Did A Religious Parent Cause You Harm?

[user27357]

I just posted and re read what I had written. I think I just healed a little here this morning. I am 100% sure that my success and lack of beleif made them angry at me. They never celebrated with us, no graduation gifts for my kids, they never even came to a graduation party. Only religiously motivated birthday cards. No joining in our joy when our kids got married because there was going to be alcohol present. And any time their actions could cause me harm or even just discomfort they took advantage of it, to the point that they were seeking out my coworkers for conversion. I probably just made it worse when I pointed out that they were approaching people that could have a very negative effect on my job and I wanted them to stop before any hard feelings were created. I gave them the tool they thought they needed to break me down for good and save my soul from the lake of fire and they grabbed it with both hands and went to work on a person that was my bosses' bosses' boss at the time. When I begged that they move on, just leave them alone, I saw the glazed over look forming and gave up. I cut contact.

As far as i know, they have failed to bring anyone that I work with into their circle and enough time has passed that I would probably know if any harm was coming my way. No one talks to me about it anymore, the memory of meeting my parents has hopefully faded and the brief contact was probably not a very bad one, they were after all trying to convert them. The top guy that they contacted that I am aware of told me that he thought my parents were very nice people and If he thought otherwise I probably wouldn't know about it at all. It is obvious that they brought me into their conversation with him, no matter how brief or long winded it might have been. They knew who he was, they made sure he knew who they were.

I see it clearly this morning. My parents resented my success in life away from their twisted beliefs. Beliefs so twisted that they thought it was a good idea to endanger my very livelihood in an attempt to bring me to a broken shell they could reprogram. My ability to raise kids that never even got traffic tickets and are moving into professional careers really rankles them. Oh how they wish I had raised a bunch of miscreants that they could have swooped in and saved. I really messed it up for them and their high hopes.

Screw them. SCREW THEM. Merry christmas to me and mine, and to them the hope that they get to realize the culmination of their entire lives lead in total devotion to their church as soon as possible. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

 

[RussH]

@enough I just want to say something about this thread. First I am sorry that you parents presented such a poor view of "religion." I put the word religion in quotes because I have another "R" word I want to bring up. And that word is, Relationship.
I am a Christian and it distresses me how many people will misuse the bible and faith and turn it into some kind of a battering ram or spiritual bat to beat others with.
Christ did not come to establish a religion; he came to develop a relationship between the Father and us. He came as a expression of pure love with the intent of building us up, and not tearing us down.

I am sorry your parents have such a poor understanding of the bible and what Christ represents. I hope you will be able to separate the truth of who Christ is, and what your parents represent as religion.

 

[Jester]

Up front, I'll mention I am a recent convert from Christianity to a sort of "Agnosticism with a side of Seekerism," if that makes sense. I am not certain there is a god, or if we can even know such a thing, but if there is, I want to investigate the entity and see if it's something I want to have any kind of relationship with.

I was raised in a Southern Baptist home. My parents were well-intended folks from Florida and Louisiana (both states are part of a region we call the Bible Belt, known for a high Christian demographic). I was never beaten, though I was occasionally spanked, and occasionally spanked a bit hard. I believed my parents loved me, and I still believe they thought they loved me.

I left the Southern Baptists behind in 2003 because of their focus on the numbers rather than the people. I was traumatized in the church building, and traumatized by church members, but I didn't leave because of those things. In fact, it was only this year (2014) I realized I had been traumatized by the Church at all. I left because I read the Bible, then looked at the actions of the Southern Baptist Convention, and things didn't line up. When I approached church authorities about these discrepancies, I was patronized, then dismissed, then threatened.

Last year, my mother died of cancer. Because of the emotional dissociation I have from PTSD, I didn't really feel anything about her death. I have always felt that way about death: they aren't here. That's it. Move on. I can do that with much more ease than anyone else I know. That dissociation gave me the opportunity to observe others. Most of my family members--extended and otherwise--are Christians of some flavor. Consequently, there was a lot of praying while my Mom was sick.

I asked my Dad, "what if Mom gets better?" He said, "glory be to God." Then I asked, "what if she doesn't get better?" Dad replied, "then we know it was God's will." Suddenly, the "cop out" flag shot sky high for me. I began to examine all the claims Christians made, and the claims the Bible made. I began observing my Christian friends. They have the same troubles as my non-Christian friends. The difference is, my Christian friends pray, and the situations are still a crapshoot. Some of them get better. Some of them get worse.

