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I am working on learning to be vulnerable and honest about what it is like to live with depression and anxiety. However, the world at large is not a safe place in which to be vulnerable.  That is why I write under a pen name. I can be honest and open with the world and yet be protected. That is the beauty of this site, this ministry of healing, this safe place. No one can hurt me when I’m vulnerable here.

So, today I’m going to be real honest and open. I’m going to give my readers a chance to view the results of 35+ years of spiritual abuse, that eventually morphed into physical abuse, verbal abuse, psychological, and even sexual abuse. I’m learning that no human can pass through the fire without being burned. Everything I have faced has left scars, wounds, and horrifically altered my being forever.

Sitting with a friend over a meal recently, she shared her agnostic beliefs with me and asked me specific questions about what I believe, after all I’ve been through at the hands of religion.  I told her, remarkably, “I don’t know what I believe anymore. There were so many lies. So much deception. So much pain and betrayal. The only thing I know is that I believe there is a God, and I believe that Jesus is the son of God who came to earth to die for our sins. Beyond that, I do not know anymore what I believe.” In that moment, I felt so odd. I wondered “How did I get here?” I felt a bit like a “heathen,” given the many years of indoctrination I had, and the fervency of my dedication to the cult for many years. On the other hand, there was a feeling of peace and realization, that, in mainstream religious circles, I’d just stated the very essence of being a Christian. It made me realize that I hold onto what really matters and the rest is now fluid for me.

Research

I was at a training event for work last week, where the effects of fear on the brain were related by an expert. The results were astonishing.  When a person lives in a constant state of fear for a period of time, the brain produces large amounts of cortisol to counteract the stress and provide balance. Early life stress disturbs the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and this can cause a person to be more likely to have psychiatric issues as an adult (Carpenter, Shattuck, Tyrka, Geracioti & Price, 2011). In some severe cases of abuse, the child’s development is interrupted and their brain develops permanent damage due to the abusive actions of adults in their lives. They develop severe mental illness that can cause them to become psychotic, or to become a psychopath or sociopath. This is interesting, in light of the phrase that I heard after my children were abused by their father. I was still in the cult, and the preacher involved did not like it that my children and I couldn’t just “snap out of it” after escaping the abuser. He once made a statement that “so you were abused. Get over it. Many people have been abused.” Obviously this was an uneducated and asinine comment.

There is a reason for the depression and anxiety seen in my own life and that of many other victims of spiritual abuse whom I’ve encountered. There is a scientific explanation. People who experienced greater amounts of childhood emotional abuse also have more increased depression symptoms, especially when they have ongoing life stressors. Therefore, studies have shown that emotional abuse is truly a risk factor in our reaction to stressful life events (Shapero, et. al., 2014). Spiritual abuse has not been studied as much as other forms of abuse, but it definitely has an emotionally abusive element. It has been discovered, however, that spiritual abuse has many different facets and layers of experience that affect the biological, psychological, and social, as well as the spiritual realm of a person (Ward, 2011).

For those of us raised in a cult, many of us suffered various types of abuse, both in childhood and as adults. It is no wonder, then, that we suffer from depressive symptoms, anxiety issues, and sometimes even more debilitating mental issues. In my personal experience, adjustment disorders have plagued me throughout my adult life, exhibiting with both depressive and anxious symptomology. Here, I want to describe what it is like to feel these symptoms in relation to the past spiritual abuse and emotional abuse combined:

Depression is a dark, weighted cloud that sits on my soul. It consistently tells me there is no hope, and it holds me in misery. I can’t shake the sadness, or the feeling that my life is over… wrecked… beyond repair. I’m able to pinpoint that these religious leaders and specific abusers from my past have ruined my life, but I also feel completely broken and inept at everything in life. I can be making straight A’s, functioning at a high level, as far as daily living, and still feel like I am a complete and utter failure.

I sometimes feel I’m doomed to this darkness drowning my soul forever. I often cannot feel anything outside of an emotional numbness that causes me to be unresponsive to what is going on around me. Sometimes it becomes a pervasive sadness that has me crying over everything that happens, even if it isn’t a negative event. At times, it keeps me from feeling happy or celebrating clear victories or positive events. The inner voice plays down the positivity.

