Category: backslide | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

The UnBoxing Project: Ashley’s story

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 9, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Defecting from a cult.

Editorial Note: Although Ashley is a survivor of a Christian fundamentalist cult, unfortunately she became abusive herself. She has been reported to several law enforcement agencies for human trafficking others from 2017-2019. She is the abusive partner mentioned in this post from 2022.

I keep Ashley’s story on the blog as a reminder that those who do not heal from their own trauma can and often do end up harming others. If you see online fundraisers for Ashley or her current partners, please know that anything you donate may enable her to continue to cause harm, and we would caution anyone against donating to her. If you know where she is, please report her to the authorities since she has been avoiding speaking to investigators for several years.

Content Note: spiritual abuse, self-harm, victim-blaming

Ashley grew up attending the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs, now known as Heritage Pentecostal Church. This is Ashley’s story, told in her own words.

Do you know what it’s like when
You’re scared to see yourself?
Do you know what it’s like when
You wish it were someone else
Who didn’t need your help to get by?
Do you know what it’s like
To wanna surrender?
I don’t wanna feel like this tomorrow
I don’t wanna live like this today
Make me feel better, I wanna feel better
Stay with me here now and never surrender
Never surrender. – Surrender, Skillet

“Mama! Mama! Look at the butterfly!” I squealed in delight at the wonder perched on my shoulder.

“Don’t move, Lovey! It’ll fly away.”

I stood as still as possible as my mom snapped a picture of this beautiful creature, and watched as it flew away. I remember thinking as I watched the butterfly float into a beautiful, summer day, how amazing it would be to be able to just whisk yourself away whenever you chose.

I had no idea how much I would pine for that fantasy to become a reality.

I always remember my parents being there, no matter what the occasion was. Pajama day at school, grown-up day, job day, doctor’s appointments, they were always present. I can’t remember an important event they were not there for.

I went to them with everything, no matter how strange, and they were always brutally honest with me. I liked it that way. Being a straightforward person, I needed that to grow. Things were always so comfortable — and then 2001 came and everything changed. Drastically.

My mom had gotten involved with a church when she was 15, and the experience had always stayed with her. She had visited a Pentecostal holiness church and had received what they call the Holy Ghost, which to them is the basis of salvation. You cannot attain Heaven without it, and once you have received it, even if you walk away from God, you are marked and you will be a target for Satan.

My dad, on the other hand, is Irish/German and was raised Catholic. He was actually an altar boy growing up and wanted to become a priest. However, he grew out of that sometime in high school.

While living in Louisiana, my mom met a girl named Billie Jo, and they went to a Pentecostal church together. My mom converted all the way this time (lost the pants, threw away the jewelry, chucked the TV and music) and as soon as my dad joined, we essentially became Amish with microwaves.

Ashley (center) at a church outreach and evangelism event called Youth with Truth at Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs on June 29, 2013. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs

But even then, my parents broke me in slowly.

As an only child, I had practically every Disney movie known to man, and they allowed me to hand over my Disney movies in exchange for Veggie Tales. From there, it was my Veggie Tales traded in for either a trampoline or a puppy. My daddy bought me both.

They introduced me into that world slowly, and with ease. I appreciated that, even then. I knew they could have completely ripped everything away from me and made the transition harder than it already was. But they didn’t.

I never thanked them for that. I guess it kind of got buried under everything other emotion that surfaced after.

At first, things weren’t so bad. The family environment was great. Having no family in Colorado, the church appeared to be exactly what we needed. I started going to the church school which consisted of about 50 kids. I made friends quickly, and it seemed so easy at first. We were accepted as new converts and everything was cool.

My parents also made friends, and were treated like family by the pastor. They were like their kids.

I believe this is what started the depth of my parents’ relationship with the ministry. Around 2006, the pastor decided he wanted to evangelize and ended up electing a man from Mississippi to pastor the church.

I’ve never seen a man so hell bent on changing people for the worst.

Brother and Sister Burgess at Ashley’s high school graduation. | Photo: Ashley Kavanaugh

To my parents, this couple took the place of God. I have literally heard my dad say that if John Burgess asked him to stand on his head for 6 hours a day, in the middle of Interstate 25, that he would do it without hesitation.

They believe that he is the voice of God, that even if he is wrong, and they sin because of his advice, that God would honor their obedience and look past their own wrongdoing.

The church services are filled with hype and the sermons are mostly guilt, especially directed at young people. They warn us of the wrath of God if we choose to walk away and almost every service we are reminded of the horrors that have happened to backsliders all through Pentecostal history, including those from our own youth group.

