Halloween Post Two: Some Days it is Just a Monster Mash

In an interview with Focus on the Family author Frank Peretti explained his motivation for writing about monsters. As a child he had a medical condition which turned his tongue an oozing black.

As children are often the cruelest beings on the planet, Peretti suffered through taunts of being a “monster”. Choosing the positive aspect of a bad situation, he decided to see monsters as “cool” and himself as special in being associated with them.

This post is in celebration of choosing the positive, and yes, even the humorous aspect of feeling like a freak.

After living in a fundamental cult for twenty plus years, I escaped into what I thought would be stress-free living. I survived hell on earth- now it was time to lay back and relax, right?

That might be right for some. And if you are part of that some, congratulations- you have the good life.

For me and many that I have spoken with, coming out of the cult is the easy part. Living outside of the cult is the true challenge.

For many, the challenge proves too great and they return to the cult, though it be harsh and unforgiving, at least they understand how it functions.

I grew up inside the cult, attended the cult’s school, and after graduation was told that I needed to volunteer my time in return for the all the cult had given me.

When I escaped, and left behind the twisted, haunted laboratory of mind control I discovered that, surprise! I had stunted social skills, an amputated sense of self, and a macabre understanding of what my future would be.

Like Frankenstein, I raged (mentally, at least) at the perverted mind that amputated my sense of self and hijacked my devotion to God to serve her evil empire.

I stomped about for a year, howling with anger at whoever I could. I hated parties; they reminded me of a “get-together” at her house. These often included being yelled at in her bedroom (if you were lucky) and in front of everyone (if you weren’t).

I hated searching for a job. How do you explain away a decade plus that you gave away? How you never finished college because you were too tired to think after forty hours of volunteering, five nights a week of church, and twelve plus hours a week of cleaning on her cleaning crew?

Honestly, I felt like a Picasso painting walking into a job interview that said, “This is me. My nose is on my chin and my eyes are in my forehead. I don’t know how to make decisions, I think my worth is below minimum wage, and I will never speak up for myself. So, please hire me (if it’s not too inconvenient) I know I’m a freak, just let me scuttle around in the background quietly.”

Here lies the dividing line. Some well meaning but utterly clueless soul might say that I should believe that God was ‘working a good work’ in my life and in the middle of it all and I should praise my way into joy at this knowledge.

This is foolish thinking. God did not and never will plan abuse to ‘work His good work in you’. What is at work here is the fact that humanity has free will and a pastor chose to use her position of leadership to satiate her need for control. She placed herself as a god and will, unless she has the good sense to repent, one day stand in judgment for deeds.

What I do know is that God gives ‘beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning’.

And so for the Frank Peretti moment of deciding to embrace the experience (not the abuse), acknowledge where I am because of it, and take stock of skills I learned in the proverbial fire.

As for where I am:
I spent years wishing to know the joys of marriage, for as Luther said there is nothing more comforting than a marriage.
I met and married a wonderful man a year after leaving the cult. Our paths would not have crossed if I had lived a different life.

What I have learned:
I am resilient, having lived under extreme stress and oppression.
I have empathy for others who have experienced abuse or slavery.

The skills I have acquired:
Endurance in the workplace and a willingness to go the extra mile.

One ex-cult member showed beautiful perspective in dressing up as the pastor for Halloween. Their motivation was she was the scariest character they could think of.

It was a perfect statement. She is scary, she is monstrous, but it is she that is the monster, not me.

I think I will make my statement one Halloween by making a scarecrow that resembles her and hang a sign that reads “This would scare anything”.

Am I making light of the abuse or the fact that a pastor is in dire moral straits?

No. I am doing what many people do with Halloween: Put on a monster mask, confront what you fear, celebrate it for a day and then, move on.

Till next year. Maybe I’ll dress up as the witch she always accused me of being. After all, I know the hat fits and I’ll wear it.

On the other hand, is she brave enough to wear her hat?


read another excellent post on this subject by Provender

A Helpful Post From Tales From The Crypt Blog

An informative post from Tales From The Crypt blog:

The 'Superior Leader Trap'
"To look objectively and critically at the cult, experience, the ex-member needs to gain freedom from the "superior leader trap." As indicated earlier, this trap is sprung if there is criticism or questioning of the leader's actions and directives. Basically, it takes the following form: The Leader operates on a higher plane than you or I. Because of that, we are not able to judge the rightness or wrongness of his or her actions. Ordinary, conventional standards do not apply here."

