La Scapigliata
One peaceful and warm March day, I grabbed a pair of pruners out of my filthy and disorganized garage, and proceeded to spend the next several hours cutting back a terribly invasive rhododendron bush that was (and still partially is - as hundreds of small shoots have come up since then and beckon me still to pull them out… somehow?) on the border of our woods and grassy yard.
Pause. There will be many times as I tell this story that I attempt to make it clear that much of this is a mystery to me. I don’t fully understand the means of a lot of this. If I know something with certainty, I will make that clear. Anything that is speculative or mysterious to me will be treated as such by being referred to as a theory, idea, possibility, etc.
Back to it.
Envisioning a lovely path that would invite my children to explore, I chipped away at the task.
At some point, lost in thought, I began to experience a sort of out of body experience. This is a metaphor, as I was fully in my body. The words to describe the experience are a bit beyond me. What happened then to me, and what has continued for several months now (as we are in the month of July) is that I began to observe reality with entirely new eyes.
It was as if a veil of darkness and dirtiness that had been over my eyes for at least 24 years was lifted. This is literal, by the way. As someone who has been a photographer for several years it was quite literally like cleaning the lens of my camera.
The loudest and most opinionated of women, a champion for Christ! Fearless to defend the Gospel, to face hard questions with her faith in tact. Fearless to debate against men (I’m sorry to my friends husbands namely Ashton, Josh, Jarrett and others over the years - for I questioned your character for questioning my place as a woman to debate, when in fact you and my own husband even understood the truth of scripture in ways I never could have as far as what my role in life was to be.)
Nobody understood me, I believed this was true. Here’s a nice summation of my inner thought process when anyone dared to question the way I approached convictions, discussions, etc.
“Yes, I’m a Christian. In fact a conservative Christian woman who fully believes scripture and understands theology. But also, a lot of this doesn’t apply to ME because my life has been remarkably different than most of my friends! I have had stresses and hardships many in the circles I run couldn’t consider! So I’m allowed to be different because my upbringing was different.
In fact, I’m just more of a Jael. I’m loud and I talk fast and I’m unashamed of what I say. Anyways, people like me and think I’m funny.
That’s just the way God made me.”
I feel sad for that woman, teenager, child. So much. That version of me lived in perpetual fear. 24/7 fear. If you can imagine it I feared it. My entire existence was performative, in fact. Narcissists were around every corner of me I believed. Surrounded by them. Poor girl.
But really? They were mirrors, showing me truths about myself I was terrified to face. By the way - I believed myself. Yet there was a cognitive dissonance, if what I said was true why was I afraid? Always on edge? Irritable, aggressive. Verbally abusive and reactive. It seems to me, the narcissist truly was with me all along.
What did I fear?
Heights, starting my day (endless cups of coffee and scrolling), sleeping on my back, all bugs, pregnancy, childbirth, being seen and fully known by any human. The list goes on, I’m sure as I write this (without an outline, the old self continues to die, ha) more will come to mind.
This is what I saw when the (literal) veil over my eyes was lifted. A life plagued by, and paralyzed by fear.
Is this what Eve felt in the garden, that first woman without faith?
Is this how this all began?
I don’t know those things. What I do know is that in that moment with those pruners I saw the world as I did when I was a very little girl. I saw that it was good. The feeling I felt in that moment, and since then was the same. My sight was restored. I was blind, and now I see. I don’t know what that feeling is. A frequency? A vibration? Those things are true and real things that exist as ways that we experience reality. Whatever it was, something changed.
Let me backtrack though, and explain some of that darkness. At some point in my life, I stopped seeing that goodness and it was around the age of 5 or 6.
It was probably around the time I had my first of many childhood sexual experiences. Specifically, lesbian in this and most other cases. Not only that, but at that same age I partook in a witchcraft ritual, light as a feather stiff as a board. I didn’t know what witchcraft was yet, but I knew when the girl began to float that something was wrong. I’m not sure which of those two experiences came first. I do believe it was the witchcraft experience, and I believe something demonic either attached itself to me or possessed me. This is where we are discussing ideas, theories, etc. What is very clear to me is that I’m to be honest in all this and embrace mystery. What I do know is there was a demonic aspect to this, a demon which I saw with my own two eyes a week or two following the rhododendron unveiling, I still don’t fully understand what its role in my life was. Just that it had been with me for some time. In fact, I asked my Priest if he casted a demon out of me and the long story short version of what he said was "I don't know, I didn't know about a demon... but perfect love casts out fear."
Back to it…
I was dirty, this I observed. Not because someone told me that, it would be years before I even knew what homosexuality was and how it has been viewed historically.
The world around me became dirty as well. The veil of darkness shadowed reality. Fear encompassed the next 24-25 (again, I don’t know the exact details of when my perception of reality changed) years of my life. I feared men, I also desperately desired their approval. I hated women, I also desperately desired to have back the innocence and beauty the Lord created me with.
