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I remember the first time I heard the word empathy, which is odd, because as a social worker, I hear it almost daily.  But, having been raised in a very guarded religious environment, I had a large vocabulary that included words like sympathy and pathetic, but not empathy.  So, what is the difference between sympathy and empathy?  The very best way I know to help you understand that is to send you to Brene Brown’s Youtube video, which you can find at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

To put it in my own words, sympathy is when I acknowledge that another person is going through a difficult experience.  Empathy, however, is when I’m able to actually feel those negative emotions that they are feeling, even to a lesser degree.  Empathy is getting in the rain with them and getting a little wet when it is raining in their lives, even though the sun is shining in mine.  It’s being able to put my feet in their shoes for a moment, even when that means the rocks might cut my feet through those holes in the soles.

Although being a social worker actually requires an element of being able to be empathetic with one’s clients in order to properly serve them, I find that I sometimes have too much empathy–as if there is such a thing.  Some days there are just too many emotions that swirl around me, like waves on a turbulent sea, and I am drowning in them by the end of the day.  Some people call this ability to feel so keenly the feelings of others “being an Empath.”  Others find it a really healthy way to be able to connect with others and be present in their lives for healing.  When the overwhelming days come, the professional terminology is that I am experiencing “vicarious trauma.”  The remedy for that is to pay attention to my emotions, provide myself with self-care activities, and take it easy until my emotional equilibrium returns to a balanced state.

Interestingly, a person who is unable to feel or express empathy for others is considered a sociopath or psychopath.  Feeling empathy for others is a very healthy thing, and it is what creates compassion and kindness in the world.  Yet many who have been exposed to abuse of any kind for any length of time will form one of two extremes.  Either they will lose the ability to empathize with others, or they become overly empathetic with everyone.  While the former creates abusers, the latter can lead to being re-victimized.  Needless to say, the former is attracted to the latter because an empathetic person is a great target for someone who is manipulative and controlling.

As highly empathetic people, we also have to be aware of this and on our guard more than others, realizing that we attract these types of controlling and harmful individuals just because we are “too kind” or “gentle” to stand up against it when we are being mistreated.  It is important that we find the balance in order to stand up and draw the proverbial line in the sand and firmly forbid that those individuals cross that line.  Self protection is something we have to learn, and it is best learned within healthy relationships where we are appreciated for our empathy but also respected as individuals with needs and desires of our own.

When I end the day feeling down and depressed about the situations of others around me, I begin to understand that I am taking on burdens I was not meant to carry.  When I am feeling the feelings of others so deeply that I cannot focus on my own life and feel the proper emotions for what is going on right in front of me, it is too much.  We are meant to be empathetic individuals, but like everything else, in a balanced way.  When I find myself drowning in empathy, I will not be able to sleep at night for worrying about the problems of others, or I will be unable to focus on my family at the dinner table due to my concern for the sadness of a client that I saw that morning.

I have to remind myself, and you have to remind yourself, that I am to use my empathy as a tool to provide healing and support for others.  My empathy is not to drown me or cause me to become it’s tool.  I am an individual person with a life that is colored by love, sadness, happiness, joy, pain and attachment with my own children, and when I am not called upon in a particular moment to be empathetic, I must learn to put aside my empathy for others and focus on my own life and my own emotions.  This is part of living in the moment.  This is why mindfulness exercises are important for some of us.

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“Jane” grew up in a home where mom was the leader of the house.  Jane describes her mom as “an angry, ranting kind of person.”  Jane’s mother had “gone through a lot as a child” and got into the apostolic church because she was impressed with how it changed her own mother from a promiscuous adulterer into a moral person.

There were four children in the home, and Jane was the only girl.  Jane grew up scared of any deed or thought that might be somehow a “sin.”  In her church growing up, she was also taught that if a person wasn’t healed when they prayed for healing, it was because of sin in their life.  She said that she was taught the belief that if anyone said “anything wrong, they were going to go to hell at any moment.”  This kind of fear was how she lived her childhood.  In her church in Texas, they were taught that all the other apostolic churches (much less any other denominations) were “all hell-bound because they didn’t have enough standards.  They were lost.”  She states that this was hard to accept, because she had some really tremendously nice great grandparents who were moral and loving individuals, but were Catholic.  She said she’s often wondered “Why were they doomed to hell?”

Not only did Jane receive a lot of messages of shame and condemnation at church, she and her siblings attended the church’s school, where “mom had to work for free in order for the kids to go to the church school, but the kids had to go to the church school if the family went to church.”

