Category: Childhood

Childhood

Little Debbie

Deb M

Every year I choose a word of the year. Pleasure is my word for 2021. Pleasure is the hardest word I have ever tried to embrace. It is rare for me to feel pleasure or even remember a time when I did. This is all because I dissociate so much. I never realized just how much of my time I spend being disconnected from everyone and everything around me, even myself. Therapy has helped me to become more aware of how often I disconnect. Dissociating is something I learned in childhood and it served/serves as a protection mechanism. My therapist gave me a red ball to use as a tool to help me stay present. I am suppose to keep it with me and within eye sight to help remind me to be in my life instead floating somewhere above it all.

All this dissociating makes it very hard to identify pleasure or even think about how to feel it. When eating the other day I unexpectedly felt pleasure and this made me wonder if engaging with my child self might be the key to unlocking pleasure. You see the food I was eating was a food I loved as a child, comfort food. In that moment I felt pleasure and I felt present. I started to wonder what other child self related activities might unlock the door.

When I was a little girl I was alone a lot. My mom always made sure there were craft supplies around so I would have something to do. During winter break when I was home alone I decided to build a manger scene complete with animals. I was around 7 or so. I used popscicle sticks and glue to create my work of art. I built a fence, I don’t know why, and filled the yard with little stick animals. Of course there was the baby Jesus and his parents. This project took up a lot of space but my mom let me keep it and play with it for a long time. When I think of working on that project it brings a smile to me face. I find pleasure in creating art and I have since I was a very little girl.

Thinking about this time inspired me to play with some craft sticks. I decided to build a fairy house. I think they are so cute and I know little Debbie would have loved this project.

No, this is not beautiful yet but I’ve had so much fun doing it. I felt pleasure collecting the sticks and other supplies. I was disappointed when I had to stop because I ran out of glue. I think building these could become an obsession! This one is a work in progress and maybe I will share the finished project with you if it isn’t too weird looking. Little Debbie would not have cared how it looked, she knew instinctively that the pleasure comes in the process not the end product.

Making these and other works of art is my way of trying to be present in my life. I’m kinistetic by nature and so working with my hands is always preferred. I’m done with EMDR therapy for now. I may go back for maintance if something comes up that needs attention. I’ve made huge progress towards healing the wounds of my past. One important thing that I have learned is the key to my happiness is found through figuring out who I am without the trauma. So much of my young life was all about surviving and coping with unimaginable stress. When you’re living like that it can be hard to know who you are or what you want. You’re too busy just trying to survive the day.

I feel like I have rambled a lot in this post, sigh. If anyone out there is struggling with dissociation or just trying to be present in their daily life, please do not hesitate to ask for help. Go see a therapist or just message me and I will do all I can to help. When you float above it all you miss out on so much, I know I have. Find safe people and allow yourself to be in your body and present.

C-PTSD, Calvary Gospel Church, Childhood, Compassion, Pastor John Grant, Poverty, Sexual Abuse, Trauma, United Pentecostal Church

The High Price Of Turning A Blind Eye

Deb M

 

I have often wondered why so many people seem to turn a blind eye when they see something that doesn’t seem right regarding a child. Maybe they did not see anything but they heard a rumor and maybe they thought it was none of their business. As a child abuse survivor, I’m here to tell you that when you make the choice to turn a blind eye you’re abandoning that child. You might feel that it isn’t your concern or that the child’s parents should be the ones deciding what to do. If you only take one thing away from reading my blog I’d like you to take away that you may be the only thing standing between that child and a lifetime of trauma.

In isolated churches where the outside world is not welcome, children have no one to turn to but those inside of their little community. If the community is more interested in protecting its reputation than protecting the life of the child than that child really has no chance. Not only will they deal with the trauma of whatever abuse happens to them but they may deal with the trauma of not being believed or of feeling unworthy of protection. It may take a lot of courage to speak up and you may have to endure criticism but in the end, is it ever wrong to try to protect or save a child?

If any of the adults around me had stopped to think about how odd it was that a 30ish-year-old man was spending so much time with me they might have asked some questions. The heat of that attention may have scared Steve off from abusing me, he may have felt he was being watched. Had one of the women who knew about this come to me just to check in and see if everything was ok maybe that would have given me a chance to open up, or again it may have scared Steve off. I told him pretty much everything about what was going on in my life. The time he was spending with me was so out there in the open for anyone who was paying attention to see. If you were one of the people who went out after church and shared a meal then you knew he was driving me around. If you were part of his group of friends you knew he was taking me on road trips with him. These adults could have saved me from some of my trauma.

