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17 Dec 2024 03:34 PM
17 Dec 2024 03:34 PM
@Ru-bee - they are now, but I always wonder how long this one will last
19 Dec 2024 11:00 PM - edited 19 Dec 2024 11:02 PM
19 Dec 2024 11:00 PM - edited 19 Dec 2024 11:02 PM
Sorry @avant-garde
I didn’t know actually where you lived but I just tagged you with other people. Many do not live where I live. I just went and removed the tag
19 Dec 2024 11:05 PM
19 Dec 2024 11:05 PM
@Oaktree thank you
I know I may come across as a bit ocd in regards to it, but I have good reason...
19 Dec 2024 11:10 PM
19 Dec 2024 11:10 PM
02 Jan 2025 02:13 AM
02 Jan 2025 02:13 AM
I'm scared you know? I hide it really well but I'm scared...
I have to go to the police...
They want a statement to do with my pastors... the ones from when I was a kid... a teenager...
They'll want details of my baptism...
Everything they did to me...
I'm scared...
02 Jan 2025 10:28 AM
02 Jan 2025 10:28 AM
Hi @avant-garde it's okay to be scared, I think anyone in that position would be. Please know that we're here with you 💜
14 Jan 2025 02:51 PM - edited 15 Jan 2025 09:30 PM
14 Jan 2025 02:51 PM - edited 15 Jan 2025 09:30 PM
I have a complicated history as a Christian... one that I don't share lightly but does need to be shared...
I was born into a family that many assumed was Christian, going to church, reading the Bible, but what went on behind closed doors was anything but Christian...
Where we went every Sunday was more aligned with indigenous spirituality than the Bible, picking verses that aligned with their beliefs...
The things that went on... yeah I'll say it... satanic.
I didn't have a Bible I could understand, try giving a New King James version to a 6 year old and expect her to understand it... I mean I'm smart, but not that smart...
Mum was the Christian but had been silenced and split personalities from years of abuse...
I was 8 years old when my dad targeted my best friend and I stood between them and said no, take me...
I didn't know that would be the last real time I saw her...
Her dad got her out of there quick smart...
I wonder why he didn't take me with them...
That's when I started writing... just a stanza a day... I think it helped keep me sane...
I was 13, soon to be 14 when I decided to be baptised... the "preparation" wasn't Christian either though... church authority putting their human desires over the sanctity of baptism... it wasn't beautiful or sacred... but my heart was telling me that what they did didn't change my heart to do it... a public proclamation of an inward faith... my heart was what mattered... not their actions leading up to it...
Not long after that I got given my first actual Bible, one I still hold very close to my heart... an NIV youth Bible... I read it cover to cover and it was like a wave of truth washing over me... my church wasn't Christian... what they did to me wasn't Christian and I wanted no part in their religion...
I said no...
Their actions after that were violent, torturous and yet I still held to the faith I professed...
I started hating God though... how could a good God allow me to be treated this way... my Bible says he loves me... but how is any of this love?
I kept reading and studying though, read about Job and then started seeing how Jesus suffered... that even Jesus suffered like I was... that maybe this faith thing... maybe God... it's worth following... that my life isn't a testament to his punishment... but his love...
All through this confusion I still kept saying no to my dad, that I intrinsically knew it wasn't right and regardless of what I currently thought about God I didn't want evil to win either...
I was 16 when I started just letting my heart loose in my poetry, in which God was evident in so many things I wrote...
Fast forward 5 years and you find me at University... at a Christian union... the quiet, shy young woman who loved theology but didn't understand the basics of Christianity, like grace, mercy and love...
I made friends, went to meetings and Bible studies, went to conferences... I grew a lot in my time there...
I still remember when a friend of mine was talking about God's love and she said that every time it comes up, the look of shock and innocence that came over my face was like that of a child hearing it for the first time...
I was coming back from one of the camps and went home to my parents when dad was there... things got bad quickly and one of my friends said that I can call them and they'd come get me if it got too bad... they came and got me that night...
I never moved back home...
Eventually I shifted churches and the memories started to hit... flashbacks... triggers... I had no idea what was going on... my friends thought I was crazy... that I needed help... but not the kind of help that came next...
