Author: ThereIsLife | Page 3 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

The Rapture Doctrine – Fear mongering at its highest

The rapture doctrine was used to instill terror in me as a child and a teen. I’ve researched where this late doctrine came from and I don’t believe in this doctrine any more. For 1800 years Christians had never heard of the rapture theory. It is a fairly new “revelation.”

I used to get up in the middle of the night and tip toe down to my parents’ room to see if they were still asleep or if they had been raptured. I was terrified of being “left behind” even though I’d said the sinners’ prayer at least 200 times by then. God is a God of love and comfort and closeness. Not a God of fear. Hell and the rapture were preached to me as an infant. Not a good way to end up with a healthy psyche. I focused on the lake of fire and on the rapture, not on God’s love – because the whole environment was one of fear, control, shame, guilt.

It’s such a relief to know that there is no special rapture for believers. I know Christians are “divided” on this theological issue, but all I can say is, do your research about the person who invented this theory! It caused me years of anguish and terror and anxiety. When I met my husband, he told me about his similar fear of the rapture as a child. And my sister-in-law confided in me about it too. They were forced to watch the A Thief In the Night (a kind of 70’s “Left Behind”) video series as children. No child is emotionally ready for that level of fear. It is downright damaging.

I don’t freak out in sheer terror any more when I get home and the house is unexpectedly empty. I used to freak and think I was left behind. I know people who would make a phone call to a really “good” and “holy” Christian friend who most definitely had made the rapture cut and hang up when they answered, just to make sure that the rapture hadn’t happened. I have friends who are still afraid, and still do this.

It must grieve God’s heart that some of His children live in fear because someone made up a doctrine to control people and instill fear in their hearts. “ARE YOU READY FOR THE LORD’S COMING?” was a constant question in my childhood and teens and twenties. It used to baffle me. What did “ready” mean? How could I possibly be perfectly “ready” to meet The Almighty? I guess it was a fear-based question. I am now excited to meet Jesus because I know Him as a God of love. What a difference. Night and day. Because now I KNOW Him, not just know ABOUT Him. There is a big difference.

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Don’t dare ask questions!

In the sect that I was in until age 33, no questions were allowed to be asked that might threaten the tight religious control or their very narrow worldview. People of true and secure faith are not afraid of questions. But they were afraid. I was a naturally inquisitive and deep-thinking child. A true introvert. I had existential crisies – that was the type of anxious child I was. Therefore in this environment I grew more and more anxious and isolated because no adult would answer my questions, and they shamed me for even thinking them. I know now that the adults were afraid of my questions because they could not answer them or dare face their own doubts. Though they never admitted that they did not have answers. Some of the questions I had the courage to re-ask at about age 35, once I had left the control and the system of fear. Even then I didn’t get answers or an open dialogue. No conversation allowed.

Some examples of questions I would ask:
Where is heaven?
Why can we not adopt children from outside the sect? Why do you say that they are the devil’s children?
Why are we on this earth? What is the point of life?
How can Jesus hear me pray?
What will God do with hermaphrodites, who have both sexual organs? Will they burn in hell if they choose to be the sex that God didn’t intend?
If we will be in heaven with other Christians, then why cannot we socialize with them now?
Why does God only answer the prayers of the 1000 people in our particular group?
What about the books that never made it into the Bible?
Why can I not attend religious studies class at school? Why do I have to sit outside the classroom?
Why can I not attend the large school gatherings where a visiting pastor will say the Lord’s prayer? The other children in my class make fun of me for not believing in God, but I tell them that I do believe in God – which is why I cannot hear the Lord’s prayer being spoken by a pastor who doesn’t belong to my church. (I was very very confused about this one!)
If you think all Muslims will burn in the lake of fire eternally then why do you not attempt to evangelise to those Muslims you know? Do you not care that they will be tormented eternally?
Why would God, who is in essence love, create humans who he knows beforehand will spend eternity in hell? Why doesn’t he just stop them being born?
How do I know Christianity is true? What evidence is there?

I understand that many adults don’t have all the answers to these questions – I don’t either – but it was their reaction that was shaming. I was “bad” for asking. I was “bad” for having a mind of my own, for thinking critically. They didn’t say “oh, I’m not really sure” and discuss various options and answers, they blushed, and scoffed, and grunted, and left the room.

I lived with a deep shame until my late thirties because I thought there was something wrong with me for asking these questions. I had existential depression. I didn’t want to be alive. I was “bad”. Something was gravely wrong with me. I learned to be quiet and not ask questions. To follow blindly and to conform in silence.