Dr. Arthur J Deikman http://www.deikman.com/former.html

To read more, click: http://brisbanechristianfellowship.blogspot.com/

Rasputin and followers image by elverogue in photobucket

Another Beautiful Sunday!

Once again, a Sunday without PTSD!
Each and every Sunday free of distress is a gift from the Creator of my mind and emotions!
Here is the description of my first Sunday PTSD- free:

Amazing day- No effects of PTSD at anytime during church!After almost a year and a half of driving up to church and restraining myself from crawling into a fetal position, this is a red-letter day.
At my new church, the pastor recruited a Beatle tribute band named No.9 to play at the beginning of the service to illustrate the message series on love.
I will forever associate Beatle music with this very joyful day.
The sun of freedom truly came out for me today. Thank God!The abusive church days have lost a major battle today!

Letter to Ex- Pastor

This letter is one more step in my healing process. Because of all the abuse (spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical) that happened to me in my years at a Dade City church, I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.Guess what triggers my PTSD episodes?You got it- church!!!!One day I hope to be healed to the point that I don’t throw up when I walk into a church.
God, grant healing to all who have suffered spiritual abuse and grant us restoration.
God, grant understanding to our abusers. Let them come to the knowledge that they are abusers. Let the abused and the abuser find healing in Your love.
God, break the circle of pain.
Amen.


Dear [name withheld], pastor of a Dade City church,
It is a strain to marry a polite greeting to your name, but as we live in a polite society and I am conforming to society rules of formal opening, the greeting remains.
Enough blathering.
The point of my letter is to inform you that are a spiritual abuser.
I don’t know if your abusive tendencies arise from your past?Perhaps you were a recipient of abuse from your family or even another church leader?This I don’t know the answer to, and in actuality, it is a moot point as you are the only one who knows in certainty. Perhaps you have never heard the term “spiritual abuser”.
Let me clarify.
In the book “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse”, authors Johnson and Vonderen explain how spiritual abuse is parallel to family system abuse:

“In a healthy, functional family system, the parents occupy a place of authority
in order to provide need-meeting relationships, experiences, and messages to the
children…When a parent uses his or her position to force the children to perform, or uses a too-harsh standard to judge by, or uses the position of power to gratify [her] own needs…the parent has crossed the line into abuse… When a child trusts, and then is emotionally, verbally, physically, or sexually used for an adult’s gratification, that is abuse.”

[name withheld], you haven’t just crossed the line into abuse- you have built a kingdom with it and into it.
In your belief that you are God’s judgment stone you have made yourself and those who support you into ‘God’s lynching crew. You have spiritually, emotionally, and physically ‘lynched’ people’s God-given right of person hood and equality. I hate to be the one to tell you, but God never advertised for a ‘judgment stone-spiritual lynching assistant’.
Perhaps you should check your hiring papers- you might find a signature on there you wouldn’t like.
Nathan told David a parable of a rich man who stole the poor man’s sheep to feed his guest.
[name withheld], you didn’t just steal your poor neighbor’s sheep to feed your guest. You, the ‘shepherd’, took your own sheep to feed yourself.
You are the woman.
I say this, not as a judge- that isn’t my place.
I say this a fellow child of Christ.
In Matthew 18: 15 Christ says,

“If a brother or sister sins, go and point out the fault, just
between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two along, so that every matter maybe established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

You have had many ‘private pointing outs’, so I am coming with two or three witnesses of this blog.
As God created you, [name withheld], a creation in His own image, He loves you. He provided you a Sacrifice that will cover every abuse you have perpetrated. Christ will take every destructive action, word, and thought you have committed on His very own Body of believers on Himself- He will cover them with His precious blood. As a fellow child of Christ, I urge you to take the Advocate God has allowed you. He will take your sentence, as He has mine, on His very Self.
If you choose to ignore this Advocate, I would remind you that, as God is mercy, He is equally justice.A dire warning for offenders is in Luke 17:1:

“…Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied about your neck than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.”

