In the South where I grew up, most people have a reverence for God and the church, even if they don’t actively participate in Christian traditions.
While some everyday Christians may have thought my family was strange when the daughters weren’t allowed to go to college and when every child living at home spent all day every Saturday engaging in physical labor to build my father’s mansion, it wasn’t considered abuse.
So many experiences fall in the realm of emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse, but we just think it’s Christianity.
Layer on top of that all the admonitions in Christianity that orient us toward praising God in our suffering. I heard the story many times about how the apostles of Christ rejoiced when they were persecuted: “And after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released them. So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name” (Acts 5:40–41).
Oh, how many women in abusive marriages have been counseled to return home to their abuser and suffer for Christ that they might win their husbands to the Lord. I am a legacy of this teaching. My father’s mother likely died for this teaching. I believe my mother is still trapped because of it.
The way this teaching is often used in Christianity is coercive and manipulative. It’s spiritual abuse. When someone is shamed for taking themselves to safety, it’s abuse. Such teaching elevates the abuser’s “good” above the other. (But we won’t ever call the other a victim, because that would be admitting abuse exists.) This is a massive power differential.
I believe the reason why so many of us survivors write, why we tell our stories in books, online, and on podcasts, is because of the narratives around our departure. We were damned no matter what choice we made. If we stayed, we were oppressed to the point of mental and physical illness—sometimes death. If we left, we were erased and our story was told on our behalf by the ones who abused and neglected us, portraying us as the rebellious renegades who gave up their values and their faith out of selfish desires.
So, we tell our stories to reclaim the narrative. If for no one else, we tell it for ourselves, to remind us every day how much we lost and how much we suffered.
We tell our stories to celebrate the freedom we won at the cost of our literal blood, sweat, and tears. We tell our stories to help others get to freedom. We tell our stories so we won’t ever go back.
A narrative about what was eight weeks of negotiations with my parents about whether or not I’d live in their home circulated not long after I returned to their home. One family friend said my father told him he let me move back home after I apologized. I don’t know if this is really the story my father shared, but if he did, he likely believed it, though I was there and remember being very clear that I would not move home if it required I apologize. I was clear from the very beginning: I am nearly twenty-five years old. I should not have to ask my dad for permission to take a job.
I moved back home, and while it felt like regression, my father and I ceased talking about anything substantial. It was a relief.
Those first few months with me back in his home, my father was all niceness and charm. He loaned me money to buy a car. I made sure the car was registered in my name only. I also went to the bank and removed both of my parents from having access to my bank account. Whether I paid him back or not, that car was mine from the day I signed the papers with my own name.
But I paid him back. Every penny. I couldn’t pay the money back fast enough.
In addition to a part-time job at the church that I did not quit, I got a job working as a nanny. I started taking college-level placement exams to pursue illicit college degree, illicit because my family did not permit daughters a full education. I was single-minded in my determination to secure everything I needed to be independent from my parents before I left them for good.
In the interlude where I was in negotiations with my parents, one pivotal moment permanently flipped the switch in my mind.
One of the pastors at the church I worked for had heard about what happened. I don’t know how he knew my parents or heard about things without me telling him. Maybe he didn’t know them at all—he just saw the signs and recognized them for what they were. He came into my office on the third day after I’d been kicked out.
I froze when he closed the door.
“The average abused woman leaves seven times before she leaves for good.” After saying these words, he turned around, opened the door, and left.
This was the first time anyone had ever named my experience as abuse.
The pastor also provided me with a statistic I was determined to beat. Even three days into the separation, I knew I’d end up going back to live with my parents. I didn’t have the resources to survive on my own. But I determined the next time I left, I’d make sure I had everything I needed so I would never, ever go back.
This excerpt from A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts: The Subtle, Insidious Nature of Spiritual Abuse and Life on the Other Side by Katherine Spearing, Founder of Tears of Eden is adapted with permission. Photo of house by Zac Gudakov on Unsplash.
Katherine Spearing, MA, CTRC, is the founder of Tears of Eden, a nonprofit supporting survivors of spiritual abuse and is a Certified Trauma Recovery Practitioner with a Master of Arts in Religion and Cultures. For five seasons, she hosted the groundbreaking podcast Uncertain, pioneering pivotal conversations around abuse in churches. In addition to working with survivors of trauma and abuse, she is an author, sought-after podcast guest, and advocate for women reclaiming their autonomy after systemic oppression.