About 6 months after I left the sect I had the courage to turn on the Christian radio station in our city (radio was Satan’s tool) and there was somebody doing a talk show from a Christian university who said that it is normal for people in their teens and twenties to question the faith of their parents and ask questions. He said they have counselors to help with this and to walk through all kinds of questions. I was driving on the highway at the time and almost swerved my vehicle in shock, and disbelief, and relief – I wasn’t a monster after all! A huge weight lifted from my shoulders. The lie that I was deeply defective started to subside. Often the parents’ shame and fear become the child’s and so the cycle continues. What a waste.

Why would God give us minds that are capable of thinking and reasoning if we are supposed to be “robots” who follow blindly and take everything at face value? Even when it goes against our God-given conscience? In fact, I think that doubt is a healthy part of faith – and can very often lead us into a deeper and more genuine faith. Actually, it was my keen and analytical mind that got me out of the sect – while all of my family members remain in – their refusal to entertain my questions didn’t work in the long run! I’m free!

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Sheep

The thing that baffles me most about cults is the level of mind control going on and how as humans we can so easily be turned into compliant “sheep”. In the past I have watched YouTube videos and TED talks about how brainwashing works in the mechanics of the brain. It is fascinating. Once you’ve “woken up” it seems so obvious that the “Kool-Aid” that your friends and family – still in the cult – are drinking is obviously hogwash, but I guess I was once in their position. Like them, I was too terrified that my whole reality would come crumbling down to look at the glaring discrepancies and obvious hypocrisy. Too afraid of rejection and judgement. So I stayed in my pitiful fog of denial and cognitive dissonance.

As human beings we need connection, relationships, closeness, community, love, family, respect, etc. and when all of that is threatened – because we are considering that “the truth” maybe isn’t true after all – the stakes are just far too high. To follow the true Jesus Christ would cost all of that, because we’ll be shunned and excluded if we leave. It took me being shunned while *still in* the sect to wake up! It took a full blown mental breakdown. I think soul-shattering, extreme pain from within (bullying, shunning, public shaming, etc) is what wakes many people up. Because extreme pain usually causes us to ask existential questions and causes us to wonder what the point of it all is. The rest of my family are still in the sect. I am the only one out. Sometimes I wish that they’d experience something soul-shattering so that they’d wake up from their fog, but then I immediately feel guilty for thinking that way. Plus, I’ve witnessed some people experience heart-wrenching life events and they don’t wake up. The spirit of religion had such a strong hold on them that even tragedy didn’t push them to seek a relationship with God (versus empty rules and rituals). Thank God that you and I woke up!! It is truly a miracle.

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Healing

The pain is real. The journey to healing is real. It’s long and at times feels like it is never-ending. But every year when I look back over the previous year I see the progress that has been made – rebuilding my life. It’s been almost six years since I left. Which sounds like a long time, but it isn’t really when I consider that I was born into the sect and left when I was 33 years old. I’ll have been out of that toxic church system for half of my life when I turn 67 years of age!! That sounds awful and depressing.

I’m currently 39 years old. Looking at it this way makes me realize that it is okay that I still have a long way to go on my healing journey. I’ve been out six years, but I was in for 33 years (plus the 9 months in the womb!). I’ve been free from extreme control for only 15% of my life. Wow. In that 33 years I wasted approximately 9,000 hours sitting listening to mind-boggling theological discussions spoken in Shakespearean English – that I never understood. None of it brought me close to God.

Last night my new husband and I went to a get-together with his work colleagues. It is at events like these that I realize that I still feel separate. This feeling lessens with each passing year, but it is still there. It gives me social anxiety because growing up in isolation from “worldly” people means that I didn’t learn normal social skills or the ability to relate to and interact with people from all walks of life. It has been scary and tiring to learn these skills in my thirties. I look normal on the outside now, and can put on a good front, but underneath I still feel odd, and different, and like I don’t belong.

It is to be expected because for 33 years of my life I was told, and therefore believed, that I was part of a small group of elite Christians who were God’s chosen people. The only people to whom He came; the only ones with the “truth;” the only ones worthy of true fellowship; the only ones who had interpreted the Bible correctly. All other Christians and non-Christians were misled by Satan, and were to be feared. Physical separation had to be maintained at all costs so that we were not infected by their evil (yes, the words “infected” and “evil” were actually used). We were not allowed to dress like the world, watch TV like the world, watch movies like the world, listen to the radio like the world, have a library card like the world, live in a condo building like the world, be a part of a professional association like the world, etc… I used to stand at my bedroom window when I was about ten years old and look out at the dangerous world with fear and wonder what it was like to be in Satan’s clutches and wonder why God chose us for such special “light” and “revelation.” But deep, deep, down in my core I was jealous of the freedom that “worldlies” had.