Additionally, I have seen an epidemic of apathy within Christianity. In April, my Dad kicked me out of the house. I e-mailed several Christian friends, all of whom had previously offered for me to stay with them should I need to. I did not beat around the bush. I told them exactly what was going on. Their response?

"I'll pray for you."

I e-mailed a friend of mine who is a militant atheist. His car was broken down and it was a mile-long hike to his doorstep, but he had a room ready within 30 minutes. He let me stay for a month, until I was able to reconcile things with my Dad. All I have ever gotten from my non-Christian friends is support and understanding. With the exception of three Christian friends I have, all I have ever gotten from the Church is condemnation, guilt, and trauma.

Unfortunately, the Church does not recognize their hatred and hypocrisy for what it is. They say it is righteousness, when it is only a justification for bullying and control. The Bible may be well-intended, but for the 24 years I was a Christian, I saw the Church justify its way out of following the Bible. Are there good Christians? Yeah, there are, just like there are good Muslims, Jews, Pagans, Satanists, and Atheists. People are good, and people are bad. It's what we choose to believe that makes the difference.

Oddly, my therapist--who is a Christian--is the one who encouraged me to do the "soul searching" that led me to my conversion. He has always told me that if something works, keep doing it. If it doesn't work, stop doing it. Christianity wasn't working for me. There may come a time when I have some epiphany and return to the faith. I might be a Muslim a year from now. Who knows? I don't see it as a "try before you buy" buffet, but I see life as a search for truth, wherever it may be found. Truth goes deeper than any religion.

What I'm not interested in right now is anything that looks, smells, feels, tastes, or sounds like the Church. Even seeing someone wearing a cross necklace is a trigger. Hearing a choir. Hearing anything that sounds like Christian music. Anything that reminds me of the church sends me into flashbacks and panic mode. My parents were well-intended and wanted to raise their children (my sister and me) "in the admonition of the Lord." Unfortunately, my Dad resents me for my disability, and my Mom was good at playing the submissive wife.

What followed was a lot of unequal discipline. By his own admission, my Dad was harder on me than he was on my sister because he felt "the real world" was going to be more difficult on me, so he wanted to "toughen me up." What happened was that my peers abused me at school, my peers and elders at church abused me, a family member abused me, and the one safe harbor a little boy should have--the love of his father--was withheld in the name of "tough love." God, that phrase even makes my ears burn.

I've heard Christians talk about their relationship with Christ before, and I know that millions of them are sincere. In fact, there's not a religious person out there who I don't think is sincere about what they believe. Unfortunately for them, what they believe is demonstrated by their actions, not by their words. Talk about love and grace and relationship all you want; if your actions don't line up, then you're full of it. Keep in mind, there are people who talk about love and grace and relationship, and their actions line up. Some folks actually demonstrate the concepts they talk about.

As for the rest, well, to quote one of my favorite TV shows, Firefly:

"Nothin' worse than a monster who thinks he's right with god."

 

[Ellabella44]

I'm not that into church for reasons of my own.
My father who used to beat my mother, was "seen" as a good man, he brought his family to church, and feels that his slate is wiped clean since he is such a good person because he goes and has found religion.

My mother is pretty much same, I dont know how she has her slate wiped clean , having done what was done to her, to me but guess what .. it is. to her.

One of my traumas was made worse by my mother and step fathers feeling that I had to do something to be forgiven for doing what the trauma was. so I was forced to do something that upset me every sunday to "repent for my ways" . ( i wont say what it was here since subject of the thread, but honestly having to do this was pretty much enforced torture by "loving" parents so i could be "right with God" afterwards in their eyes)

Its not whether you go or not, whether you believe or not, how you treat others is what makes you a good person, not whether you show up somewhere to pray. And being a good person shouldnt have to depend on if you have suffered enough for something that is seen as a sin by anyone. I honestly dont want to be part of something that requires having to do that ever again.

i dont know how to categorize my belifs now. I believe in the quiet peace of being at the beach alone... the beauty of the sunrise/sunset there, the vastness of the sea, the roar of the waves, sand under your feet, rain storms there, the smell of the salty water. those things if anything, are for me now , experiencing anything greater than myself.

 

[Zef]

Did the religion contribute to the trauma? For me, very definitely. Every child in the religion would hear that old, 'spare the rod, spoil the child' line at least once a week.

