Category: healing | Page 21 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

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.

For the joy

Sometimes I feel like dancing…

I don’t know what to write. There is so much going through my mind, and sometimes there aren’t words for what we experience. That’s where I am right now. Sometime, probably soon, several pages will all appear at once on my blog, but for now, I’m just happy and enjoying that happiness.

Several months before I left church, the pastor preached and said that people appear happier for awhile after they leave church, because they have made a decision one way or the other after riding the fence for so long. After being out awhile, I have to say that is probably wrong, at least in some cases. I’m not happy to have left- I still believe much the same things and dress much the same way, and I miss my friends. I haven’t figured out yet how to make connections outside of church, and so I’m lonely sometimes too.

But I’m also just… joyful. I am finally getting the rest that I need, when I need it. Enjoying the peacefulness and quiet of my home. Cleaning house, since that was always the first thing to fall by the wayside when I was overwhelmed. Organizing. And feeling good about myself for doing these things and for not always worrying about what anyone will say or think or do. Just being myself. Its been a nice change.

Do I enjoy being able to do whatever I want? Of course. But what have I done? I ate soup with a man, in broad daylight, without a chaperone. I’ve watched three and a half movies (plus two and a half before I left). YouTube sometimes, a little face powder for a while, trimmed my hair twice just a tiny bit. And missed church.

What have I found? Its fun to meet new people or to share a meal with someone without a chaperone. Movies are generally pretty boring, even if they were once favorites. I could care less about makeup, and like my hair as it is, but don’t think trimming it was a sin. I really enjoy the hymns and quiet worship of many denominational churches, their sermons about God’s love and mercy and grace, and their teachings about how to love each other… and haven’t yet found one that seems to be a good fit for me. But that’s OK.

And in all these things and others, I’ve discovered that it’s OK to relax. God loves us. He isn’t waiting to whack us if we are a little “off.” He won’t strike us the minute we stumble, but like any good parent will gently catch us, set us upright and encourage us to keep walking. It’s nice to be imperfect. And it’s a joy to realize perfection isn’t required. God loves us just the way we are.

Yes, There is Always Hope

So far, I’ve written about my stepdad’s difficulties with church that have arisen because of his toxic religious upbringing, his adoptive mother’s unhealthy beliefs, and issues with United Pentecostal Church family members. Now, I’d like to focus on the positive – a few people who have been instrumental in helping him start to break out from the spiritual abuse.

The first person who played a major role was Rev. Laura, the then-rector of the church we started attending when we moved back from Houston. Jon had never dealt with a female clergy member from a mainline church before, so this was a new experience for him. However, his friendship with Laura turned out to be good for him, and he actually started attending services from time to time, although his level of participation at this time was low. There was just too much stuff going on during this time with the UPC folks that it was hindering his progress.

Around the time Laura accepted a call at another congregation, things were starting to come to a head with the frustrating religious differences between him and the UPC family members. The experience of having a clergy member go to another church after a tenure of about 12 years (she had been at our church for close to ten when we started going) was new and took some adjustment. His experience with previous Baptist congregations, for example, had involved pastors with such long tenures that the congregations had more or less been shaped into the pastor’s image.

Our most recent rector, Fr. Les, arrived about five years ago, and he and Jon hit it off right off the bat. Even though he’s still gone slowly about getting involved with church stuff, I think Les has been a very positive influence on him, and I’ve noticed some subtle positive changes in Jon’s outlook during the time Les, who is now at a church in another state, was in charge. He’s actually given formally joining serious consideration, which is a major step. However, he’s also aware of and grateful for the fact that membership is not an absolute requirement to be fully welcome.

A few other good friends from church have also had a positive influence on him. By making him feel welcome, without a hidden agenda, he now knows that you can make real friends in a church setting. The fact that people at our church come from various backgrounds and have an assortment of interests outside the church has made a good impression. With the people in his family that were involved in the UPC and other groups, everything was all about goings on at the church, all the time. I think knowledge that the body of Christ is about the people, rather than where they meet, has been refreshing for him.

