Category Archives: All Posts

Unraveling Religious Trauma and Spiritual Abuse

04 Wednesday Dec 2024

Posted by in All Posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have spent the last 14 years trying to “come to grips” with my past. I have made some progress recently. But, the work is tough. Especially when you are doing it on your own. This article is everything: https://www.sandstonecare.com/blog/religious-trauma/

My religious trauma began at an early age, but was kicked into hyperdrive at the same time I began to experience spiritual abuse.

The trauma and abuse went on for years, by multiple people in various locations. But, all with the same messages: You are sinful. There’s something wrong with you. You need us and you need God to be made whole. You won’t receive God’s blessing if you don’t give us 10% of any money you get, but, really you should give 20%…10% is just the baseline. You give as much as you can, even if it means you have to sell your possessions to pay rent, and eat nothing but saltines all day…You will do these things, or else you won’t be welcomed into our inner-sanctum. You should always be a servant – now go clean that person’s apartment because I need you to help me protect myself from their threats. I’m your spiritual leader, and doubting me is sinful, God doesn’t like that, and you want to please God, right? You feel tired and sick? Too bad – go and do the thing I told you to do, or you’ll be letting not just me down, but God as well. You haven’t been trained for it? Do you doubt God? Are you too weak, too selfish, that you won’t stay up all night and pray? You don’t matter. We matter. What you sacrifice for us and the community matters. Not you. You are not allowed to watch tv for a year. No dating. No drinking. Wear only these clothes. Here are the “approved” people you can be around…

and on and on it goes.

No wonder I feel so lost most of the time. It’s good to know that there are people out there who understand, even more than I do, how what I’ve gone through affects me every day; and that there are ways to heal from it.

I don’t write this to be offensive to anyone, or to hurt anyone’s feelings. But, maybe you’re someone out there who has experienced similar things and are struggling now that you’re “out,” or you want to “get out” and don’t know how. Maybe this will help you.

I don’t want to start a fight.

If you want to reach out to me, you can private message me. I’m here.

https://www.sandstonecare.com/blog/religious-trauma/

2 Corinthians 3:3 – Hidden Messages

02 Monday Sep 2024

Posted by in All Posts, Seeking Life Now

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ghosts of who we are, who we were, and who we should have been haunt me every day.

Intimate moments shared with people who longed for me, and people for whom I longed, replay in my mind throughout the day.

What seems like several lifetimes of moments, memories, adventures, and experiences that refuse to rest. Speaking to me, warning me, encouraging me, and crying out to be released.

Relationships that could have been more – should have been more; requited and unrequited; passion and longing; connection and meaning; dark desire and innocent touch.

Crisp walks in the nighttime snow; breath upon breath and hearts beating wildly. Wanting to be safe and keep distant, longing to embrace and to be free to love one another.

Forehead kisses filled with lust. Hot breath, soft lips, and strong hands. Holding my head as if holding the world. Moments wherein dreams of another reality drift down like dew on our hearts.

Muscular forearms, promising protection and power. To be safe; loved; adored; coveted and claimed.

Another woman’s belongings. These are things that should not be in your life. Everything is out of place. Where is the lingerie and lace? The enthusiasm and excitement? I can see our things together – sharing space – a beautiful mess. It just feels right.

You have always been the one.

This is how it should have been.

We should have been together.

Years have been lost. Years of passion. Years of excitement. Years of bodies tangled and twisted in bliss – a level of completion that only we can accomplish. Together. As it was always meant to be.

My wish for you is that as you enter the next world, it is I who will be there with you – breathing warmly over you; kissing your lips tenderly; digging my fingers into your back; pulling you down. Closer. Deeper. Harder. Stronger. Louder. Forever. Ecstasy. Tenderness.

Forever together. Forever apart.

Let me in and lie with me awhile. We are together now. We can be free. Nothing need hold us back.
Nothing can stand in our way.
We are together. We are one.

We will enter eternity together – our energies forever fused, inseparable, entwined, twisted, coiled, and warped. For better or worse, you have changed my life just as I have changed yours.

