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Other Spiritual Abuse?

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DogwoodTree

MyPTSD Pro
Did anyone here experience spiritual abuse growing up? I wasn't in a formalized cult or anything, and no satanic abuse, but there was a lot of warped spiritual teaching mixed into my everyday experience of abuse/neglect. Also, the man who was our church group's pastor when I was a kid cheated on his wife with my mom in the context of spiritually counseling her, then became my step-dad for several years (and was my primary perpetrator of overt abuse/CSA).

It's been very difficult to get any sort of clear picture of who God is, what love is, what faith is...I know these are tough issues for people anyway, but I find myself questioning things that other people around me never even think to question, and I always feel so distant and lost around other believers (even though I firmly believe God exists...He is good...and He loves me...I just don't experience those things the way people around me seem to).

When I listen to the lessons at church...it doesn't jell for me. So much of it seems so shallow, so self-deceptive, like the whole point is to convince yourself of something and never be concerned with what actual experience says. I understand that faith is about believing what isn't seen, and we'll never get all the answers while we're here. But interpreting scripture in ways that seem to contradict and undermine truth...well, like, I Cor 13 says that "love always trusts" right after it says that "love rejoices in truth." I googled the "love always trusts" phrase, and Rick Warren has an article about how that means we have to give people the benefit of the doubt and believe the best about them no matter how they behave. This seems both foolish and contradictory to me. Seems like what the Bible means when it says "trust" is likely very different than how mainstream Christianity interprets the word "trust."

Anyways, I couldn't find other threads on spiritual abuse issues here...curious on whether others here struggle with this stuff.
 
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Hi, I went through a season of waking up to the truth and had to quit churches because they did not help me but hurt me. It is so hard to go through and expect many changes within youself and others in the church.

You can pm me about this and I will discuss my experiences with you. I did a thread on Toxic Christianty. It had so many responses which will help you to know that there is nothing wrong with you and you are not crazy..

If I was you I would not confide in people going to the church. They are not yet woken up to the truth. I am a better believer now than I was when I was going to church. The church damaged me and my family greatly through slander and gossip. I confided in them and it was the worst thing I could ever have done.
 
Yep.

Super entwined with my mil training so I'm not at all that inclined to talk about it, because in my mind really doesn't go one without the other, but if there's anything I can do / help with with untangling toxicity & / or adding a compassionate viewpoint? Hit me up.

Edited to add: If how you experience God works for you? All is well. God isn't leading you the way He(/She/They) is leading other people, but that doesn't mean you're on a stray path.
 
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I did a thread on Toxic Christianty

Found it, thx. I don't want to "beat up" on Christians, but it is insightful to hear so many other people's viewpoints.

If I was you I would not confide in people going to the church. They are not yet woken up to the truth. I am a better believer now than I was when I was going to church.

I've done a lot of church hopping looking for the "right" church for me, and I've had years of no church at all...doing self-study and whatnot. The church we're in now is pretty unique compared to others I've seen. A lot more bikers, truck drivers, and construction workers than work-in-an-office folks (even though I'm more "work-in-an-office" (well, work-from-home), I really like the informal, energetic perspective of people from these other backgrounds). And they seem to get the idea of personal growth being a process...that you're not supposed to be perfect because it's a process. It's a very open group, high energy...it's not unusual for them to take a mainstream, hard rock song, switch the words around, and use it as a genuine worship song.

But there's something wrong with me. Even with "real people" like this, people who are okay if you don't have a plastic smile on your face every Sunday...I still can't "connect." I've tried everything I know to do: reaching out to people, showing up to activities, being part of a small group, getting together with one or two people at a time. And still I don't fit. I really think the problem is me.

If how you experience God works for you? All is well. God isn't leading you the way He(/She/They) is leading other people, but that doesn't mean you're on a stray path.

This is very true. Thanks for the reminder. Problem is, I'm not sure it is working. I wonder if I'm too broken even for God to reach me. I know that's not true, in that I know God's love is bigger than any problem I have (even if He doesn't solve the problem). But it seems like the whole point of following God is to be close to Him, to have an intimate relationship with Him, and it seems like the very crux of my problem is an inability to be intimate with anyone on any level. It hurts to be so alone inside.

I never learned as a kid how to be real with anyone, how to trust anyone. There was no one safe enough. I tried to turn to God, but I felt like I was always just pretending that I knew Him. So now, the more I quit all the pretense, the more lost I look to everyone around me, and it makes me question everything I ever thought I knew about God and Christianity and faith. I feel like I've had to sweep away the whole house of cards and start with the very most basic concepts...God exists, God is good, God loves me. And that, for now, is all I know because I find that I can't not believe that, even though I've tried.
 
Some food for thought:

That you don't trust people? Doesn't mean you're not real with them, that you lack honesty, that you lack anything but trust.

Have you thought of the possibility God's actually your shield through all the trust problems?

That He's the safety in hiding, and while may be something else later, right now He's with you in the stage you are? Not somewhere else.
 