Many times when the depressive feelings overwhelm me, I feel the urge to kill myself. The most common feeling is to have this strong impulse to stab myself in the chest–likely because my emotional heart is feeling so much pain it feels like I’m already being stabbed in the heart inside, but there is no one to witness the event or care.  Shame messages from childhood and religious leaders haunt me.  I’m flooded with messages such as “you wouldn’t be in this situation if” and “it is all your fault for leaving the church.”

Other thoughts that commonly flood my mind at those moments include “You are a hot mess,” “you are too sensitive,” “you need to pray through,” “things will never be better–you are scarred for life,”  “who do you think you are to think you deserve better?”  “you are just an emotional female,” “I wish I were a logical male,” “what if my problems are a punishment for not being good enough,” “I wish I could have more faith,” “I’m not a strong person. A truly strong person could live up to all of the rules to earn the blessings of God.” Many other thoughts flood my mind in those dark moments.

I usually feel physically heavy, especially in my chest. I often get a headache. I don’t have any energy to be productive during these moments, and often I just feel like sleeping to hide from the world. Sometimes I will eat large quantities of chocolate or other comfort food to try to alleviate the pain. When going about daily life, in that state, I often have impulses to pull out in front of a fast approaching semi truck, run my car into a telephone pole, jump off of a cliff, run away from everyone I know and live out of my car with my children, or some other equally harmful impulse. Instead, when I get to that point, I go to the doctor and get an anti-depressant so that I can function and cope with the stress.

However, I know many others who cut themselves to find release, or contract eating disorders that cause them to binge, purge, or both. Others who are afraid to get medication may self medicate with alcohol or illegal drugs.  Some have difficulty holding down jobs or meeting daily living demands due to the crippling depression that they cannot shake. When we feel this kind of depressive symptoms, we feel horrible and it makes us snap and growl at those around us who love us. Sometimes it can drive them away, yet we truly need their unconditional love more than anything else in these moments.

Anxiety has often been described to me as the “flip side of the coin” in regards to depression. I have noted that this is often the case in my own life. My medication keeps the depression at bay for the most part, but the anxiety will often trigger depressive symptoms or vice versa. Anxiety is terribly painful as well. Sometimes there are panic attacks, where my chest hurts as if I’m having a heart attack. I will become short of breath, feeling like I could possibly pass out or die. I will often become dizzy and the anxiety level is so high that I’m terrified and cannot find a reason for the anxiety at times. Sometimes my legs will become shaky, or my hands will shake uncontrollably. All of these things are signs of a panic attack and are not anything I’m in control of, but are physical symptoms of the high levels of stress hormones produced in my body.

Common triggers to a panic attack occur in church services–comments made, guilt inducing messages, judgmental comments, anything that takes me back to my spiritually abusive past. These physical responses are my body’s way of telling me that I’m in danger again. Anxiety also makes me fearful, hyper vigilant, and pours energy into my body through adrenaline. I will have bursts of highly productive energy induced by stress, followed by extreme tiredness and inability to stay awake. Sometimes there is an impending feeling of doom that has no concrete basis in real life.

Thankfully, I am able to know that my body and my feelings are betraying me and I can differentiate between reality and the panic. However, many people cannot tell the difference and too much anxiety can lead people to become delusional. Because of the bursts of adrenaline and the body’s need to relax afterwards, people who suffer from anxiety can appear erratic or inconsistent in their productivity. Some people have lost jobs, or at least been marginalized by society for the inconsistent patterns of functioning that are observable in their lives. In my case, when I had the severe panic attacks over several days time, my doctor prescribed a few pills of a low dose anti-anxiety medication. However, I took only two and kept the rest for future reference, as anti-anxiety medications are commonly abused and can be addictive. I generally use relaxation techniques to reduce my anxiety levels. Yet some people experience such severe anxiety that they have to have an ongoing anti-anxiety medication.

I have learned some very helpful coping skills to deal with my depressive and anxious symptoms. I have been blessed to have several amazing therapists who have helped me learn to cope better with the stress. Many others do not have the luxury of truly helpful professionals to aid them in managing their symptoms, and they suffer from far more debilitating symptoms as a result.