One of the stories of backsliders was one of my close friends Sharonda.

She grew up with me, my mom babysat her and her older sister, and I looked up to this girl. She was my idol for a long time. She was my piano inspiration, she was cool, and she loved people.

I’ve never met a heart as big as Sharonda’s.

She was shot and killed late summer 2012. The case was never solved, and the Burgesses made not only her death, but also her funeral, an omen and message to all of us, that we should not run from God, for he is a jealous God, and his vengeance is strong.

She is seldom mentioned among the young people. It just hurts too much.

Brother John Burgess leading prayer during church outreach event called Youth With Truth at Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs on June 29, 2013. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs

The Burgesses continued to push their way into the minds of the church, and more and more young people have been driven away from God.

Most of the “backsliders” that I know don’t even believe in a benevolent God anymore.

This started to become my opinion very young. I couldn’t see how any of this made sense. I thought the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was just and honorable? Not malicious and manipulative.

After my parents began to blindly follow the pastor, I started to lose control. I shut off all emotions because I just couldn’t handle them anymore. I began to get more and more reclusive, and eventually began to blame myself for the guilt and pain that my parents were dealing with due to the controlling ways of the church.

I didn’t know how to get help, and I began to fall into a deeper depression. I began to self-harm. This was done in so many ways, I can’t even begin to explain it all. Eventually, the self-harm wasn’t enough. I attempted suicide six times, starting at the age of 11.

I tried everything. Nothing worked.

My mom caught me cutting once and literally dragged me in to Shanna Burgess (the pastor’s wife), who promptly told me as I lay on the floor, bleeding, that it was all in my head, and I needed to stop being so angry at God.

She told me I was the one to blame.

After coming to her weeks before with my heart wide open and breaking in pieces, I explained one reason why I felt so alone. I was sexually assaulted when I was 6 years old and had no way to express my feelings. She, of course, immediately took this information to my mother, who denied it.

My parents have never believed me. Sister Burgess told me I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself because come on, it never happened!

I hated them before but after this? I could never forgive them.

Brother and Sister Burgess had and still have a hold on my parents like nothing I’ve ever seen.

(Left to right) Brother John Burgess, Ashley Kavanaugh, and Kevin Kavanaugh at Heritage Christian Academy’s 2012 high school graduation. Heritage Christian Academy is a private, unaccredited school operated by the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. | Photo: Ashley Kavanaugh

When I turned 18, things started to look up. I was finally allowed to have a phone because I had turned 18 (pastor’s rules for youth), I was finally granted rights to a car (that I bought, of course), and everything was going good.

I had been in good graces with the Burgesses and my family. I was following the rules to perfection.

And then after a falling out with my best friend at the time, I started to become close friends with a girl named Racquel. We began to grow closer and closer as the months went on, and before you knew it, we were opening up to each other. I told her things I had never told anyone ever.

Eventually, our concerns about the church and their doctrines, the Burgesses and all sorts of other questions came to the forefront of our conversations and we began to discuss them.

We grew even closer after learning about some of the abuse that the other one had endured.

We got caught discussing these topics, and we were separated and forbidden to speak to one another. This happened four times.

Each time we grew closer and closer and eventually, we started to go to extreme lengths to see each other. My parents and the Burgesses resorted to lying to both of us, trying to force us to hate each other.

After another six months of not speaking, we once again rebelled and talked about what had happened. We realized they had lied to both of us, obtaining information by hacking email and bank accounts. My parents forced me to stop attending my college classes because Racquel might try to visit me there.

We communicated to each other through Eleanor for about three weeks, and then we started to sneak out again.

We had contemplated running away many times before, but something was different this time.

When two adults aren’t allowed to talk because they get caught listening to One Direction, there’s some serious malfunction going on. It had reached an all-time idiocy and we had enough.

We both left home, and the night I did that was the hardest decision of my life.

Three days later, my dad was going to throw my stuff on the sidewalk. My mom, who was out of town at the time, convinced him to let me come pack my stuff, so he left for a few hours.

Racquel and Eleanor went with me. The first thing I noticed when I came in was that all my pictures were taken off the walls and lay facing down. Some sat in piles on the floor. I almost lost it then.

I just remember feeling like my parents died, and I was cleaning out their house.

A little later, Cynthia Jeub and another friend also came over. I’ll never forget the look on Cynthia’s face when I saw her. I walked outside to greet them, and she just looked so disturbed. But there was also pride in her eyes.

She hugged me for a good ten minutes. I’ve never expressed how much that hug meant to me.

