Spiritual Abuse Survivor Blogs Network

When it became clear last year that my mother was on her final decline and only had a few months to live, I began to attempt to exorcise the anger I had harbored for decades. I began writing a book to myself about my upbringing and may begin a blog and post what I’ve written. I have struggled with depression since adolescence (I’m now almost 60) and have occasionally sunk so deep that I have contemplated suicide. Twice I was pulled back from slitting my wrists by the more sensible part of my brain and realized that I needed psychological help. Twice I have sought that help and managed to get my head screwed back on straight. The last time, I began some really hard introspection to try to find the root of my various demons. Most of them uncovered the same source — my mother. I realized that since my earliest memories she had emotionally abused me, leaving me with extremely low self-esteem, a self-image of being fat, ugly, stupid and useless, and never, ever, ever living up to her expectations of what I was supposed to be. I’m frankly amazed that I’m not on drugs, in a looney bin, or in the graveyard by now. My salvation lies in the fact that I’m extremely smart, intellectually, and that I’m also strong and stubborn as a Missouri mule. No matter how many times she figuratively knocked me down, I would get right back up in defiance and show her that she couldn’t defeat me. Of course, that meant that I had a bad attitude in her eyes and was not properly “respecting” her. I doubt the thought never crossed her mind that she was disrepecting ME. I’ll write some more later, because I’m so glad to have found this site! I hope I don’t bore you all.

My mother was pretty much a religious fanatic. She raised me with the viewpoint that everything was a sin and I was guilty of commiting all of them. She never trusted me, although I truly never gave her any cause to do so. I was a good kid, a good student, faithful in church, and tried to please her. Yeah, I was hard-headed and a bit rebellious (still am), but no more so than any other kid. We didn’t have an especially patriarchal family because my dad pretty much ignored my brother and me. He was very passive-aggressive and if Mom tried to start a fight, he’d just walk out. I don’t mean he’d leave her, but he’d walk out the door, get in his truck and drive off for several hours. She took her anger out on me, but that’s another post altogether. This one is meant to be about spiritual abuse. Mom’s primary solution to everything was church. She took my brother and me to church everytime the door was open — Sunday morning and evening worship services, Sunday school, Sunday evening bible study, Wednesday night prayer meeting, every revival that came along, even though they were held on school nights. I was in children’s choir and later adult choir. I attended GA’s (Girl’s Auxiliary, the Southern Baptist missionary training for girls). I was made to attend Vacation Bible School until I was 12, when all my peers stopped at 7 or 8. My mom seemed to feel that the more church, the less I would be affected by the sin all around me. If I was “bad”, one of her standard threats was to “take me to talk to the preacher”, with the threat of eternal damnation hanging over my head. I don’t recall that it was ever carried through, but it was always there. Another of her primary control tactics was that I was not allowed to interact with my peers outside of school or church. This was because all the other kids were BAD, meaning that they didn’t measure up to her stringent standards of Christian perfection. Being Baptists, dancing was one of the most heinous sins there was, thus I was not allowed to attend any parties outside of church fellowship, the occasional exception being a children’s birthday party. I can remember attending exactly one boy-girl party in high school and I left early because I was so uncomfortable. There was no drinking, drugs, dancing, smoking, etc. It was just kids in my high school class yakking, drinking Cokes and listening to music, but I didn’t know how to interact socially with them, even though I’d known many of them since we were all 6 years old. (Small town, small school.) And that’s the lasting legacy from all that religious isolation that irks me the most. I am now almost 60 and I still am incredibly awkward and uncomfortable in social situations. I never learned to be around people doing things that my mother drummed into me was BAD. The annual office Christmas party is torture for me. Emotional and spiritual abuse is damaging one’s interaction with others to the point that the victim becomes dysfunctional in normal social situations. I hate my mother for that, even though she thought she was protecting me from the world and keeping me pure. I’ve made certain NOT to raise my daughter the same way!

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