Tuesday, August 30, 2011

"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.




29 comments:

  1. Have I told you you're awesome lately, Lewis? ;)

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  2. Saying those kind 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.

    I disagree. A lack of sympathy doesn't necessarily imply a lack of empathy. You shouldn't discount others' ability to "move on," just because you can't. To be honest, I really wish I was able to stop dwelling on the past because doing so is preventing me from being productive.

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  3. You shouldn't discount others' ability to "move on," just because you can't.

    Those making these statements don't understand the issues they're making statements about. That's what disqualifies their opinion.

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  4. @Jenny...Maybe a better way for me to put it is this...

    Some of the people I've seen these statements from recently see the problems the spiritually abused have as just a sort of disagreement over a doctrine - rather than recognizing the doctrines themselves as the toxin. Their focus is on the disagreement, which is why they can suggest just washing one's hands of the situation and moving on.

    Darcy can attest to one such exchange that she I and both were involved in just yesterday. The person in question had NO understanding of the experiences of the people involved, and just kept sticking her foot deeper in her mouth, and saying more discouraging and diminishing things to hurting people, every time she commented.

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  5. Well, you might be entirely correct about your experiences, and regardless, there's no excuse for her being so rude about it. However, I have been on both sides of the unfair assumption that not agreeing means not understanding. Because of how emotionally-charged conversations on this subject can be, it's not entirely clear to me that anything said on either side would be coherent and rational. :/

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  6. How can you move on from something that's still happening? Every day people are hurt by things like this. I don't think someone blogging about (and arguing against) child slavery, having once been a child slave, would be told "just move on."

    I have been out for two years and not had contact with half of my siblings for all of that time. It's going to take me a long, long time to be able to move past that. In fact, I don't think I can. Especially while it's still current - I still have to face that rejection every day, and I miss them all the time.

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  7. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder last year after a very traumatic childhood and marriage. I have had symptoms of ptsd since I was a teenager 40 years ago and the diagnosis was really a label for what I have always known about myself. For so long, I have been ashamed of myself for not being normal and I tried very hard to pretend to be normal. I would watch and observe people very carefully so I could learn what "normal" is and give a "normal" response to various situations.

    If I did dare to share something of myself, I would get the "you should move on" response which was very hurtful because I was in fact trying very hard to move on. Now I have a much stronger sense of self-worth and I realize that I do not have to prove I am normal or that I have "moved on". I am coping with my experiences as best as I can and at my own pace. Tough luck and too bad to those people who are not happy with my healing process.

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  8. "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."

    To use some Christianese:

    AMEN BROTHER LEWIS!!!

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  9. Speaking up is part of moving on, I think. Like you said, Lewis, this is not all about us. My writing against William Branham is not just my chance to complain about what happened to me. It's my chance to let other people coming after me know that they are understood. It's to comfort people who have that nagging feeling that there's something wrong and yet they feel crazy because they seem to be alone. It's about warning people who are enticed by fundamentalism that it's what it appears to be. Those are all acts of service, not selfishness. Telling our stories just happens to be the most effective, most personal and most real ways of helping others. Nobody needs another preacher telling them how things are; they need to hear other life experiences.

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  10. For some people, the admonishment to "move on" is a cliche like other equally annoying phrases like "take one day at a time". These people mean well and do not realize that their thoughtlessness can be very hurtful.

    Other people can be very harsh and judgemental with this phrase. Their admonishment to "move on" is intended to be a criticism of an abuse victim. What they mean is that they are not satisified with how an abuse victim is healing. They think the victim should be healing faster or is making too much of it.

    It is very hard to distinguish people's motives when they use this phrase, so I prefer to just not say anything about myself at all. I am polite and friendly but wary and wait until I know a person better before revealing anything at all of myself. Even innocous comments about not having much family contact can be enough to trigger harsh judgement among Christians who believe familiness is equal to Godliness.

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  11. >> If you think spiritual and emotional recovery is a formula... 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. <<

    Bookmarking. Well said.

    >> the ideas themselves - patriarchy, human authority structures, courtship, quiverfull, et cetera - ARE the toxins, ARE the spiritual abuse.... It's ALL bad. It has no merit. Throw it out.... ALL of them are legalistic. ALL of them are spiritually abusive. ALL of them are oppressive. <<

    Sometimes we hear people say "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water". The truth is... sometimes that 'baby' is really just a zombie who is wearing the carcass of its latest victim. Assume anything abusive has nothing good and rebuild from scratch. Better to scorch the earth and start over than to deal with infection from an enemy who left behind landmines.

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  12. "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."

    It's what I am slowly learning to do - being quiet and listening to the voices of the abused. It's not always easy, but I am slowly realizing that this is necessary.