That is not a good recipe to create a lovely young woman. Fear, distrust, hatred, and desires for something good perverted by human nature and original sin
I knew I wasn’t a lesbian, I know that sounds ridiculous with the information I just gave you considered. But I really did hate women, and I really didn't believe I was worthy of a man's love - I didn't want a relationship with a woman but as human's grow and sexual desire grows alongside fear, well - you know. I couldn't imagine myself with a man because I could only imagine them being disgusted by me for a long while. I was impure and stained. (By the way, I did stop hating women around the age of 12 or 13, but it wasn’t overnight it was a slow process and only was the true sisterly love for women and belief that God created women good as well as men restored in me that mysterious day in my backyard).
In first grade, I couldn’t turn in homework. That really became the rest of my life. How to actually do it was beyond me. I was highly dysregulated and living in a false reality, this dysregulation continued over the years and snowballed. I lacked presence. Head in the clouds, living in a genuine delusion that existed to protect me from all that I feared.
Second grade I had my first boyfriend. I didn’t know it yet, but I was searching for a male to be my savior. I believed Jesus was my savior, or so I thought. But did I really? Third grade was more of the same. By fourth grade the seed of bitterness and anger had established root in my heart. By middle school, perversion had grown into something hideous. High school was hard. The never ending feeling of “this isn’t the way it was supposed to be!!” Plagued me and my anger, defiance and rebellion grew. The little girl who believed the world was good still did exist in there somewhere. She felt hopeless to herself. A slave to her passions, her emotions. I had pockets of doing well, after all the fact you’re reading this means I didn’t fade totally into oblivion. I masked fine enough into circles that would accept me.
Maybe my husband would save me. Okay, so I stopped watching pornography and it turns out it’s true that what you consume is what you develop an appetite for - very well - finally! I'm being sanctified and I stopped worrying that I was secretly a lesbian (of course at this point I was aware that this is sin and against nature) but yet a new sin was revealed - I was a horrible wife. I verbally abused my husband in many ways, and even my own children. I had no idea how to impart my will upon others besides fear, shame and preaching. Anyways... Didn’t Nick know? Didn’t he know HE was supposed to save me, that I finally found the perfect and ideal man and he must live up to that standard? I was right to be angry, my hero! Imperfect? How is this possible?
This is why the process has been so painful, I have had to face the reality that no matter how hard it can be to have young children, and all the lies that feminism teaches - they didn’t ask to be here, and scripture is clear I am to respect and OBEY my husband. I owe them my presence, and most of my “mom rage” if not all was because they distracted me from that forbidden fruit that I loved - my phone, social media and all of the things I could pretend were true about me when I tuned in there - to that frequency. Why on earth is that stupid device which truly does store the knowledge of good and evil embellished with a bitten apple? It was in front of my face all along and I couldn't accept it. I dug our family deeply into credit card debt, and I really believed myself when I said I was buying things I needed. You see, because I believed I was a horrible woman - I became one. I kept trying to solve it with things of the world. What did I gain? Debt, clothes that racked up in my closet that I couldn’t even wear or fit into. Surely, the next purchase would satisfy me. Soon I would buy something that makes me believe I’m beautiful and worthy of love. But of course, nothing could, because I wasn’t content. Only Jesus satisfies. We become what we believe and I believed many bad things about myself and so I acted upon them and what we do is who we are. This is important to understand, if anyone is reading this and has similarly fooled themselves that they are the person they've invented in their head rather than simply what they do and how they partake in humanity - wake up. Now. Repent and believe the gospel. Go to confession. This is to say I’m fully responsible. Apart from Christ I would be bearing the full weight of my penalty. Yes, I am walking through natural consequences now but I am forgiven. I get to partake in a Kingdom that I tried to destroy. Saint Athanasisus defines sin as an act of anti-creation. My sweet son Titus is battling some fears and we were observing light as we drew together, I told him not to fear - only the light is real. The shadows are simply where the light is not. That is true of my sin, and of yours. They do not exist in light of eternity when we are clothed with white linens and the righteousness of Christ alone. I get it now. I will cast that heavenly crown at the feet of my Savior. But you must grab hold of his cloak like the woman bleeding in scripture. Grab onto it with all your might so that Christ might say "your faith has made you well." Childhood trauma, parental failures these things do not absolve us of the facts that we ourselves are responsible for who we are in each moment. I didn’t want to believe that though, in fact I scrupulously read psychology. Much more so than scripture, hoping to find the how of why of was so wicked, it couldn’t be me - could it? What would have been hell for me, a continuation deeper and darker into that world of my fears? What will life on earth be like after the resurrection when our faith is made perfect?