As you are so fond of saying-‘I didn’t say that, God did’.
In the name of grace of peace, I ask you to come forward, admit your abuse, and break the cycle of pain. Remember Zacchaeus? Christ came to his house and the tax collector turned from his abuse of the people.
Let Christ come to your house.
Turn from your abuse.
Repay back what you have stolen.
You often portray yourself as a ‘David’ to those who have turned from you ‘Saul’.You say they plot for your life, awaiting your ruin. I say to you that the opposite is true. Those you have abused and stolen from haven’t taken you to task for your wrongs against them. They have moved on with their lives, growing and maturing into the humans they were meant to be be, the people they would have been without your abuse.They go on bravely, facing years wasted in your service, money given to bolster your kingdom (not God’s) that you have built.You, on the other hand, pursue them with prayers for their demise, for their destructive and violent end. You see God as your ‘long arm of the law’.I would re-think the whole Saul and David scenario.
You aren’t David.
I don’t wish to descend into a ‘Jerry-Springer-ish’ orgy of blame throwing, so I will bring this letter to it’s close.I want you to know that you are an abuser. I also want you to know that there is forgiveness and grace.If you choose forgiveness, I want you to know that with about ten years of good counseling I will able to stand in the same room as you to hear the true account of your life. By then I will have gotten over my ‘house- elf’ mentality and won’t cringe or throw-up when I see your face.
And I was a good house-elf for you. I took your abuse and your mentality that I was less than human and put here on earth purposely to serve you.As you were the ‘master’ and I but the lowly house-elf, I kept your secrets. My mind and soul punished me severely when I dared think or say that you were wrong.
No more!!!!!!! I am free!
You are not material of Voldemort proportion- however; you are definitely Malfoy status. As Dobby the house-elf says in ‘Prisoner of Azcaban’:

“You are a bad, dark wizard”.
Now I am a free house-elf and I may work for when and for whom I choose.
If the ‘Harry Potter’ references offend you, I was glad to be of service one last time.
[name withheld], for your immortal soul’s sake, choose repentance.End the abuse.
Restore what you have stolen and come into the waiting arms of forgiveness,

A fellow child in Christ

This is my ‘Amos 5:24’ prayer:
“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-ending
stream!”
Pray God His justice will roll through a Dade City church and wash away the pain and abuse.

Happiness is a Journey

I am writing in response to the threats received to certain EX-members of a Dade City church compound facility. First and foremost, I would like to say, there must be truth in the “Letter” for the accused to know whose home to come running too and bang down the door while screaming threats and “trying” to intimidate, while two other “yes-men” from the compound stand nearby as witnesses, how pathetic! Oh, did I mention, I too am an escapee from a Dade City church! And this is my story.

I must say, this is a very difficult situation for me because I still have family that I love dearly, still in this compound. My mother and sister are still held captive there by a force that they can not even see for themselves. They will read this and will be very upset with me, and I am sure that they will make sure it gets back to me that they are not by any means being held captive or feel they have to stay, but the truth is, I have been there and I know that there are times they feel insecure about the environment in which they exist, we all did at some point and time, but because of the deep-set mind control, you ignore those feelings and continue your mere existence in the world that has been “created” for you. So, mom and sis, I do this because I love you!

I was one of the so called “fortunate” ones that got to actually live with the pastor. This was a very weird time for me, and thankfully I have been able to block most of these memories. I knew things that would make your hair stand on all ends, from evil plots to intimidate and destroy families and individuals, to stalking members at work, home or family vacations or one day trips, to embezzling monies from the tithes and offerings as well as family savings, to tapping phones lines, and the list goes on and on. I guess the most traumatic thing for me in leaving was my children, then 10 and 7, they were the reason I lived! And the “leader” knew it and she would use this against me. It was embedded in me that if I dare left the flock, my children would be lost and their souls would burn in hell for eternity. My kids were very close to their grandmother and aunts there, and I knew that if we left they would be cut off, sure enough, to this day, they still have nothing to do with them, yes they occasionally receive a birthday card, Christmas card, etc…or maybe a dinner night out once a year, but wait did I mention, that was only if they “the church” wanted to pump them for information about those of us that had left. I still struggle to believe that my mom truly realizes what she is doing and has missed some of the most important years of their lives; they are now 18 and 15.

