Belief Part 6
Welcome to Part 6 of my post series where I am sharing about my experiences with belief and faith starting when I was young and ending with where I am today.
If you missed Part 1, you can read it here, click here for Part 2, here for Part 3, and here for part 4, and here for part 5.
CW: If you have church, faith, or any kind of relationship trauma or abuse, please approach with caution, take breaks, or don’t read my posts at all.
Sometimes reading other people’s stories can help us heal and feel not-so-alone in our experiences, and other times we need to take a break from all the things that open us back up and bring the feeling back to the surface. Check in with yourself as you read. <3
When I was in an abusive relationship with K, I learned firsthand the power of manipulation, fear, and gaslighting. I also learned the ways abusers groom people.
It’s not like K called me a stupid bitch on our first date.
In fact, the beginning was practically magical. So much romance, adventure, and passion!
Our first kiss was out on the dock at Stone Coal Lake while slow dancing under the moonlight to the songs echoing into the still night from his truck speakers.
We spent weekends driving around back roads just the two of us. Listening to music, drinking beer, and peeling each other’s clothes off every chance we got.
Everything felt electric hot and lightening fast. I couldn’t believe this popular, good looking, cool older guy (by two years) liked me. I felt lucky to be getting his attention.
K told me he thought I was his soul mate.
We absolutely knew we would spend the rest of our lives together.
One night, after we had gotten pretty serious, we went to the movies in Elkins. As we were walking into the theatre he looked over at me in my wide leg Gap jeans and plain white t-shirt and said, “Why do you dress like that?”
“Like what?” I said confused, scanning myself.
“In all those baggy clothes.” he replied with a look of judgy dissatisfaction on his face.
He saw me starting to look hurt and quickly said, “I mean, you look pretty in what you’re wearing now, but you are so hot. You have a hot body. Why cover it with all those baggy clothes? You should show off your body more. Be confident in yourself! I can help you pick out some new clothes if you want.”
And so I started wearing clothes that showed off my body more.
Years later he would scream at me for looking like a “whore” when I dressed up like a Hooters waitress for Halloween along with some of my friends when we were all in college. He would scream at me and punch the inside of my car and cry because of how embarrassed he was that I would show off my body like that.
We weren’t dating at the time, but he had asked for a ride back to campus and I gave him one.
He drug me out of my car and into the parking lot when I refused to get out of my car when he told me to.
And so I stopped wearing clothes that showed so much of my body.
When K started hinting at ways I should change early on, I thought he was helping me become more confident and adventurous. Break out of my shell. After all those years of anxiety keeping me from living my life, I felt lucky to find someone who would push me to try new things and have more fun. He was even the one who introduced me to alcohol. My self medication of choice the whole time we were together.
I didn’t understand that he was slowly molding me into the kind of girlfriend he could show off to his friends. The main focus was for me to be “hot” so everyone would be jealous that I was with him while at the same time, not be so hot that everyone would think I was a “slut” and make fun of him for having a “trashy” girlfriend.
It all happened so slowly I didn’t realize I was being manipulated until it was too late. I was deeply in love and invested our relationship. I had rose-colored glasses and didn’t want to see the truth.
Plus, any time I would try to defend myself or stick up for myself he would always find a way to make me feel like what I was feeling wasn’t real or true or accurate. He would gaslight me until I would give up and stay.
Maybe it was just me? He sure was popular and had a lot of friends. Maybe I really was just overly sensitive, like he said.
After all those years of abuse, when I find myself in situations where I feel I am being coerced by fear and manipulation to conform, assimilate, or be what someone else wants me to be. Or I feel like I am being gaslit into believing that the wrong someone is doing to me or others isn’t actually happening.
I start paying real close attention.
I wish I had never been in that relationship with K. I wish I hadn’t gotten so deeply stuck and entwined with him that I eventually lost my power or desire to leave a situation that was so unhealthy and dangerous.
Because of the negative impact this relationship had on my life in so many ways I wish I could snap my finger and take it all away, but in other ways I am glad I got to learn such valuable lessons about abuse and abusers.
Unfortunately, I had a few more things to learn about abuse and mistreatment after ending things with K.
I was told church was the best place to go to be safe, protected, loved, and accepted.
And I believed it.
Because I so desperately needed it to be true.
When T told the leaders of our church that I would not be coming to home fellowship anymore, they wanted to know why. And so a meeting was set. T and I would go meet with the pastor and associate pastor so I could share what I was feeling and experiencing.
Pastor D started the meeting by expressing his concern over my discomfort, but especially how my discomfort was negatively effecting my husband and his role at the church.
Pastor D was yet another Pastor in my life who had spent very little time getting to know me and a lot of time getting to know T. Despite me being in ministry and tangentially being in leadership, Pastor D and I actually had never had a meeting or had even chatted much at all unless it was small talk.
It wasn’t until I found myself sitting across from all 6 feet or more of him a year or so after coming to his church that we finally got to have a real chat.
Pastor G was, as always, exuding a more gentle, calming demeanor. I had met with G many times over my time at the church and had gotten very close with his whole family. He was someone I felt comfortable with in a sea of people which I didn’t feel I could be myself. I was glad he was there, but it did feel like a good cop, bad cop situation.
They asked me to share what I was feeling, and I started to share.
But every few sentences Pastor D would interrupt me to defend whoever or whatever he felt I was criticizing or taking issue with. At times he would even laugh frustratingly while I was talking because he was upset at what I was saying.
Pastor G would step in every one and awhile and try to gently direct the conversation back to what I was saying, but it was clear he was also more concerned with how T was feeling about all this than how I was feeling. After awhile of feeling like I was on trial I knew I hadn’t been invited to be heard. I had been invited to hear them.