In the middle of this shame inducing nightmare, Jane suffered more than most other children.  “The pain I had at home made me more sensitive” to the messages of condemnation.  You see, Jane was being molested by her older brother for most of her childhood, unknown to the adults in her life.  Her brother that was molesting her was six years older than her and would appear in her bedroom at night to sexually abuse her.  She says he was about eleven years old when it started, which meant she was merely five years old.  Because of the abuse, those messages at church brought even more shame to her than they did to other children in the same environment.  The fear and condemnation was overwhelming for her.  She describes a day when her mother was not at home when she arrived home and she was terrified that the rapture had taken place and she had been left behind because of her “sin”–the abuse that was out of her control.

Not only was Jane a victim of her brother’s sexual abuse, but her cousin, who was a year younger, was also molested by him when the cousin came to visit the family.  Still, the secret did not come out at that time.

During these dark times in her life, where her secret abuse ate away at her and the shame and condemnation made it impossible to find refuge in church or at school, Jane often found encouragement through fortune cookies at the local Chinese restaurant.  She says, “God sent me encouraging messages through fortune cookies.”  These messages were such a powerful ray of encouragement in the middle of her pain, that she kept the little slips of paper and still has them to this day.

Finally, Jane hit puberty and her brother found a girlfriend and moved out of the home.  Her physical and sexual nightmare had a reprieve.  Still, when she was at church, hearing about hell and how everyone outside of her little church group was going to be lost forever, it puzzled her and tugged at her tender, loving heart. “I must care about my friends more than God does, because he’s ready to torture them in hell.”  This thought pulled at her mind and she could not wrap her head around how this could be true.

Eventually, Jane moved to another state, married and had children of her own.  However, her sexual abuse continued to haunt her and cause problems in her life as an adult and in her married life.  Her husband was very supportive and they have managed to work through things as they come along, but Jane began having severe physical issues as an adult.  She had to undergo surgeries and treatments, and still suffers from seizures at times.  She says she feels that all of that stress and trauma from her childhood affected her health permanently.

Indeed, professionals who work with trauma agree that it can have severe physical indications.  Bessel Van Der Kolk, in his book “The Body Keeps The Score” recounts the tremendous amount of research on this subject. He specifically discusses seizures as one of the problems seen often in people who have suffered years of childhood trauma.  In another study, “The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study,” research was done on participants who had health problems, and it was found that there is a tremendous link between childhood abuse and trauma experiences and the person’s health later in life.

In the story of Grace, in part III of this series, you may remember that she shared just a few difficult experiences she went through as a child.  She was later diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma, at the young age of 28, and underwent surgery to remove her kidney, as well as suffering from several female issues and life time struggles with anxiety.

Although spiritual abuse is just one of many types of abuse, the risk to health and well-being is clearly evident.  One cannot constantly inject a child with shame, fear, and condemnation without that child suffering a lifetime of consequential issues from that experience.

Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse II
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse III
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse IV
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse V

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“Ginger” is a beautiful young lady, talented and poised. The story she shared with me was in drastic, shocking contrast to her appearance. It was unimaginable what she had gone through as a child, what she continues to experience as an adult.

In Ginger’s case, it wasn’t the church who administered the worst part of the spiritual abuse–yet spiritual abuse it undoubtedly was. She describes that “Everything in life was about trying to obtain a spiritual experience, (speaking in tongues).”

Ginger remembers watching as her mother made her older sister give up a beginning career in modelling to pray “for eight hours every night in order to “get saved.” Her sister still had to work eight hours a day at another job. After many months of sleep deprivation, the older sister finally decided to pretend to “be saved.” Is this not torture? Is this not the type of techniques used by the Gestapo, and by other groups who torture prisoners until they finally give up out of physical misery?

Ginger notes that she saw her sister lose the next 22 years of her life to constant prayer, going to church, no dating, and no hobbies. She was 42 when she finally left the home, then ended up lonely, never married, and too old to finish her modelling career.

For Ginger, it all began at just five years of age. She recalls “Sometimes, we had to sit in a cold, dark closet and pray for several hours. We could not ask to come out because she would say that we “were not interested in Jesus.” We were supposed to pray until we showed some sign of “being saved.” That must have been grueling and difficult for a five year old girl.

She recounts how she was in the closet with her other sister, closer to her age, and that eventually “one time my sister stumbled on a few words and my mother thought that she was speaking in tongues.” Ginger says mom then announced that the sister was “saved”. Not content with that small victory, Ginger’s mother then began to use this to torture the little five-year-old, by saying “everyone in this house is saved except you. You’re the only one who is going to Hell.” Ginger remembers that this was the constant narrative until finally, her mother realized that the sister was not really speaking in tongues.

What does that do to a five year old? Can you imagine her sensitive little heart and the threat of hell, just because she had not spoken in tongues?

She goes on to describe how, as they grew older, “things became more strict. During the summers, we’d have to pray from immediately after twelve noon into midnight with few or no breaks. Once, I had to use the restroom and my mother said “go to the restroom, but I hope that you don’t go to Hell while you are in there.”