In fact, if a parent weren't using the rod literally, in the sense that any normal household weapon was considered a 'rod' (and we had a damn willow tree in the front lawn. . .and, yep. . .I had to go pick the switch I was to be whipped with. . .that is not just a rural legend from Little House. ;) ), you were considered a very questionable Christian. You could even be pulled aside by the 'elders' and shown scripture to make sure you understood that you were to beat your kids or god would not be happy with you.

Along with the 'rod', there was a far more nasty religious tactic that was used. Every time we did something wrong, parents made very sure that you not only disappointed them, but also disappointed god. . .or made god angry. . .or god was going to let you die because you just weren't good enough to make it into his new world. I can take a beating anytime and smile through the whole thing, but I will always have a hatred for any authority, especially when it is misused. . .it makes supervising me a very very difficult job. :D

I've been lucky enough to have met a few people for whom religion has had a hugely positive effect in their lives. . .I'm thankful for that. It allowed me to hate religion a little less.

 

[Powder]

@enough I agree with what you're looking into about the recruitment aspect of religion, and also the calmness as "dealing with life" cop outs it offers.

Thanks for showing me how your parents used religion to calm themselves into a stupor. I guess I can relate to that as well but didn't see it that way, as my parents actually created and led the churches, and I heard them gossiping and arguing about how to rid "their church" of various challenging individuals. I never got the "calm" side of religion.

I witnessed blatant child abuse at the hands of a man in the church my parents had started. I reported it to my mother, and it was witnessed by the man's whole immediate family and my little sister. My mother listened and said she'd take care of it, but DID NOTHING. Later when I asked her about it, she said there was nothing she can do because he is a church member. My mother really never gave a care about anyone actually, which I realized later. She was all about pretending to care, which is pretty much all I ever saw from 99% of the Christians I met. They, like many people attracted to cults, are all about getting their share of the power or status of being involved with the group. It is a social insurance police. You can really be a jerk and a downright evil person and have these collaborators "cover for you" because their collective reputation is at stake.

I could go on but I'm also aware that many good Christians have had felt they had no choice but to leave a Church or group based on corruption they saw there. I commend them and feel their pain. It is very hard on people to feel betrayed in a religious setting, especially if they turned to that group for comfort from a difficult childhood or parental relationship. Many have been burned in various ways by religion. For me it was sort of indirectly through my parents' involvement and abuse of myself and sibs. I feel that I never had a chance to enjoy or find goodness in my own religion, as it was tainted before it was handed to me.

I often wonder if I had had a happy home with generally loving, and more stable adults to support me in a religious faith, if I would still have seen and been put off by the cover ups going on elsewhere. Likely, I would not have been as bothered or seen the depth of it, and I'd probably still go to church, seeing it as slightly more good than bad, in the balance of things, or seeing it as more of a neutral "given" that some people question, like taking vitamins and getting vaccinated, that your family either believes in or not, with consequences not being noticed in the short run, usually.

Again, I have also seen really good, caring, compassionate dedicated life work done in the church by rare committed individuals. I'd hate to throw the entire thing out because some of them make up for the others. It' s confusing.

Did it add to MY trauma. Yes and No. Yes, because so many hundreds of people have looked up to my parents as wonderful Christians, and still do. I looked around at adoring faces and heard so much goodness about them and don't know how I stood it for all those years. I was trapped, and religion was part of the landscape of my entrapment. It was not part of my sexual or physical abuse, except as a background justification for why I needed to be whipped....and how they behave behind closed doors is more like a serial killer might behave. I don't feel ready to share all the horrors that they visited upon me and my siblings, some too horrible to believe, and others a litany of many small tortures, day after day. I never once saw it as the Church's fault that they behaved this way. I could see how they lied and lied and lied, to everyone. Religion as part of this showed me the naivete of people and how they just accept what they are told and what they think they see. They don't look behind masks, and those who did/do have to keep it to themselves.

No because I was able to meet other families and other adults who were supportive at critical times, even while others were horrible in the church. It was a mixed bag, but I am grateful for every single kindness done to me by every kind person I met, and for me it happened to be within missionaries and church-goers mostly as that is where my parents took me.

Yes, because my 1st church begrudgingly accepted into its fold, a charged pedophile and his pedofilic incestuous adult daughter (age 21) who still lived with him. The devotion of his daughter and his being a "single dad" abandoned by his wife, made some key leaders of the church naively think that he must have been falsely accused. The main pastor smelled a rat from the first. However, as his key 10% contributors and workers wanted to be charitable to this homeless mendicant, the main pastor tolerated his presence, which was a mistake.