They helped me pack up, and I decided last minute to check my mom’s car. I went to look for any remaining items, and when I opened the door, I saw that the inside of the car was destroyed.

I can only assume my dad went crazy and trashed the car. It was really scary.

Everyone was panicking because we didn’t know when he was coming back, and he had guns, so people were starting to freak out. We left not long after.

It didn’t really hit me until then, how drastic the change was going to be.

Since then, I have gone through a lot. I’ve put myself through an abusive relationship, made myself be something I wasn’t, lost connection with my family for months at a time because of “religious differences,” moved around a lot, found out I was adopted by my dad, been through a ton of counseling, self-harmed, ran from my home state, even shut my humanity off a few times.

But one thing I can say I haven’t, nor will I ever do, is forget who I am and where I came from.

I can’t express how hard it has been. The sleepless nights, the thousands of times I’ve cried myself to sleep, and woke up screaming. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

But you know what? I don’t regret it. I can’t. I’ve invested too much into this decision to fault it.

To those of you trying to escape, it’s not impossible. It’s not easy, but I promise its worth it.

We have helped more people come out since my decision to leave, and the feeling is so liberating, knowing you are a voice and a model for them.

To those of you who have siblings that are still in captivity, don’t give up hope. They will make it. YOU are their light, no matter how dark you feel sometimes. Because sometimes the darkest shadows have been cast by the brightest lights.

And no matter what bad choices you make long the way, I’ve found that I don’t have to be ashamed of them. Because they are finally my decisions.

So while wading through your red river of screams just as we have, remember you do not fight alone. You can make it.

And never surrender…. the battle will be worth it, and we will win the war.
I don’t wanna feel like this tomorrow
I don’t wanna live like this today
Make me feel better, I wanna feel better
Stay with me here now and never surrender
Never surrender

Ashley Kavanaugh attended public school during her elementary school years, but her parents later chose to homeschool her online when they joined the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs. She finished her senior year of high school at Heritage Christian Academy, the private school operated by that church. Her adopted father is an attorney, but she was the first person on her mother’s side of the family to finish high school and attend college. She is interested in studying psychology, forensics, and criminal justice.

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When Suicide is Selfless (Part 2): A Mother’s Love

Sliding down the beige-colored drywall, slumped down on the soft carpet beneath, a woman weeps bitterly for her life long-gone, faced with the insurmountable complexities and intricacies of motherhood for the first time. Months have passed since the traumatic birth of her son, but she still finds herself searching for the solace of the quiet dining room floor in the dead of night, tears flowing, skin crawling, wondering how to make it through another day. During her extended hospital stay, she discovered the continual flashbacks were a symptom of postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder (P-PTSD), but it provided little comfort to the new mother as she struggled to breastfeed her jaundiced baby who fell asleep immediately after latching on. As she contemplated her decisions during birth, she concluded that her inability to birth her child without intervention led to the newborn’s difficulty in feeding, jaundice, and weight gain. Pediatricians ignorant to the struggles of breastfeeding only amplified the confusion and stress as they continued to push for supplementation and pumping to determine production rate. To the new mother, formula signified that her body failed her once again in what should have been one of the most natural forms of nourishment and care.

Diaper change. Nurse. Diaper leak. Diaper change. Nurse. Baby falls asleep. Lays baby down. Startle reflex. Nurse. Diaper change. Nurse. Baby falls asleep. Lays baby down in the bassinet and baby lies still. She collapses on the bed where her husband sleeps peacefully, his body regaining necessary strength for another day of demanding work. She closes her eyes in hopes of a mere thirty minutes to rest her weary mind, but is he breathing? Will she wake up to find the cold, lifeless body of the one she carried and agonized over for nine months as countless mothers before her? Will God take her baby too? It is not that she is avoiding trying to get her spiritual walk back where it used to be. She managed just enough time this morning to pull her black leather Bible off the shelf. Peeling back the old familiar pages, yellowed from her morning devotions in Bible college, she longed for the peace she experienced those mornings, huddled alone in the brisk stairwell studying before class, pouring her heart and soul to hide God’s Word in her heart. Those words carried her through the days, through the complications of social life and drama, the intensities of college papers and final exams, coupled with the extenuating circumstances of her mentors back home.