I am glad I was able to contribute to some degree in your growth . . . although I must apologize for failing badly in other ways.

The Diagnosis

31 Wednesday Jul 2024

Posted by in All Posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Sometimes, most of the time, I feel at a total loss with my kid. He breaks my heart. He was such an adorable baby and little kid.

Then, we discovered that there was something a little “different” about him.

We had always known that he was very intelligent – beyond his age.

We would have people speak to us in streetcars, in parks, asking his age because he was so well-spoken with a large vocabulary by the age of two.

What I didn’t realize is that he was behind in other areas: emotional regulation, fine motor skills, and his social growth.

He is such a beautiful human and it constantly makes me sad when people fail to see this side of him because they are put off by his abruptness or aloofness.

Having said that, these days he makes me sad as it feels like I am totally losing my ability to take care of him. I struggle more every day to get him to do anything other than play with his “friends” online. I do not have any problems with video games, in fact, I also like to play and will play with him and his “bros” sometimes.

But, when his real-life best friend comes over and wants him to go outside and play with them and he refuses to put the screen down and go outside, I cry.

I cry because it will be a fight.

I cry because I know that it is not simple for him either. He has anxiety, depression, autism, and physical discomfort that makes everything more difficult and challenging than it should be for him.

Do I want to fight him to try and get him out of his “comfort zones”? Should I try to fight him to get him out of his “comfort zones”?

I used to cry because he would try to connect with the world and the world didn’t seem to know how to make room for him.

Now I cry because he doesn’t want to try to connect with the world anymore and I don’t know how to help him make room for the world.

I am exhausted and stressed every single day. I don’t know what to do with it all anymore, except to write about it.

So, that’s what I’m going to do. Maybe it will help me process this journey for myself. Maybe it will help someone else with their journey. Being a parent is tough – being a parent to a neurodivergent child is that and then some.

We cry.

We cry a lot.

There are days, many many days, when we think ‘I can’t do this anymore…’

And yet, we still have to get up and do all the things.

When we first received the diagnosis, the doctor was very kind and compassionate. He warned us to take our time digesting the information and to be kind to ourselves. He commented on the feelings of loss, or anger we might experience. I didn’t really get it at the time, because all I felt was relief. I was relieved that we finally had some answers and could really start approaching things from a place of information.

Now I get it.

Being the parent of a neurodiverse child is tough. It is especially tough if you are also neurodivergent and have specific needs and requirements.

I feel like I am still at the beginning of this journey and that there is still so much to learn and discover.

I am trying to acknowledge the small victories and give myself credit for them. But, it is very challenging when you feel like you are far from where you should be, and things do not seem to be moving forward or improving.

In other words, it is tough to see the light when you are burnout.

That will be my next post. Burnout. Watch this space.

The Storm

14 Friday Jun 2024

Posted by in All Posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sometimes I go to sleep wondering if I will wake up the next morning and discover that it was all a bad dream.

But as the hot tears burn my cheeks and another stress migraine settles in, I know that no matter how much I try to wish it away, this is real.

I cannot comprehend why, or how, a child can hold so much pain and fear.

I try to suppress the day’s memories of being called horrible names, of being used as a human punching bag by the life I brought into this world.

I absorb his pain. I take his suffering. I can only hope that it provides him some relief. I would do anything to help ease the torment for him – even take the blows without flinching in an effort to prove to him that my love for him is unconditional; that there is absolutely nothing he could do, nothing he could be or become that would make me not love him.

As I hold him tightly, assuring him that I love him, that I’m not going anywhere, and that it doesn’t matter what he does to me, I will never give up on him, the punches become lighter, the swearing decreases, and I can feel the pain and anger being replaced by shame and sorrow.

He finally collapses in my arms, sobbing, apologizing. I can hear the agony in his voice; the fear of self, the hopelessness of feeling like you are a monster that is sick and will never get better.

I have been there.

I know what that feels like.

