Tag: boundaries | Page 3 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Embracing Sobriety in Spiritual Practice – An Interview with Elizabeth Esther

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on June 9, 2016.

Another blogging friend, Laurie Works, introduced me to Elizabeth Esther’s blog back in 2014.

Recently I ran across her top ten signs of a spiritually abusive church YouTube video and I was so, so glad someone finally mentioned the dangers of “independent fundamental” churches like the ones I attended when I was a teenager, where most of the experiences that I write about came from.

Her more recent posts about the need for art to change as we get further and further out of that system have also been healing for me. Self-care is so vital and it’s not something cults encourage.

I didn’t reply to her survey last summer for Spiritual Sobriety because I wasn’t really in a place to do that yet, but I found her questions compelling and I couldn’t wait to read the book when it released this spring.

My friends and I who got out are healing and growing, but there aren’t many resources for people like us. Most people who shared our experiences are still on the inside. That’s why I was so excited about Elizabeth Esther’s new book and I wanted to know more. She and I did an interview for the release.

Here’s our conversation.

First, I’d like to ask you what specifically prompted you to write this book. What was the tipping point that made you realize that an unhealthy relationship between spiritual practice and addiction exists?

A lot of it was my own experience. I began to see similarities between the ways I used God addictively, in the same way that alcoholics rely on booze to escape pain, enhance pleasure and escape reality. I was sick of using God as a kind of “vending machine” to get what I wanted out of life. Knowing God is different than “getting things” from God. But when I began searching for a “sober” way of relating to God, I found that many churches only offered emotional experiences or magical thinking. Many churches were enablers!

Probably most of us have heard sermons interpreting Ephesians 5:18-20 to mean that we should be drunk on God the same way that you can get drunk with wine. How do you view this now, after writing your book?

I’m not gonna mock someone’s ecstatic experience with God. But I am going to suggest that too often we mistake “intoxicated” religious feelings for love of God. If love is real, it will be manifested in our actions—not just in how many awesome, amazing, WHOA worship/preaching conferences we attend. Scripture also tells us that we will know each other by the fruit of our lives. So, a lifelong journey of Christianity isn’t really about our conversion experience so much as everything that comes afterward. Are we kinder, gentler, more joyful, peaceful, patient, self-controlling? Those are the fruits of the Spirit. THAT’S what defines a true faith practice.

When you hear songs about giving all for God or being on fire now, what is your reaction to them?

I think those songs have a time and place and can be especially meaningful for brand new believers finding God for the first time. But those songs don’t do anything for me, personally, anymore. I don’t think those songs are SUPPOSED to define our entire faith experience. Because, like life, faith is a journey. I’m so glad I’m not a teenager anymore! I don’t need the hyped-up feelings because I know those can lead me into addictive burnout. When I hear those songs now I feel sorta like: “awww, that’s so cute.” But my tastes have changed. Or matured, maybe. I’m not really interested in the grand gestures or the huge, meteoric displays of passion or “giving it all to God.” I want something sustainable. A relationship that lasts a lifetime, not for one amazing summer. I know now that God doesn’t ask me to burn out for Him or to neglect myself to the point of a health breakdown. God likes me and delights in me and I’m just doing the best I can today, trusting that God will take care of the rest.

For those who have been spiritually abused and want to return to church attendance but are wrestling with reconciling their new perspectives and insights with the old memories, do you have any advice on where to start?

Start where you are. Take the pressure off. You have a whole lifetime to figure it out. There’s no rush. I would only suggest to keep trying. Even if that trying means giving up. Sometimes giving up is the best way to start! Here’s the good news: God isn’t going anywhere. You’re not going to “miss out” on God just because you don’t attend church. God is big enough to find us anywhere. Start where you are and let God find YOU. 🙂

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You can order Spiritual Sobriety here on Amazon. I’ll be posting my review soon.

#WhyILeft Fundamentalism, Part 4

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on January 13, 2015.

Continued from part 3

Can You meet me in my room?
A place where I feel safe
Where I don’t have to run away
Where I can just be me. – TFK, In My Room

I was like a kid on an adventure the first night in the new apartment.

The second or third night, I called Cynthia B. crying and homesick. She said it was normal and part of growing up.

Until 2012, I never spent a night away from home without my parents. Then I stayed at a friend’s house one weekend in June before leaving.

And I had no idea how to cook.

My first roommate taught me how to make ramen in the microwave.

Dad always worried I’d burn myself on the stove or slice open my finger. Or spill something. I begged them to teach me throughout my teen years. I even planned a dinner when I was 14 and brought Mom the recipes, but Dad didn’t let me.