I was the back up piano player for church since I was about 15 until a couple of years before we left, she FORCED me to play on a regular basic, all the while, criticizing me, that I was not following the lead of God, or wait, I think she meant “her lead”, whatever! I would go home at night and cry for hours because of the mental torture, throw up, and get myself back in check for the next service, just to go through it again and again and again! My kids were in 4th and 1st grade when we left. We tried to leave in good graces, wrote a letter to the “pastor” asking that our kids be allowed to remain there for just the remainder of that year and that we were not angry with anyone, but we felt that in order for us to grow spiritually, we needed a change. That weekend, two trustees from that place, showed up at our front door, with our kids personal belongings in a black garbage bag, and we were told “May God have mercy on your souls.” Needless to say, I was absolutely petrified leaving, my kids were sure to be struck by lightning and killed by nightfall. Going from school to school, trying to find a place I felt secure with for my kids was another story in itself. Every Pastor I came upon would stop and pray for me, telling me they could see the hurt and pain in my eyes, and would lovingly try to express to me that God was a caring and loving God, not a malicious, murderous being. It took months for me to even begin to lighten up and realize I didn’t even know God! All those years, 25+, I had been serving a person, the “pastor”. I slaved for her, cleaning buildings at all hours of the night while holding down a full time job; when I prayed, I was praying in an unconscious manner, because I knew if I didn’t pray through as she thought I should, she would be down on me, criticize me, mock me, ostracize me, so I prayed in a fashion that would be pleasing for her. I played the piano, not for the Glory of God, but that I might please her, I studied the Bible, testified, not for the Glory of God, but that I might please her in all I say and do! As sick as this may sound, it is the truth!

I was not able to even have my own family over without her (the pastor) permission. She would decide for us when we could go out for dinner, family vacations, have birthday parties for my kids, or have someone over for dinner, if we did not get her permission and she found out, we would be lashed out upon from the pulpit. Many times, she would buy us things when she knew she had gone too far, which would put us back in that “feeling obligated” mode. We did not have much, money wise, and at times we could not tithe like we should, plus knowing what happened to the tithes, didn’t help matters either, but during a very hard time when we couldn’t tithe like normal, she told me to my face, I had no right to pray or ask God for anything!

One service, out of the clear blue, she accused me and another member of the band, of lustful feelings for each other, right from the pulpit, and had me move my seat to the other end of the room. My jaw dropped to the floor, I turned 20 shades of red, I had no idea that was coming! Later, a few years ago, I finally found out what that was all about, it was because we were having a picnic, a 4th of July holiday at the church, I had started blowing up a slide for the kids to play on, and because this other member came over and offered to help, and DID NOT WIPE OFF THE MOUTH PIECE AFTER ME, that we had a fling going on! Do you see how warp and demented this is! And this is just my story.

I could go on and on and tell you of things that would just floor you, but I have to stop somewhere, so here is where I will stop. Since we have left about 9 years ago, we are doing wonderful and we thank God everyday that we finally saw the light and our kids did not have to be raised in that environment. I pray that my family left there, will one day come to an understanding too that will allow them to see it for what it really is.
By Happiness is a Journey

Can't You See That I'm Dying?

I was part of a Tampa/Dade City church for twenty-four years. If I sat at this computer for a year and typed continuously, I couldn't begin to record the horror perpetrated on me and those I love.

At the same time, I have experienced God's amazing deliverance from destructive cult and the amazing concern from those who walked with me as I left behind a spiritually-abusive hell.

My history begins with my parents attending the church when I was pre-school age.

The pastor at the time tried to 'sever ties' with the movement called the 'Body'; being a young child, I didn't understand what this meant.

There was a woman in the church who was the 'youth-pastor'. I understand this was very 'unusual' for this organization of churches as women were generally repressed and thought brainless.

I was too young at the time to attend the 'youth' meetings (THANK GOD!!!)
However, the congregation would hear at the Saturday night meetings how 'amazing' the meetings were- they were so 'Spirit'-packed they would last until four in the morning! Oh, holiness was reigning!!