I've collapsed into tears at points in this journey with realizations. Mary, the Queen of Heaven was the only woman in history that God asked to sacrifice her son and she did so with perfect obedience. He is not like the pagan gods of old whom delighted in child sacrifice for the sake of ease. And this realization came after my beloved Grandma Eunie died last week, I never got to tell her that she was right about so many things. I brushed her off when she tried to tell me about the intercession of saints. Doesn't she know, I'm not a works based salvationist like those Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglicans? In fact now, I believe my salvation is less of myself than I ever did before when I had all of the answers. By the way, I AM still a protestant as an Anglican under the leadership of my husband, priest and God. The only thing now that has changed is that I have true faith - I don't need to have the perfect theology or answers. I can embrace mystery. I can trust the institution of the church. Grandma Eunie was a gracious woman, one who I could only dream to be like. She treated me with gentleness when in 3rd grade I lived with her and stole a necklace. She genuinely loved me, she was troubled at my wedding and many other times that my hair was frizzy. She saw me, and she saw who God made me to be - underneath the mess I had made of my life. I never heard her raise her voice. She was respectful and kind to my grandfather, a man who had a difficult upbringing of his own with a mother filled with much of the same mom rage that I myself was filled with until March. I haven't screamed at my children since. I used to multiple times a day. How far back did this go for my lineage? To Eve? Again, so much speculation. There is still mystery upon mystery to be unveiled in God's timing.
I’d watch myself sabatoge my life and relationships and grow more hopeless. I contemplated suicide many times even into my late 20s, and felt embarrassed because I didn’t really want to die so I couldn’t even go through with it. I just wanted to stop being me. Maybe, I wanted attention. I grew so tired of myself. A life marked by highs and lows. An article was written about me in high school, I was a turnaround student! How marvelous! Now I can go be amazing, oh wait. Back to me in no time. Because what was my reason for doing well? Performance, ego, image. And so continued the cycle of performance and burnout. I couldn’t keep up with friendships anymore. I was too overwhelmed I would say, to reply to people. But I’d scroll and buy, my priorities were the true reason and I was afraid to face that too. Do you know, I’ve never given someone a thank you card? Don’t get me wrong I’ve written several but I never could go through with delivering them. When we lived in California from 2023-2025 I was more filled with hatred and bitterness than I ever had been in my life. Living in dirtier conditions than ever before (yes, my fault by the way), more irritable, shopping too much to fill a hole that was meant for Christ, making too many promises to too many people in the farce of generosity while denying my own husband and children true nurturing presence (that time I booked about 15 photo sessions for people and then burnt out and couldn’t find it in me to even edit them). I was sick too, my gallbladder going out? I truly believe it was caused by the high cortisol from the weight. of. my. sin. I felt a failure as a woman most of the time. Maybe the masculine traits I developed were to hide what I was, someone who couldn’t finish anything she started. Dirty kid, dirty girl, dirty woman. Truly I could write a book detailing all the ways I was the chief of sinners among women, but none of the point of this is “feel sorry for me, I’m so ashamed!” In fact, I lived in shame that entire time which was what? To deny the sufficiency of Christs sacrifice. It got me nothing. It brought forth no fruit.
If I could go back and tell that little girl to hold on, that someday the veil would lift and the light would return I would. Sometimes I wonder if God prepared the young Erika for those days of darkness through dreams of the place I'm in now. Seriously. Often since moving to Virginia I’ve experienced something like Deja vu. Or standing in a dream I once had. It feels like the place of my salvation? A land promised to me. It wasn’t really ever about Lynchburg or a place, though - I thought that's what I was looking for (a place to belong, to feel at home) it was about the place where God would show me a glimpse of His glory and what was to come. This is a speculation: as a young girl, He showed me the pockets of light, a restoration of my heart through dreams that I had and that's why much of these days feels like being in a memory to me. There are still consequences, friendships gone, credit cards to pay off, trust to be restored… forgiveness is real but scars exist and it will be many years before the light is fully realized in ways, not even in fullness until time and death themselves bow in submission to Christ - but the fruit that God has shown me in all of this, in such a short time has been so incredibly humbling. I wake up each day excited to see what He will show me.
Maybe I will write more as time goes on or maybe I will leave it at this, that is unsure. God has made it abundantly clear to me what is required of me in this: to keep my eyes on the road, to not try to skip ahead in the story, to respect my husband and love my children and finally to embrace the freedom and forgiveness that has come from Him and so many others that have lavished me with grace upon grace - and to truly walk forward in newness of life. No longer held captive by the self that has died. But to seize hold of the day and say “Yes! Truly! Yes my eyes ARE new! Today still as much as yesterday” and to rejoice in the Lord. That is my law, to love God and my neighbor and to rejoice.
The act itself of cutting back the rhodedendron was incredibly satisfying and by the time I retired inside I felt that victory was nearer than the day before. I felt the false perfectionist in me die as I realized that reality was one small task at a time and that there was nothing to fear at all.
I had no idea that what just occurred was going to continue, that God was going to continue to lift a veil. Continue to show me a mirror of that old self. It has been the most painful and simultaneously freeing process of my life, to be fully known and to be fully loved. To have gentleness restored. All of the bipolar traits (diagnosed two separate times by separate psychologists) that plagued me disappeared in one fateful afternoon. I thought I believed in the God of the Bible, but he gave me a miracle in a way that I supposed I never believed was possible. I can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.
Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for me.