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  13. @ Jenny,
    I was also frustrated with my lack of productiveness, but this was because my body and mind was telling me put all my energies to healing from the abuse. A large part of my healing process was reading blogs like this one. I liken the healing process to having a deep injury and wanting to get mobile again but your physical body says "no, I need to heal this before you can start with any activities". I am a mother of nine children and was only briefly involved in the VF scene. It took me over a year to get some degree of concentration back to my normal life. My advice is to listen to your body and soul so that you can move forward in life as a healed person- not a crippled one. My two cents.

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  14. Lewis
    I came across your site from the Quivering Daughters blog. I have been lurking for a few months now. I myself, did not grow up in this kind of environment but my husband did. He comes from a divorced family and his mother got into this whole movement for many, many years. The odd thing about it is that his mom took on the "head of the household" role and tried so hard to break my husband and I up while we were dating. Her abuse has totally turned my husband off to anything to do with God (not that this is your situation). I find your blog very helpful as I was the outsider in all the madness as well.

    I do have to say that I completely understand the need to heal in our own times. This is totally off subject, but my husband and I have 3 children and we lost 2 children to miscarriage. The last miscarriage was 3 yrs ago and I've since had another child but I still think about the babies I lost all the time. People always say to me "It's been X amount of years why do you still talk about it. Get over it." There are some things you don't just move on and get over. That experience will forever be part of my life. I never knew what a big impact that they would have on my life, and how many people have been helped because I have been through it. I still tell people and recounting the loss still brings up the pain. In fact I just spoke about it to a woman this week. Are the thoughts there every day? No. Has time made it easier? Yes. But the fact is this is now part of who I am. What good would it do me to shut up and never talk about it. God has used me so much in helping others through their own loss and I refuse to shut up and "get over it". It's made me who I am today and if my story brings hope and comfort to one person then the pain had a purpose.

    Like I said, I know that it's not the same situation exactly but I do know the feeling. I encourage to keep on talking and sharing as long as you live. And if people have a problem with that, well then, that's their problem.

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  15. I experienced spiritual abuse teaching in a an "interdenominational" Christian school. They beat me down so much that I thought I couldn't leave because no one else would hire such a bad person and bad teacher. They destroyed my faith and it took eight years to find my way back to God. They ruined my ability to work normally with others or relate in a healthy way to authority figures in the workplace. They stole six years of my life in which I didn't have normal friendships or relationships.

    And when I was still recovering, a friend who knew the place well, chose to not go with "move on" or that yadayada BS...she hit it much harder. She preached at me that I was bitter and that bitterness was a sin and that if I didn't get over it God would punish me. It was like the abuse was starting over again.

    People don't get it. She wanted to hold on to her faith in the doctrine that the school espoused and to do so, she had to pretend that they meant well and that there was something wrong with how I responded to them.

    You can't just pack up the scars of spiritual abuse and go on. It's just not possible. And it isn't born of bitterness. It is born of being truly damaged by people you trusted.

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  16. Oh, that accusation of bitterness! It is so painful, and yet so predictable.


    Accusing hurting, angry people of bitterness is easy. It's just another way of saying, "nuh-uh, YOU'RE the problem!". It's so mean, and yet so many people indulge in it.

    I think it's because the accusers feel threatened by the truth the wounded person is telling. They have an investment in that power structure personally, and if the wounded person turns out to be telling the truth, they have been investing in the wrong place. That's embarrassing to admit; better shame that wounded person and shut them up quick. Calling the bitter is the quickest way to end the conversation.

    Do they care that they have wounded you further? Probably not. The fear they feel at having their foundations threatened trumps their concern for your heart, if they ever had any.

    The only other reason people accuse the wounded of bitterness is this: they will admit to the abuse, but they have decided to excuse it and stay in it for whatever reason. They don't really want you to remind them of their plight, nor do they want you to escape. They just want you to shut up and pretend with them.

    No one- no one- is qualified to diagnose "a root of bitterness" in another person, except the Spirit himself. He is the Good Shepherd, and we can all trust him to take care of his own.

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  17. I wonder if anyone would have dared to say "you need to just let it go and move on" to John Walsh (for example). The murder of his son Adam has permanently changed him. He started a non-profit dedicated to legislative reform to help protect victims, which led to the "Missing Children Act of 1982". He is also well-known for being the host of the long-running TV show, "America's Most Wanted." He serves on the board of directors for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. As far as I know, no one is telling him that he needs to move on. He still suffers the pain of his loss, I'm sure. But in a way he is moving on, moving on by helping other parents so that they don't experience the pain he has experienced, by helping other children and saving them from a similar fate to what his son suffered.

    I think with your blog you are doing much the same thing. You are trying to help others in your situation, and you are trying to show others your personal experiences (experiences that you are not alone in) with patriarchy/QF. Yes, moving on is good. We can't be in a constant pity party for ourselves (I don't think this is true of you!).

    But I think some people don't realize that maybe in a way you are moving on by writing, by trying to help other people. Empathy is powerful. I'm sure there have been a number of people in a situation similar to yours who have been helped by this blog, whose hearts are a little lighter knowing someone else understands their pain, someone else truly knows what they have been through. Andi in the comments said: "God has used me so much in helping others through their own loss and I refuse to shut up and 'get over it'. It's made me who I am today and if my story brings hope and comfort to one person then the pain had a purpose." I agree.