If T couldn’t “get me in line” (he hadn’t tried, god bless him!), then this meeting was their effort at the same.
And so I stopped talking.
They were using shame to try and get me to be the wife T needed so he could do what he had dreamed of doing. I could tell that T felt uncomfortable with how things were going. A few times he tried to speak up in my defense, but overall, I definitely felt like I was in a room full of men who felt that if I would only get my shit together and stop being so difficult and “divisive” (a word Pastor D used to describe me in the meeting) they could all be happy.
When I tried to talk about feeling like I couldn’t express any beliefs that were different from what the church believed, I was told I had been hanging out with “negative influences” in the church that had manipulated me into believing false teachings or hearsay about people and things going on in the church that weren’t true.
I knew who he was talking about when he said “negative influences”. I had tried to be friends with all of T’s church leader friends, but overall, I didn’t fit in. It wasn’t that they weren’t nice and welcoming. It’s just that I felt it. I felt that pull to assimilation and sameness.
All that kindness had a price.
And so I found other people to be friends with at our church. People I could be myself around.
One such friend had similar struggles and issues at the church that I did and we were both so happy to find each other.
C wasn’t afraid to speak up and be bold. She was untamed liked me, but even moreso. She inspired me.
But by the time I was sitting in that meeting, C was no longer at the church. She had been told she was a negative influence for speaking up about things she saw that were unhealthy or wrong happening in our church. She had been a leader in the church much longer than me, but they wouldn’t listen to her either.
She wasn’t exactly asked to leave, but they sure did hold the doors wide open for her go.
The other “friends” I confided in weren’t as understanding and supportive as my fellow rebel was. When I would express concerns about the church to them, they would listen patiently and kindly. And then they would offer to pray for me to get healing so I could see that this church was exactly where I was supposed to be and that my concerns were really just “the enemy” trying to keep me from achieving my destiny in this church.
“This church is different. Your past hurts from other churches need to be healed in the name of Jesus so you can see how you belong here. God is moving in South Florida and our church is a big part of His vision for this area. We need you here. T needs you here. You are in the right place.”
The gaslighting was subtle because that is how it works. It is most effective when the person can’t tell you are doing it.
Everyone was intent on trying to convince me the concerns I had were just “the enemy” tempting me away from my destiny and trying to create strife my marriage.
The message was clear: I was the problem.
I felt so alone in what I was experiencing. Everyone around me but a select few seemed to be just fine with how things were. Once again, I wrestled with the thought, “if it’s just you feeling this way and seeing things this way, then it must be you that is the problem”.
The people I had confided in circled their wagons in defense of their church instead of allowing space for me to have doubts and questions and instead of considering that I might actually have legitimate points.
The meeting with the pastors ended with all of us more upset than went we started.
They felt I was a negative influence.
I felt they were a negative influence.
Neither of us was backing down.
After Izzy was born I came to church a few times, but by this point, I hadn’t just stopped coming to home fellowship, I had stopped coming to church altogether.
It was after an event our church had where people who were “healed from being LGBTQ” at a dangerous and harmful ministry at Bethel Church came to share their testimony that I knew I couldn’t go back.
I had already spent too long at this church hearing friends and acquaintances share how they “used to be gay” but were so thankful for our church because of how they were “healed” from that “lifestyle”. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, a part of one of our healing ministries offered prayer to be healed from being LGBTQ.
Not one to tell anyone how to identify, I did’t argue with anyone who shared this kind of information with me, about being healed of being gay, but my heart ached knowing they didn’t need healed or changed.
I truly regret not saying more. Doing more.
I won’t make that mistake again.
T ended up stepping down from his role as home fellowship leader. It was clear that leadership didn’t want T leading if his own wife wasn’t coming to church.
If he couldn’t “lead” me, how could he be trusted to lead at church.
Also, T didn’t enjoy going without me. He loved me. He missed me. He wanted to be with me. He didn’t like feeling like he was choosing his church over me. He wasn’t. He just wanted both.
T wasn’t happy.
And I wasn’t happy either.
Neither of us could be happy while the other was unhappy. But to get out of the loop of unhappiness we were in, one or both of us was going to have to be willing to make a sacrifice.
I was unwilling to sacrifice going back to church.
Our marriage was struggling.
I had gone back to work at the ministry I worked for after my 3 months of maternity leave was up and was struggling to balance work, motherhood, the complete collapse of my entire belief system, and all the other bits and bobs of life. Working for a ministry while you are deconstructing from your faith is quite a challenge. Do not recommend.
After months of discussion and research, we decided the best course of action was to move. A fresh start in a place we both chose together. No one having to fit into a life the other had already established.
We needed to move out of the Fort Lauderdale area so that we could afford to live on one salary and I could become a stay-at-home mom to Izzy. I didn’t know I was autistic or ADHD at the time, but on top of the church struggles, I was really struggling to work and be a mom. It was beyond just feeling hard. I was sinking.
T still didn’t totally see all the issues I experienced with our church, but he was ready to try something new. A church we could both choose together from the very beginning. A more inclusive and welcoming church that didn’t try to “pray the gay away”.
T had heard about a great church in Charlotte, NC that sounded like we would both love. We both listened to a bunch of sermons from there and were both on the same page about it sounding like a great place to try.
After a quick visit to Charlotte, and to that church, we knew our next steps. We were going to leave FL and move to NC. I would work for the ministry I had been working for remotely until we got settled and T got a new job and then I could put my full focus on taking care of our home and our sweet little buddy.
Surely, it was possible for us to find a church that both of us could feel comfortable and accepted in…
Stay tuned for Part 7!