Saturday, January 9, 2021

Recovering from Spiritual Abuse - Part 4: Depression, Reflection, Loneliness


Hi all, welcome back after the Christmas break :) Today's topic is a hard one for sure, and is probably why it was so long in coming. I think it will be hard to separate externally-forced stage 4 grief from internally-forced stage 4 grief, but I will try. I think in handling personal grief, such as the loss of a loved one, there is a sadness once the loss is truly recognized. When leaving an abusive church, I'm sure there is that, too, but also, there is the sense of active abandonment. There is a distance with people like Chris who would not share the same fellowship with me now compared to the past, especially knowing my journey.

So, the external grief is very hard - there are people I saw week after week, invited over for dinner and was invited over regularly. There was a shared sense of purpose, of friendship, and even though we perhaps had similar views of the failings of the church, when I left, there was a rift. When I look back at the fun at conferences and church picnics and all of the fellowship common to RPs, it's hard not to feel left out and abandoned. When I left it was a very clear choice - I could stuff myself into the RP mold for me so that my family and I could have the RP experience, which was mostly good for the others in my family, or I could follow God without compromise and accept the consequences. There have been a lot of consequences - mainly bad from RP-land and mainly good from non-RP-land.

Internally is somewhat different, and I can't really say which stage I'm in - it seems to change from day to day. Much of the depression comes from being between a rock and a hard place with family and church. For both, there was fellowship and fun times and a sense of belonging, but at a cost of knowing and accepting my place. The places where I was supposed to be accepted offered that acceptance at a price too high to pay - shame and silence.

There is also a related self-shame spiral. I was as legalistic and hate-filled as any RP towards those who compromised truth for comfort. I thought of the people who left the church as weak and inferior, because I believed the RP church was the most pure. Even if I could try to right that, what would the response be? How do you apologize for something you never said or did, but felt in your heart? It seems the best I can do is promise to do better with my new-found freedom. But, even with freedom, there is conflict - what if following that freedom puts me in direct opposition to the born-and-raised RP position on exclusive psalmody and a capella singing?

Isolation has become a struggle because I don't feel like I can invite anyone into my processing of grief. On one hand, it would be good to have some help with the load I carry, on the other hand, if I show anyone the load, I doubt they would want to help carry. I think that is why online spiritual abuse groups have become a lifeline for so many, even if they cannot share things in person, they can still hear and commiserate.

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