Church and trauma.
Those are two words that do not belong together, and yet, here we are. The last two and a half years have been a shaking I was not prepared for. I make some mentions of this online, but want to fully explain.
First, I do not believe I need or have to explain myself to anyone in particular. However, being able to speak about it openly is healing.
How did I get here?
This is a question I often ask myself. There are no good answers, or easy ones. I thought I was doing what God wanted me to do....that I was following His lead. It led me to a stream of Christianity I didn't know existed. It provided me with a realness in a relationship with God I had never experienced. I embraced it with everything in me. It changed the entire course of my life. I can't tell, at this point, if it was for the better or not. Maybe it's both.
Fast forward over 25 years later and the entirety of everything I knew about Church, the leaders I submitted under, the people I "followed as they followed Christ" have ALL turned out to be frauds in one way or another. When I say all, that is not an exaggeration. The uncovering of the covering of abuse is astounding. The abuse itself, even more astounding. Abuse ranging from spiritual to physical to sexual. It's all there. And as a young person, I was left unprotected by shepherds who were supposed to protect.
Where is here?
This uncovering brought me to a place where I physically do not feel safe attending a church service. I try to attend a service and my body immediately reacts in one of two ways--panic or dissociation. The only way not to panic is to dissociate. Great. This is fun. Love this for me.
About a week ago, I finally realized the trigger. Institutional betrayal trauma*. I don't know why I had not put those pieces together before. I studied about this type of trauma, researching dozens of peer reviewed research articles on the subject. And yet, I was dissociating myself from even that.
When the realization hit, so did the anger. So did the temptation to rebuke myself for even feeling angry, even though I have reasons to be angry. And anger does not equal unforgiveness or bitterness. Anger is an emotion I was taught to suppress, because it was often equated with unforgiveness or bitterness. I was also taught to deny many of my emotions in general. That was an entirely different kind of crash I navigated through between 2017 and 2019. Don't listen to your gut. Ignore your feelings. Don't talk about them. Don't talk about anything negative. That's gossip. SHHHHHHHH!
The silencing. The stealing of my voice. The theft of my intuition. It's frustrating. All in the name of Jesus. Spiritual abuse couched as Godly wisdom and Biblical principles.
So here I sit. Misunderstood by some. Understood by others who also had this experience. We've become the misfits. We don't want the traditional way, because that no longer feels safe. But non-traditional ways aren't always accepted by the mainstream and are hard to find. Self-isolation isn't always the problem. Church traditions can naturally create the isolation of those who don't fit the mold; those who make others "uncomfortable" with their questions and experiences...with their trauma. When you dare to speak about the "unspeakable," isolation from the mainstream is often a by product.
"Here" is also where two things can be true at the same time. It's the land of both/and, a departure from either/or. The sky can be both blue and cloudy. There can be both good and evil existing in the same place. Not everything, maybe many things, aren't black and white like I was told. Did I experience good things in all those years where there was also abuse taking place, yes. Were both truth and lies being spoken? Yes. I don't like that thought. It's uncomfortable. But, is it also possible? Yes. Sorting it all out is a steep, uphill battle. It's a mountain I never asked to climb.
The trauma of shattered pieces.
My nervous system lived in fight, flight, or freeze mode for a solid seven to eight months. The level of consistent anxiety took a heavy toll. The constant fear of what people would say or what they could do to me. Would I be painted as the betrayer? There was a line in the sand. It had to be drawn. I drew it, but doing the right thing wasn't as easy as everyone thinks.
After the reports were published, injustice continued, accountability skirted once again, the shattered pieces of the world I grew up in surrounded me. And they continue to shatter. All of them. None of them left untouched. The institutions continue on as if the house isn't burning. They blame us for the fire...the one that supposedly doesn't exist.
Which of these shattered pieces are worth putting back together? Maybe none? Where do I start? How do I start? What does it even look like? It becomes a never-ending process of looking for the pieces that won't continue cutting, reopening wounds that haven't had a chance to heal.
When I sit in a church now, my nervous system is constantly scanning. Is THAT a piece that will cut? Maybe it's THAT piece. What about THAT piece over there? Surrounded. Suffocating in the sea of shattered pieces. How do you explain the cuts; the wounds; the injury that takes place to the soul?
Well-meaning believers come with statements that begin, "You JUST have to...", "You JUST need to...", or "You...." All the responsibility on me, none of it on the institution and the ways that it operates to protect abuse. Imbalance is the standard. The scales of justice weighted only to one side. All of this silences, whether intended or not.
The funny thing about trauma is that there is a disconnect between what your logical mind knows and what your nervous system is screaming at you 🚨. While it is true that I am responsible for my reactions, tell that to my traumatized nervous system. Regaining control of the part of my brain that consistently sounds an alarm that danger is near it not as easy as switching a button. If it were, I would have pressed it a long time ago. That's not how trauma works.
Finding my voice.
The journey can be long. Climbing a mountain isn't fast. It is slow, meticulous, and often takes the breath out of you. Some days I'm tired. My spirit is tired. My soul is tired. My body is tired. While I have learned to have more patience with myself, be kind to myself, and be gentle with myself, the same postures are not always easy to find among other believers. I get it. There can be a lack of understanding in this area. A resistance to learning about trauma because it might challenge certain theology. It's messy. It's uncomfortable.
That word again. Uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is part of the process. None of this has been comfortable. I sit with the discomfort. I don't love it. It's like trying to unknot a massive knot in your favorite thin-chained gold necklace. It's one you loved wearing. Knots and tangles created over time and then you're left to "just" figure it out. The process of untangling it is tedious, but you can't wear it again until it's out.
This is the journey. Climbing the mountain to untangle the knots of spiritual abuse, silencing, bad theology from good theology, and betrayal from the people who represented what it meant to follow Jesus. It requires patience, grace, and understanding all the way around. Each step creates the rope that I can hold on to to keep climbing.
Slowly, I work to untangle the knot. It might not be at a pace that makes others happy, or comfortable. But it's the pace I need. Victory in the small steps. It's genuine and authentic. It's honest and raw.
And...it's not silent anymore 📢.
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*Institutional betrayal trauma is a subtype of betrayal trauma theory developed in 1996. It occurs when "an institution responds inadequately to the reporting of abuse. Organizations cause institutional betrayal trauma when they fail to acknowledge the significance of the abuse and the need for the victim's safety and support. Often, these organizations protect and defend the abuser or their intentions and assign blame to the victim."
Source: Green Cross Academy of Traumatology - Adult Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Institutional Betrayal Trauma by Sandra Moncrief-Stuart and David K. Pooler from the School of Social Work, Tulane University and the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work, Baylor University respectively.