Her chest tightened this morning against the air she had left, forcing the darkening pit yet deeper into her stomach as she stared at the black ink, smudged from often tears. Forcing herself to begin, she turned the dried pages to the book of Proverbs, a hidden plethora of crippling landmines yet a well-acquainted guide. She quickly found her mind racing back to her bed at her parent’s home. Peering out the window of the bedroom that day, phone in hand, tears streaming down her face, she wondered when her mentor, Brother Thomas, would forgive her of her most recent transgression. When would his wife, Mrs. Julie, see that she was not trying to mess up again? When would she be allowed to go back to her old church family, rather than searching for one over an hour away? Her body froze, tense with the blanket of emotions she experienced that week, reliving them again and again until her baby let out a shriek, waking up from a few moments of slumber. She failed in completing her Bible reading but would have to try again another day. Instantly, a chill shutters through her tired body, bringing her back to the present. The baby! Is he still okay? She sits up and listens for his breath, but all she hears is the hum of her husband’s CPAP. She leans closer to the bassinet listening ever more intently, hoping just for the soft whisper of the air. Maybe she could simply touch the top of his chest and feel his lungs as they rise and fall, if they were even still moving. The young child stirs just slightly, appearing to fall back sleep, only to whimper and then scream for milk.

Diaper change. Nurse. Diaper change. Nurse. Lays the baby down. Startle reflex. Nurse. Diaper change. Nurse. Lays the baby down. Baby starts to cry. Diaper change. Nurse. Baby finally falls asleep again. The mom kisses him good-bye and lays back down, hoping and praying that her baby makes it through the night. She hears footsteps in the distance, a creak in the floor boards. Slowly, she climbs out of bed, intensely watching the hallway light under the door for movement. She lays down at the base of the locked bedroom door. Waiting. Watching. Listening. Heart pounding. Mind racing. Surely, God would not allow someone to break in and take away the most precious things in her life again. Oh, the irony that would be. Everything precious to her goes away. It never lasts. She stays there frozen for what seems like hours until she finally builds up the courage to check the house for the third time that night. Coming back into the room, locking the door, she sits on the bed near the bassinet. Is he breathing? Again, sitting there staring, listening, watching for any sign of life. Laying back down again, the baby’s stomach shoots up acid, burning his little throat, sending him sputtering and coughing, almost drowning on his own fluids. She races to the side of the bassinet and picks him up, frantically patting his back and waiting for him to scream with full intakes of air. She sits in the all-too familiar ottoman to nurse, the cushion worn with use. Nurse. Diaper change. Nurse. Lays baby down to sleep. But will he make it through the night?

Needing out of the small room and hoping not to wake her husband or baby, the mother finds her place on the dining room floor, finally able to allow the out-pouring of tears, pooling in the dark circles under her eyes. Her old mentor’s words still race through her mind, “The only reason you want to get married is to have sex and to have babies.” His words haunt her day by day, over-spiritualizing yet condemning her desire for children. All I want right now is sleep. All I’ve wanted for months is sleep. Why isn’t he gaining weight? Why is my body failing him? The three-month-old still nurses forty-five minutes out of every hour during the day, giving a mere fifteen to twenty-minute break before nursing again. Why can I not figure out what my son needs? His undiagnosed lip-tie and tongue tie wears out the poor baby before he can finish a meal. He falls asleep with only a snack and wakes up shortly after, starving and not gaining weight. A six-month insurance complication further prevents the scrawny baby from receiving a proper evaluation of the ties. Her heart cringes as people coo over the baby, exclaiming how tiny he is. “Look at those little cheeks,” the older women always say. “You better enjoy it. It only gets harder from here.”

Her eye catches the masses of material, thread and snaps for cloth diapers swallowing up the table. At least she is attempting to sew? The Proverbs thirty-one woman “seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands” (Prov 31:13 ). How do other mothers balance caring for multiple children when she is drowning under the expectations of one? Awake at all hours of the night, she nurses in the chair for hours on end. For the first several months, she took to laying down on the couch in the mornings to nurse in hopes of catching up on just a moment of sleep. Those moments turned into broken hours of slumber, but never feeling rested or rejuvenated, always exhausted and trapped in the mundane cycle of nursing and changing diapers. The dishes would overflow onto the countertops as the laundry lounged on the hallway floor for days. “She riseth also while it is yet night” (Prov 31:15). “All her household are clothed with scarlet” (Prov 31:21). Why is it never enough? “Enjoy this time,” they said. “You will miss these days. They grow up so fast.” By the time she would have the strength to force herself off the couch, it would already be afternoon and almost time for her husband to come home. “All you do is sleep all day,” her husband scolded, weary from a long day at work.

