Mental Health Monthly: What even IS spiritual abuse?

This is the third post in a “mental health monthly” blog post series by Lisa Gray. Lisa is a Marriage and Family Therapist with background in the meeting fellowship, and we are honored to have her perspectives featured here on our blog. 

In my first blog post, “Your Bill of Rights,” I wrote about your right to heal. And in my second post on healing from spiritual abuse, I offered some strategies for healing from spiritual abuse. But heal from what, exactly? Since the ongoing discussion over the past couple of years has been about the exposure of child sexual abuse (CSA), it may be self-evident now that if you were sexually abused by anyone, including someone in the meeting fellowship, that constitutes abuse that deserves to be dealt with and healed. But there are many of us, myself included, that were not sexually abused and yet still feel like we need healing from…something.

That something is spiritual abuse and/or religious trauma. Thankfully, this topic has attracted attention even in the larger culture, so it’s easier now to find information about what it is and what to do about it. Spiritual abuse is the misuse of religious power to control or manipulate someone, while religious trauma is the ongoing negative impact of such abuse or other harmful experiences within a religious context on a person's well-being. Or, as Hillary McBride says, spiritual abuse is “someone handing you an inner critic and telling you it’s the voice of God.” 

Both spiritual abuse and religious trauma are often emotional in nature. While emotional abuse is intrinsically more difficult to identify than physical or sexual abuse, it can be just as insidious.

Here are some examples of spiritual abuse:

• Being told you should profess “tonight” or you might get into an accident and die on the way home (yes, this is why I professed);

• Being told that the workers are the ultimate spiritual authority and your reasonable questions are blasphemy or disobedience;

• Having the workers come to your house specifically to tell you that you need to change something you are doing wrong (drinking wine, cutting your bangs, etc), leaving no room for personal conviction;

• Being told the world is wrong, a scary place, not to be trusted, something to set yourself apart from, confusing isolation with sanctification;

• Being told the workers are infallible;

• Having your choices of dress, work, leisure activity and so on dictated as “God’s will”, without any room for personal connection to the Holy Spirit;

• Being told adherence to these things is tied to acceptance or salvation rather than allowing the working out of our own salvation;

Here are some examples of religious trauma:

• Experiencing anxiety, depression, shame, guilt and difficulty trusting other people that is directly related to messages you received in the group;

• Having a struggle of identity and not knowing “who you are” or how you can even discover that without the guidance of the group;

• Feeling afraid in the world or suspicious of other people and their motives;

• Being constantly anxious about going to hell;

• Not having a sense of intuition or certainty; inability to make decisions;

• Having an averse reaction to wearing a skirt, growing your hair, etc; or alternatively having an averse reaction to wearing common clothing/jewelry or going and doing common activities that used to be labeled “wrong;”

• Feeling terrible or anxious when you stay home on Sunday morning or attend a “false” church.

These are just some of the signs of spiritual abuse and religious trauma, and there are many, many more. You may have thought that this is just “how it is” for you or that everyone feels this way. If you have experienced any aspect of the coercive control and manipulation of spiritual abuse, you do not have to live with the fallout of religious trauma. There are many qualified therapists and helping professionals that can mitigate the damage that you have suffered. Reach out to Pathways to Healing Network (PH2N) at support@pathways2healing.org or call / text +1 (559) 802-7854 to begin or continue your journey to recovery. Or, use the resources listed in my previous post on healing.