What kind of anxiety inducing insanity is that? Using the restroom is a human physical need and here we see her being shamed for having physical needs. We see fear tactics being used without any regards to physical human needs.

Ginger tries to explain her mother’s actions by saying, “Breaks during prayer were frowned upon because the thought that it was the Devil’s excuse to stop a prayer. Therefore, any time that a child asked for a break, they thought that it was the Devil speaking through the child.” This line of thought is hardly rational, so where did this belief come from? There is nothing remotely biblical about this philosophy.

Also, attending games, concerts, etc. were not allowed unless it was required for school. Dating was prohibited. In fact, if Ginger or her sisters even mentioned that they wanted a husband, she took it to automatically mean that they didn’t want God. Interestingly, Ginger stated that her father was not in her life, nor was any father figure in the home. This brings her mother’s opinion about marriage into question, as far as motivation. Was her own past experience jading her view? Yet, as most who perpetuate spiritual abuse, she turned her opinions into a “spiritual” cause, in order to control others.

Ginger reflects that “Sometimes, my mother would play games to see if I was Christian enough. One time, she made a song about me going to Hell and decided to sing it over and over to see if I would react.” What kind of mother does that? She continues to describe these “games”…”Another time, she pretended to be dead to see the manner in which I would react.” These descriptions are reflections of the manipulative nature of spiritual abuse. Using fear and shame to shape someone’s decisions and life are not Christ-like techniques to win the lost. These are tactics used in manipulation. These are abusive tactics that took a “spiritual” twist.

Ginger says that “Studying for school was okay, but mom would sometimes try to stop me from reading textbooks because she believed that the Bible was the only book that should be read.” There are other cases where pastors preached against reading any fiction books. In some cases, the pastor would tell his congregation that it was not okay to read any books without his approval. Why is this so? Think about the history of books in Nazi Germany. Why were there book burnings? Books hold the power to expand the mind and affect one’s beliefs. In order to control Germany, there could be no freedom to read books that might disagree with Nazi philosophy. This is an age-old tool to controlling the minds of people. The Bible is important to read, undoubtedly. However, other books can be necessary as well. Jesus gives us freedom to choose. How can one have freedom if mind control is being used?

Ginger’s mother did not stop the abuse when her children reached adulthood. By then, she had a strong control over their minds. Her manipulation tactics were so powerful that, even then, she held them firmly under her thumb. “She kept changing the rules as to when someone was old enough to move out of her home. At first, she said it was after high school. When I graduated, it became the age of 21. When I was turning 21, my mother suddenly received a message from God that I should never marry because ‘God doesn’t like marriage.’ She also changed the age that I could move out to 25.” Here again, what was with the hatred towards marriage? Is it not possible that mother had some unresolved issues with marriage that tainted her view of the subject?

Ginger continues to describe her early adulthood in the home. “During those years, I also had a very strict curfew. Mom had to open and close all doors upon me entering or leaving the house. I could not talk to anyone on the phone without her knowledge, and I wasn’t allowed to do any hobbies for too long without her interrupting and telling me that I was putting the activity “before God.” During this time, I received interviews at the Peabody Conservatory and the Julliard School to study music, but my mother completely prohibited this, saying that I would “go to Hell” if she could not see me, to verify that I was reading the Bible and praying.” Do you hear the control in this? Is this really about spirituality? Is there truly anything righteous in this? What about the command to “save yourself from this untoward generation?” Mom felt she alone was in control of Ginger’s ability to be saved. What a terrible burden to take upon oneself!

Ginger describes how she finally broke free. “Finally, I figured out that she would never let me leave, and I moved out suddenly at the age of thirty without her expecting it. She had a lot of verbal tantrums over the phone, excluded me from a lot of family activities, and gave a lot of silent treatment before she accepted it. She still checks on me from time to time to make sure that I’m ‘still a virgin.'” That last sentence is beyond insane. This is an attractive, intelligent, and successful woman in her thirties, yet her mother still insists on trying to control her from afar. Instead of being proud of the fine young woman she has become, she continues to inquire about private parts of her life and to put her down for her choices to be independent and healthy.

Ginger says that her mother learned most of the rules from the United Pentecostal church they attended, but that they did not see how her mother acted in the home.

She does recall that, “some of our neighbors also attended the church and they didn’t think anything was wrong. I could sometimes hear their kids screaming while being brutally spanked.”

She shares that the church did have slightly different rules on dating. “They allowed it, but only in public and no touching. Also, the woman didn’t have to be attracted to the man but she was still encouraged to accept the date.”

When I asked Ginger how she is affected in her adult life, she shared that she has had to block her family on social media, and she just visits occasionally. She says “I can only have a normal life by keeping my life separate and only visiting on the holidays.” She says that one sister is still trapped, living at home with mom, and that her sister acts maliciously towards Ginger because Ginger has found freedom.