I started seeing through the cracks, saw how much fear had controlled all of our lives.

I biked to school and rode the bus for the first three months. Then my parents gave me back part of the money so I could buy a car in November 2012.

My second roommate taught me how to live paycheck to paycheck, how to find cheap, gluten-free food when I discovered I was allergic like her.

In April 2013, I found Spiritual Abuse Survivors blog network through a friend and soon after, Homeschoolers Anonymous.

I read about more gentle parenting methods at Permission to Live.

Through reading blogs and talking to friends, I learned it’s not normal to spank your children until they stop crying because crying is “rebellious” and leaving bruises and teaching your child to cover them is also considered abuse.

Most people, even those who grew up in church like me, weren’t spanked until they were 14 and threatened with a belt until age 18.

I started dealing with my dark side, confronting why I self-harmed.

A school counselor helped me through the first year, and my Christian counselor later came out of retirement briefly and my parents and I went to group counseling summer 2013.

Because… my parents did not back down because I left.

The first Sunday after leaving, I went down the street to visit a new church.

My family drove by while I was walking down the sidewalk, rolled down the car windows, and shouted, “Just remember, Bob Jones is still available!”

My dad sent me advertisements for cars he would buy for me if I went to Bob Jones. And a deluge of letters and text messages and emails and phone calls pleading for me to reconsider the first year I was away. My parents dropped by the Science Center on campus while I was tutoring, bringing gifts and asking me to come back.

My anxiety issues spiraled, but my professors understood, giving me extensions.

Heart and brain argued on where to draw the line. I loved my parents, but I wasn’t a child anymore. I didn’t want to have to choose between my family and my adulthood.

Which is why I identified with Tirzah’s story on Homeschoolers Anonymous last week: “Only in my mom’s sad world of jumbled theology would moving out be akin to losing one’s family.”

Everyone told me that my freedom would have a price.

But some days, I ache, wishing my family understood me. Understood my heart.

Understood that I don’t write to condemn them, I write because I’m in pain. I write because I want our relationship to change and heal. I write, pleading with other homeschool parents, “Please, don’t do this to your kids.”

I’m told that blogs are biased, I’m accused of not showing both sides.

So I’m including three open letters between me and my parents and one of the more impersonal ones my sister sent. Quotes can be taken out of context, so here is the entire conversation.

Letter from my parents 11-12-2012
(After the 2012 election. I had voted to legalize marijuana in Colorado after researching studies on the chemical effects of THC.)

My letter 7-9-2013

Mom’s response letter 7-16-2013

Letter from sister 10-27-2013
(Mostly an essay arguing that my actions require the church discipline in Matthew 18.)

Right now, my relationship with my family is inconsistent. We talk sometimes. They help in a pinch, but I fear control creeping in again.

But I know they don’t accept me or approve of me. Nothing seems to count now. Not being self-sufficient, not holding steady jobs, not graduating college this spring. Not my passion for journalism or theater.

It’s like my leaving was an earthquake, and now a canyon lies between us.

But I found others on this side of the canyon, too.

Friends who later asked me to help them escape their own boxes. Professors who encouraged my independence, who had life phase changes of their own in college. My pastor friend in Texas who listened to my story and made me want to try church again.

In July 2013, I told Lissi on G-chat:

You know what?
I realized something yesterday.
I don’t think my family is my family anymore.
I mean, I will always love them, and they are blood.
They are my kin.
But they are not the family I grew up with anymore. That is now changed forever.
My “family” now emotionally is more like Ducky [my second roommate], you, the two Cynthias, other close friends, and my professors.
You all treat me more like family and support me more than my own family does.
I think this realization makes me more okay with emotionally separating from my family, too.
Because at least I have you all. <3

She replied, “Ahhh… the Chosen Family realization.”

Yes, the fight was worth it. Now I am free. Free indeed.

Read Parts One and Two.

Will All of You Please Give It a Rest, Already!

This is exactly how my stepdad has felt about many of the conflicting, unhealthy spiritual influences that have played a role in his life. Having had prior unhealthy Baptist and United Pentecostal Church experiences was bad enough, but to have had people pushing these beliefs on him all at once made things even worse for a time.

My stepdad’s mother was very pushy about her particular beliefs to the extent that she thought she could dictate where he went to church and what he had to do to express his commitment to Christ. Her constant harping on him to start attending an “approved” (IOW, Baptist, or Pentecostal) church every Sunday lead to him being very put off on the idea of attendance that persisted for a long time.

