Category: questioning | Page 8 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

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.”

When answers aren’t enough

So I have questions. Questions I would desperately like answers to… yet when I hear the answers I’ve heard, have found them to fall woefully short of truly answering the questions. The answers I need aren’t found in words alone. They’re found in a smile, a hug, a touch, in acceptance and kindness and generosity. For those are truly responses to what generates the questions, not pat answers and avoidance. Love is the only answer to many of our deepest questions, and it’s found in response, in empathy and compassion and simply being there, not in statements or even the best researched answers.

Don’t be afraid of the questions. Simply love the one asking them. If you do, the questions may take care of themselves.

Brief Thoughts On Bitterness

For those of us who left abusive unhealthy churches, the warning against bitterness is an appropriate one. Whether a bad experience was in a church setting or totally unrelated, one needs to be on guard to not allow bitterness to remain should it be encountered. Bitterness will hurt you more than anyone else in the long run and you will never heal.

Some current members of unhealthy churches love to throw out the bitterness label should a former member mention anything that appears to be negative about the church, its leadership, or the teachings and practices. It is done in an attempt to discredit and silence them.

While people can twist what bitterness is, or attempt to scare people with verses pertaining to it, the fact remains that bitterness is real and is something the Bible tells us to put off and not allow to remain in our lives. Sometimes we do not want to admit we have a problem, but denial of it will not help one to overcome. Because a verse was used against you in a wrong way or was twisted, does not mean that we can avoid the true meaning of the passage.

There are indeed people who struggle with bitterness after leaving an unhealthy church environment. Does everyone? No, but many do for varying lengths of time. The key is to not allow it to remain for months and years. We cannot brush it aside and simply claim it is anger and say we’re allowed to feel angry when that anger has actually turned to bitterness. This is like anything else- if one denies the struggle, they can’t be helped much. Don’t be afraid to admit struggles.

If one speaks about their past unhealthy church experience, does this mean they are harboring bitterness in their heart? No, this in itself is not bitterness. I’ve been accused of being bitter in having my spiritual abuse website because I speak about what happens in abusive churches. The website would be a whole lot different if it was done out of bitterness! Speaking about your experience does not mean you are bitter—-but how you speak of it may give a clue that you might be.

Talking about our experiences does not mean we are hanging on to the past. The admonition to “Get over it and move on” is unhelpful and shows ignorance of the complexity of the situation. Normally in unhealthy churches, certain questioning is not welcomed and one usually is not at liberty to openly question the validity of teachings or how the church is operated.

When one leaves, there are usually many questions and issues which need to be addressed in order for the person to heal, recover and sort through the various teachings. Some need to discuss and vent more than others. They need to be given space to do this. Doing so does not equate to being bitter or holding on to the past.

Why is God silent?

Oh, I know the pat answers. You just aren’t listening. You just need to have faith. We have the Holy Ghost. I’ve given those answers enough times in my life. I know them well, but they don’t work for me anymore.

In the Bible, there is the “400 years of silence”–the time between the last prophet and Jesus’ birth. Yet even during that 400 years, there were things happening and indications of God’s presence with his people. Those things just aren’t recorded as books in our Bibles.

But now… for 2000 years, there’s been silence. Through inquisitions and crusades and witch hunts, through false teaching and koolaid, sex scandals and embezzlement. Yes, surely God is with us. But the overall silence is sometimes deafening.

We were taught in my former church that if the leader was wrong, God would take care of it. We were not to confront, not to question… and never to leave. So we stayed, to our own hurt and to the hurt of our families. Finally some things were brought to light and the man who taught that disappeared. Yet whether that was God or not, is not mine to answer. What I do wonder is if he did step in, why didn’t he step in sooner, so that fewer people would have been hurt? And if we are Jesus’ hands and feet, why didn’t we move to do something to stop what was happening ourselves? I know we were scared and confused and in a strong delusion of sorts, believing him even as he slandered God, yet still, I wish we had done something.

Maybe God is silent because we are. Maybe he’s waiting on us. Or maybe he’s just silent. I know I’ve tried to listen, even been desperate to hear, and have longed for the time, long past, when I thought I could hear his voice. The silence is deafening.

Questions

I have been feeling better about God… so good that I turned on some Christian music and looked through some Christian books this afternoon. Bad decision.

Some friends and I have been talking about idolatry lately. I’m not sure that idolatry encompasses everything that some say it does, but I do know one thing: a whole lot lot of things that are sung, written, and preached about in Christianity have nothing to do with Jesus. It’s this pseudo-Jesus–and pseudo-Christianity–that I have so much difficulty with.

I can deal with a lot of the falsehoods. But when things start turning to this image of our lives being perfect when we believe in Jesus, I shut down. They sound so sure. And it sounds so great. But my first reaction to that isn’t “oooh, yes!” or “baloney.” It’s “Sure. God didn’t do that for me.” Then I shut down.

Some things are so fake, so unrealistic. Please just tell the truth. I want to understand and I want hope. But I’m not looking for hope for a perfect world or a perfect life, because the harsh reality is that’s not going to happen in this life. We’re broken, and living in a broken world. So don’t try to present your false hope to me, and never try to sell that as real Christianity.

I have questions. Who doesn’t? Perhaps the reason some people are so afraid of my questions is that they don’t want to admit that they’ve had them too… or that they might sometime. Or maybe they’re afraid that someday something could go desperately wrong for them, too. Maybe they’re afraid to consider that good people do get hurt in a sinful world, that belief in Jesus doesn’t mean that he’s going to protect them from life. Maybe they’re afraid that the soft little cocoons they’ve drawn around themselves might someday not be enough to prevent any difficulty… and maybe they’re afraid to admit that what they have is not faith in God–faith not that nothing will ever go wrong but faith that God will be with them through it even when it doesn’t seem like he is–but a false sense of security based on unbiblical but very prevalent religious beliefs.

So I have questions. Some are good, some maybe not so good. I think the main questions I have at this point, though, are these: How did American Evangelical Christianity get to this point? And what do those who can’t believe it anymore do now?