Tag: abuse

Losing It

SMACK!

It didn’t hurt. It did instantly send me from a 4 to a 10.

One breath in, one breath out. Not long enough.

“What do you think you are doing?!”

I can see the path I’m going to take, as if my brain has hijacked me.

At this point, I’m barely aware of it, although I do recognize it.

I can see the space to think and the choice to respond gently instead of acting harshly for less than a flash, and then the space is gone.

Despite all of the other times before, where I have taken a second or third breath and remembered to think and choose, I stop being in control.

I’m sick with a cold. I’m exhausted. I’m annoyed. And now, I’m pissed off.

The object of my rage is my almost 7 year old. It feels good not to be in control. Until it doesn’t.

I slowly turn around. A tug in my brain to parent differently. I ignore myself.

“Do you honestly think that was the right choice to make right then?”

My voice sounds too controlled and calm. I’m no longer thinking. I’m all reaction.

6 seconds of kicking, screaming, and crying while I physically lift her from my bedroom to her bed, where I let out my anger 6 times on her back end.

Losing my temper.

Then I just stop. I remember too late that this isn’t how I want to parent.

I recognize the fear and pain, and this time, I’m causing it.

I stop hitting, but I’m still too angry to be considered safe right now. The shame of losing it this much is settling in, and it’s not helping me.

I am being too loud. Too aggressive. Too threatening. Too much like my own mother.

Clarity.

I back out of her room and tell her to stay there until her father gets home tonight.

That’s too long. I know it is. Even as I say the words, I know I don’t mean them.

I just have nothing else in my toolkit right now.

A seven, almost eight year old doesn’t have the mental or emotional maturity to calm me, a full-grown adult down. Nor should she. It’s not fair to expect from her what I’m not capable of modeling.

Her reaction understandably escalates until I close the door and take the time I should have taken at the beginning to breathe, think, and choose my actions.

I’m calm now. I’m safe again. I haven’t lost my temper like this in a few years, so I’m definitely making some progress.

Of course, I wish I never got here to begin with.

I have damage control to do.

As much as we try to justify our actions as parents, at the end of the day, our kids learn from what we do more than anything we will ever say.

Before I knock on her door. She slips me an apology note under it. My heart breaks. I’m already laying the foundation for trauma instead of peace. I somehow stop myself from spiraling.

When I go back to apologize, I tell her how proud I am that she thought to apologize first when she was so upset herself.

“Apologizing is hard, and I am so proud of you for being able and willing to take the first step.”

I tell her that I’m sorry too. That even if she hit me first, I’m the adult, and it isn’t ok for me to hit her back. 

I let her know that although I’m still not happy with her being ungrateful, I can see now that I made the wrong choice completely on how to address that.

I promise to do better. And I will do better.

It’s not easy to break cycles.

Sometimes, learned behavior seeps through even when you have the best of intentions.

Sometimes, you will make the wrong choice or do the wrong thing, despite knowing the damage and the pain it causes.

It’s important to acknowledge those moments.

It’s important to never pretend them away.

It’s important to not continue the cycle just because breaking the cycle is so hard. Never give up. Always try to do better.

No one is perfect. We need to model the same grace we want our children to live with ourselves.

If anything good comes from me losing it, it’s that my daughter knows I understand her temper. She knows that mommy loves her even after she loses her temper, too. Even after 35 years of practice, mommy still messes up, so it’s ok if they mess up with only 7 or 10 years of practice.

Acknowledged mistakes are half the battle.

Apologizing to your children when you make the wrong choice and it impacts them will build their trust in you.

We aren’t trying to be perfect. We are trying to be whole.

And we are always fighting to break those  cycles.

Submission: Beauty or Withcraft?

woman looking at sea while sitting on beach

Submission is beautiful until it becomes about control. Then it’s witchcraft.

I heard/read this quote on a comment to a Facebook live video. It resonates with me.

I’m going off script- and what I’m trying to say is meant to help those who have fallen victim to spiritual abuse.

Spiritual Abuse is when someone uses the threat of eternal consequences to maintain a position of control.

It sounds a lot like “submit to those who have authority over you, or else…” “submit to your pastor, even if he is wrong, God will bless your obedience” (this one irks me in a special sort of way) or “the only way to be saved is to follow “my” rules- here’s how I twisted scripture to support that”.

It’s been my personal experience (with some, not all) that pastors in the UPCI (United Pentecostal Church International) are obsessed with the idea of pastoral authority. They preach it often as gospel. The pastor’s preferences on matters that are supposed to be a representation of the individuals personal walk with God are preached to be as ideal and as authoritative as the Bible.