When Steve Dahl was abusing me our church averaged around 250-300 depending on the Sunday. Steve played his trumpet in every service. He and his wife sat in the second row. He was popular and well liked. A man like that doesn’t just disappear from a church and nobody notices he is gone. A woman doesn’t have her husband suddenly leave and no one know what is going on. Her sister was suddenly gone too, so there is another person gone. Pastor Grant would have said something to the elders. The women of the church would have had some idea what was going on with Debbie, Steve’s wife, it would have been out there amongst the congregation. That is a lot of adults choosing to turn a blind eye. Choosing to say nothing. As a child, I could feel everyone stepping back from me like I had some disease they might catch. I knew they knew. I felt judged and unworthy of love. No one reached out to me in love, no one checked in on me, this added to my trauma. I am sure they assumed that pastor Grant would take care of it but maybe they should have checked to be sure. If love and compassion were present then I feel that backing away from me wouldn’t have happened. How do you back away from a wounded child? If they really thought I was a seductive child or whatever they are trying to say now, why didn’t that drive them to ask questions? Even if they had chosen to reach out to me at this point they could have saved me some trauma. If love and therapy had been applied here things could have turned out very differently for me.

In all of the intervening years running right up to the present if any of the adults who heard rumors or flat out knew about what happened had come to me and checked in they could have reduced my trauma.

C-PTSD encompasses trauma coming from many different sources over a long period of time. Food insecurity and poverty featured heavily during my childhood. This was no secret. I can remember one day when my mother took me for a school uniform fitting and another woman who was there commented on how I was so thin I looked like I could just blow away in the wind. On another occasion, I worked very hard to be on the honor roll at school and the reward was to go on a field trip out of town to a museum. I was sooo excited! There was only one problem, my shoes developed a sudden hole in the bottom and I was too embarrassed to go. We had no money for another pair of shoes so my mother called Roy and asked if he could help. He asked another student if she could loan me a pair of shoes for the day. I was mortified. I wore the shoes and the young woman who loaned them to me made sure everyone knew what had happened. Then I gave them back. Well, that solved the issue for that one day, but what would have really helped was if someone had offered to buy me some shoes. Maybe Roy who worked in the school and was my youth leader, or maybe this girl’s parents who were elders at the time. Instead they turned a blind eye. There were adults who knew we did not have electricity from time to time. One person, Ida Cox helped my mother. I remember it was such a big deal and made my life so much easier for a time. The other times we had no electricity no one helped. I know people dropped me off to that sad dark house after church. There were never any lights on. I would open the door and this dark heavy oppression would hit me like a wall of despair. Sometimes my mother would be sitting on the porch outside to greet me and other times the house would be silent. I would feel the way to the stairs leading up to my bedroom and then feel for the oil lamp to give me some light. Didn’t these adults wonder why they never saw a light come on? On one occasion a young adult man dropped me off after a service and I invited him in. My mom and stepdad were not there for some reason. I had nothing to offer him but Koolaid and at one point he asked me about the cooler on the floor. I explained to him that we have no power and that is where we kept our food. I even opened it up briefly to show him the contents. He smiled tightly and soon was out the door. I felt embarrassed and immediately wished I had not invited him in. Another blind eye.

I grew up feeling like everyone could see my pain and no one would help me. I grew up feeling unworthy, sometimes hungry, sometimes lonely, always unloved. This is the garden my trauma grew out of. The harvest of my childhood is an adulthood full of unraveling. First you have to figure out what is wrong with you. You can sense early on in adulthood that you are not like most people. Then you start the long journey of trying to heal. You try dozens of things until you land on some that help. Most help a little but there is no magic pill. Mine is a life of lost potential. I was too busy struggling to survive to do what most people do in their young adulthood. I had no one to help me figure out how to go to college. I had no desire to live with either of my parents and so I moved out at age 17 and got my own apartment. I worked hard to survive but there was no time to nurture myself or think about how to fix what was broken. When you think about turning a blind eye think of me and maybe reconsider. Would one adult be able to solve all of my childhood issues? Probably not, but if I could have entered adulthood with one less layer to my trauma it would have made a huge difference to me.

I believe that churches give too much power to pastors. They often feel that the pastor knows about things and is taking care of them. In legalistic churches, they often blame the victim and stand in judgement instead of applying love and compassion. They may gain salvation but they lose their humanity. The people at Calvary Gospel certainly seem to have lost their heart. How can they side with the abuser over and over again? They pray for the abuser and the victim becomes the problem. This may be why some people feel it is better to turn a blind eye. If they side with the wounded it will not be long before they are also wounded. It is selfish self-preservation. If you are in a group that causes you to silent that inner voice that tells you something is off then I advise you to run! Don’t let an organization like Calvary Gospel take away your humanity and care for children, the poor, elderly, and suffering. Don’t turn a blind eye, say something, reach out and offer your help. If you do this you can hold onto your heart and maybe help someone else to heal theirs.

 

 

 

Age 11

 

As I look at the photos above all I can think is that she deserved better from all of the adults in her life.

