Hey y’all. It has been a little bit since I have really posted a blog post. I was taking a little break to focus on my life and try to figure out what I wanted to continue to write about and just where I wanted to take my platform. I am working on dreaming up plans for it. Hopefully goodness will come soon.
Today I wanted to come on here and say somethings. So today I went on a little rant I guess you could call in on my instagram story about things that needed to be said or things that just weren’t okay and I know that I do not have most of you guys on there so I figured I would share some of it on here. There is a lot of different topics that are about to be addressed so it might seem a little scattered but these are somethings that I feel like need to be said.
-Elevation, Bethel, Hillsong are all prosperity gospel churches (I did a blog post on this weeks ago), but I believe we need to stop singing their songs. We need to not listen to their sermons. We need to distance ourselves from this false gospel that is becoming more and more popular. False gospels do not lead people to Heaven. In fact they lead them to hell because they are not being told the full truth. These gospels are becoming more and more popular and it’s sickening. These teachers are wolves in sheep's clothing. They are preying on people who need true hope and instilling this false gospel, which these people believe are real, which is just hurting them in the long wrong. I am not into cancel culture but we need to cancel the prosperity gospel hands down.
-Porn is not just a man’s issue. It’s a human issue. I know a lot of women who have struggled in this sexual addiction. I know men who have too. Porn ruins relationships. It ruins true love. It ruins the beautiful gift that God gave to 2 people who are married. Also, websites like pornhub have high rates of sex traficking victims and videos. Anyone can post on there and so these people are posting these videos of these young girls who are being forced into it. It is wrong. We as a culture and people need to stand up and say this is not okay. How come we can censor the last president but we can’t get rid of a website that has a known history of being linked to sex trafficking? Just a thought.
-Christianity is in danger in this country. I have never been more concerned that my faith would become illegal as I am now. We are headed down a dangerous path for Christians.
-Mental health is real whether or not you deal with it or can see it. 1 in 4 people deal with some kind of mental health disorder 1 in 4. That’s a lot of people. Yes there are the people who make it up that they are dealing with something to get attention but I am not talking about them. There is a huge stigma around mental health that yes gen z is starting to break but the older generations are holding onto and it makes it tough. When we go to our parents or other people who are older millennials and older, we can be faced with a great stigma. These people went through a different time then we have. They were taught different things. They were taught to deal with mental health differently. This adds to the stigmas. This is why people are afraid to stand out. I know when I was really struggling, I was told that self harm was for attention. I was also told that if I really wanted to have done something I would have done it by then. I also was told that everyone who self harms is trying to kill themselves. Y’all can you hear the stigma because I can. I’ve been told that anxiety is lack of faith and that it doesn’t make sense for me to deal with anxiety when I am a Christ follower. It doesn’t make sense for me to have depression because I’m a christian and christians aren't supposed to have depression. It didn’t make sense for me to have suicidal thoughts when there’s hope in God. These are stigmas from both christians and none christians. Mental health needs to be addressed more in the church but by people who have actually dealt with mental health or by a pastor who reaches out to someone who deals with mental health to get accurate information.
-Just because someone has a disability doesn’t mean they should be treated differently. It could be physical, mental, intellectual, it doesn’t matter. They are human. They should be treated as a human. I walked in on the last part of someone saying something yesterday at work but they said something about this person should just buy whatever items when they come to the store like a normal person. First off, you never know what someone is dealing with. Maybe that person is immunocompromised. Maybe that person physically can’t walk around a store. Maybe when they exercise their right to a handicap spot they get hated on because they are not in a wheelchair or don’t “look” sick. There is nothing normal in our world. My normal is different then your normal. You don’t know if someone has a disability unless they tell you or you ask, otherwise you may never know. Everyone deserves to be given respect. Everyone deserves ways for them to live as close to a “normal” life as the next person. Everyone deserves to be treated like a human because they are one. Noone deserves to be treated differently for any reason.
-I know that there’s a lot of people who I am around at work especially that probably don’t share the same views as me. Maybe they are living a way of life that to me is a life of sin. It doesn’t matter. I am going to treat everyone the same. I am going to treat you like a human being even if we don’t agree or believe the same things. I do not want you to feel like you have to change who you are in order to kinda fit into who I am. I am not going to change who I am for you. I really hope that you won’t change who you are for me. I treat everyone pretty much the same. Don’t expect special treatment for whatever reason cause you probably won’t get it. I try to treat everyone like the human they are. No one deserves to be treated differently because of their beliefs or lifestyle.
-I found out that there was a politician who used tourette’s as a punchline in order to attack another person who they did not agree with. This is not okay. There is so much stigma around disorders like tourette’s. You wouldn’t use cancer generally as a punchline, so why would you use tourette syndrome. There’s a lot of stigma around it. I remember being in 7th grade (this was before my tics really started ramping up) and there was a boy in my science class who would come in just yelling and flailing his arms and saying he had tourette’s. Everyone around me laughed but everytime he would do it, I would flat out tell him that that was not okay. Eventually he stopped, honestly I think I might’ve told the teacher and she talked to him but i don’t remember. This was my first experience with the stigma. Once I started ticcing a lot more, I started noticing it more and more. I’ve had bosses that would get frustrated with me because of it. I’ve had plenty of people make fun of me because of it. I have gotten major backlash when people find out I have it. I was bullied from 8th grade till I graduated because of it. Even as an adult people make snide and unnecessary comments about it. This is how I learned that unless I really needed to tell people, I was going to go as long as I could without telling people. I made it about a month and a half at target until I had a couple hours where they were decently bad. The problem with no one knowing is that they will continuously look over at me when I tic, which is like my biggest problem with it and then it makes me tic more. By the end of my shift I decided to at least tell my ETL about it. She had left for the day so when I went in to shop the next day I caught up with her and told her. She was literally super nice and kind about it. One of the best reactions I have probably ever had to telling someone that I had tourette’s. Part of the reason I was so scared to say something was because I had seen a story about 2 weeks after I started at Target of a Target somewhere in the US making a teenager with tourette’s leave the store because they found it disruptive. This is not okay and technically kinda illegal based on the ada. I didn’t know how the leaders in my store would react. I was honestly scared because I didn’t want to get backlash. I didn’t want to be known as a weird person because of it. The hard part of people not knowing is when people stare at me. People staring at me usually happens when I do a vocal tic and they hear it. People staring at me increases my anxiety so so much because I don’t know what they are thinking. I don’t know how they are going to respond to it. I was dealing with some of the other leaders and ETL’s looking at me when I ticced that I finally asked my ETL to tell at least the other ETL’s. I hate bringing it up. I hate having to let people know. I never know how they will react. My ETL was so kind again and said she’d talk to the other ETL’s but also said not to worry about anyone in the store. Target is HUGE on the no bullying, harassment, etc. based on any reason. They are huge on inclusion. Literally during orientation we watch a video all about how Target employs everyone no matter sex, race, sexual orientation, disibilty, etc. and as someone who has a disability, this is huge.
I have totally rambled a lot here with a lot of different ideas and thoughts. I am finding my voice. I am trying to stand up for the truth. I am trying to speak my truth. I am tired of being quiet.
I hope you all have a great day!
Hold onto hope and stay strong.
Madison Rae <3
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