Therefore, there is no wonder that I still struggle with socializing with people I don’t know, especially on mass. No wonder I escape to the washroom every hour or so just so I can breathe deeply and collect myself. To add to the awkward feeling is the fact that I have never watched The Simpsons, haven’t heard most of the popular music that was released more than six years ago, never went to University, have never owned a TV – so I sometimes look ignorant because I lack basic knowledge about these everyday things.

Healing takes time. It takes gaining self-esteem, establishing self-concept, establishing a new world view, finding a new community, making new friends, counting what was lost, processing the anger, trying new things, experimenting with clothes and hobbies, binge-watching TV shows from the 90’s on NetFlix, grieving what was lost, grieving the years that were wasted, grieving your old identity that wasn’t really you, and grieving for the family members who are still in a deep state of cognitive dissonance and brainwashing. It takes creating a new identity. It takes finding the real person beneath all the layers of conditioning and slavery – fear, guilt, shame, must-do, have-to. It takes courage to seek a relationship with God, when all you knew was rituals and rules. When He was very scary and full of disgust.

Healing can’t be rushed. It’s a process. Respect it. Honor it. The path is different for everyone. There is hope – peace and joy can be found on the journey. Celebrate the work-in-progress You.

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Cultic Pseudo Personality

When you’re born into a high-control-high-demand group that enforces separation from “worldlies” you unfortunately have a pseudo personality from a very young age. You’re subjected to many expectations and demands used to create submission and conformity. You live in two different worlds – the real, outside world, and the insular cultic world (especially if you attended public school like I did).

These separate worlds carry different value and belief systems. How can you know which system is valid? You’re left confused and conflicted. So you decide that neither world is safe and become even more isolated within yourself. Resulting depression and anxiety starts at a young age. The intense pressure to think and act in two different ways causes a cult identity (“pseudo personality”) to form.

This “pseudo personality” represses your original self and is a dissociative defense which allows the mind to cope with – and adapt to – the contradictory and intense demands of the home and group environments. Critical thinking, feelings, opinions, and questions are squashed. They are evil, worldly, selfish and disloyal. So you enter into a constant state of feeling “different” and “not normal.”

Toxic shame takes root. Dependency and insecurity is created within your young personality. “The world” is your enemy. The true self has to be stifled in order to receive acceptance from your family and community. Your self-perception is greatly distorted. Guilt and shame are fully established before puberty. Fear is the mode of operating. And there is no escape without the loss of all friends, acquaintances, and immediate and extended family. There is no escape. Until there is….

“And the day came, when the risk to remain closed in a bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anonymous

.…when I eventually left in my thirties I self-destructed. They make sure that you do. Here is what I scribbled one night while suicidal and trying to convince myself to keep on living. I had lost everyone and everything I’d known – all in the name of God (who actually happens to be LOVE!!!!).

RAW

Who is she?
Staring blank
Fully numb
Broken down

Is she the sum of her pain?
No escape
No reprieve
It’s a cage

Does anyone see her?
Heart cries
Deep desire
To be known

Do they know?
Pain consumes
She’s pretending
Dissociation does

Does someone care to know her deeply?
Shredded soul
Seismic pain
It takes just one

Do they put her in a box?
Inmost shame
Never enough
Peace sabotaged

Is there light?
Darkest pit
Despair’s dungeon
Torment’s tentacles

Who is she?
Heart decides
No more lies
Knit in womb

Can she find her way back?
Depression’s grip
Shame’s deceit
Grief’s fog

Why struggle on?
Pain paralyzed
Can’t breathe
Death’s entice

Is there hope?
Cathartic talks
Unconditional love
God’s promises

Why?
Not here for me
Speck of time
Refining fire

God’s strength‎!

People go to prison for breaking and entering a house. But these groups can break into your soul, spirit, mind, heart, body, emotions and cause absolute devastation and destruction and there are no consequences. Nobody holds them accountable. (Well, I guess God does in the end.) It takes a long time to process the anger and to forgive from the heart. To heal from the complex-PTSD. If they’d only experience the living God of LOVE they’d stop this nonsense. I’m convinced that the controlling and cruel spirit behind these groups is the same spirit that is behind ISIS. Consider that..!

There is healing. There is light at the end of the darkness. The deeper the pain, the higher the joy at the end of it. It’s called “Post Traumatic Growth.” And in a very strange way it can end up being a gift. A spiritual awakening.

Peace. Love. Joy. Hope.