D

 

 

C-PTSD, Calvary Gospel Church, Childhood, Crime, EMDR, Pastor John Grant, Sexual Abuse, Shame, Survivors, Trauma, United Pentecostal Church

Finding My Freedom

Deb M

Freedom is a word that keeps coming up in my life. It has been especially present the last three or four years. I keep moving closer and closer to it and with each step, I cast away more of my chains. With the most painful struggles have come the greatest rewards. My whole body has been buzzing with anxiety and it is unrelenting. I have not been sleeping and at times tears well up in my eyes for no real specific reason. I have restarted my EFT routine in hopes of being able to cope better. Why is all of this happening? I believe it is a result of all of the emotions being stirred up due to EMDR. I can feel the EMDR purging the deepest parts of my trauma and with that comes an amazing sense of freedom. I can feel those memories moving from an ever present pain to a distant sadness. That’s progress. EMDR has forced me to look at some things with a clarity that is so raw and bright. It is impossible to continue to lie to myself or not see the evil of others for exactly what it is. Along with this comes some greiving. When you lie to yourself about people and their intentions and you finally see the truth you then have to grieve what you thought your relationship to those people was. For example, I am finally starting to let go of some very deeply held shame and blame. These feelings were so hidden and a part of who I am that I did not realize I still held them. On a logical level, you can know something in your mind but your heart might tell a different story. Once you let go of the lies you’ve been telling yourself the truth can be shocking. My truth is that I was a little girl just trying to make it in a harsh world. I was not to blame in any way for what happened to me or for how I was treated by certain people. All the shame that was heaped on me was not mine to take responsibility for. It might surprise you to know that in the still of the night my inner voice would question, “Did I do something to cause these things to happen to me?” “These people cannot be as bad as I think they are.” Now I know and can say in my most full-throated voice than none of what happened to me was my fault. The magic of this is that I really feel it in my bones for the first time.

Some of the truths I’ve had to face are kind of brutal. There are some things that happened to me during my childhood that are too dark for me to give breath to here. Sometimes abuse happens and on the surface, it doesn’t look like abuse. It might feel off and you might question for decades if it was abuse or if you should just cut that person some slack. Maybe they didn’t know better or maybe they had some mental illness that made them behave a certain way. The part of you that loves them wants to protect them from the things they’ve done. Once you’ve seen them clearly and you allow light to be shone onto the things they’ve done you cannot unsee what is right in front of your eyes. Then you have a choice to make. Love yourself and set yourself free or continue to try to unsee the truth and protect those who hurt you. I’m choosing to love myself but it comes with a cost. The cost is letting go of old beliefs and feeling the pain of the reality of the situation. Right now I feel the pain every day but I know it will lessen over time. The other side of the coin is knowing that I did not, could not cause all of that to happen. I was just a child.

I know that some of you will say, “I still have friends at Calvary Gospel” or “There are still good folks there.” You are free to believe however you wish but from where I stand I do not see how that is possible. Sure years ago when maybe some people really didn’t know what was going on, although I don’t know how they could not see what was right in their faces. The information regarding how many young girls and others were abused has been out and available for a couple of years now. If they still attend they are choosing to support a church that covers up crimes and fosters an abusive environment. I cannot support anyone who turns a blind eye to the truth of what that church is. I cannot lie to myself and say that any of those people are or could be a friend to me. If you know, and they do, that these awful crimes have been committed and you still support Calvary Gospel then you are complicit. These people who still attend CGC are supporting racism, classism, misogyny, child abuse, and the Grants who have been a party to a multitude of sins. Saying this out loud is like breaking the final link in a chain of pain tying me to CGC. There was a time when I felt sorry for the congregation and maybe even wanted to save them in a way from the UPCI. I get the brainwashing and control and how hard it is to break free, but then I wonder how do the Grants still have a church, how are people still attending? Especially after everything with Glen Uselmann being out in the press. I believe that if they are still there it is because they want to be. This may sound harsh and it was my feelings of guilt and shame, which CGC gifted me with, which has caused me to worry about what others might think of my feelings.

I know that we are all on different parts of our journey and I do not expect everyone to agree with me. If you cannot agree with me I hope you can at least rejoice with me in my freedom. I hope that you will also understand that I no longer intend to soft-peddle my opinions about the Grants, my parents, or anyone else who abused me or watched while I was being abused and did nothing. My goal is to heal and that means getting really real.

