Asklemmy

If you work hard you'll have a successful life

God exists and watches everything you do and loves you while threatening you with eternal damnation.

When I was a little kid, I asked my grandfather what the bumps in the middle of the road (the reflectors) were for. He told me that it was so blind people could drive. It made perfect sense to me, and I believed that for longer than I should have!

Basically everything my mother ever said. I repeat a lot of it back to her now, and she always asks, “where did you hear such absurdities?”

That if a racoon saw you swimming, it would swim out to you and sit on your head and drown you.

My fully adult mother actually feared this was something that could happen to her children, and she warned us of this “danger” every summer when we were young.

Over thirty years ago, I told a friend of a friend “Australians come from Australia, Romanians come from Romania, therefore Canadians come from Canadia”. She’s been calling it “Canadia” for thirty years.

We’ve been together for ten years now, and she’s just found out that it’s not called “Canadia”. Boy am I in trouble.

Christopher Columbus set out to prove that the Earth was round after eating an orange or something and that's how jesus discovered America

Grandma adopted a puppy when I was probably 8 or 9. It got parvo. I remember going to her house and asking where the puppy was. She told me that he was sick, so he had to stay outside and I couldn't go outside for the same reason. When I would ask where the puppy is, she would tell me that he's on the side of the house where I couldn't see him. This went on for a long time, I never saw the puppy again and eventually forgot about it entirely.

A decade or two later I found out that my grandma had spent thousands of dollars trying to keep that puppy alive, but parvo took it anyways. She was very upset about it's passing and instead of having me go through it too, she lied to me about it until I completely forgot about it.

That turning on the light in the car at night was illegal because it would cause a glare on the windshield.

I believed this into my mid-20s when my husband corrected me with a fuckton of teasing and incredulity.

The garbagemen did not come back looking for me every week. They just came to pickup the garbage and not to take me away.

Younger Cousin Syndrome...

We're all equal.

To borrow from Animal Farm, "We're all equal, but some are more equal than others".

Men are logical. Women are emotional.

Such an enormous generalization and oversimplification. Very false.

Not necessarily at all. Depending on where you live, anyway, but if you have supporting friends, you'll end up fine

"Girls desire a knight in shining armor to come sweep them off their feet!" — my pastor

For the longest time, I struggled because I was told all my life what a "woman's purpose" was, and my desires never lined up with that. Felt like a freak because I never desired romance, sex, or partnership with a man (or anyone else, for that matter). If that was my purpose, was I supposed to will myself to want that for myself? Was I doomed to be alone forever? Was I wrong to want to pursue adventure and things that I wanted?

If my desire ≠ God's desire (which was apparently union with a man at some point in the future), then my desires were.. wrong. Maybe/probably even evil.

So I fucked up my life trying to follow that and fit into that mold. I did things I never wanted to do because it was the "right thing" to do in the eyes of God.

After I escaped, I never really recovered. But.. I discovered a lot about myself.

I did bearded dragon rescues & fostering, I got into cosplay, learned how to sew stuffed animals, got some mental health care, rekindled my love for nature.. all by myself. I learned to love me and not base my worth on what other folks believe I should do or how I should behave. I don't have a partner who gets to dictate my personality. I got to grow on my own.

I'm still coming to terms with.. a lot of things about myself, but now I'm able to grow freely instead of being confined to such a small pot.

Don't let people define who or what you are, or what your purpose is in life. Only you get to do that. It's both terrifying and freeing, but you can do this.

" you can be whatever you want to be"

That talking to strangers was bad.

God is real.

That you should base your diet on carbohydrates, and minimise fat intake.

"maybe" was how my mother said "no."

"Ignore them and they'll go away" in the context of bullying. Hint; it took a mental breakdown and violence to make it stop, back in the mid-90s.

Anything having to do with Christianity.