This man and his daughter resided with one of the main church families. He and his daughter groomed and molested that families' daughters, and my sister and I, and since other kids who also attended our church and lived close by molested me, I'm sure someone, maybe them, got to them, too. In fact, he's now serving time in his 3rd or 4th stint in prison for child rape. The daughter, as usual, is free and seen as a "victim." Right. Whatever.

So Yes in that because Christians, especially young and naive ones, think forgiveness is so awesome, they exposed the entire church to pedos, letting him team up with his daughter to have total access to their kids with total trust. They wanted to be seen as "good Christians" and many evil people will present themselves as possible new "recruits." And big Converts at that. If one family accepts a set of converts, everyone else is supposed to support and go along with it. My mother said she never believed he was innocent, but she let us go be molested by him over at my friends, and she let me be at my home with my father while she worked as a nurse at night. She obviously had her wits about her but didn't give a damn about her own babies. Bitch that she truly is.

Pastors, relying upon their members 10% for their living, cannot speak out. I am sure that they want to in many cases, as in my 1st church, they see problems that they cannot convince others to take seriously. It is stupid to listen to someone about God's Word but not about a pedo in your midst. But this is the way it is. Church is supposed to be open to Everyone, and God forgives Everyone. It's pathetic.

Therefore, I agree about people wanting to be soothed and cajoled into a stupor. They want to numb out, and yes, can use religion for that minus a hangover.

But I always looked at my parents for what they were, cool, sadistic liars and glorified fakes. I have to learn my own forgivenesses, as the church is not a safe place for me to discuss it. Christianity failed to do anything for any of us kids. It has not changed its ways; it still seems to just look the other way, so I feel the need to reciprocate. I don't blame it, I just don't see it as what it says it is.

 

[Jester]

What gets me is that some Christians, after hearing my story, believe I'm angry at God or that I think Christianity is to blame for the actions of my abusers. I realize that the Christians who abused me were not acting within the confines of their faith, regardless of how they justified their actions. The way they live(d) is/was not an accurate portrayal of the faith. The fact I'm a seeking agnostic is unrelated to my trauma. I'm not angry at God, as I am unsure whether God exists, and so I cannot be mad at him. I think true Christianity is well-intended at best and, at worst, ineffective.

Religion is a lot like a personal goal: some people have a personal goal, and they keep modifying it to accommodate their behavior. Others have a personal goal, and they modify their behavior to accommodate their goal.

 

[user27357]

I think true Christianity is well-intended at best and, at worst, ineffective.

True Christianity may be at worst ineffective as you say, but other forms have proven to be at worst the third Reich or the KKK.

As a member of a religion, it isn't so much what you believe or who you believe with, what matters most in my opinion is your grasp on what I call your moral compass.

When the members of a church follow so willingly that they no longer believe it is even their right, let alone duty, as a human to decide if an action is OK or against humanity, bad things can happen. And that doesn't apply to just Christianity, it applies in business, in government, even in the local neighborhood association. When you fear the reprisals of your chosen peers or the wrath of your leader more than you respect your own feelings about the direction the group is taking, you are sliding down the slippery slope that leads to some of the most horrible acts ever committed on the face of the earth.

My parents only went as far as beating me and trying to convince me I was wrong in every aspect of my faithless existence. I am just glad they weren't pressured into ending my life before I led more people like me astray.

 

[Powder]

I think @enough is right in the way religion begins to contradict itself in ways that are not just illogical but also highly destructive to the entire collective, members and non-members alike. Going back to the early Christian church synods of what to keep in or out of the Bible, in what order, and how it must be interpreted, free will or predetermination was a huge issue in that the scriptures included both ideas.

In order to make recruitment simple, and to get EVERYONE in the Catholic (universal) church, it was decided to lean toward "free will" for everyone, and then try to save them all. If Calvanism had won the argument, then only the select few who were predestined to be Christians would have sought out or someone reached the church, which would have functioned more like a sect or secret society. Instead it wanted to be huge, mainstream, and have power, enough power to control the population and even the monarchies over the known world.

When the members of a church follow so willingly that they no longer believe it is even their right, let alone duty, as a human to decide if an action is OK or against humanity, bad things can happen.

Ironically, according to the church, it is precisely the perspective that all people have free will, coupled with a teaching of hell that they pushed and which was not orthodox in its time, they forced the issue, using fear of hell and brutal pressure tactics to force whole countries to convert.