D

Calvary Gospel Church, Childhood, Compassion, Pastor John Grant, Sexual Abuse, Sin, Survivors, Trauma, United Pentecostal Church

Some Things Never Change

Deb M

As new things develop and as I work through my personal trauma I have to ask where is the bottom? Where is the bottom when it comes to Calvary Gospel’s crimes against its congregation. I watched their Sunday morning service after they learned of Glen Uselmann’s charges and I was surprised. I shouldn’t be but I find that they never cease to amaze me. As they sink lower and lower I wonder how did they get this way? During their service, there was no mention of healing for the abused but there was mention of healing for Glenn. They did not display humbleness or any sense of self-reflection. What they did display was a sense of being persecuted. Pastor Roy Grant once again did not speak to his congregation. I have watched many regular services now and he has not spoken at any of them. I have to wonder where is his leadership? The speaker mentioned the torture of the saints and those dealing with depression but no mention was made of the trauma survivors. It is important to keep in mind that we survivors are the children of their congregation. They raised us and their lack of compassion towards our pain is nothing short of stunning. They continue to direct all of their love and compassion towards the ones who committed crimes against their children. When they speak out against myself and others they often say that we mischaracterize their views on women. I do not understand how they can say that when their views are so obvious and on full display. As girls, we were made to believe that we were second class citizens in the kingdom of God. Not just second class citizens but walking sin that needed to be covered up, hidden, and we needed to be ever vigilant lest we caused our brother to fall. Whatever they actually believed the message that was delivered was that men bear no responsibility for their actions but little girls should somehow be capable to make or break a man in the lust department. Little girls were told not to bring shame on the church by reporting, not to ruin a grown man’s life, and to take responsibility for the whole situation. Little girls often bore the stain of whatever happened while the men would go on to make their mark in the ministry. If women are truly the weaker vessel then why are they given so much responsibility to carry, especially young girls? It is also important to point out that we are talking about children. Grown men should not be lusting after children. A girl of 11 or 12 is a child. Most of the rest of society can see this why can’t they? They act so put upon, so persecuted, and they seem to have no awareness of their responsibility. As they dig in their heels they risk falling deeper into the pit they have created for themselves.

D

Calvary Gospel Church, Childhood, Pastor John Grant, racism, Shame, Uncategorized, United Pentecostal Church

More On Racism and Calvary Gospel Church

Deb M

Growing up half Mexican and attending Calvary Gospel was an odd experience at times. There were people who seemed to view me as white and then there were others who made it clear that they saw me as a person of color. The Grant’s real feelings about things were never spoken of over the pulpit and so when I was confronted with them it always surprised me. An adult once told me that the church did not believe in interracial marriage. When I asked about the people who I knew had interracial children I was told that if you were in an interracial marriage before you were saved it was ok. Hmmm ok, even as a kid that seemed off to me. As a person not seen as white or black I lived in this weird out of place world where I felt I did not fit in anywhere. Plus no one would give me straight answers about where I fit in, everything was communicated in looks and second-hand information.

Darlene Grant pastor Grant’s wife never spoke to me, I mean never, unless she was delivering criticism. If she said something to me regarding the school or the youth choir there was always a sharp edge to it even when there was no need for it. She communicated her dislike with every glance and I was left to wonder what I could have done to deserve her attitude. I suspect it had to do with Steve Dahl but who knows it could have been for a multitude of reasons.

Once or twice a year our church would be visited by a very popular evangelist. His name was Brother Hightower. He was very animated and funny and everyone loved it when he would pass through town with his family. He would pack the house and the altar would be filled with people. These revivals would last for up to two weeks and they had the feel of a festival. Less boring than a normal church service because they were more fun and more high energy. This particular event happened when I was about 13 years old. The Hightowers were in town and they brought their son who was the same age as me. The whole family was very sweet to me. It was clear that they did not view me the same way the Grants seemed to. Their son was kind of sweet on me and he would ask to sit by me and my friends during church. His mother was very strict about behavior during church but she didn’t seem to mind him sitting with us. One day he asked me if he could have my phone number and I said sure. We liked each other but it was strictly a very puppy love situation. He was only in town for a couple of weeks and I imagine it was hard to travel with your parents and not have any friends your age around. Somehow the Grants got wind of him asking for my phone number and I bet you can imagine how that went over.

One night after church Sister Grant sat down next to me. She asked if she could speak to me for a moment. This sent my heart up into my chest because she never came bearing good news. She informed me that I was not to sit next to my new friend anymore and if he called me I shouldn’t talk to him. She also forbid me to explain to him why I was no longer speaking to or sitting with him. Better to just cut it all off, because in her words, “We do not believe the way they do.” I couldn’t tell him why because it might offend them and pastor Grant did not want that to happen. So she laid in my lap rejecting the friendship of this sweet boy and forbid me to explain thus making me feel like a monster. She did not care how this action would make me look to him or his family. She was expecting me to be a mean girl in order to save her and pastor Grant from having the adult conversation they should have had with the Hightowers if that was so important to them. I will take this time to remind you that I was 13.

It felt like what they were saying is, you are too brown to be white, but too light to be black. They would not have wanted me to marry their son, but they also did not want me to be friends with this black boy who was infatuated with me. Can you see how this was all so confusing to me? I also feel that they thought this black family was good enough to come and minister/entertain them and their congregation but they were not good enough to have an honest conversation with or to “mix” with too much. They did not bring this situation to my parents they plopped it into my lap and left me feeling like I had once again done something really wrong. Over time I would see this kind of attitude play out over and over. Church kids (mostly white) don’t really mix with Sunday school bus kids even if those kids had been attending for years. I would befriend these mostly black kids because I worked the bus route and they were my age. By choosing this action I was ensuring even more side-eyes from the adults around me. Eventually, you get to the point where you recognize that no matter what you do they will look at you that way so you just give up.