Her blood boils within her, recollecting the nights he has fallen asleep on the couch as she nursed the baby for hours on end, her husband snoring loudly and keeping the baby awake. She recently adapted an extensive cleaning program to aide in keeping up on the little apartment, striving to be a “keeper at home” (Titus 2:5), but her mind now becomes fixated on completing minuscule details, even waking up at two in morning to “shine the sink” or “swish and swash the bathroom.” The day before, her husband’s socks mocked her from the bedroom floor while the unorganized silverware in the dishwasher sent her into almost uncontrollable fury. She is clueless that rage is yet another symptom of the postpartum depression that overtakes her day by day.

Her mind shoots back to her sleeping child. Even if he makes it through the night, is he even going to be able to make it through the next few days? We could lose him at any time. His pediatrician is afraid he has whooping cough. His little body has been sick for days, congested, coughing, gasping and lethargic. The new mother and father made the decision not to give him the new pertussis vaccine after three accounts of life-threatening reactions in the family history, including one tragic death. The new a-cellular pertussis vaccine is still the same formula, but simply a lower dose. Despite immense pressure from the pediatrician’s office and health department, the parents give everything except the pertussis vaccine. Now her child might die in her arms. She’s spent hours holding her child, weeping over his frail body, researching about the symptoms and progression of whooping cough, waiting anxiously for the results. If it is pertussis, the treatment is the same medication that can take his life. The test results take two weeks, but the sickness is lethal within ten days.

Oh God, please don’t take my baby away. I’m trying so hard. She knows God answers prayer as she has seen Him answer in the past. Please look past my failures in prayer and see my baby. Even after hours of counsel, the young mother has yet to re-learn how to pray. Under Mrs. Julie, she followed a set pattern, and oh, how she saw God work, first asking God how she should worship him, waiting for the answer, and then praying. Then she would ask how God desired for her to thank Him, then wait and pray. She asked what she needed to confess, how He wanted her to pray for others, and then for herself, always waiting for the answer before praying. She would commonly see up to five directly answered prayers in a day when she depended on and walked ever so close with the Lord. Her heart yearns to be able to pray again, but re-programming from the cultish-mindset prevents her, fear of her past overwhelms her, and the anguish of broken trust in the God she once loved breaks her at the core. He was supposed to protect her.

But how can she pray for her son now, knowing that she hasn’t “kept short lists with God”? Iniquity hides His face from her that He will not hear (Isaiah 59:2). She believes her son could die because she isn’t right with the Lord. “The effectual fervent prayer of a RIGHTEOUS man availeth much” (James 5:16). He is a righteous God of judgment after all. Maybe Mrs. Julie was right. Maybe I wasn’t ready spiritually for marriage, and much less for motherhood. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten married and my husband should have married someone else that can truly care for him, his children, and a home. Her mind wanders and races, remembering the days of her and her husband’s courtship, the days they talked for hours, jesting and exchanging glances. He deserves a virtuous wife who is still faithful to and studies God’s Word diligently and can encourage him to do the same, not someone who panics with reminders of the past. The tears well-up as she remembers her pregnancy, filed with anxiety but with greater joy in anticipation of a baby boy on the way. He deserves a mom who can “train him up in the way he should go” (Prov 22:6). He deserves so much more.

The young new mom leans over, weeping bitterly for her family. They deserve so much more. Lifting her head, her vision blurred and eyes stinging, intrusive thoughts once again race before her as a daily ritual. “There’s a large knife in the kitchen.” What? No. She vigorously shakes her head as if it makes the idea disappear. “There’s a gun in the bedroom.” Where is this coming from? Besides, guns have recoil. It probably would not work. “There are other ways.” No. I’m not going there. “Your family deserves so much more. What will your children become if their own mother cannot read her Bible and pray? What you cannot handle around the house becomes a burden on your husband. It would be better if you stepped out of the way so God can use someone else to help and support them the way they need and deserve.” She leans back over to weep, but suddenly hears the baby from the backroom. He needs milk again in order to fall back asleep. Little does she know that these intrusive thoughts will continue for many more months to come.

Perinatal mood disorders (postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, bipolar disorder, psychosis, etc.) are actual disorders, valid despite the stigma society attempts to place on them. Combine that with the destructive results of spiritual abuse and one is left as a ticking time bomb. When society says “suicide is selfish: it’s all about attention,” they invalidate the emotional heartache and physical pain of the sufferer, only intensifying the anguish. Suicide is often a cry for help because of seemingly insurmountable suffering. For others, the focus is on attempting to end the pain of those close to them, the ones they love and care for. Sometimes, it’s SELFLESS. But depression and suicide lie, speculating the problems end with death, but truly, it’s only exacerbated for those that are left behind. There IS hope, and there IS a way out that does not involve ending a precious life.