(I studied Medieval History at the University of Washington, which is where my information comes from.)

A more contemporary view of "free will" would be "if you have it, it's yours to decide" but back then, it was a choice that "needed to be made for you" as most of the population was also kept illiterate and unable to research things for themselves. When I say "free will" I mean emphasize "free" as in freedom. But in the old sense, it was interpreted as "free to go to hell unless I force you for your own good."

Unfortunately, many people are still living as if we are in the 1100s. Your parents sound like they have a medieval mindset, as do all fundamentalists, who have never opened up to current ideologies or developments in thinking. They think the human collective is evolving its thinking but for the worse, not better. There is no way to prove if how human thought is changing is much better or not, overall. If you look at specifics, such as how particular groups are treated, then it's better. If you look at how the planet is treated, then worse overall, but that even is being addressed. It's not so much are we thinking better, as "we have no alternative but to work together" and try to solve our world's problems. People who want to say we're devolving and becoming more sinful and evil, so let's fall back to medieval ways of thinking are acting defeated and are running away in their minds from reality. They are probably borderline having broken from reality and creating their own reality, a terrible one.

This is the virtual reality they create, which is hell to be raised in that children abused in so-called religious homes are suffering. Those children have no free will, as that very notion has been co-opted to use against their personal rights and their mind is made for them. This is nothing less than spiritual abuse. And that's if you even believe in spiritual as a concept; if not, then it's a particular method of emotional-mental abuse, which it totally also is, leading to physical abuse, as they use that to exert power over the child and bully them into their sick virtual reality. It won't work because it was not reality-based nor well-intended, ever!

This is exactly how the so called Christian Reform Boarding School programs oversees work. They don't so much get results as enforce going along with their regime though tactics to break down the mind of the person and pit their peers against them. I haven't read Hunger Games, as I fear it will be too triggering from my experiences with the kids I met trapped in this kind of "school."

The best portrayal of what this is like I read in the famous novel _Jane Eyre_ by Charlotte Bronte. A depiction of how the small girl character, Helen Burns, is killed though the above abuse in a religiously abusive school, was so lovinging depicted by Bronte that it warmed the cold parts of my heart having been in Christian schools and my home, which were terrible and abusive, and how nobody once spoke up for the kids being hurt or lifted a finger, because they "didn't like conflict."

Mr. Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre is a man whose sadism finds a focus in his rule over powerless children, and it is his joy to use Christianity as justification for behaving destructively, finding fault and "pride" everywhere that needs to be "broken." He even cuts Helen's red hair, as red hair is seen as "vanity" that leads to "pride" and poor little Helen, who obviously is not vulnerable to pride, gets her hair lopped off prior to dying of illness.

Anything that makes a person stand out, such as red hair, or just being different, is grounds for assault in religious fringe areas of groups. The "God Hates Gays" T-shirts worn by a youth group in North America were featured in a documentary, as church teens used this to shame out members of the youth group friend circle who they perceived as different and possibly gay. That boy killed himself as a result of the bullying.

In my youth group, white keys were given to the youth who had to promise not to fornicate. If they did, they had to swear they'd give the key back to the leader. Or they could give it back showing intent to break the vow.

One girl, believed to be lesbian due to her short hair & overall appearance and not talking to boys, gave the key back without explanation and left the youth group and church entirely. The kids in the group wondered if she felt that being perhaps aware of her own different, even slightly different, sexuality, she may have found the whole construct devaluing to her identity and realized she'd never be accepted or fit in. While others were struggling to live up to the heterosexual abstinence vows, she may have not felt the group would be able to understand her at all. The white key became, perhaps, for her a symbol of not being allowed. When she left, many of the kids in the group seemed aware of the narrow exclusivity and narrow-minded thinking of our youth group culture that is not welcoming to all children in church-going families. Recently, a Mormon mom, whose son was beginning to discover that he might be gay, ran a publicity campaign to call her church to action to accept that people don't choose to be homosexual, any more than they choose to have red hair, and that they should not be treated as sinners but should be embraced by the church, like her son, so they can be raised in a good atmosphere of family values, religious values, and not be branded or stigmatized. She had some success but said some people's viewpoints are intractable to the message she was sharing.

I saw a lot of abuse and also exclusion abuse. Church is not Equal Opportunity. It should be viewed as any work organization and held to the same standards of treatment of people's rights, or it should be prosecutable. In fact, it should be allowed for children to sue for their own religious freedom.