Category: healing | Page 2 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

The journey continues: How I’m healing from spiritual abuse

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on April 20, 2018.

So for those of you who’ve been around me a while know that I came out of a fundamentalist Christian background, and I’ve been working on weeding those things out of my life for several years.

Those old thought patterns were rooted in some people’s unhealthy desires to control other humans, planting fear where freedom belongs.

You also probably know that my journey back into doing church in a healthy way has been sort of like a long backpacking trip—sometimes the terrain was rough and there was a lot of asking myself things like, what do I think is a healthy way to be a person of faith, can I even do church ever again or is this just too painful, and can I trust anyone who identifies as Christian to be who they say they are and to not use faith as a tool to hurt me.

My friends remember me asking “is this normal?” often—sometimes I’m still asking.

I needed to talk to other people during this deconstruction process so that I could finally find the healing I’d been seeking all along.

Many of you were part of that journey.

The thing that drew me back to my childhood church was that they actually believe in community. Their home groups meet to discuss a few chapters of the Bible (not one of those rote, fill-in-the-blank studies that sometimes feel more like indoctrination than growth) and share a meal together, which felt more like what I’ve heard the early church must have been like than anything I’ve ever seen before.

I loved this church’s emphasis on discipleship, which to them means building genuine relationships where you can be authentic even when life is messy and where you don’t have to pretend or worry that you’re not saying the right thing to make sure everyone knows you’re one of the “real Christians.”

Open-ended questions are welcomed here, questions like “so what does this mean for us practically, if we’re actually living out what Jesus said” or just saying “sometimes I have trouble believing that God is good and trusting him since I’ve lived through so much betrayal.”

There are no bizarre, specific rules like how many inches below your collarbone is your neckline allowed to be if you happen to be female.

This is not what most evangelical churches are like, based on my limited but varied experience, living in four different places during my childhood and attending numerous churches of various denominations growing up and with college friends.

So last week, I was in a video that my church made about our discipleship group, and it actually turned out pretty well despite my awkwardness and I wanted to share this with my dear friends who have walked this path with me — some who don’t live here locally.

Maybe one of my biggest hopes (yes I’m aware that it’s overly idealistic) is that American Christianity will become more like this.

It’s been almost six years now since I moved out of my parents’ house, and almost three years since my cats and I moved cross country back to Texas.

I know this was a long post, but thank you for reading and sticking around while I live out my story.

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Still learning to love myself: Through eating disorder recovery

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 26, 2022.

Content note: discussion of eating disorders

One year ago, I’d just started a new job, and the first paycheck wouldn’t come for a whole month.

I experienced food insecurity and unstable housing both in college and afterwards. The fear of not making it was so loud in my mind, and a little thought said: “Just don’t eat until you get paid.”

In that moment, I thought it made sense. As if I only deserve food if I do enough—if I work hard enough, if I earn enough money to justify allowing myself to eat.

I now realize this isn’t normal.

Last year, I was diagnosed with atypical anorexia or OSFED, which is just as serious as regular anorexia, but describes an eating disorder that is difficult to categorize according to diagnostic criteria.

Because I’m autistic, it’s hard to remember that I have a body that has needs, so I get busy with work or school and sometimes I honestly forget to eat. But other times it’s been intentional.

I hadn’t been eating enough food on a regular basis for nearly a decade. After a few weeks of trying to live on coffee and little else, I could barely climb stairs. Nerve pain shot down my neck into my arms while driving to work.

I realized if I didn’t stop, if I didn’t get help, it would eventually kill me.

Some of you have known me back when I was stuck in other self-sabotaging patterns like self-harm and unhealthy relationships. Eating disorders are quieter, harder to notice.

Almost nobody sees if you miss a meal.

Learning how to eat again wasn’t easy. It’s hard to find words for how difficult the first few months were—the stomach pain, bloating and falling asleep from exhaustion after meals because my body was struggling to process food.

My nutritionist, therapists and care team keep telling me that I deserve food even if nothing else is going right—even if I make mistakes. They tell me that my body still needs fuel consistently to do what I need.

Most of my friends know that I grew up in high-control communities (read: fundamentalist, Quiverfull, isolationist homeschooling) which left me feeling that I had no choice about what happened in my life and pushed me to wholly identify with a specific religious ideal—to be a living martyr.

And you had to hate your body. The more you hated yourself, your own flesh, the more spiritual you were.

Those born female were under intense pressure to be hypermodest, but also don’t commit the sin of gluttony. Enjoying anything too much—even food—was idolatry because what if you started to like it more than God. Dress like a 90s denim toned-down version of your pioneer farmer great-grandmother. Be just attractive enough to court and marry to repopulate the earth by birthing good little mini-Christians, but don’t be too pretty or someone else might sin just by noticing you.

