"You need to just let it go and move on with your life."

Thanks, Dr. Phil. [SA]


The things I've heard said, whether spoken directly to me, to other spiritual abuse writers, or to spiritual abuse survivors, in opposition to the sharing of my/our experiences are pretty fascinating. Quite often ignorant, but fascinating. I can usually get a pretty good grasp on where people are - in their belief system, their personal processes, their own recovery from whatever they're recovering from - from what they have to say about all of this.


A while back, on the Water Cooler, I addressed the common refrain of "You need to be more gracious". When I hear that, I generally know that I'm hearing from people attempting to straddle the fence between spiritual health and legalism. I'm reminded of Lot's wife, having left Sodom, but continually looking over her shoulder at it, desperately missing the comforts she left. I translated "You need to be more gracious" as follows...


"Yes, what you're speaking out against is wrong, but part of me still has an attachment to and affinity for it - so please stop."


I follow issues of spiritual abuse in other online communities, too, always hoping, as an outsider severely wounded by patriarchal/QF/courtship idiocy, to learn more about the mechanisms inside the movements from people who've been inside the movements. Many of them, just like many of you who've written to and reached out to me here, have had their lives pulled out from under their feet by these ideas and teachings - some of them essentially orphaned, without having been equipped to deal with the world outside of the cultic environs they were raised in (but coping beautifully, growing through their hardships - I heart you guys immensely).


One thing I see there occasionally is something I've dealt with here, too - the idea that I (and others who've suffered trauma from spiritual abusers) need to just "move on with life", "put all of that behind you", "stop reopening and rehashing old wounds", "close the wound and let it heal", "stop dwelling on it", and my favorite, {CLA} "quit bitching, pissing, and moaning about it." Specifically for those who pull out that last little ditty, a word directly from me..."Listen up, you selfish dumbass..." (I think you can see that it makes me more than a little angry)


Saying those kinds of things tells me a few things about you. For starters, you've no understanding of the damage spiritual and emotional abuse does to some people. Heck, the majority of the people I see those kind of comments from usually qualify their opinions with something like "My family didn't experience anything nearly as bad as most of you when we were in Gothard/Vision Forum/whatever group" or "My family didn't get as deeply involved in Gothard/VF/whatever group as some of you". Ok then. So shut up about it, because you just disqualified yourself from offering an educated opinion on the abuse the people you're talking to have suffered. Shut up before you thoroughly prove yourself ignorant. Most of all, shut up before you, in your ignorance, diminish the pain and healing process of others.


Most of those who've said those kinds of things to me here have been very well-meaning. I addressed the idea of me, personally, "moving on", in the New Reader's Guide...


For those who think I need to just "move past" all of this...No thanks. I'd rather it "move with" me as I "move on". Other people can benefit from what happened to me, what I've learned from it, and what I'm still learning from it - and hopefully, from the passion it created.


Contrary to the opinion of some, there are actually moments that go by where I don't think about what my former future in-laws (and the religious snakes in their world) did to me, about my own personal loss, et cetera. Sometimes I even go for a couple of hours without thinking about any of it! How crazy is that?! [SA]


If P/QF and fundamentalism is still around hurting people 5 years from now, and by that time I'm generally healed (or at least scarred over) from the wounding and accompanying pain I experienced from it, does my own healing give me license to say, "Well, I'm all better, so, so long, suckers!", or should I continue to share my story in brutally raw, emotional, graphic detail if it can benefit others and I'm compelled to do so? Think about it people. Yes, the brutality of the raw emotion I write with sometimes triggers discomfort - and sometimes puts me in a rut for a day or two after writing - but where's the line between selfishness and selflessness regarding my experience and my own healing process? There's more to a healthy, fulfilled life than seeking my own comfort. Not quite so black and white, is it?


To continue writing here, and to continue trying to help others through what I've experienced, means some of the pain will always have to remain a bit fresh, some of the hurt will always need to be near the surface, and that's a reality I've accepted. I try not to think of just my own healing and grieving process, but of the big picture, too. I can't imagine not writing from passion, and I don't want to, I've counted the cost, and I've made my choices. This doesn't mean I'm not healing, that I'm constantly dwelling on the past, or that all of this consumes my life (although at times it is demanding). Surprise, surprise, but there's more to who I am than Commandments of Men or what my experience did to me.






When I see the "you need to just suck it up and move on" stuff in these other communities, it's generally coming from people who don't understand the mechanisms of spiritual abuse and speak from total ignorance. For instance, they probably believe that things like patriarchy and human authority structure teachings, courtship, quiverfull, et cetera, have merit if you don't throw the, err...(just read here) and just separate the bad things in the way Gothard, VF, Botkin, Baucham, et cetera teach those ideas from the positive merits of the ideas. What they fail to understand is that the ideas themselves - patriarchy, human authority structures, courtship, quiverfull, et cetera - ARE the toxins, ARE the spiritual abuse. Doesn't matter if it's Gothard teaching it or Batman teaching it. It's ALL bad. It has no merit. Throw it out. Regarding issues of faith, external solutions to internal issues are all bad. ALL of them are legalistic. ALL of them are spiritually abusive. ALL of them are oppressive.


Usually, these people haven't made this distinction (for whatever reason). This is why their observations on issues of spiritual abuse come across as ignorant, callous, and downright cold. If you think courtship, for instance, has positive merits, how in an Arctic hell are you ever gonna be able to have empathy for a young woman orphaned from everyone and everything she's ever known because she DID see courtship for the superficial religious stupidity it is? If you don't understand the wound, rather than offering your own ignorant observation on how the person suffering from it should dress it, treat it, and heal from it, be quiet so that maybe you can learn something about it.


An even better question - If you can't distinguish spiritually abusive ideas (but only focus on the teacher of the idea), why are you joining a group for people in various stages of recovery from spiritual abuse? What the...?!  Crazy idea here, but why don't you hold off on joining - or participating - until you either A) understand what spiritual abuse is, or B) understand the depth of experiences and healing processes of others in the group?


If you think spiritual and emotional recovery is a formula, essentially a spiritual or emotional mask of certain feigned attitudes and empty behaviors - "put the past behind you", "move forward", "be positive", yadda yadda - you still haven't moved beyond the formulaic lifestyles and mindsets of the groups you think you're "out" of.


Healing is a process. Not a mask.