Judith Etz: The parish dictated my life to me

Judith Etz
The church dictated my life to me

How life goes

I got married early. My husband and I were in the same church community, a free church, and that has always been a big part of my family. It “sparked” when I was 17. When I got married I was 19. After all, it was preached in the congregation that you had to marry your first partner.

The marriage soon went badly. My husband turned out to be a control freak, I felt imprisoned. He told me which friends were good for me and which were not. How I should dress. And only criticism: “Not good enough, not beautiful enough, not hard enough, not enough.” Soon he was making jokes about me in company. I got scared of him. But for the church, a divorce would be a sin. I complied. From a young age I had heard in church that women should submit to their husbands.

I also let myself be persuaded: to learn “something real” after leaving school instead of studying. So I became a bank clerk. A job that restricted me. It all started with the dress code: blouse, smart pants, elegant heeled shoes.

Walking barefoot as a remedy

As a teenager, I discovered walking barefoot for myself. At the age of seven I was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disease of the thyroid gland. My body was attacking the organ and the only thing conventional medicine could think of was radiation or radical surgery. I didn’t want that, and when I read reports about the healing effects of walking barefoot, I tried it. I felt good. But the reactions unsettled me. I was embarrassed by my parents.

So now my feet swelled up and fit into the chic job shoes only with pain. At the same time, my illness kept getting worse. I suffered from insomnia, tachycardia, cravings, shortness of breath. I didn’t please my bosses. As in marriage, I was only criticized.

I had to get off my shoes, off my life, off the church! But my parents were there too. The church was so important to them and I didn’t want to offend them. I love her! But precisely because I was so close to them, at some point I found the courage to talk to them. I told them gently but firmly that I had to follow a different path than they did.

Barefoot into the future

After that, everything happened very quickly: I resigned, filed for divorce, was expelled from the church because of it, and gradually stopped taking my medication at the age of 21. The fact that this radical end turned into a new beginning was ultimately also incredibly lucky. I won a year-long trip around the world at a networking event! England, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Rarotonga, Costa Rica, Nevada – always barefoot. Of course, that was often painful. But the further I wandered, the more I came to myself. I made peace with my past – and with my body. My illness is no longer detectable today. I now live in Hawaii half the year and travel the other half. Barefoot of course.

Bridget