Follow up to surviving spiritual abuse
Lessons Learned
The response to my post on surviving spiritual abuse was overwhelming. I was privately contacted afterwards by so many people. Some had been hurt by our church but many were reaching out to show support and love. I knew I was going to have to acknowledge and follow up on that post at some point. It seemed helpful to maybe delve deeper into some of the lessons I learned walking through that painful time.
I am not a doctor or therapist, I am the patient in this story. I can only write from my experience and I know full well that my path, timeline and lessons may not be the lessons someone else will learn.
If you are in an abusive situation or relationship you need to leave. I can't stress this enough. No one has the right to manipulate, control and abuse you. I recognize this is easier said than done but no real healing can take place until this happens.
It's not your fault. The abuse was not your fault. You are not responsible for the abusers actions, feelings or insecurities, they are. Just because it isn't physical abuse does not make it less harmful. In fact emotional and mental abuse can be a very difficult thing to recover from. If you feel condemned into staying because leaving is “not Christlike or loving” you are affirming the abuse. No one deserves trust or relationship. We all have to earn that. You can forgive but you need to leave.
Give yourself time to heal. You are not on a time crunch. It takes time to fully see the cause and effects in our lives from loss or abuse. Everyone is different.
You are hurt and it's important to realize that your perceptions toward others may be wrong or exaggerated. This is normal and okay in my not professional opinion but I believe it is important to be self aware during the period of healing. Again no pressure to be right about the world, other people or God. As you get whole(and you will) some perceptions will get corrected and others will still be out of balance. God has a path for you to be completely whole, but you are going to have to trust and obey Him.
You will have to choose to get well. It is unfortunately up to you and you alone whether you walk towards healing. Refusing to bury or gloss over the pain is also a choice. Time does not heal all wounds in my experience, God does.
Find a mature and trusted person(s) to talk to about the abuse. I was incredibly blessed to have a senior pastor of the Church we attended after we left our old one who agreed to meet with me. That was seven years ago and we are good friends to this day. He and his wife were patient and kind to Andrea and I and listened to all we were willing to say. It felt so good to have a father in the Lord affirm who we were, and assure us we were not crazy. For many years we would meet for lunch on a monthly basis. I would not be where I am today without him. God brought along other wonderful trustworthy friends and each one of them has been a piece of healing and restoration in our lives.
One of the lies of an abusive church situation is that if you talk about the abuse you are gossiping. This is a lie and is meant to silence the mouths of the witnesses. Opening up and talking about the details of what was said or done is healthy and part of the process. The devil works in secret, and ironically so do abusers. Nothing bad comes of exposure only good and it helps to process and to heal.
Choose to use the pain of the abuse or loss to grow. Pain is a great motivator. Pain gets us to do things we normally wouldn't do. Things that maybe we should have done a long time ago. Choose to let the pain help you in making good long term changes.
Do not let go of your relationship with God. There really is no way that our relationship with God isn't affected negatively at first by abuse. It's okay and even okay to be mad at God, for a time. Remember He is the only one that can truly bind the wounds and heal your heart. He was misused and abused as well and in a far more extreme way than we will ever experience.
Avoid bitterness and self pity at all costs. Someone else has had or is having a worse time than you. Your story may be painful especially to you but there are signs of God's grace if you look for them. If nothing else you are alive and have the choice to start again. I remember a time, shortly after we had moved into our temporary home away from our abusers. God brought to my mind the line spoken by Matthew McConaughey in the movie We are Marshall. The football team, coaching staff and 25 boosters had been killed in a terrible plane crash and Matthew played coach Jack Lengyel who was hired with the unenviable task to rebuild. It was a very trying time for the college and community as well as the few surviving team members not on that flight. Eventually they came to a dedication of a memorial to all those that had been lost before their first game. They paid their respects and mourned once again before coach turns to them and says” the funerals stop now”. At some point our funeral has to stop and we have to choose life.
When we are hurt it is natural to be self focused. It's no different in my mind than when we are physically hurt. We grab the part of the body that is wounded and do whatever we can to stop the bleeding and the pain. For awhile even afterwards it is a focus of ours but eventually as we heal it becomes less and less of a focus until we don't think about it at all. If it's a bad wound we will have scars to remember but the pain is gone.
Pain and sorrow are unfortunately a part of this fallen world we live in. You will have things and people that will hurt you. My prayer for you is that you will choose to take God's hand and rise above them. To use them as stepping stones for growth and wholeness to help others. That you can let go of the baggage you need to let go of and push for the new and abundant life that is just around the bend.