If you are contemplating suicide, there is no reason to be ashamed. Nothing good comes out of a life lost. You are truly precious in God’s eyes. Seek out a friend or family member, a general care provider, or call the Suicide Hotline at 1(800) 273-8255. You can also text 741741 and a crisis worker will text you back immediately and continue to text with you. It’s a free service to anyone who lives in the United States and it’s run by the Crisis Text Line. There is a also a Facebook Group called “Suicide Hotline: Crises and Prevention” that attempts to answer questions quickly and is there for help and support. [2024 EDIT: The group is no longer available.] Suicide is not “always selfish,” but it is blind, and fails to show that not only are there are other ways, but that your life is worth living.

When Suicide is Selfless (Part One): Within the Cult

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The Forming of the Psyche: Patterns that keep us down

In my own personal therapeutic recovery, I have come to understand some important truths about why I am who I am, and what causes me to function in ways that I’d like to overcome.

For example, I’ve been trying to work through why I assume I know what people are feeling, just by judging from body language and facial expression. Why do I get up and leave at the first sign of conflict, or freeze when I’m unable to get away? Why is it that I experience anxiety so severely that it affects my physical health at times? Am I naive about the intentions of predatory people, or do I just freeze when I get those predatory signals? What causes me to stay in situations where I feel unsafe? How is it that I can feel so emotionally numb when I’m trying to spend time with those I love? What causes me to freeze into silence when I’m around my extended family or in a religious setting?

These questions, and others, recently led me into a very deeply informative session with my therapist. Assuming that I knew what a loved one was thinking and feeling brought me into a confused state, as I saw how wrong I was. My therapist, having worked with me for three years, knew much about my life growing up and my background of spiritual abuse. He pointed out to me how this ability and talent to read others was a very adaptive skill for when I was in the abusive environments. My physical and emotional safety depended, oftentimes, on being able to properly read these cues from parents and religious leaders. Later, this ability allowed me to keep my children from worse abuse from their father, and made me hyper-aware of his moods in order to try to maintain a safe environment. Though I often failed in that protective role, I was able to prevent things from being worse than they were, by that adaptive skill I learned in childhood. However, now I no longer need this adaptive coping mechanism in my daily life. New relationships are with healthy individuals who will plainly tell me if they feel angry at me, and be upfront, safe, and secure about it. The skill that I once needed for survival is no longer helpful, but in many ways has become a detriment in my relationships with healthy individuals.

In my many years of experiencing the power of male anger in a world where females were subservient or “submissive,” that anger was destructive. Avoiding it at all costs was important. Even female anger from an authority figure could be damaging. As a highly sensitive individual to start with, it wasn’t just the slaps and posterior beatings that I feared. It was the shame…the condemnation…the spiritualizing of human errors as sin. If I angered someone in an authority role it meant I was “sinful” in some way…”a nagging wife,” “not submissive,” “rebellious,” “lazy,” and other accusations could be thrown at me if I managed to anger someone in authority in any small way. This is the power of spiritual abuse–being able to apply spiritual context to things that are not, in fact, of a spiritual nature, in order to control others. So, after being born into such an environment, and spending over thirty years of my life entrenched in these situations, is it any wonder that my innate response to anger is to flee, or to freeze? Anger is traumatic in my inner world.

Anxiety has been my haunting nemesis throughout my recovery. It seems that I can never get away from it. Although I’ve made tremendous leaps of growth and have become highly functional in the facets of life that were formerly unknown to me, I daily battle anxiety. My best new coping skill is avoidance. If I can avoid the anxiety triggers, I’m able to maintain calm and functional life skills on a daily basis. However, it is unrealistic to be able to avoid all triggers and still live in the world. Learning to handle stressful situations in a professional and appropriate manner doesn’t mean that the inner anxiety is non-existent. In fact, the very fact of learning to stay in the situation and outwardly handle it appropriately instead of running away comes at a very high price. Nightmares haunt me after such events. Strange physical reactions occur that have no medical explanation–like the most recent, waking in the middle of the night with full body tremors that were uncontrollable and involuntary. Full blown panic attacks that left me gasping for air and grasping my chest in pain. The embarrassment and helplessness of such incidents is tremendous. I hate not having control of my body and my emotions. However, when trauma is in one’s past, these are not controllable issues. The body responds to the stressor with or without your permission.