I know that the church has changed some over the years. I am only speaking regarding my experience. As a side note, before the Hightowers left Sister Hightower pulled aside and told me that if I was ever in their hometown I was welcome in their home anytime. She smiled sweetly to me and I had the feeling she could see what was really going on. That gave me some relief from the shame I was feeling, shame that did not belong to me but to the adults in this twisted situation.

 

Calvary Gospel Church, Childhood, EMDR, United Pentecostal Church

What I Need Calvary Gospel To Know

Deb M

Today I went to my second EMDR session. I left the session exhausted and completely drained. I cried the entire time and I left feeling so angry. I was not planning to write here today but I need to say this even if I have no hope that Calvary Gospel will hear me. I cannot blame Calvary Gospel for all of the abuse I suffered due to how my parents decided to parent me but the church did not make it any better. Along with that, my mother’s association with them brought so much drama into her life and reinforced all the things her parents passed onto her. By taking me to church there she reinforced her beliefs and thrust me into a very toxic enviroment that would impact me for the rest of my life.

Now unto Calvary Gospel….you might feel that I am unfairly targeting John Grant Sr. but I can assure you that I have given this a lot of thought. Yes, Steve Dahl is the man who sexually abused me and he deserves all the blame for his actions. That being said, John Grant Sr. was the pastor of our church and superintendent of our state and he was in authority over everything in my world. I went to John Grant and told him what Steve was doing to me and he did nothing to help me. He was supposed to be my shepherd but instead, he left me to suffer alone with no support. Sure my parents have their roles to play but to pretend that John Grant wasn’t in power over my life is insane. He was the ultimate decision-maker with regards to the school I attended and the church and all of the ministries I was involved with. He said jump and all of the adults around me said how high. He could have helped me. He was the head of a racist church that neglected the poor and favored the rich. He preyed on his congregation’s fear by preaching about hell and the end times and rarely speaking about grace. This fear keeps people stuck there, afraid to leave even when they see how sick his congregation is. If they leave they often can find no solace anywhere else because they have been told that any church that isn’t UPCI affiliated is doomed. Even within the UPCI, some churches are seen as good or bad.

Why does any of this matter? Well, it matters to me in part because I have C-PTSD. What do I hope to accomplish with this post? I hope to show the very real and long-lasting consequences of attending this church and having John Grant as a pastor. I have great health insurance but it doesn’t cover my EMDR provider so I have to pay out of pocket for her help. I have spent most of my adult life in and out of therapy trying to deal with the aftermath of being raised with Calvary Gospel. I grew up feeling bad about being half Mexican in part due to the church’s racism and feelings about multiracial marriages. That standard came from John Grant. I felt bad about being a woman and I felt bad about being poor. Yes, the teachings of the church about women came from above John Grant but he was the mouthpiece who delivered that message to me. He cultivated an enviroment where I learned that we were poor because my mother must have some sin in her life, and she was sick for the same reasons. Give yourself out of poverty! Clean up your life and your asthma will disappear. Even though I no longer believe any of this the scars of all it all are engraved deep within me. I don’t sleep. That might not seem like a big deal until you realize I’m not talking about sometimes. I mean for most of my adult life I have had severe debilitating insomnia. It has made it hard for me to live a normal life. I have anxiety even when everything is going great in my present life. Because you see it isn’t about the present it is about the past. I’m not choosing to live in the past, you have to understand that when a person has been traumatized their brain isn’t the same as someone who hasn’t experienced trauma. It isn’t something you just put down because ultimately it isn’t within your control to choose to do that. I’m not saying you should use that as an excuse not to work on yourself, I am the queen of self improvement and transformation, I’m just saying that it isn’t as simple as some folks would like you to believe. What John Grant taught and how he ran his church impacted me severely and it still does. My EMDR session today wrecked me for the rest of the day. I am angry that I’m STILL dealing with all of this. I am angry that Calvary Gospel’s doors are still open and I’m angry that I feel powerless to do anything about it.

I think sometimes people who defend John Grant forget that he was a man and I was a little girl. He created an environment where abusers felt they could get away with sexually abusing children. He turned a blind eye to what was reported to him and to what any person who was paying attention could see. To me that is unforgivable not that he would ever ask for forgiveness. In his world, I am nothing but a problem a bitter woman drudging up the past, I wish that was true. The reality is that his past is my everyday and has been ever since I walked into his church around age 8, I will be 50 on Sunday. If you’ve stuck around till the end of this post thank you. i know sometimes it must seem like I’m repeating myself but I have to keep saying it over and over because it’s true and as of now we survivors have seen no justice.

