YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Looking for others that have been spiritually abused (often in the realm of emotional abuse for sure, but more specific). Anyone who relates to this term and feels like they are working through the recovery of the experience; I would love to hear from you!

Hey!

I have been, at once both subtly and deeply. When I was an adult, a man, they abused me via shame (surprise!) about money (surprise!) and sex (surprise!).

Not 100% sure this fits, but when I was in college I joined a really toxic Christian religious group. I was a freshman, and had been wanting for years to find a church/spiritual group that I could belong to, so when my RA/other freshman advisers (these were upperclassmen girls) invited me to go with them to their youth group I went. They hooked me for two years, even though I didn't believe everything that they believed, because I wanted to belong so bad.

I always felt like I was an outsider, that these people were too good for me, they had it all together, that I was the messed up one. I joined a small devotional group with two upperclassmen girls leading it, and that was the worst. One girl was the one who brought me the first time to the worship group, and I had a total crush on her. I had a strong feeling that she was a lesbian and that she liked me too. (Side note - she would come into my dorm room and play her guitar and sing Sara Bareilles songs. What the fuck else could that have been? Haha). When I came out as bisexual to her, she tried to get me to go to an ex-gay ministry camp with her that summer. I had a terrible time that day, thinking that I was so fucked up, even though I had been raised to think that being gay wasn't a bad thing. Even in that moment, I didn't think there was anything wrong with being gay, but I thought there was still something wrong with me. I'm embarrassed to say that even that didn't cause me to break all ties with the group.

It wasn't until about 6 months later when I was in a long term relationship with a guy, that I had to end all contact. The girl who was my mentor told me that I had to break up with him because he was a 'non-believer', which is the most un-Christian thing I have ever heard. She told me this in the busy dining hall when we were having lunch, and left me sitting there crying.

I wanted so badly to be in a positive, loving environment, and I ended up in such a hateful, fearful place. They made me seriously doubt myself and my beliefs for the first time in my life. I only found out afterwards that the reason they didn't meet on campus was because they had been banned. They were that bad. I won't even go into all the toxic shit they pushed on us. But I was totally burned out for about 3 years before I found an awesome (liberal, open-minded) church for me to be in. I think it speaks to how strong that spiritual need is in me, that they didn't completely destroy it.