The conclusion of my emotional/mental responses to my past abuse is that I have finally come to terms with the fact that I do have scars that may never go away. I am prepared to take medication for the rest of my life, if that is what I have to do to function and have a happy life. I no longer feel shame about seeing a therapist, and I do so as much as needed…as long as my insurance covers it. My friendship field is smaller than some, due to mental health stigmas, but I have honest, loyal, and trustworthy friends who support me.

I have vowed to NEVER, EVER darken the door of another church in the abusive religious group I escaped, other than my own family member’s funerals–and even then, I’ve given myself permission to get up and leave when I feel threatened. I attend church only when I feel capable of handling any triggers, and I reserve the right to get up and leave if I feel stressed. I talk to God about my stress and my past, as well as my current beliefs, and I feel that He understands the resulting chaos of religious leaders who abuse…after all, Jesus was personally acquainted with the Pharisees, and angered by the way their actions affected the people. Occasionally I try something new that is legal but was “forbidden” by my church growing up. If I like it, I make it part of my life. If I dislike it, I choose not to do it in the future.

Overall, I focus on enjoying the freedom to say “no,” or to accept things without the ruling of any spiritual or familial leader telling me what to think or do. I feel angry and bitter at leaders who have hurt me in the past–yes I do–but I work on letting these things go and focusing on my own health and recovery from abuse as much as possible. At times there are new stressors or events that take me right back to the past I’m trying to avoid. In those times, I give myself a lot of patience and I refuse to feel guilty as I process my anger and fury for what happened. Then, as soon as I can, I try again to put the past behind me and keep living in the present.

This is my journey. Yours will be different.

Carpenter, L., Shattuck, T., Tyrka, A., Geracioti, T., & Price, L. (2011). Effect of childhood physical abuse on cortisol stress response. Psychopharmacology, 214 (1), 367-375.

Shapero, B. G., Black, S. K., Liu, R. T., Klugman, J., Bender, R. E., Abramson, L. Y., & Alloy, L. B. (2014). Stressful Life Events and Depression Symptoms: The Effect of Childhood Emotional Abuse on Stress Reactivity. Journal Of Clinical Psychology, 70 (3), 209-223.

Ward, D. J. (2011). The lived experience of spiritual abuse. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 14 (9), 899-915.

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Oh, how He loves you and me, Oh how He loves you and me. He gave his life, what more could he give?
Oh, how He loves you; Oh, how he loves me; Oh, how he loves you and me.

We sang this song often in the church my ex husband pastored but no matter how much we sung it I never could quite believe that Almighty God could love someone like me.

I was the kid from the home with the divorced mother and all the different stepfathers. Of which none loved me nor I loved them. My natural father said he loved me but I only saw him one weekend a month because of his fireman’s schedule. So not much time to study a father’s love.

My mother said she loved me but she worked a lot to support us and she was always trying to find a husband. I also felt that her love was conditional. I know she didn’t mean it that way but that is how it came across. When I made honor roll she was very proud and told everyone how smart I was. When I made the gymnastic team, proud mother, but when I fell off the balance beam, disappointed Mom.

Then there was the church we attended with my grandmother….a small United Pentecostal Church, if there was any love there for me it only came from one sweet family who had 7 children of their own but had lots of love to go around. I loved staying at their house and feeling the warmth of that love. My mother didn’t attend the church so no tithes from me so I was basically ignored by the pastor.

The feeling of failures followed me into adulthood and into my marriage. It felt like nothing I did was ever good enough and I just never measured up to everybody’s expectations. During this time my husband pastored a church and I just wasn’t what he wanted as a helpmate and a total disappointment to him as a pastor’s wife (I couldn’t play the piano or sing very good). So he soon jumped ship with another woman and moved away. Again love was conditional upon my performance.

It seemed I excelled at three things, being a mother and grandmother and being an an excellent employee and as it turned out I was very smart and a quick study. I managed to go back to college and to everyone’s amazement I graduated with a 3.95 GPA in accounting and I worked as a tax accountant for the next 15 years. It was a good place to work and it was someplace I felt where I belonged.