I was told my flesh was a sin. They told me to “buffet my body” like the Apostle Paul. If only I could suffer enough, hurt enough, finally punish myself enough, maybe I’d become more perfect.

This was the sanctification I was taught. Starving myself seemed holy.

Now I know this is a deeply unhealthy form of Christianity, but this is what I experienced. All these years later, I’m still learning what Love should be.

I’m still learning that I don’t have to seek out painful experiences to become more perfect. I’m unlearning all the ways that I made myself feel less worthy.

And here, I have to give credit to several supportive friends and mentors who always gently remind me of my value. If not for all of you, I would not have survived.

Yes, my recovery comes from the determination I am finding to wake up every day and choose to eat… and live. But I am so grateful for those who remind me when I forget.

“Coming apart at the seams
And no one around me knows
Who I am, what I’m on
Who I’ve hurt and where they’ve gone
I know that I’ve done some wrong
But I’m trying to make it right…
I know that I love you
but I’m still learning to love myself.”

– “Still Learning,” Halsey

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‘But for us, God is not that tiny’: Why I’m #withMalala

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 8, 2016.

Usually the documentaries I enjoy are about religious fundamentalism and cults or evangelical culture. I watch to learn and for research.

The other night I rented two movies from Redbox: the new live action Cinderella and He Named Me Malala.

I thought I’d learn something from Malala. More about the culture of Pakistan and the war on terror, more about equality for women in other parts of the world. I thought I would learn about someone vastly different than me.

Instead, I realized that Malala and I have more in common than I’d guessed.

1.) Isolation in a high control group and disagreeing with the conservative factions of your religion.

Malala’s father explains that when the Taliban first came to the Swat Valley, “We thought they were good people. They promised to follow the Quran.”

The Taliban took over media and had book burnings in the streets. The only information the villager could access was the radio broadcast every night, blaring throughout the whole village. People listened every night to hear their neighbors’ sins. Then the Taliban started killing the people named. They shot and slaughtered people in the square, saying that this could be you tomorrow.

They were anti-government, saying that any police or soldiers who attacked Muslims were infidels.

They said girls could not attend school. Three schools were bombed in one night. The Taliban singled out the women, telling them what they ought to do and be. “The women only have one window open and only one man is speaking.”

“if you don’t follow the real Islam that we are showing you, then you can be the next person like this man.”

And the destructive mentality of the Taliban leaders just fed the cycle. Malala’s father said, “When I am willing to kill myself, others are nothing to me.”

The Taliban is more like the subculture I grew up in than most are comfortable admitting. I’m not the first to notice this.

There’s some odd similarities.

Limiting educational access for women, telling them their place is only in the home and using religion to justify this.
Controlling information about the outside world. The Taliban radio broadcasts sounded eerily similar to tapes of Prophet Warren Jeff’s sermons that the FLDS people listened to regularly.
The government is wrong, not the group. Backlash is dismissed as persecution.

2.) Ideologies are more dangerous than individual people.

Malala’s father named her after a folktale about a woman killed in battle in the Swat Valley. The invading enemy seemed too great, but according to the story, the women told her people, “Live like a lion for one day or be a slave for a hundred years.”

She led them into battle. They were victorious, but she was fatally wounded.

Malala’s family watched the changes taking place in their village.

“I was feeling if I don’t speak, then I would be the most sinful and most guilty person in this world,” her father explained. “If you keep silent, you lose the right to exist, to live.”

Her father started calling out the Taliban publicly: “They have tarnished the beautiful face of Islam.”

Malala corresponded with a journalist on the outside and kept attending school.

“He didn’t push me. He let me do what I wanted.”

Malala’s mother doesn’t approve of all of her daughter’s boldness and activism. She is still too afraid that it’s not something a woman does.

“My father only gave me the name Malala. He didn’t make me Malala. I chose this life.”

Pakistanis and Taliban leaders try to discount her because they think that her father is behind this, that “Malala is just a character.” They can’t believe that a woman could actually do this.

“There is a moment when you have to choose whether to be silent or to stand up,” Malala said. “I’m not a lone voice, I am many. And our voices have grown louder and louder.”

Then Malala and two other girls were shot by the Taliban one afternoon on a school bus.

Her father feared that even if she survived her head injury, she would blame him: “I was a child, you should have stopped me, what has happened to me was because of you.”

But Malala says she would still make the same choice. “It does not matter that the left side of my face does not work.”

When the documentary makers asked her about the shooter, Malala said:

“It was not a person. It was an ideology.”

“The Taliban is a small group of people. They think that God is a small conservative being. But for us, God is not that tiny. We think that God has sent us to this world to see if we choose a good way or a bad way.”

This is why I stand #withMalala, why I can empathize with her story.