I have been re-traumatized repeatedly by trusting unhealthy people in my life, from church situations to job related incidents, and on to friendships and personal relationships. In almost every one of these cases since leaving the spiritually abusive environment, I appeared to be naive in my trusting of these individuals and then experiencing their abusive advances. As I sat in my therapists office discussing why I am so “naive” and “gullible,” I didn’t get any concrete answers. It was only later, when reading a book for work, that the answer came to me and I knew the truth. It is not naivety that has landed me in these situations. It is the trauma in my past. Back in those times, I coped by freezing because I could not run away from the situations nor could I fight–for running away would be “backsliding” and fighting would be “rebellion,” both severe sins that would send me to hell. Freezing was my only option. Along with the freezing, I would use self talk to keep me from running–“Don’t be dramatic, everything is fine,” “don’t make a mountain out of a molehill,” “don’t be dirty minded, he’s not hitting on you,” etcetera. As a result, I was able to keep myself in situations that were truly unsafe, but it kept me from the condemnation that was so powerfully used in spiritually abusive environments. These learned responses to unsafe situations have followed me into my present functional life. It isn’t that I’m not able to recognize the un-safeness of a situation, but rather that I’ve been conditioned to stay and endure the situation. Learning to listen to that inner alarm bell and allow myself to flee in such situations is an ongoing work in progress.

I recently became aware that feeling emotionally numb is an aspect of post traumatic stress disorder. Although, to my knowledge, I’ve never been formally diagnosed with this disorder, I definitely could diagnose myself with it. The inability to be fully present with those we love is an important indicator of traumatic stress from the past. I have noticed this aspect in my life repeatedly. Although it affects my relationships with friends and extended family, the worst part is how it affects how I relate to my own children. I work very hard to overcome this and my children have a very close and warm relationship with me. Inside myself is where I feel the numbness. I have a child who is grown and gone from home. I’m continually amazed at how little I worry about this grown child compared to other mothers in similar situations. Days pass where I don’t even think about this, my own flesh and blood, my beloved firstborn. Suddenly, out of my dazed fog will come a frantic worry when I realize I haven’t spoken to him in a week, or when I start calling and get no response. In these moments, I “come awake” to realize how much I love my children and want to be present with them in the moment. Yet, far to many evenings the numbness drives me to fall asleep with only a few words exchanged between myself and my teens still living in my home. Sleep has become an escape for the numbness. This saddens me and drives me to continue seeking help to fully engage in the present.

Silence is a friend, a refuge of safety to where I run when I’m feeling unsafe. More than simply my introverted nature, I find myself retreating to silence when I’m with my extended family or in religious groups. The fully engaged student or career woman who has no trouble speaking up and sharing an opinion at work or in the university turns into a silent figure of stillness in these environments. Safety is the key difference. In the world of my extended family, I’m unacceptable. I’m “backslidden,” and anything I say can be used against me. I have to guard every word, every topic, every opinion. I’m not accepted for who I am. In the religious world I currently inhabit, it is possible that they would appreciate me for who I am, yet years of spiritual abuse have taught my heart, and trained my mind to find religious people judgmental and un-accepting. My primal brain urges have been so trained throughout the years that my thinking brain cannot compete with the anxiety that arises in such situations. I freeze. I’m again that little girl who couldn’t be accepted for who she was, and I’m again awash in the pain of that rejection. So I freeze. I’m silent, thinking my own thoughts, and waiting anxiously for the moment when I can flee the situation that gives me so much discomfort.

I am the way I am for a reason. I needed to guard myself from my environment when I was growing up in a spiritually abusive environment. Now that I am out, there is so much re-programming that needs to be done. I am not confident that I will ever have “normal” responses, but step by step I am working on allowing my brain to relax and learn new ways of dealing with stress.

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Leave/Vacations and the Church

Other bloggers mentioned how difficult it was to take vacations or even visit family in abusive churches. My experience, especially when I was in the Navy, wasn’t any different.

For those unfamiliar, the military offers 30 days paid leave per year. Compared to civilian employment, it’s a sweet deal. The church I attended saw this as a golden opportunity to use its military parishioners as “free labor.” The leadership would exhort us to place the needs of the ministry first when it came to taking leave. In fact, we were told that if we spent two or more weeks away from the church on leave we were in danger of backsliding and we weren’t placing God first.

Special emphasis was placed on the Christmas holidays. We were encouraged to wait until the second leave period (usually December 30-January 15) to go visit family. The first leave period (December 15-30) was meant to “be available” for service members who “weren’t able to go home for the holidays.” While this by itself was a noble gesture, and even an effective outreach, forcing parishioners (in particular the single men) to sacrifice time with loved ones was a wrong approach.