I had been in a good church for 3 years, after being kicked out of a Pentecostal for asking too many questions. My views were very conservative, always going back to the Bible, what does the Bible say, not taking preachers at their word because who was I to know what was right! The Bible was the authority, not the humans, so the Bible was where I kept going, and still keep going.
When the memories hit I...
@avant-garde wrote:After three years I got sent away... not to a mental hospital... but to an abusive religious rehab who didn't believe all that had happened to me and brainwashed me to believe the same...
They... they... I... letters... restitution... I had to... I had to...
The church... the one that I dearly loved... that saved me from my parents... from the life I was in... threw me back because of these letters that said I had been lying...
I wasn't lying though...
This rehab... I talk about that less than I talk about church... They were the prosperity type... believed no one should be on medication... faith will heal... just need more faith...
They tried to destroy everything unique about me... said I had a demon... that they needed to cast the demon out... a verse I come back to now is "a house divided against itself will not stand"... that I can't have the Holy Spirit and a demon can I? No. And according to them I had already been baptised in the Holy Spirit so how the heck could I have a demon? I couldn't... but they went ahead with it anyway...
All based on the fact that I talked to myself...
They said my hundreds of poems were written by it... that they had to be destroyed... destroying me in the process...
I was so so so scared to write after that... what if it was possessed? what if they made me burn it too?
*starts quietly crying*
Then came the restitution... to reconnect with my parents...
but also my grandma...
she'll never know what I went through to stay with her... to keep that connection with her... she was the best thing to come out of that entire situation...
she loved me so so much... that we were like sisters... born generations apart... she saw the beautiful granddaughter that she loved so dearly rather than the black sheep of the family... despite everyone telling her that I'm a bad apple... she saw the beauty in my eyes and gentleness of my spirit... she loved me without limits... agape... unconditional... I would have done anything to save her... to save the one that loved me...
to then start having seizures and physically remembering everything that my dad, the church and others did to me... my body couldn't deny this... images yes... but sensations? no...
while attending meetings that said if I fast and pray enough my grandma would be ok, her cancer would be healed... that I could save her...
she was 90 when she died... I was blamed for her death... didn't fast enough... didn't pray enough... didn't contribute enough... my aunt telling me that it was now my responsibility to get my mother away from my dad...
I went no contact...
@avant-garde wrote:My pastor started lying to me to force me into situations with them... believed that the more time I spent with them that I would see they're not a threat...
He was so very wrong... but wouldn't listen to me...
It was no longer an if I would leave my church, but a when...
It was the hardest thing I had ever done to leave the church that saved me from them... but I knew if I stayed it was only a matter of time before it was too hard to get out again...
I found a new church and was there 6 months before someone with the best of intentions told my parents where my church was, well the basic vicinity... only stayed another year there... once they found me...
I won't forget that day... my church got so so protective of me... I had been warned by my one friend from my old church that my parents had turned up... so I kind of knew they would come looking... I had my surrogate brother next to me at the sound desk (I liked somewhere to put my coffee and the row was shorter, so less people in it)... my pastor blocked them at the end of my row and the elder in front of me... my mum approached... she was harmless for the most part (one of her entities very much wasn't) and I told my pastor that she's ok, she handed me a Christmas card and let me have my moment with her, the real her... my mother... that was the last time I ever saw her... 13th January 2019... 6 years ago yesterday...
I had reached out to another church and a trauma thing that they apparently ran... it was a God thing that it was the other church that I had been considering joining... but I'm glad I didn't at the time... didn't want this one to be ruined...
So when I had started looking for another church... it was obvious where I would go... and I have been there since...
----------------------------
I feel like saying "stay tuned for the next installment of 'Running' by Avant-Garde"
14 Jan 2025 03:05 PM
14 Jan 2025 03:05 PM
That was a lot to share @avant-garde, I can imagine that writing this took a lot of courage.
I'm still taking in some of the details, but while I do I just want you to know I'm here sitting with you ❤️
14 Jan 2025 03:31 PM
14 Jan 2025 03:31 PM
My faith is a testimony for all those that think they're too far gone, to those who think it's too hard, to those who think they're not worth it, to those who doubt theirs or others faith...
My life is testament to those who say He can't.
14 Jan 2025 04:13 PM
14 Jan 2025 04:13 PM
The police just got back to me... the person I was dealing with isn't on that team anymore... it's been forwarded to someone still on the team... they're going to be in contact with me... it's a guy...
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