All of us have the need to belong and we long to be loved. Our Heavenly Father wants us to know we are loved.

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” I John‬ ‭3:1‬ ‭

God loves us! God the father is a thousand times better than any earthly father. We are valuable because God loves us. We know our status and we are valuable because God loves us.

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. I John‬ ‭3:2‬

God’s love is changing us gradually to be more like him.

“Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.”

God’s outworking love doing a work in me by bringing me to a good and healthy church where love abounds! I’ve never experienced this type of love in a church before but I do now! I work in ministry on many projects for the church and I truly believe when told I’m loved that it is the truth. Because I can feel it and see it and there are no conditions. They don’t care that I have Parkinson’s disease and work slower, or that I’m a bit overweight, I haven’t been given one diet to try like I was before. I am loved…”By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” I John‬ ‭3:9-10, 16-17‬

Our Heavenly Father wants us to KNOW that he loves us and we are his children. He gives us a family, a purpose and a hope for a future.

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Part seven of a series of articles.

As previously shared, I personally have known four people from the United Pentecostal Church who have been convicted of sexually related crimes. In Part 2 of this series, I shared about two cases, where one man held license. These are the other two.

Some of us were gathered for a ladies prayer meeting that night at the church when the phone rang. Answering, I recognized the voice as one of the older male members. He was married and had children. George asked to speak to Rebecca (not her real name), one of the young church girls. Her mother happened to be there and she shared he had been calling Rebecca at home.

He didn’t hold any position in the church or organization. I believe it was prior to this when he tried to cause trouble for a good friend of mine who worked where he did at Lenox China. The false accusation didn’t work, but the pastor called her into the office to question her about what was said.

It was revealed that he had been spending time with some young girls. Rebecca’s parents were concerned and put a stop to future contact. I don’t know details of what happened at the time, nor what happened later at his arrest on an unrelated event. In July 1993 he was sentenced to prison on sexual charges and was a registered sex offender until his death in February 2018.

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There was a United Pentecostal minister, Thomas Stramiello, who married a woman from my church. Tom and his family lived in northern New Jersey. He came to God while serving a prior prison sentence in Louisiana and upon release quickly became active and licensed in the UPC in the 1980s, even being featured in one of their publications, Freedomline (Spirit of Freedom Ministries).

He was licensed by the UPCI since at least 1985. (He is seen in the 1986 UPCI Directory with a local license. I don’t have the previous three years.) He eventually became a pastor in Westwood after assisting at a small storefront church in Riverdale. The church was a rented building.

As of at least 1988, he had returned to criminal activity and that year he also became a volunteer chaplain at the Bergen County jail. In March of 1990 while a pastor, he was arrested on some charges and there was also a prior charge of a sexual nature.

He claimed he did not commit the sexual assault of the 15 year old minor but was found guilty of sexual assault, criminal restraint and making terroristic threats on May 5, 1992. In October 1992 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, with having to serve half that time before possibly being eligible for parole.

The woman later recanted her testimony in an affidavit, after receiving a letter from Tom’s wife, which included pictures of their two children, but then she recanted this. She claimed to have been harassed.

In 2006 Tom’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus was dismissed with prejudice.

I don’t know if Tom was ever released from prison prior to his death in February 2013 after a battle with cancer.

At the time, very few in my church knew details of what happened, including myself. Back then, there wasn’t the easy access to news reports from other areas. I’d never heard that he had been accused of sexual assault in this case, nor did I know of his prior sexual related convictions, such as the rape of a 14 year old, or details of all his previous charges. In the article he wrote for Freedomline, no assault was mentioned. Tom had a criminal history going back to the 1970s when he was a military policeman at an Air Force base in Louisiana.

My former church was probably what one would consider a medium size in the United Pentecostal organization. Many people came and went through the years. Both prior to my joining and while I was a member, there were numerous situations of sexual activity outside of marriage with some resulting in pregnancies, along with cases of adultery. A close friend once confided that she had been raped by a male member, who at one point had been living at the church, but I don’t believe charges were filed.

You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.