D

 

 

Childhood, EMDR, Rapture, Self Esteem, Sin, Trauma, Uncategorized

Celebrating Life

Deb M

The last month has been a struggle. It started with me struggling to live with fibromyalgia followed by a pretty bad fall down my basement stairs. In the midst of this, I started EMDR which has brought up some emotional stuff. In case you do not know what EMDR is here is a link https://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/ When I went to my first session I really wasn’t sure what to think. I wasn’t able to access much emotion even when talking about the hardest subjects. I tend to dissociate when I talk about my childhood. It is a skill I learned long ago and as dysfunctional as it is I am grateful for it. It has enabled me to survive. The therapist warned me that I might have dreams, even nightmares, and I did for about five days.

All of my dreams were different but the same. In each dream, I was faced with having made a mistake. Someone was angry with me and I was frantically trying to fix it. I was left feeling inadequate, unlovable, and unworthy. These dreams led me to think about my childhood and where all of these feelings come from.

“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psalms 51:5

From a very young age, I was taught about heaven and hell. I believed that I was disgusting to God because of my sin and that he was only willing to accept me because of Jesus. My religious family saw childhood infractions not as normal childish behavior but as sin. My mother would often remind me that God is always watching and hell would be waiting for me when I didn’t want to clean my room. After all, it was right there in the ten commandments. Honor your father and your mother. By not cleaning my room I was not honoring her and therefore sinning. All sin led to one place.

One thing I am being treated for using EMDR is my insomnia. I have had it my whole life and no amount of sleeping pills seems to fix it. My doctor suggested trying to get to the root causes through EMDR. The echos of my childhood come to me at night when I close my eyes and try to rest. I’m hypervigilant meaning I can’t relax enough to fall asleep and once asleep I awaken easily. I have long since given up my fear of hell and the rapture but because my formative years were spent in fear of these things my hind/lizard brain still thinks there is a threat. This is part of why I have PTSD and all these years later I am held captive by the demons of my childhood.

“For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3

I was a fearful child. I was afraid of dying and having some unrepented sin, I was scared of God. I was afraid of missing the rapture and being left to fend for myself. I was afraid of my parents. Both of them spanked me with a belt and my mother was emotionally and mentally abusive. I was afraid of my pastor and other adults in the church.

I took the fact that I could not pray us out of poverty and I couldn’t seem to fix my parent’s marriage or my mother’s depression through prayer as rejection. I believed that if I prayed God would hear and answer, I was taught that God was the one person I could count on to meet all my needs. When all I heard was silence I wondered why? I processed it to mean that I was an exception. God would meet people’s needs, I really believed that, just not mine. Was I so broken and bad that God couldn’t hear me? I became obsessive about repenting to be sure I had no sin hanging around when it came time to pray. Maybe it was the amount of time praying that counted? Maybe I just had not prayed enough? One thing was for sure within my calculations a truth emerged, whatever the problem was it was my fault.

My parents used me as a weapon in their war against each other. I tried to love them both equally and I prayed for them both regularly. My mother believed that divorce was a sin but she got one anyway so I worried about her and her relationship with God. I witnessed her wrestle with God for money, money for rent and food, and I listened at the door when she prayed. She would cry and speak in tongues for hours. I felt shut out from her when she retreated to her room and I felt bad for her when I heard her cries from behind the door. She was trying to reach God and apparently it wasn’t working because she kept going back and each night her tears would flow, they were not tears of joy.

Over all of those years I learned to be tough. I learned to shelf my needs in order to care for both of my parents. Neither of them were all that mentally stable and so I managed their sadness and feelings of rejection while feeling rejected myself. I kept my sadness to myself. My parents were not equipped for empathy. Everything was about them and what was going on in their lives, I was merely there, like furniture and furniture doesn’t have needs.

The church did not care about my needs. They cared about keeping me in line and filling me with fear so I would never leave or think for myself. I never found acceptance there, I only found judgement. It seemed to me that I was too poor, too brown and too me to ever be ok in their eyes. The fact that I was sexually assaulted by Steve Dahl only made me more broken and defective in their eyes. I felt beyond repair, at times I still do.

Over time I let go of the beliefs of the church and my family. It was all about survival. Most of the time I am ok, at least on the surface. I am proud of what I have made of my life. If I scratch beneath the surface, which is what EMDR has done, I can see the still open wounds of my childhood. This makes me kind of angry. I have worked so hard to move past all of this and it makes me so angry to be confronted with how it all still hurts and haunts me. My reality is that I still feel unloveable. No matter how much love I receive from family and friends I still feel unloveable. I can never trust that love is real or that it will stick around. I am still very guarded even after all of the work I have done. I still struggle with feeling inadequate no matter how many successes I have. No amount of praise will allow me to feel my work or art is good enough and no amount of success takes away the sting of feeling not good enough. All of this leads to the unshakable feelings of unworthiness that cover me like a gray cloud. No amount of working on my self esteem seems to heal the wounds of being told I was bad from birth, born from a sinful woman, and only saveable through the grace of a God I could not trust.