Most of the people in my past hid behind Christianity in their excuses for how they treated me. From my grandparents to my ex-husband. Christianity was used to manipulate me more often than not. I no longer believe, but not for a lack of sincere and honest effort s to have faith.
 
That you don't trust people? Doesn't mean you're not real with them, that you lack honesty, that you lack anything but trust.

There's a contradiction here that I haven't quite figured out yet. I don't feel like I'm dishonest with people, and yet, I feel like I'm always masking myself or simply hiding. Like...I'm trying to give them what I think they want, but that isn't what I really am.

I can remember as early as 5 or 6 years old wondering what it would be like to be a "real" person. I always thought of other people as being "real", and I was just a fake person, not really there, not important, not relevant except to the extent that I solved problems for other people. It always felt like (and still does) I'm watching things happen from far away, like through a TV screen.

Have you thought of the possibility God's actually your shield through all the trust problems?

Yes, I can see lots of areas where He has protected/guided/provided. Ever see the movie The Secret Garden? It feels kind of like that...that one level of needs is extravagantly provided for, but relationship...that's what's missing, and that's what really matters.
 
I signed on here just to post about this. I grew up in... strange circumstances. I was born to a poor single working mother, and because my sister regretted the abortion she had gotten a bit before I came into the picture (she was 21 when I was born), she basically raised me while my mom worked.

She was verrry interested in New Age stuff and ended up homeschooling me and getting me into the online pseudo-cult she was a part of. Her best friend ran the site, and dispensed a lot of weird New Age Christian beliefs with some stuff from other religions misinterpreted and brought in. Which was pretty much just inaccurate and weird and not overtly harmful...

until my sister started telling me over and over again that I was an Indigo Child and how it was my destiny to "be the storm that comes before the rain," and cause a revolution on Earth. She took me mildly hallucinating (surprise surprise, I thought it was normal until right before I got institutionalized) as signs that I was clairvoyant or whatever, and not as signs I needed medical attention.

I remember being ten (she had gotten married and unceremoniously dumped me into the public school system. I did badly. That's what comes of teaching a small gifted child about chakras and constellations and plant dyes and not math. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and she pulled me out of school before my end of year exams. She got permission from the school board for me to take them at a different time, citing that it was an educational trip she was taking me on. It wasn't. She took me up the Eastern Coast to Gettysburg to meet the rest of the members of the religion, some of whom had flown in from other countries. She wanted to show them what a "real Indigo Child" was like. I behaved like any over-excited ten year old who was showing signs of mental illness would-- badly. It made her look stupid and she didn't really encourage me participating in the religion much after that.

The whole experience of growing up and being told you have to be a literal messiah also opened the door WIDE open for some... really gory, messed up stuff that happened for almost a decade, starting when I was ten, that is the main reason for my PTSD and the reason I ran away the moment I was of age.

I guess I consider that spiritual abuse. I basically still have a messiah complex (my boyfriend called me out on it last week) from it.
 
I guess I consider that spiritual abuse.

It was.

I basically still have a messiah complex

Think of it this way: Sometimes you just don't know it, but what you're doing in 'little things', saves lives.

That you signed up on the site and posted about your life and what you feel now, may be all someone seeking advice later needs in a time of loneliness, or crisis in their life.

You don't have to be a messiah in any 'other way', just be the person you want to live with.
 
@Cashew

That's extraordinarily kind of you. I don't really talk about the stuff I've been through a lot outside of my few people I'm close to, because a lot of it is very contextual and not generally listed in The Official Lists of What Gives You PTSD.

This is really affirming to hear. I almost cried, TBH! Thank you!
 
nd not generally listed in The Official Lists

That something isn't CritA trauma doesn't mean it wasn't traumatic to you, & requires help still.

I mean if nothing else unprocessed traumatizations make you vulnerable to the future. Wounds just need healing.

& honestly putting your life at risk via neglect and B.S. interpretations of it, as when you were hallucinating? Sounds to me like a pretty big lapse of judgment. The neglect you had to be growing up with is no small deal, and has consequences for health that best get addressed.
 
I'm at a point in my life where deism seems the most appealing. I was raised in a cult. The disconnect you feel I also experienced. To see human flaw covered with the sheep's clothing of religion is like peering into a whole different universe. The divine untapped, so to speak.

I've stopped pursuing religion as I had tried several out and never could get the grasp of it. It got to a point where I was better off just not worrying about it because it seemed no longer to resonate with me at that time. I'm open to it resonating again, it just hasn't happened yet.

There are many different forms of abuse, and a lot of it seems to stem from fear. It detached the parental instinct from my family. I am in no contact with them because of that and other things. Those who have power within can often become drunk with it and use it to get away with things in society. Either by inspiring fear to keep others from talking or by stifling mental growth in other people with emotional abuse.

If one does it enough to a person, the emotional needs of a person will break away and the sheep's clothing is all that remains. It's befuddling. It induced in me a WTF moment that lasted too long, TBH.

LD
 
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