I also believe that it was fundamentalism that harmed me. My parents and conservative colleges like Bob Jones operate under a similar abusive system.

Often individual people have empathy, but they believe they must do destructive, terrible things to obey God. This is how they silence their own conscience.

They miss their country. Malala wants to go back and see their old house just once.

Sometimes, I miss my country, too. Some days I feel like I have no roots.

Malala is not that different than me. We actually have a lot in common.

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Dear Church

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on May 1, 2017.

This was originally posted by my friend Travis last year on his Instagram.

It’s a moving letter, explaining how a lot of people in the LGBT community feel about the church, loving it and just wanting to be loved and embraced in return.

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dear church,

there are millions of us. millions who just want you to understand.

millions who want to belong. millions who have been turned away where faith, hope, and love are said to abound.

we are LGBT+. we have many different struggles, pasts, and paths. but yet we are still human. we want to be a part of the things you are doing. we simultaneously feel the love of a savior and the condemnation of the saved— the latter is why many of us won’t be in your building on Sunday.

as we have grown and matured, we found our way through life, broken, alone, and silent. we didn’t talk to others about our struggles. we bottled them up so we could still be a part of the joy that comes from being around others who believe the same as us… but eventually, it’s not enough. we all come to a point where we cannot hide who we are any longer. we open up and tell the masses, while at the same time, your doors close.

your eyes no longer see the person you once saw, and without saying it, we know you see someone who is unworthy of your love, time, and affection.
when we come out, there is such a relief and joy that overcomes us.

but you feel it is your responsibility to quench that. you stomp on our joy until it is no longer breathing. our newfound hope and happiness is quite literally put to death inside us.

so… many of us choose to follow Jesus on our own, without the community of believers we once had and still need. it’s lonely here, but we have a savior who still listens and wants us to live and gently teaches us how to breathe when we forget, shows us the love and compassion we need to spread, and gives us everything we don’t deserve to have.

but church… we still want to belong with you. we still want to be a part of what you’re doing. we want to be in your building on Sunday, worshiping our Creator, hand-in-hand with you.

open your doors, open your eyes, love with your hearts, and please, don’t let us stay in the cold any longer. we’re freezing.

too many of us are falling apart without you. our silent cries for help are slowly but surely tearing us apart until there’s nothing left.

so i have one question for you, church:
will you love us?

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I’m not the little matchstick girl anymore

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on January 7, 2017.

Christmas is hard when you don’t feel loved by the people who should love and accept you. Many of us ex-cult and isolated homeschool escapees feel this.

We were taught to be focused on our family and only our family and when we figure out our family is broken, sometimes really broken, well. Some of us don’t have anyone to spend Christmas with.

Two years ago, I wrote this in my journal during a shift at the call center where I worked:

12/21/2014

I’m on a quest again. It’s the one I dreamed of last year. Maybe it’s a quest to find Christmas. I just want to go home, to where I began, to my own church, to my pastor.

I want to have Christmas with them. Even if I have to sleep in my car to do it. But I’ll be at [a friend’s] the first night at least. I feel like some kind of hobo again. But maybe that’s the point. Going out on a quest, it’s not meant to be an easy, simple journey.

Why does my whole life feel like going through a dark tunnel right now? I know the light will come, it has before. But it’s like riding a train through the dark. Just like all-night drives on roadtrips through New Mexico.

And you know what? I drove to Texas for Christmas.

Now I live in Texas. And I am learning how to live in a community. How to know other humans. How to be vulnerable with the right people.

My church is very, very different from other churches, and I want to write more about my healing and why I was able to come back to any church at all, but this Christmas was good.

This awesome hippie family from my church with two neurodivergent kids adopted me for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. They’re about my age and nerdy and awesome. We drank wine like heathens and ate all the foods and suddenly I realized I wasn’t alone anymore.

The realization of what a chosen family does for you when your blood family can’t or won’t resonated with me again.

Healing is a process.

It’s this slowly, daily thing that creeps along until one day you look back and go, holy crap, I’m way different than I was a year ago. Heck, I’m not the same person that I was six weeks ago.

I’m healing in therapy when I finally find words for things I’ve never said out loud before. I’m healing when I watch my friends explain and teach their children instead of screaming at them and shutting them down. I’m healing when I watch Netflix shows in the evenings when I get home from work and go, oh, oh, oh, that’s me.

Two years ago, I felt abandoned and alone like the little matchstick girl in the story, you know, the one who freezes to death on New Year’s Eve after no one will buy her matches.

My family had made excuses not to spend Christmas with me for years and I decided that I’d have to make my own. But I felt like I’d been locked out in the cold.

I can’t forget where I came from. Or how I used to feel. And I don’t want to.

But I don’t feel orphaned anymore. I’m home.

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