For most of my 16 years in that church, I sacrificed my Christmas leave to participate in the activities and give visiting sailors and other service members a place to get away from the base. I only went home for Christmas twice when I was in the church; one such time was in 1991 when my brother, who was in the Air Force, had returned from a tour overseas and was visiting my parents and other brother in West Virginia. It was a strain on my family because they would have loved to have me home to visit more often.

Indeed, I spent a lot of leave time puttering around the church instead of visiting my family and even traveling and enjoy some personal time. Looking back, was I truly sacrificing my vacation to fulfill the gospel or was I simply another pack mule for the leadership? It’s painful to realize I was duped. If Jesus is truly the same yesterday, today, and forever, wouldn’t He be the same in a small town in West Virginia as in a church in Norfolk, Virginia?

When I left that church, I had two years left in my naval career. My departure occurred at the same time I transferred from a ship to my final shore duty station. Unlike previous leave periods, I took a long trip home. It was a good visit as I got to share with my parents that I finally broke free of that church and was trying to make sense of everything. I spent the remainder of my leave at my place, just chilling out and relaxing, even going to the beach. It was a big adjustment, being in charge of my own vacation time instead of being told how to spend it.

God still is first in my life, but now I realize family is very important. No organization should ever force its members to diminish the importance of family.

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PTCS -Post Traumatic Church Syndrome

It is not important what is in front of you, or behind you. It is what is inside of you that counts.

I read these “words of wisdom” on Facebook today and thought it was good advice except when you suffer from periods of PTSD, or as I call it PTCS (Post Traumatic Church Syndrome) it is still important to know what’s in front and what’s behind because it changed what’s inside me.

According to Wikipedia, PTSD is known as an anxiety disorder and can affect anyone who has seen or experienced a traumatic event. The common causes of PTSD include war, rape, terrorism, physical assault, and any threat of death or serious injury.

The Wikipedia definition for PTSD didn’t list trauma experienced from association with an unhealthy church. There are quite a few of us who suffer from several church related traumas, especially those who have left the United Pentecostal Church or other legalistic churches. I’ve heard, read and experienced many traumas from unhealthy churches and know the anxiety actually exists.

I found a book while surfing the internet one night titled, “Post Traumatic Church Syndrome Memoirs and Healing” written by Reba Riley and it caught my attention, why wouldn’t it?

Inside the pages she explained while Post Traumatic Church Syndrome is not actually a real sickness that is recognized by the mental health society, it still exists and the pain and grief are very real.

It is very hard to imagine that a church you go to for help can turn on you and drop you like a hot potato, but it’s true. We are all walking wounded and we’ve been hurt from the very church we sought out for help and salvation. These wounds create an emotional barrier for us to attend church, create barriers for us to connect with God, and create barriers for us to develop relationships with other followers of Jesus.

These barriers are not evidence of anything that was wrong with us, but are evidence of wrongs that have been done to us. There is nothing wrong with us as we were made to think, we just had inquisitive minds who questioned things… and that is frowned upon in many legalistic churches.

PTCS runs deep and it hurts because we feel like we’ve lost our identity. I believe Paul said it best in Romans 7:5-6, “For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law (legalism) were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law (legalism), having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” When we wanted to be “good,” when we wanted to do the right thing and when we deeply wanted to be a follower of Jesus, and the pastor and/or another member tries to tell us that we’re not very good at it, it messes with our mind and soul.

But when I had enough trauma, I walked away. As a matter of fact, I was so discouraged, depressed, and hurt, I literally ran away. I know it appeared to many that I ran away from God and I often heard comments and read posts on Facebook about how I had backslid and I was a former pastor’s wife and should be “set” right. But that wasn’t my case at all…I simply ran away from the United Pentecostal Church, and everything that was associated with the people who hurt me. As I started working through my PTCS, I realized how resentful and even hostile towards anything “churchy” I’d become, but deep in my heart I still wanted to know God and I wanted a close walk with Him. I wanted something deeper and more meaningful.

It’s taken me several years to come to grips with my PTCS but I was able to receive help through programs offered in my new church. Programs like Cleansing Streams and Celebrate Recovery which enable you to receive help and healing from hurts, habits and hangups.

No, it wasn’t easy to do and I’m not completely healed but my anxiety level is the lowest it’s been for many years. My anxiety medicine is only taken “as needed” and I haven’t needed it for several weeks. So I end with this, if it’s still important to know what’s in front and what’s behind because it changed what’s inside, then it may be time to find a church that offers programs that will help you heal. Those churches are the ones that care about you and want to help you. We shouldn’t have to carry the hurts from the past and let them hinder our growth for a future.

Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”