My stepdad refused to attend any church for a long time and was fervently believing that every single one, without exception, was a cult. During this time, his daughter and son-in-law got caught up in the UPC with their family. The combination of his mother’s constant nagging whenever she got him on the phone and his daughter’s new-found enthusiasm for the UPC was like throwing gasoline on a wildfire.

The family members of my stepdad that were in the UPC made life very difficult for him for a while. Get-togethers were often a bit of a trial because they simply couldn’t refrain from interjecting their preaching at every chance. When my stepdad’s younger son got caught up in it for a while, it was a question of whether he or my stepdad’s son-in-law was worse with bashing other groups and trying to usurp Jon’s position as head of the household whenever they were invited over.

Another unhealthy influence was one of my stepdad’s aunts, who is close to him in age and was like a sister to him as a kid. Even though she lives in the Houston area, she would visit Odessa from time to see family or friends still living here, and her visits would always include heavy pressure to attend a UPC service with her. Unfortunately, at this point, he hadn’t gotten to where he would just politely decline.

Things with the UPC members in his family finally came to a head after my stepdad’s mother died. When he was having to deal with arranging the funeral, clearing out her house, and dealing with some other bad things going on at the same time, his aunt did something downright hurtful – she told him that if he didn’t join the UPC, she would have nothing further to do with him.

Ironically, after all the turmoil he went through with his kids over their UPC involvement, they ended up leaving the group of their own choice. He has no contact with them due to some non-related issues that arose afterward. My stepdad would finally start taking some “baby steps” towards recovery from spiritual abuse, but it’s been a long time coming. There will be more on that in the next post.

I think, in retrospect, a lot of my stepdad’s conflicts over religion with family members had to do with a lack of boundaries. His mother never respected anyone’s boundaries and tried to find ways around them when they were set. His kids and son-in-law, likewise, also had no respect for boundaries.

When religious differences are sharp, boundaries that you enforce are essential. If you won’t attend their church under any circumstances, they need to hear a polite but firm “No.” No waffling, no non-committal, vague answers. When discussions of religion become a problem, they must know that that subject is off the table.

While boundaries don’t always fix things, they can help make a world of difference for your own peace of mind.

Room To Grow

I’m a country girl from way back. Rumor has it my family is related to Daniel Boone, the man who continuously moved west, opening new territory because he needed “elbow room” and because, so the story goes, he felt that if he could see the smoke from his neighbor’s chimney, they were just too close.

Whether we were related or not, I can empathize with “Old Boone”. Driving down the highway, I tense if a car is closer than three car lengths ahead or behind me. I hug the shoulder, especially when being passed- being less than a car width away from another driver is just uncomfortable to me.

Walking or standing, there is an imaginary buffer zone we keep around us, called personal space. Some people don’t need much. Others need a lot. I’m one of the ‘a lot’ people. I can understand if someone reaches out to shake my hand. But I’ll meet them half way. The cashier who hands me cash and casually brushes my hand in the exchange disturbs me, because she unwittingly entered my space. Warn me about those frontal hugs, please. I much prefer shoulder to shoulder hugs. Even then, I need to mentally prepare for a few seconds before contact.

In the malls and on the streets, and especially at church, people constantly invade my space. I’ve watched others pile together like puppies, and I laugh at their antics. But I prefer to stay on the outskirts of such activities. Fun? Oh, yes. But put me in the middle and I’ll act like a cat over a bucket of water.

Friends begin to realize that my personal space zone is pretty broad. They are careful to stay out of this space, or to give fair warning before entering it. I’m grateful and much more comfortable for their understanding.

Spiritually, I need space too. Room to grow and react in. Space to be myself, to live up to my potential and to realize my dreams. Too many rules, and I begin to feel stifled. It isn’t that the rules are bad. I can even enjoy them at times, and I understand why others might need or enjoy them. But I need to be given the opportunity to decide which I will follow, and to grow into them on my own.

Having people to be accountable can also be great, but again, people need to warn me before they step in my spiritual space. I don’t care to be watched and hovered over. I need people to trust me and allow me some independence. Perhaps I’m like the teenager who never questioned parental authority. Still, if the parents don’t give me a chance to grow up, I will find a way to grow around the restrictions and overcome them, even if it means distancing myself from them. Like the tree next to a barbed wire fence, I’ll either move the fence or I’ll make the fence a part of me, but I will grow, whether the fence or the farmer want me to or not.

We need boundaries to grow, but we also need space. The amount of space we need can change through the years. But we all need some amount. The sooner we recognize and respect our space and others’ the sooner we can become what we are meant to be.

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