What they mostly consisted of was the 'youth' minister or her 'favored' young people sensing demons in the other young people and then hours of 'casting' said demons 'out'.
It is my belief that the Salem witch trials got a great revival in Tampa in the 'West' wing of the church. Had execution been permissible, these 'zealous' 'Christians' would have obliged the world in wiping out a few more heretics!

When I came out of the church, I heard from the 'young' people who had also left that the senior pastor had repeatedly warned this 'youth' minister that she was not to keep the youth over an hour. So, she told the young people that they would keep the length of the meetings a secret between themselves.
BIG RED FLAG HERE! Anytime someone wants seemingly 'normal' things kept from those in authority (i.e. when and where meetings occur, length of meetings, who was there, etc.) please do yourself a favor and spread the word- there is danger somewhere.
Time elapsed, and the senior pastor found out that he was dying of cancer. He elected a young man to take the church- believing he was circumventing this woman 'youth' minister from taking power.

There are events and happenings, layers of story that would take me days and hours to recount. If I have the time, I will come back to this part of the story in the second section.
Suffice to say, the woman took control of the church.
Almost twenty years later, the pure hell of this event still affects people's lives.
She was pastor of the church and principal of the 'church' school that now resided in Dade City, Florida.

One of the most debilitating things that stand out in my mind was when I was thirteen.
The school had a very stringent 'six-inch' rule between the sexes- of course I see the wisdom in this, but in this abusive environment the interpretation of this rule actually was:
THOU SHALT NOT EVEN LOOK AT THE OPPOSITE SEX, YOU LUSTFUL, CRAVEN CREATURE!
NO SITTING AT THE SAME LUNCH TABLE WITH MEMBERS OF THE MALE SEX!
IF THOU TALK WITH MEMBERS OF SAID OPPOSITE SEX, MONITORS AND SUPERVISORS WILL SIT IN THE OFFICE AND WHISPER TO EACH OTHER WHILE GIVING THOU EVIL GLARES.
And you can be sure the principal will be called and told what a sex-maniac you are.
A group of the girls were playing a clapping game called "Miss Mary Mack". The game consisted of children standing in a circle and taking turns clapping each other's hands in fast succession while reciting a rhyme.
(As you can tell, obviously someone pulled this game straight out of the kinkiest dating sex secrets section from Playboy)
We (the girls) were a few people short to form a circle. I called to one the boys and ask him to come help us making the circle (where my brain was I'll never know- I should have known by then what happened to those who touched boys)
I was reported to the principal.
She came to my house at 10:00 that night and told my parents that they had to come to the school for a conference.
In the office, she called me a 'female dog in heat' (a bitch) lusting after the boys and leading them into sin. She said she could see the lust demons coming out of my eyes and that I needed to be whipped to save my soul.
She took my dad's belt and whipped me, telling me to pray at the same time that God would save me from my lust.

I could hardly hold my head up for days.

And in such a manner, life carried on.
Anytime she came into the school, I would cower in my 'cubicle', pretending to be busy, so I didn't have to talk to her.
Usually this just got me in trouble: I obviously had something to 'hide'.

In 1996, a boy shot himself after having been yelled at by her.
I heard that there was a suicide note- but it was destroyed before the police could find it.
She told the church that it was "God's will" that this young man ended his life- obviously, God had "arranged' it to happen because he (the young man) would have defected from the church and "God saved him from this fate".

As I sit here and write this I can hardly keep from screaming. To blame this tragedy on a loving, caring Creator makes me hope she burns in hell for eternity.
There, I finally said it. My prayer is that God has mercy on her as He had on me; and in His mercy which is equally justice I hope that she finds out what the Scripture means about it being better to tie a millstone about one's self than to offend a little one.

I have heard from many other people, some of them still in their teens, that suicide was often the solution that seemed the easiest.
For about a year, it seemed the easiest solution to me, also.
There comes a place and time when you feel so 'dead' after all the yelling, lies, and rejection that it seems a good idea to just make it true.
If you are reading this and you feel that you would be at 'peace' if you could 'end' it all- PLEASE DON'T! THERE IS HOPE! Talk to a councilor, a real pastor, family member, somebody, anybody!
You are loved by God! You are a special creation- this world needs you in it- so, please, GET HELP! YOU ARE WORTH IT!