Many of the examples pertain to women, but not all.

Women- don’t cut your hair. Men- don’t have long hair.

Women- don’t wear pants or be immodest. Men- don’t wear shorts or appear to be too feminine in your appearance.

Women- don’t wear make up. Men- don’t have beards.

Both- Avoid movie theaters.

Both- Abstain from alcohol and other mind altering drugs.

Both- Ask your pastor for advice before doing anything that affects your personal life.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Each of these examples are beautiful symbols of consecration IF the believer truly wants to live this way.

The issue is when the believer points out the legalism behind these “standards”.

It’s always coated with a layer of “we don’t do these things TO BE saved, we do these things because WE ARE saved”.

The unspoken implication of course is- if you don’t do these things, then you aren’t really saved. Enter- Spiritual Abuse.

Pastors, friends desiring pastoral roles in this denomination- please see this for what it is.

Please study the cultural context behind the passages most often used to perpetrate this belief system.

Please stop referring to people, like me, who have chosen to live in the freedom God has given us, as backsliders.

It’s damaging. It causes depression and anxiety. It creates a stumbling block.

It’s not your job as a pastor to monitor the day to day lives of your congregation. It’s your job as a pastor to encourage a personal walk with God between God and each unique individual in your church- and that walk- if the culture you create in your church is of authentic freedom- will and should- look differently for every person.

We AREN’T sheep- as much as that term is loved. We ARE all human beings, created in the image of our creator, and we all have the right and the freedom to express our love for Him however HE leads us- not how a pastor sees fit to declare from a pulpit.

(I am aware that this may come across as harsh. A lot of the pastors I know on a personal level would argue that they enforce standards because they have to give an account to God for the souls of their congregation. You aren’t responsible for making people follow a list of rules- only for creating an environment of growth and acceptance.)

Memories

I wrote this piece a few months ago while I was in therapy. I was trying to pin-point the source of my constant anxiety. With so many gaps in my memory from my childhood, these are the most vivid memories that often present in the form of recurring dreams. There is a lot alluded to, but I don’t know how much of these memories to trust as actual fact. 

orange white and pink smoke digital wallpaper
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

Sometimes they wash over you like a cloud rolls across the sky on a cool spring day. They give you just the faintest outline of an image, that if stared at too long becomes distorted, but if half ignored takes shape in the most marvelous of ways.

Sometimes they are so jarring that you wake up in the middle of the night. Heart pounding. Palms sweaty. Nervous. Anxious. Not able to remember what caused the reaction, but absolutely certain it was terrible.

Sometimes they bring a smile to your lips. A sparkle to your eyes. You are lost in a moment of nostalgia. You can recall every word, every detail, every sound, every smell. And you never want to forget.

Sometimes, you push them away. You don’t want to remember. You try to distract yourself. You force your mind to focus on other things. You remember, but you desperately want to forget.

A seemingly unrelated event brings everything rushing back.

The strange, metal, army green chest and the single bed. The bedroom that had nothing else in it. But where was it? Why were you alone? Why were you afraid? Was it even real?

The whispers. The looks. The sadness. The anger.

The fat lady singing about a fire. Being woken up because you had to evacuate because a gas station down the road actually did catch fire.

The questions that suggest something terrible and unspeakable might have happened to you. But you don’t know. There’s a gap, a blank, a void. You want to remember, to put the questions at ease, but you don’t trust what’s real and what’s imagined.

The punishments for being a kid. Being forced to double over backwards as a time out. Until the pain became so unbearable you give in to the spanking for moving because that’s better than the numbness you feel.

The fear of doing anything wrong.

Ever.

You might think people are nice, but if you make them angry, they might become someone you don’t recognize. You just don’t want to take that chance.

The recurring dream of there being a secret passageway in your school’s cafeteria. If you find it, you can finally escape. But, you can also get lost and never be found.

The realization that you are just a shell of who you want to be, because you are scared of what your genes might have made you.

Am I strong enough to change history for my own family?

They aren’t all bad. You know there are some hidden good ones scattered here and there. The problem is braving the process. Not knowing what will trigger a fleeting image. The eternal impact.

The yellow big bird slippers that only had one eye. The doll house, that you loved, but don’t remember, other than it being given to you.

Your babysitter’s son telling you that you have to do what he says or you will be in trouble, then being led into his bedroom. You can only imagine what happened next, because like so much else, everything after that point is blank in your mind.

You want them to stop. But you also want to understand.

When do they end?