PMS (Post-ministry Syndrome)
It takes a lifetime to recover from spiritual abuse.
This abuse is the only abuse that rips you to peices and then tells you that you're not allowed to get bitter about it. You aren't allowed to be angry and pissed off at the deepest violation that can happen to a human being. You are lied to, psychologically tormented and thrown to the curb by the leadership and your friends and somehow if you leave you cannot say one bad word about the bad place you came from. The church I was in was a evengelical cult. Truthfully I believe all religion is cultish. I guess the extreme tactics my old church did to recruit people put it over the edge. When people left like I did, it was psychologically ingrained into their subconscious that leaving this church meant leaving God. I remember practically having funerals for people who "fell away".
Everything was about either trying to get people in, keeping people in, or getting them back in.
Now I am not someone who left church because people didn't shake my hand in fellowship and say hi-I was spriritually raped and used up and dumped at the side of the road like yesterday's garbage. When your body has been molested it is one thing. When someone breaks into your home and steals your most prized possession it is another thing. I have had both happen to me and I think the most devastating has been being spiritually violated. I say this because in life, no matter what you go through, there is always a spiritual place to fall back on. Even serial killers have "found God" while waiting on death row. But when that inner part of you has been stolen away, there is nothing to return to. Everyone finds God when life is beating them up and they have hit rock bottom.
But what happens when you are at your lowest of lows and you have endured spiritual molestation?
There is nowhere to go. It is a lost feeling, like free-falling without a parachute. You have no idea what your next move is going to be. Depending on your situation there may be no one to support you as you try to figure it all out and recover.
In fact, you seem to gain more adversaries than ever. Your so-called church friends think you have strayed from the path. They are trying to help you the same way a paramedic helps a suicidal person. Others completely abandon you. They have disappeared like a puff of smoke.
The first year I left, I went thorugh many feelings of extreme hopelessness. It was devastating to try and cope with my life falling apart the way it did. When you are in ministry and then you are not it is like your identity has been ripped out from under you. I counseled and "led" many people to Christ and afterwards, only to find that once I no longer bought into what I was teaching -really it was indoctrinating-people, those very people who ended up spitting venom at me .
And they weren't spitting fire because I had led them astray. They were mad because I was not following the status quo anymore. In their eyes I could see their dissapointment and disapproval. They looked down on me instead of looking up like they once did. Their respect flew right out the window when I began being honest with myself.
There was so much guilt that I felt from being the one who got them ensnared in the cult-slash-church only to be the one to turn around and tell them it was all a lie. It really was quite ironic that at one point I was trying to convince them to be a christian-slash-join the church-slash believe what the group believed- and at another point I was the same one trying to convince them to get out.
The blank look in their eyes told me that it was hopeless. It was like we were on the Titanic, which was about to hit a razor-sharp iceberg. There I was, desperately trying to convince them that the boat was sinking. I try to tell them to get off with me as I prep the lifeboat but they ridicule me for even wanting to leave. They look around and see the band playing, people dancing and eating and they call me crazy. As the end becomes imminent I have to decide whether to jump ship or die with everyone else.
Leaving and watching from the outside is extemely painful and traumatic. After all, I was the one who convinced people to ride that ride in the first place. It was hard letting go. I still felt responsible for them.
What helped me keep moving is that no matter what I said, the other person was still in the church system and it was almost impossible for them to see what I saw. It seemed easier to be convinced of a lie than the truth.
One day I realized that they had to go through thier own journey and find out for themselves. It was tough to swallow, but they were going to have to go through their own pain and struggle through spiritual childbirth to get to the other side.
Freedom isn't cheap. And neither is truth.
I also realized that I didn't have the strength to carry other people on my back as I was struggling to keep my own head above water. I had to let them go so I could survive.
PMS is real and something that gets better with time. I don't know if you ever "get over it" . People in AA or GA or NA never say they are over their addiction. They live with it day by day.
This abuse is the only abuse that rips you to peices and then tells you that you're not allowed to get bitter about it. You aren't allowed to be angry and pissed off at the deepest violation that can happen to a human being. You are lied to, psychologically tormented and thrown to the curb by the leadership and your friends and somehow if you leave you cannot say one bad word about the bad place you came from. The church I was in was a evengelical cult. Truthfully I believe all religion is cultish. I guess the extreme tactics my old church did to recruit people put it over the edge. When people left like I did, it was psychologically ingrained into their subconscious that leaving this church meant leaving God. I remember practically having funerals for people who "fell away".
Everything was about either trying to get people in, keeping people in, or getting them back in.
Now I am not someone who left church because people didn't shake my hand in fellowship and say hi-I was spriritually raped and used up and dumped at the side of the road like yesterday's garbage. When your body has been molested it is one thing. When someone breaks into your home and steals your most prized possession it is another thing. I have had both happen to me and I think the most devastating has been being spiritually violated. I say this because in life, no matter what you go through, there is always a spiritual place to fall back on. Even serial killers have "found God" while waiting on death row. But when that inner part of you has been stolen away, there is nothing to return to. Everyone finds God when life is beating them up and they have hit rock bottom.
But what happens when you are at your lowest of lows and you have endured spiritual molestation?
There is nowhere to go. It is a lost feeling, like free-falling without a parachute. You have no idea what your next move is going to be. Depending on your situation there may be no one to support you as you try to figure it all out and recover.
In fact, you seem to gain more adversaries than ever. Your so-called church friends think you have strayed from the path. They are trying to help you the same way a paramedic helps a suicidal person. Others completely abandon you. They have disappeared like a puff of smoke.
The first year I left, I went thorugh many feelings of extreme hopelessness. It was devastating to try and cope with my life falling apart the way it did. When you are in ministry and then you are not it is like your identity has been ripped out from under you. I counseled and "led" many people to Christ and afterwards, only to find that once I no longer bought into what I was teaching -really it was indoctrinating-people, those very people who ended up spitting venom at me .
And they weren't spitting fire because I had led them astray. They were mad because I was not following the status quo anymore. In their eyes I could see their dissapointment and disapproval. They looked down on me instead of looking up like they once did. Their respect flew right out the window when I began being honest with myself.
There was so much guilt that I felt from being the one who got them ensnared in the cult-slash-church only to be the one to turn around and tell them it was all a lie. It really was quite ironic that at one point I was trying to convince them to be a christian-slash-join the church-slash believe what the group believed- and at another point I was the same one trying to convince them to get out.
The blank look in their eyes told me that it was hopeless. It was like we were on the Titanic, which was about to hit a razor-sharp iceberg. There I was, desperately trying to convince them that the boat was sinking. I try to tell them to get off with me as I prep the lifeboat but they ridicule me for even wanting to leave. They look around and see the band playing, people dancing and eating and they call me crazy. As the end becomes imminent I have to decide whether to jump ship or die with everyone else.
Leaving and watching from the outside is extemely painful and traumatic. After all, I was the one who convinced people to ride that ride in the first place. It was hard letting go. I still felt responsible for them.
What helped me keep moving is that no matter what I said, the other person was still in the church system and it was almost impossible for them to see what I saw. It seemed easier to be convinced of a lie than the truth.
One day I realized that they had to go through thier own journey and find out for themselves. It was tough to swallow, but they were going to have to go through their own pain and struggle through spiritual childbirth to get to the other side.
Freedom isn't cheap. And neither is truth.
I also realized that I didn't have the strength to carry other people on my back as I was struggling to keep my own head above water. I had to let them go so I could survive.
PMS is real and something that gets better with time. I don't know if you ever "get over it" . People in AA or GA or NA never say they are over their addiction. They live with it day by day.
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