When my family of ex-church members get together and talk over all our experiences, we all agree on one thing: Thank God there wasn’t sexual abuse.
As I read back through all the accounts of sufferers, I mourn for those who were victimized that way. May God grant them justice and peace.

Today I opened the Bible I had used in the Dade City church days- in it were some ‘sermon’ notes I had scribbled during services.
As I sat by one of the ‘favored’ people, I had to pretend to scribble vigorously every fascinating, ‘God-inspired’ word out of her mouth, or be ratted on, then yelled at, etc.
One of the things I managed to scribble in between the words of "Worldly, Worldly thoughts and desires!" was this: "It will be a cold day in Hell before I testify again!"
I actually was able to laugh about it- thank God the absurdity of the situation overrode the pain!
I had been accused of being prideful because of quoting Lucado.
She had become so twisted that in the week before I left, she told the church that there was no need of reading the Bible, everyone just needed to listen to, and I quote, "The Word of God over the pulpit".

There was also the times when God would "reveal" things about different members divinely to her.
The actual trick to it all wasn’t all that mystical: she had her home and the church phone tapped.

I found out because I heard two of the young women (who lived at her house) talking together about how you should be careful about what you said on the church phone. Another friend found a tape in the church storage room in which the pastor ranted on and on about different members of the church.

I have also heard that different members of the church were sent to spy on each other to see if anyone had a TV hidden in their house. Only the pastor was allowed to have one- the flock didn’t have enough moral control to be responsible viewers!
And then there were the services where the "Dreams" were revealed!
She would have dreams about different members- in which ‘God’ revealed the member’s heart to her.

My heart was full of leprosy- because I was of the --- family.
I knew I was in for a bad time when she would glare at me from her seat behind the pulpit. She would stare at you in the most hateful way, all the while moving her lips. You knew she was ‘praying out’ the evil spirits that had taken residence in your soul.
And there were also the prayer meetings in which she asked God to bring an 'end' to those who had defected from the church.
I don't know what it sounds like to you, but to my understanding, she was asking God to kill them because they had the gall to disagree with her.

And then there was the evil sexuality of the flock!
As much as the woman thought about sex, she should have owned an adult store- maybe she could have put all that thought time to use.
I remember one time a family member and myself were being berated in her office for talking to a ‘rebellious’ member. In the middle of her tirade, she brought up the fact that one of her ‘favored’ members could no longer have sex with his wife because of medicine- induced
impotency.
I could never figure out what his impotency and talking to rebellious church members had to do with each other- like I even cared about someone else’s sex life. It was none of my business, and more importantly, none of hers.
She accused everybody of lust, heterosexual and homosexual.
If all her accusations were true, that church was the biggest group of lustful, wife-swapping, incestuous pedophiles under one roof.

During song service, she would walk up to different young people and say she saw ‘lust demons’ coming out of their eyes. Therefore, the poor humiliated people had to be ‘prayed’ through the clutch of their evil and there had better be some ‘coughing up’ of some demons into napkins if you ever wanted to get out of church that night.
As she was morally responsible for all these young lives, it was up to her to pick the young people’s mates for them. And you better take her choice and be grateful for it!
Thank God the young man she ‘picked’ for me fought her decision. There were never two more incompatible people on the face of this earth- we would have divorced in a year.

Young people were discouraged from pursuing college- Christ was coming back in the next year or the year after that and there just wasn’t time for a degree!
What there was time for was cleaning her five, six, seven, or even more buildings, all the while maintaining a regular forty hour job.
I remember at one time when she had seven offices that had to be cleaned bi-weekly. These buildings were up to forty miles apart and had to be cleaned in the same day.
To my knowledge, no one was ever paid a regular salary for doing this work.
Oh, and did I mention that she would ‘help-out’ only about ten times a year?

I would love to send her a bill for fifteen years of hard work.
Actually, I would love to see her have to do backbreaking work for someone else at no pay.
Let me not forget those poor souls who did ‘God’s work’ in the church-school. I really don’t know how it (the school) is still up and running. There are so many rules and laws being broken that surely some state or federal office is aware of it somewhere.

What makes me most infuriated, however, is the mental and emotional torture the older students are put through.
I’m not talking about church member older students, but rather NON-member students.
I have heard of two girls (thirteen and fifteen) who were pulled into the office and told to stop their lesbian activities.
Another boy was taken aside during a competition trip and asked point blank if he and another male student had had sex because the door was partially closed between their room and the supervisor’s room.
Two brothers were also made to change rooms because they supposedly were also engaging in bedroom activities.

