A continuation of my attempt to finish a book I started in December 2017. Posting chapters in an attempt to organize it all and finish.
But Sarah, why would you return? Why would you put up with all of that in the first place? Simply, it had been normalized for me going all the way back. Decisions were centered around what I “should” do. Specifically, Biblically. And there was always someone claiming to be the authority in interpreting what that meant. I was in church while I was still in the womb. This was second-nature for me. My default mode of operating. My focus, my everything. Out of fear. Either missing out here or eternal hellfire damnation. And I couldn’t understand why everyone else wasn’t taking it so seriously.
How did this play out? I was a sitting duck. People would even tell me to my face. Someone I called a friend at the time proudly announced to me one day, in these exact words, that my most redeemable quality was that I would take abuse. A former girlfriend told me that what she loved about me was that I would have sex even though she knew I didn’t want to. A future teacher told me that he could so easily manipulate me and then proceeded to do so.
The whole time I just thought I was being nice. I hoped my love would thaw them, all of them and more, out. I thought my love would inspire them to change. Looking back now, I can’t think of even one time that ever worked long-term. But it would take me many more painful years to realize that.
Before I move on, I need to go back in the timeline a little bit. The Sunday after I was initially kicked out of Manna House, I of course didn’t want to go to service at Calvary Chapel San Antonio. At that time, nobody except Julie had reached out to me yet. Complete radio silence.
But I still wanted to worship that Sunday with believers. So I dragged myself to Community Bible Church. That campus was huge in comparison. I knew there was a good chance I could sneak in and out with anyone talking to me. Certainly no one would know me. I could focus on God in peace. Maybe like it should have been all along. Without any peripheral social drama getting in the way.
During the service I became aware of classes CBC was offering. I believe one was entitled “Untangling Relationships”. I thought, “Great, I’ll sign up and go learn how to fix all my relationships.”
Well, once I begged to go back to work at Manna House, I decided to still sneak off to Community Bible Church for that Untangling Relationships class. I didn’t tell anyone. There was great suspicion of any non-Calvary Chapel influence. And I didn’t believe in that or want the drama of attempting to justify it to anyone’s liking. This was a rare decision I made for me – confidently.
So I showed up to the first class session, prepared to learn the formula for relationship success. And within the first few minutes, the class leaders explained that the class was about healing from codependency. “Codependency? I don’t think I have that. That’s not what I came here for.” But I didn’t want to be rude, so I decided to just sit through that first class instead of calling attention to myself by walking out. But I didn’t think the subject matter applied to me so I wasn’t going to go back.
Until towards the very end of that first class. After one of the leaders gave us a quiz to identify whether we had codependent behaviors. Let’s just say I marked so many in the affirmative that it really shocked me. Things I thought were normal. That I soon learned were not helpful. So I left that first night and promised myself that I would keep coming back to learn more about this codependency concept.
What I did not anticipate at all was that I learned through that class that I had been trying to manipulate God. Religious people referred to it differently – as “pleasing” God. But under a more intentional drill-down it was clear to see I was attempting to get God to do my bidding. To control God’s behavior towards me and others. Whether by my actions or even specific words. Kinda like um, witchcraft, really. That’s what codependency was about: thinking if you follow the magic spell then you can guarantee the outcome you want from other people. I was embarrassed to learn that I had actually been looking at God like Trinity was Santa Claus or an old sugar-daddy.
By the end of that class I started the journey of beginning to learn that I could unfortunately only control me. I couldn’t fix anyone else except myself.
I’ve heard specifically William Paul Young say that pornography is the imagination of a relationship without the vulnerability of one. Codependency was similar. I had wanted to somehow circumvent risk. For good reason. Because I didn’t yet know how to keep myself safe. And I didn’t trust God to do the heavy lifting.
But there would be plenty more opportunities to master becoming comfortable with the mystery inherent in navigating respectful relationships.
Ever since I was a little girl, I prayed almost daily not to be deceived. Because I realized on some level that I was very vulnerable due to the way I was raised. Obedience and submission were ingrained in me. And the right, or in this case wrong person could easily exploit my propensity to give people the benefit of the doubt. As I was taught to do: love believes all things, hopes for the best.
It wasn’t until my parents divorced that I ever doubted what I was told. They fought constantly behind closed doors. For years. We walked around on eggshells. Just waiting for what would set the next round off. I’d lay on the floor at night. Looking under my door. Making sure they didn’t hit each other. All this while they are attending and even sometimes leading Bible studies. Telling me I shouldn’t play with kids whose parents were divorced. And then they eventually announce their own split.
I was only mad that they didn’t each lay down their pride and selfishness and work harder for the family to make it. But overall that was my first exposure to religious people being exposed as hypocrites. Years in the church and then they went against something they had previously been so adamant about. Made me doubt everything ever since. I could no longer ever trust what I was being told. I had to find out and measure for myself.
Same with later being told that gross infidelity was involved. By someone who at the same time had the audacity to ground me for a week when I replied to something they said with, “That sucks.” How many times was my mouth washed out with soap when you were trading more than spit with someone outside the marital bed? On top of everything else inside the house. Ridiculous.
That’s what broke me. Learning that people in church were doing things they preached against. That was the real start of my spiritual transformation. That’s when I began to think for myself. Although it would be decades before I’d consider my mind even a little bit washed from all the b.s.
The second significant thing that came out of the experience of getting kicked out of Manna House is that I started researching what I was experiencing and ran across the topic of spiritual abuse. I.e. people hurting people – all in the name of Jesus.
That’s what I really cared about more than my personal security, obviously: truth. I wouldn’t fight for myself, but I couldn’t operate in lies. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. I didn’t have a problem so much with people fucking up as much as I did with them not owning it.
And so somehow I ran across the book, “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” by David Johnson and Jeff Van Vonderen. More so than the authors’ prescriptions, I relished the stories chronicled in the book. Although the authors gave me words to finally conceptualize my experience, I felt seen by the stories from the people who shared what they had been through. I wasn’t alone and I wasn’t crazy or lazy. I could now see that one of the main aims had been to keep me on my feet and so busy that I wouldn’t be able to see the fuckery being sent my way.
And I got really mad about this. Mad that people would use people’s love of God to manipulate and hurt them. Mad that the little lambs had no idea they were being led to the slaughter. Mad that nobody was doing anything to fix this. And finally mad for myself. That I was used instead of protected.
These people who spiritually abuse are just like the ones on the street. Just with a lot more religious speech. Until the book, that hadn’t occurred to me. Unfortunately being in church wasn’t a safe harbor; didn’t mean I could relax and not test those who identified themselves as Christians. Even in the religious stories, the devil came masquerading as an angel of light. But this wasn’t taught from the pulpit. The focus was on demonizing “the world” “out there”. Not keeping an eye out for the wolves sitting right next to you in the pews.
Thankfully, now my eyes were beginning to open. And that was also the beginning of the end for me religiously. I could no longer walk into church and not see what was happening. Although it would take a long time for me to know what to do. Where to go. How to navigate life with these new lenses. I can understand on some level why people would rather bury their heads in the sand. Because in my experience, you could lose everything you’ve ever known without any guarantee that what you are hoping you are trading it for will ever come. It’s a lot lonely at least for a long while on this island of enlightenment. There is a certain bliss in ignorance.
Sarah Nyhan 