about how god crafted Vivian. Maybe her and Vivian were supposed to cross paths. She admired Vivian. The craftsmanship of her bones, her brain and her body. In Siobhan's eyes, the only flaw Vivian had was that she had none at all.
Vivian came across as someone who was confident in herself and because of this, she was able to defend herself and make the people around her feel seen. She knew that Vivian had everything stacked up against her odds. But she also knew that Vivian managed to come out on top. Vivian was unstoppable and Siobhan hoped that one day she could be too. Why was she dealt this hand? What did she do in her past life to be deserving of so much pain and misery? Would god hate her for admiring Vivian's strength? It didn't matter. She thought that god hated her, and that he showed her this through the trauma she had faced.