I was impressed with what Ginger has accomplished in her life, in spite of this traumatic upbringing. To be robbed of one’s childhood is a great tragedy. Children must be allowed to play and to explore as part of normal development. To deprive them of this in order to make them pray for so many hours a day under fear of hell fire is terrible child abuse.

Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse II
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse III
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse IV
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse V

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The long buzzing wires of the power-plant hang perfectly in the balance over the soft-flowing river, electricity surging through at lightening speeds. A tender infant’s favorite fuzzy bear lights up with contagious laughter and merry song, but its energy begins to wane over the course of days. Long gone are the days of fire-lit torches and oil lamps in first-world countries, society heavily dependent upon electricity to function: lights, doors, phones, televisions, computers, cars, and more. The efficiency and dependability of those items, however, are heavily reliant upon the power source. Is there enough power? Is it a pure source of power? Is the voltage too high, placing too great a strain and demand? As Christians, what are we plugged into? Is it too great, not enough, or holding us back? Or is the electrical output overriding the computer system’s limits, frying the circuits and rendering seemingly useless without repair?

The demands of a pastor or teacher are often too strenuous, adding restrictions and rules on top of what is truly demanded in Scripture. Are skirts long enough? Are collars high, sleeves long, and material loose? The subtle show of skin or appearance of figure will lead a man to fall. Are the men wearing suits in the summer heat, daily scraping off their facial hair, marching forward with a heavy black Bible under their arms? No one will support them in the ministry without a white collared shirt and tie. Are households in church every time the doors are open, despite sickness and family gatherings? Do women touch-up their make-up five minutes before their husbands arrive home, dinner on the table and children decked in freshly-pressed clothes after a grueling day of isolation, chaos, and bodily fluids, now taking on her duty as a proper help-meet for her husband? Generations of parents continue to uphold these ideals based on their own childhood, never questioning the validity of such teachings, oblivious to the sparkle soon lost in their children’s eyes.

What are we dependent upon as Christians? Are we taught that we must hang on every word and beckoning call of the preacher in order to attain salvation or a level of spiritual maturation and faith? Do we rest in just getting through the next hellacious verbal or physical beating from pastor or spouse with integrity intact, holding onto submission as key? Have we developed co-dependent relationships, soul-ties as deep as David and Jonathan? When the inevitable break occurs, the one dependent is mostly destroyed, while the stronger merely continues on with barely a scratch or taste of the tragedy left behind. Through innocent fervor or fear of hell-fire, we rely on other people, practices, and principles to survive the ravaging tactics of spiritual abuse in our churches and homes.

As lightening strikes, the power plant explodes and crumbles. The whirring current comes to a halt, leaving everything desolate, and shattered in pieces because the electrical strain is too great to bear. The human body and psyche can only handle so much. Or maybe it’s the slow, waning drain of the teddy bear battery, as functions shut down one by one. Movements become robotic and the musical notes slur together. Life slowly drains from the little bear, to the point that most will never notice until the battery is nearly dead.

Christ said, “Come unto  me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest into your souls. For my yoke is easy , and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28-30). His intended yoke is much lighter then the legalism of man. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 33:25, “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” God said to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for thee…for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” God’s demands are never greater than what He gives us strength for, but man’s expectations and standards create a load we are not meant to bear, strained even more without the power to sustain them over a period of time.

What are you plugged into?

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My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. John 10:27

Wow, God seemed to talk a lot to my leaders in my Christian cult! Shockingly, His divine messages seemed to focus on how I missed it, again, and how I needed to be better in every way before He could use me at all. On top of that, God apparently had a lot to say about every aspect of my life, including where I was allowed to apply for a student job (unfortunately “He gave” to each of the two leaders contrary words of wisdom), how long I could attend work meetings, or when I was allowed to visit with friends and family.

Looking back, I can’t tell the flags from all the red anymore but back then I swallowed it all in whole. Needless to say that when my years in the cult were over, I desired to find truth. For years I carried crippling fears with me, fearing I would take the wrong turn in life and even committing to a vacation, buying tickets, etc. caused severe anxiety. What if God would cancel my plans last minute like “He” had done so many times before?

In this video I am sitting down with David Johnson, author of “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse,” and we’re candidly discussing how a person can develop from carrying a sheep-mentality to a child of God-sheep, following the voice of the good shepherd. We are called to follow someone and it turns out, it will not be a person in front of us but a voice that can be found on the inside originating from God. If we hand over the responsibility of and for our lives to someone else out of fear to make a mistake and displease God, boy what a loss and misunderstanding of the grace of God working in our lives!

Disclaimer; we have no quick answers or fixes, all we came up with is that it will take time and mature people to help us grow to get in touch with our true self, the place where God can connect with us, and it is all about His love for us and everyone else. I hope this will bless someone!

Bon voyage, fellow traveler!

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