“Jane” grew up in a home where mom was the leader of the house. Jane describes her mom as “an angry, ranting kind of person.” Jane’s mother had “gone through a lot as a child” and got into the apostolic church because she was impressed with how it changed her own mother from a promiscuous adulterer into a moral person.
There were four children in the home, and Jane was the only girl. Jane grew up scared of any deed or thought that might be somehow a “sin.” In her church growing up, she was also taught that if a person wasn’t healed when they prayed for healing, it was because of sin in their life. She said that she was taught the belief that if anyone said “anything wrong, they were going to go to hell at any moment.” This kind of fear was how she lived her childhood. In her church in Texas, they were taught that all the other apostolic churches (much less any other denominations) were “all hell-bound because they didn’t have enough standards. They were lost.” She states that this was hard to accept, because she had some really tremendously nice great grandparents who were moral and loving individuals, but were Catholic. She said she’s often wondered “Why were they doomed to hell?”
Not only did Jane receive a lot of messages of shame and condemnation at church, she and her siblings attended the church’s school, where “mom had to work for free in order for the kids to go to the church school, but the kids had to go to the church school if the family went to church.”
In the middle of this shame inducing nightmare, Jane suffered more than most other children. “The pain I had at home made me more sensitive” to the messages of condemnation. You see, Jane was being molested by her older brother for most of her childhood, unknown to the adults in her life. Her brother that was molesting her was six years older than her and would appear in her bedroom at night to sexually abuse her. She says he was about eleven years old when it started, which meant she was merely five years old. Because of the abuse, those messages at church brought even more shame to her than they did to other children in the same environment. The fear and condemnation was overwhelming for her. She describes a day when her mother was not at home when she arrived home and she was terrified that the rapture had taken place and she had been left behind because of her “sin”–the abuse that was out of her control.
Not only was Jane a victim of her brother’s sexual abuse, but her cousin, who was a year younger, was also molested by him when the cousin came to visit the family. Still, the secret did not come out at that time.
During these dark times in her life, where her secret abuse ate away at her and the shame and condemnation made it impossible to find refuge in church or at school, Jane often found encouragement through fortune cookies at the local Chinese restaurant. She says, “God sent me encouraging messages through fortune cookies.” These messages were such a powerful ray of encouragement in the middle of her pain, that she kept the little slips of paper and still has them to this day.
Finally, Jane hit puberty and her brother found a girlfriend and moved out of the home. Her physical and sexual nightmare had a reprieve. Still, when she was at church, hearing about hell and how everyone outside of her little church group was going to be lost forever, it puzzled her and tugged at her tender, loving heart. “I must care about my friends more than God does, because he’s ready to torture them in hell.” This thought pulled at her mind and she could not wrap her head around how this could be true.
Eventually, Jane moved to another state, married and had children of her own. However, her sexual abuse continued to haunt her and cause problems in her life as an adult and in her married life. Her husband was very supportive and they have managed to work through things as they come along, but Jane began having severe physical issues as an adult. She had to undergo surgeries and treatments, and still suffers from seizures at times. She says she feels that all of that stress and trauma from her childhood affected her health permanently.
Indeed, professionals who work with trauma agree that it can have severe physical indications. Bessel Van Der Kolk, in his book “The Body Keeps The Score” recounts the tremendous amount of research on this subject. He specifically discusses seizures as one of the problems seen often in people who have suffered years of childhood trauma. In another study, “The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study,” research was done on participants who had health problems, and it was found that there is a tremendous link between childhood abuse and trauma experiences and the person’s health later in life.
In the story of Grace, in part III of this series, you may remember that she shared just a few difficult experiences she went through as a child. She was later diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma, at the young age of 28, and underwent surgery to remove her kidney, as well as suffering from several female issues and life time struggles with anxiety.
Although spiritual abuse is just one of many types of abuse, the risk to health and well-being is clearly evident. One cannot constantly inject a child with shame, fear, and condemnation without that child suffering a lifetime of consequential issues from that experience.
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse II
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse III
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse IV
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse V
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