    Keep up the good work, Lewis!

    -JS

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  18. "You can't just pack up the scars of spiritual abuse and go on. It's just not possible. And it isn't born of bitterness. It is born of being truly damaged by people you trusted." -- One of the BEST statements on this topic that I've ever heard, AmieLou!

    What folks who say things like "let it go and move on" don't understand, is: we can't let it go. Or perhaps it's better that I speak for myself, I can't just let it go. It's like a rattlesnake that has sunk its fangs so deep into me, that I can't shake it off. If I could, I really would.

    "You just need to forgive" and "if you don't forgive, then it's YOU who are in trouble w/God" -- also two of my "favorites". Phrases that tend to be spoken by people who've never had anything really bad happen to them in a church or at the hands of a religious leader that they trusted. You know, the types that have had the good fortune to get saved in really good churches. The worst thing that's ever happened to them is that someone sat in their pew.

    Thank you for posting this piece, Lewis, and thanks for your blog in general. My backround isn't precisely P/QF, but the spiritual blackmail & the deception & the resulting damage are amazingly similiar.

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  19. Of course they want you to move on ....because if you do, you won't be ministering to people hurt by these false teachers.

    It is like Satan say, Oh surely God did not mean....

    You have seen and experienced the evil done in His Name. You have a duty to warn and minister to others.

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  20. Our experience wasn't with PFQ, though we have run into them via homeschooling. Our's involved esoteric Christianity, and centered on our children. When we left, we had no friends and our children's friends treated them as though they did not exist. Several families followed us away from the movement, into another situation, and the shunning continued.

    It hurt to see what happened to our children, and they never fully recovered from it. It hurt to know that we were responsible, unknowingly so, but still responsible.

    I participated in a support group for a while. It was painful to be labeled "bitter" and " one who throws the baby out..." I was the defective one and needed to "purify my heart".

    Meeting PQF families was a trigger that brought a lot of it back--something about they way they dressed/acted made my skin crawl. Also there was something about their children that made me think abuse or "damaged little zombies".

    I found this blog looking for information about what I had bumped into and why it caused such a reaction in me. Not quite the same, but too similar for comfort.

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  21. When I was going through recovery as an adult child of alcoholics, I learned that this is one of the main characteristics of dysfunction: the hidden rule, "Don't talk. Don't tell. Sweep it under the carpet. Pretend it's not there."

    And the cure is this: "Talk about it. Tell what needs to be told. Pull it out from under the carpet. Allow no more excuses for pretending it isn't there."

    I am certain that at least some of the motivations behind "just move on" come from that dysfunctional mentality. The answer to "just move on" is, "I AM moving on. This is how I am doing it. Talking about it is part of the cure-- not just for me, but for the dysfunction itself, as it exists in our world."

    John 3:20 says, "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." Those of us who are coming out of dysfunction are coming into the light-- and the deeds of dysfunction are being exposed. This is the best thing that could happen, both for us and for everyone still in the darkness.

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  22. Gold stars for Kristen!

    (I went through ACoA too! At the time, they included religion as something that could also be an addiction- and I did not get that at the time at all. Oh, how clear it is now!)

    That's it: the three unspoken rules of dysfunction: Don't feel, Don't trust, Don't tell.

    Thanks for trusting us with your feelings, Lewis, and telling the world about what you experienced! No doubt it is very inspiring for those struggling to break out of dysfunction, and very unsettling for those contributing to it. n_n

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  23. I hope everyone is reading through the comments on this post.

    The comments you guys have made are incredibly sharp, introspective, educational, and about a million other positive adjectives.

    You guys rock.

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  24. Duly noted: http://www.nakedpastor.com/2011/06/18/bad-samaritan/

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  25. Hello Lewis, I just came across your blog recently. It is such a relief to see a MAN stepping out of his comfort zone to say that these things are wrong, that spiritual abuse DOES indeed exist. Thank you for caring enough for others by taking the time to share your story and blog about these issues. Thank you so much.

    I feel so much pain and I sometimes wonder if it will ever stop hurting. I wish I could find a safe place to talk about this and find help to heal. I'm so discouraged by pastors who don't understand or who merely brush you off like another customer after you 20 min. session. They don't understand the searing pain one feels. If only they knew.

    It's so scary to talk about these things, sometimes, you know? Probably the only reason I wrote this is because I have the option of being anonymous. I wonder how many anonymous people are out there who wish they could find the courage to speak about the abuse they lived. God help us.

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  26. dear anonymous, i don't know your situation & am truly sorry for what you have had to live through. i can relate with your pain and needing a release. i can assure you that Lewis is safe and this is a place you can find refuge. i am also going through a painful spiritual abusive situation and ppl like lewis really do care and is the real deal. thank you Lewis for your heart! i <3 you!!!

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  27. Amen Lewis! Very, very well said!

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