Principle #3

Traumatic events can be terrifying, horrid and agonizing.  But they usually end.  What does not end is the impact these events can have for the future.

 

Severe traumas perpetrated by others, particularly in the Name of God, refuse to be buried.  However, for many traumatized spiritual abuse survivors the intense urge to deny such experiences is a denial that does not work over time.  Like corpses that refuse to stay in their graves they haunt the survivor until they are allowed to tell their story.

 

Recovery Principle #3 begins with honesty to one’s self and to others, and creates the possibility of recovery and healing.  As renowned trauma researcher and psychiatrist, Judith Herman, writes “Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites for the…  healing of individual victims.”   It is normal for many spiritual abuse survivors to live in denial or struggle deeply with the telling of their stories.  This is driven by a multitude of reasons: fear of being overwhelmed by intense emotions, the shame and stigma of public exposer as a victim, concern or fear of family or friends still in the destructive group, fear of retribution from the group or from “God”, confusion over who is responsible for such spiritual abuse, fear of losing significant relationships or employment, etc. 

 

Tragically, for those victims who try to live in secrecy, their story will inevitably come out, but not verbally.  Nobody leaves a spiritually destructive group unscathed. Eventually, the symptoms of spiritual abuse become apparent in the survivors compromised intimate relationships, damaged self-esteem, and spiritual despair and hopelessness.  The spiritual abuse survivor’s core identity has merged with their symptoms and is now defined by them.  No longer do they see their self as a person who experiences anxiety, rather they are an anxious person.  It is not that they have failed with this or that, rather they are a failure.  

 

This deep wounding is often classified psychologically as a form of trauma called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or more serious, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), which is enduring.    

 

Spiritually traumatic experiences can profoundly disconnect a person across three continuums: their most intimate relationships with others are disrupted; their relationship with their own self becomes a crisis of identity; and most importantly, their relationship with God is filled with hopelessness, despair and distorted images of Him.    The graphic below illustrates this disconnection and describes its consequences.

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