I could go on and on, for a decade, and not tell every nasty, horrific thing that happened.
Since that is not my purpose in recounting all these incidents, I won’t try.
My purpose is to speak the truth, for as the Bible says, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free".
That is my hope- that all members of this Dade City church or any other spiritually abusive church will be free of the lies and horrors that have been perpetrated on them, or that they have perpetrated on others.

As a family member of mine put it, "No one walks away from a situation like that without guilt. We all came away from the church with cookie crumbs on our faces’".
If you are a member of a controlling church reading this, know that there is God and life away from the cult you are trapped in.
There are arms of forgiveness waiting to help you down the path of freedom and into the arms of the true God- not the god that a crazed narcissistic woman has dreamed up.
Find help!
Yes, there is life after that church.
I hope there will be justice, also.
As it says in Amos 5:24, "But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream".
God knows and he cares.
As I and others have said before-
"There is life after a controlling church."
I was very, incredibly blest in that I had a group of family and friends waiting for me when I came out of the church.

I also had the help of a wonderful psychiatrist.
He talked to my whole family for over three hours.
As we told him as much of our story as we could in the space of three hours, he told us that, based on our information, the pastor most likely has an Antisocial Personality Disorder. As I read over the many testimonies on this site, I began to wonder if that was a disorder in many of the other leaders.
Or was it just that, as in many cults, the congregation took on the cult leader’s personality.

As I read over the symptoms of antisocial behavioral characteristics, it was as if I was reading about most of the church: i.e.
1. Refuses to meld to accepted common social behaviors- total disregard to what is "lawful" and "law-abiding". (Everything the pastor says is "right" and "God’s Word". Church members have lied, cheated, renounced family because it was "God’s will".
2. No remorse when others are injured by one’s actions. (It was ‘God’s will’ that a young man committed suicide.)
3. Repeated lying perfected methods of deceitfulness. (The pastor would take other people’s stories and make them her own. When confronting my family member about a letter their ‘defected’ sibling sent them, she lied and said "God had revealed it to her in a dream". He hadn’t- I had told her of it the day before.

As I mentioned before, the congregation is eerily ‘taking on’ these behaviors- they have become their own twisted version of this pastor.

As I am on my journey of healing and learning to live anew, I find myself looking back over the progress of seven months.

When I first left the cult, I was not emotionally healthy. In fact, I was an absolute wreck mentally, emotionally, and most likely physically as well.
I would have panic attacks in the new wonderful church I was attending.
I had thought that if I could just leave, just get away from the horrific situation- all would well all at once.

Now, don’t misunderstand me- I was immediately relieved from the abuse.
When the abuse left, however, a healing process had to take its place.
A healing process that included a rage I hadn’t thought I was capable of, as well as mourning for the ‘lost’ years of exclusively doing a human’s will, not God’s.
I believe, and will continue to put my trust in Romans 8:28- "…All things work together for GOOD to those who love HIM…"
He promises ALL THINGS- all the rejection, rage, hurt… and the list goes on forever.
When I look back on twenty-four years of mental torture, I think of pain and rejection. As I look back farther and deeper, however, I also think of a few miraculous facts:
1. I have no family at all left in that cult.
2. God always, always let me know somehow, someway that He loved me.
3. There was always someone there when I needed them most. There are two I remember with all the gratitude in my heart: Scott, who, as I cleaned the business he worked at, would tell me how special and beautiful I was. After living in the desert of total rejection all week-and then to come in to see someone smile at you and mean it, and give you a brotherly hug when you looked down- it was like an amazing rainstorm of hope and joy drenching your soul. I hope that somewhere, somehow, Scott will know that he helped keep a despairing soul from ending it all.

God bless you, Scott.

Then there was Randy, who while on active duty in Iraq, e-mailed me hope and strong encouragement, till I had the strength to leave the terror behind.
You are the brother of my soul, Randy. If God were to bless you a third of what you blessed me, the world could not contain it. You were the hands of Christ to my life.
Behold what God has done! It is marvelous to my eyes!"