This brings me to now. This morning I have been thinking about all of this and trying to process before my next therapy session. In the midst of all this, I need to remember to celebrate my life now as it is. I have to remember to love myself and to celebrate all of my successes even if they are not perfect. In many ways I am proud of my life and what I have overcome. I believe I am a good person and worthy of love and acceptance, even if my hindbrain hasn’t gotten the memo. I’m proud of the family I have raised and I have to try to remember to allow myself to be warmed by their love. For now, my struggle continues and for today I’m choosing to celebrate life even with the ghosts lingering in the shadows.

“I was born in a thunderstorm
I grew up overnight
I played alone
I played on my own
I survived
Hey
I wanted everything I never had
Like the love that comes with light
I wore envy and I hated that
But I survived
I had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go
Where the wind don’t change
And nothing in the ground can ever grow
No hope, just lies
And you’re taught to cry into your pillow
But I survived
I’m still breathing, I’m still breathing
I’m still breathing, I’m still breathing
I’m alive
I’m alive
I’m alive
I’m alive…”
Sia

 

Calvary Gospel Church, Childhood, Southern Baptist Church, United Pentecostal Church

I Was A Praise Junkie

Deb M

 

 

As I was considering writing this post I became a little concerned that it might offend some people. It is not my intention to offend. This is my experience and yours may vary.

I grew up knowing nothing but Apostolic worship. Clapping and singing very repetitive songs over and over with a dash of hymns thrown in for good measure. My mother loved the likes of Jimmy Swaggert and she would sing along with him whenever his show came on. No matter how good a church was if the worship did not make you want to get up and dance my mother wasn’t interested. She grew up attending “holy roller” churches her whole life and would often regal me stories about the characters that attended services with her family. My mother and her siblings would get into trouble because they laughed at this one older woman. My grandmother was a severe woman and laughing in church was a big no-no. This older woman would dance in the spirit and while doing so would get dangerously near a flight of stairs leading down into the church basement. My mother and her siblings would laugh in anticipation of the day that woman would finally fall down the stairs but it never happened. My grandmother said the “Holy Spirit” kept her safe.

When my mother was church hopping, which happened often when I was young, she would judge a church on whether the worship was “dead” or not. She fell under the spell of Calvary Gospel in part because of the awesome praise and worship services. She loved all of the instruments and the way congregants seemed to really “feel the spirit move.” Growing up attending that church I would wish for the services that would go on forever. Eventually, they would declare there would be no sermon and things would just take off. Tambourines would be shaking back and forth and people would fill the aisles. Some would dance, others would fall out in the spirit, and others would run laps around the church. You knew it was going to be a barn burner of a service when the older women would get in on the act. My mother instilled in me a love of music and so I really enjoyed all of the singing that happened at church. It was the only part of the service that truly uplifted me. My brain would swim in all of the happy endorphins flooding my body and in those moments I could convince myself that God loved me. Once the dust had settled and the singing was over all of my old worries would creep in. Many people would get filled with the Holy Ghost on nights like these, and this is how you can become sucked in. You experience the high of this type of service and then you have to go back to your mundane life. As the days go by the glow of that service wears off and you start to desire your next fix. Sunday nights were the hot night at our church and so I would live for those services. Many people start to associate that endorphin high with God. If you could get to that place you could get close to God, or more accurately “feel” close to God.

After I left Calvary Gospel I did not attend services anywhere for a long time. I was nursing my wounds. Once I had children I told myself that I had to take them to church somewhere. That message had been implanted into my brain since birth. I searched and searched for a church and much like my mother had expressed so many years ago, they all felt “dead” to me. Finally, I started to attend a little Southern Baptist church. The service was not as rowdy as the ones I grew up on but they clapped and I recognized some of the songs. I stayed there for a long time before eventually being forced to leave because of needing a divorce. It took me a very long time to be ok with the lax holiness standards and lower energy worship. I settled for this church. It wasn’t anywhere near ideal but it was as close as I could get. Over time I grew to really appreciate the quiet worship times. I started to see that to be spiritual you don’t have to be loud and you don’t have to show off. But that realization did not come until a long period of detox and withdrawal. As soon as I started attending church again it was like a junkie going back for a fix. It was like starting my journey away from Calvary Gospel all over. Part of this is because I had not properly dealt with the issues from the past. I thought I could just bury my pain and move on, that proved to be a huge lie I had told myself. To this day Christian music is extremely triggering. I can’t stand to be around it because it causes me so much anxiety.

I do not feel this experience only happens within The United Pentecostal church. I believe it can happen anywhere where ecstatic worship is the norm. It can really make some people addicted to that high and it can keep people in a bad situation longer than they should be. My mother stayed at Calvary Gospel for so long in part because of the worship, which she felt was very godly. Did you experience anything like this? I would love to hear about your experiences.