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A couple years ago a friend posted on Facebook, “How can anyone call themselves a Christian and [do a certain thing]?” If I named the ‘thing,’ it would cause an argument even now. The Bible is silent on the matter she was referring to.

Her statement upset me. I’d left a church where you were “backslid” if you did or even thought certain things. And suddenly I was hearing the same type of thing again, from people who were supposed to be healthy Christians. “How can you be a Christian and wear stretch pants?” “How can you be a Christian and not tithe?” “How can you call yourself Christian and not go to church every Sunday?”

I’d heard eerily similar things in my former church, though there they were statements: “You’re backslid if you wear pants.” “You’re backslid if you don’t tithe and give at least 5% offering.” “You’re backslid if you aren’t in church every time the doors are open.” They were overly judgmental statements meant to control by fear. Fear of losing out with God, of being a bad witness, of being declared not good enough. And so when I started hearing similar statements from mainstream churches and Christians, I was angry.

The questions are not, “Why do you think like that? Why do you do that?” in a way that would lead to open discussion and consideration of other perspectives. The questions are meant to shame, to shut down the other person, and to draw into isolation or polarize. The questions are not healthy… they are actually abusive.

I do not want to be a part of that abuse anymore. I don’t want to be abused by it and I do not want to be the abuser. I will not draw lines in the sand that indicate who is and isn’t Christian based on perspectives on stretch pants or skirts or tithing or church membership. Definitely not politics or social stances.  What makes a person is no more or less than whether or not the person believes and has put their faith in Jesus. That is Christianity. Other things have to do with denomination, theology, philosophy, or maturity, perhaps, but not Christianity.

I was asked on a survey if I was a Christian… and I hesitated. Christianity has come to be tied to some pretty bad things for me. And above all, the question rang in my mind, “How can you call yourself Christian and…” My belief in God and my faith in Jesus hasn’t changed. But in my mind, the term “Christian” has.

Someone stated half-jokingly recently that she was not a Christian, but a Jesusian. I like the term. I’m no longer a Christian. I’m a Jesusian, too.

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I was shamed in public, in front of the entire congregation – multiple times – but wasn’t allowed to utter a word to defend myself because of my sex. What level of emotional abuse is that? Extreme.

The meetings were special judicial meetings. At each meeting I dissociated and felt like I was floating above my body. The entire meeting was an out of body experience because I was so traumatized that my body detached from my physical and emotional experience to cope. The man (my father-in-law at the time) who stood up to shame me about something very intimate, came up to me after the service and I shook hands with him because conflict, “rudeness,” and assertiveness is ungodly behavior for a woman.

I was the victim of years and years of relentless domestic abuse. And now I was being blamed in public. They victimized the victim. They attacked my character. What he said about me was a huge lie but I was never allowed to say my side of the story, or to put it right. Because women are not allowed to speak during the meetings or services.

I didn’t even defend myself in private because I felt I had no personal power because I had been spiritually, emotionally, verbally, and financially abused for so long. I felt powerless, hopeless, helpless, broken, silenced. I’m sure, based on my character, that most people in the congregation knew that what was said was lies, but he was not told to make it right, or to take back what he said.

Life went on. Some believed him. They ignored me. And gossiped. False accusations. A private investigator hired to watch me. He was promoted to more elevated duties. No apology. I was left horrified and traumatized (what he said was of a very personal and intimate nature). I had been humiliated in front of my entire social circle (we were not allowed to socialize with anyone outside of the congregation). Every time I went to a service (6 times per week) I felt like I was sitting on top of my car as I drove home – that’s how dissociated I was.

The one positive result from this experience is that I woke up to the fact that I was in a controlling and abusive church. If it wasn’t for this extremely painful experience I might never have woken up. I might never have realized that God was absent from their services. I still struggle with PTSD from this experience (6 years later) and don’t have a Christian community due to deep trust issues.

How can a group of so-called Christians be so ignorant that they don’t realize what public humiliation – with no ability to defend yourself or speak – does to a person psychologically? Even Wikipedia knows! 🙂 This is the sickness of a perverted and callous “Christianity” that follows rules and that is very far from the heart the God.

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