This has been most obvious when Les visited him in the hospital both when he was an inpatient and when he was having outpatient surgery. Being able to receive communion and the laying on of hands/anointing with oil without being a formal member has helped him be able to approach his involvement on his own terms. Knowing that he can participate as much or as little in the life of the congregation as he wants has made him more willing to be a part of things.

This part of the story is still ongoing, but I have every reason to believe he’ll continue to recover from the toxic beliefs he was exposed to growing up. With God, all things are possible! Please keep Jon, my mother and I in your continued prayers.

Making the Right Decision

For years I’ve wondered how to know the will of God. We were told to seek God’s will, to pray and fast and study the Word, and hope we got it right. So “the Will” always seemed just out of reach.

Today I ran into a different version of the will of God, and liked it a lot. I stopped in to see a minister friend (non-Pentecostal) today. He knows some of my situation and asked how I was doing. We chatted for awhile. Then he asked, “So how do you feel about things now?” I asked what he meant and he said about leaving church. My answer? Happy. His response surprised me but it sure made sense. He said that was good, because if we are happy with a decision even after it is acted on, that generally means it was the right decision to have made.

Peace. Happiness. Joy. Some of the most elusive feelings in all of humanity, and yet in doing something totally “wrong” (leaving my church), I’ve felt them all. Not for leaving, no. I loved being in a Pentecostal church, and miss it. I don’t miss being Pentecostal, because I can be Pentecostal whether fellowshipping with a particular body or not, and I don’t miss my church, with its myriad problems, because it wasn’t really mine. No- I miss the ideal of church that was preached and portrayed as possible over the years.

So did I do the right thing in leaving? I wake up in the morning looking forward to the day. I enjoy going to church and am curious what the preacher will have to say. I’m coming to a place where I want to pray and read the Bible again, after several years of feeling prayer and Bible reading were only tasks to complete- and often troubling ones, at that. Now maybe those times can become a personal commitment and special interaction with my Father. They can mean what they should again. Did I do the right thing? I smile more, laugh often, feel more rested and relaxed, and enjoy life more fully. I notice people more readily, and find them smiling back at me. I haven’t denied my faith, but rather sense that it is deepening.

Yes, I did the right thing.

Breaking The Chains

We have always allowed members of our support groups to vent to a certain degree. Some need to in part because they’ve never previously had the freedom to do so. Yet there also comes a time when you need to forgive and move forward and let go of the bitterness and anger.

Allowing bitterness to remain will only hurt the individual that holds onto it and it will negatively affect other areas of their life. It does no good to remain bitter for years and to cling to past offenses. It does absolutely nothing to the person or persons who hurt you. So, in effect, one is allowing themselves to continue to be influenced and harmed by another when they remain bitter. Don’t do that to yourself.

We all have a choice in our recovery from spiritual abuse. We can choose to remain stagnant and allow the past to continue to influence us negatively the rest of our lives. Or we can choose to deal with what happened, free ourselves from any bitterness, and move forward in life.

We also need to learn to separate the error we’ve been taught from the truth of what is found in the Bible. For instance, the Bible never teaches that one cannot take medicine. No one has to choose between God and taking medicine because God never said it could not be taken. A person said it; a person who distorted the Bible. It was not God.

It is imperative for people who have been hurt in churches that twisted scriptures and left them with a distorted image of God, to learn the difference between truth and error. Just because a minister states something, it doesn’t make it true. Just because an entire organization teaches something, it doesn’t make it true. We must separate the error from the truth and see the error for what it is and not continue to associate it with God and the Bible and blame God for it.

We each have a choice – we can remain in the past and our hurts and go on for the rest of our lives reliving the times when others have hurt us and the teachings that messed us up and hindered us in our walk with God. We can continue to believe the error and live a life of bondage and feeling we can never measure up. Or we can do something about our healing, growth, and moving out of that place. There is life after spiritual abuse!

Do you want healing? Do you want freedom from bitterness? Do you want to separate error from truth?

Or do you want to continue to allow past wrongs and error to influence your life today in a negative manner?

The choice is left to each of us.