D

Calvary Gospel Church, Childhood, Salvation, United Pentecostal Church

When Salvation Isn’t A Relief

Deb M

I was ten years old when I had my salvation experience. I took the long walk down to the altar and repented of my sins, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and then baptized. This was supposed to fix the major problems of my life. I wouldn’t have to worry about hell anymore and with the power of Jesus inside me, I should be able to fix most of my problems through prayer. I left church that night feeling high! I felt so loved by God and so close to Him. That lasted about two weeks. Slowly worry and doubt started creeping in. My church taught that you could lose your salvation and suddenly I had a whole new series of problems to be concerned about. Backsliding was preached about frequently and if you backslid you could end up in hell. So really having my salvation experience did not free me from my worries about the rapture and hell. Before I had to wonder if I had reached that magical age when God would decide I was old enough to be held accountable for my sins or if I was still in the clear, now I had to worry about how much sin was too much? At what point would God throw up His hands and say “She is too far gone now!” At that point, I would be lost again until I returned like the prodigal son. Would I know if I had gone too far? Did I go too far today when I watched that TV show? These were questions that plagued my young mind.

We were taught to have faith. If I had questions, which I did, then I must not have faith. This could be really scary because faith is required for salvation. I was already doubting my ability to truly believe because I could not make my home life better. I was sure I must have faith at least the size of a mustard seed but maybe I was wrong. I sure wasn’t moving any mountains. Things at home just got worse and worse. Soon after my salvation experience, I would meet my abuser and then things would really take a turn. I never understood why Jesus did not protect me from Steve. I think because things in my home never got any better no matter how hard I prayed and because of Steve, I really believed that God did not like me. At least when I was a little child I could say to myself that once I was saved everything would be golden, but then afterward I had nowhere to look but at myself. There must be something wrong with me. Now I look back on it and I can see that the adults around me were making me feel inferior. They also really treated salvation like it was a feeling. Church was the time of the week to get hyped! They came for a show and to get their fix. If they left feeling good all was right with the world and everything was ok with their hearts. If the service was more of a downer and maybe the message darker the altar would be full of people coming back to God or recommitting themselves. Once they were cried out and had spoken in tongues they felt high again and they would feel a sense of relief. Growing up within the UPC really was a roller coaster. You begin to crave the Sunday night service almost like a drug, a way to get high in order to get you through the week. By the end of the service, I felt great and everything was good until I walked into my house. Sometimes that feeling would only last the car ride home because it was just a feeling. I would walk into my house and my mother would be crying or fighting with my stepdad, sometimes there would be soft porn on the tv and my mother would be nowhere in sight, and sometimes it would just be black because we didn’t have power. The house felt oppressive and joy and my feeling of salvation couldn’t survive there.

I am sure there are some people who would love to say I was never saved. Maybe that is true but I know for sure that I chased after God. The older I became the harder it was because everything that happened to you in your life was somehow related to some sin you must have going on. If you were sick it was because of some unrepented sin. Mental illness was a demon persecuting you. Are you in debt? You must not be giving enough to the church. In the end, it was your issue if your life wasn’t what God had said it would be. If you couldn’t pray it away don’t look at God look at yourself.

I know that this is not everyone’s experience but it was mine. I’m not willing to argue with you about Christianity or scripture. This is just something that has been on my mind and I have been wanting to share. If you’ve had a similar experience I’d like to hear about it.

2020, C-PTSD, Childhood, Depression, Physical Symptoms, Sexual Abuse, Stress, Survivors, Trauma

Trauma and Illness

Deb M

Happy 2020! If you are new to my blog I encourage you to start at the beginning even though there is a lot of content to get through. You will understand my story better if you start at the first post. This year I suspect the content of this blog might shift a little. I want to focus a bit more on the after-effects of trauma and how it impacts people long term. I know that it continues to affect me and many others I have contact with.

About a month ago I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and possibly another autoimmune disorder. There is a lot going on with my health, way more than I have the time to get into here. I firmly believe that my illness has a lot to do with the trauma I suffered in the past. There is science to back this up. Women are much more likely to suffer from fibro and those who have been through childhood trauma are even more likely. There seems to be a real connection between fibro and childhood sexual abuse. Even more so there is a connection between childhood trauma and autoimmune disease in general. I find this to be a fascinating topic. Many survivors I know suffer from depression and anxiety due to their past abuse and many folks with autoimmune disorders also suffer from mental illness.

I think the physical burdens carried by abuse survivors speaks to how hard or impossible it may be to “just let it go.” We are often told to forgive and forget but when your body is still experiencing things decades later it can be hard to just pretend like nothing ever happened.

If you are a survivor, have you suffered from an illness that you feel is connected to your past experiences?

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-links-adult-fibromyalgia-childhood-sexual.html

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/chronic-pain-and-childhood-trauma-2018033012768