My heart shatters in a million pieces once again, but I have to be strong for him. He needs me.

This whole situation is so messy, so painful, and so completely undeserved.

While I may be strong for him when he is near, I crumble multiple times a day.

I fight back thoughts that maybe he is right, maybe it would be better if we didn’t exist anymore – maybe that is the only way out.

Then, through all this pain and suffering, while I am struggling just to breathe, to function – when it takes every ounce of effort to get up to face it all again and to keep getting up every time I’m knocked down – my integrity is questioned.

I have no words.

I barely have breath in me, but they manage to squeeze out plumes of vapours, forcing me to prove that I am unwell.

What they don’t understand is that I have to keep going every day; I am not free to live out my own pain because I have a child who needs me.

They do not see that every day is a struggle to live, that I have to give more than I have to get up each day.

They cannot comprehend this love, nor understand the toll it takes to lose myself every day in the hopes that we will find him; to sacrifice myself so that he might be saved.

He is my heart, and my heart is sick.

I would go to the ends of the earth to help him. I will never apologize for that.

Geoff Ryan

15 Tuesday Aug 2023

Posted by in All Posts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

There are a few people from my life that I haven’t seen for years, but miss all the time.

You know those ice breaker-type games that ask questions like, “if you could meet one dead person, who would it be?” (Louisa May Alcott)

Whenever I’m asked, “if you could have lunch with any living person, who would it be?” I always have the same answer…and I have for the past 10 years.

Geoff Ryan.

Geoff is a person of high intelligence and dark, sarcastic, wit. And, I love him. Even though I haven’t seen or spoken to him in 10 years. He is the person I would most want to sit and catch up with…over some dumplings, curried chicken, plantain, and ginger beer!

Geoff was a Salvation Army officer who taught me how important it is to never ask anyone to do more than you are willing to do, to think more critically about everything and not be so easily swayed by emotion, to do things with intention, and how to turn the Tim Horton’s drink lid tab inwards to avoid being splashed on while drinking.

I have no idea where he is today, or what he is doing, but I miss him almost every single day. He had a huge influence on my life. He was strong and steady. He knew how to be careful with people’s lives and didn’t get caught-up in a “saviour complex.”

He is hilarious, irreverent, talented, a good cook, a horrible singer, and a deep thinker.

I often wonder what things might have been like if he had been more in-charge during the time I worked alongside of him. I am thankful he was there because he helped keep some balance when other forces were so overpowering and domineering that it made it difficult to keep the wheels on all the time.

Speaking of wheels…he was also responsible for my favourite vehicle of all-time. The big, psychedelic, noisy van lovingly referred to as, “The Beater.”

“The Beater”

I spent countless hours driving-around in this thing. You could hear it coming for several city blocks. I met Stephen Dorff while driving it one day when he, jokingly, asked me for a lift!

This is the kind of guy Geoff is: Always thinking outside the box, looking for different ways of doing things, being authentically cool, and finding ways of bringing others into his orbit.

He once shared a poem with me that talked about how, when someone has walked among the stars they will no longer be able to travel through life as a normal person again – they will always feel out of place and dissatisfied. This is how I’ve felt all of these years that I have been missing his friendship.

I was at his house over 10 years ago and he asked me if I’d be interesting in writing for a project he was working on. But, I was burnt-out and feeling pretty disillusioned and replied, “in order to write, you have to have something worth saying, right?” I had nothing.

Well, Geoff, all these years later I do have things I want to say – a lot of things.

For now though, let me just say “thank you” for the part you had in my life, and I miss you almost every day.

And, if you ever see this, this is for you:

https://www.ifitshipitshere.com/jesus-novelty-gifts/amp/

Mourning

05 Monday Jun 2023

Posted by in All Posts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m mourning the loss of life.

Mourning the end of my story.

Reliving the pain it brought and letting it go.

With an abuser – when he died it brought everything right back up like it had happened yesterday.

I had to go through it all again – processing every bit that had happened – while mourning the loss of life, I was now also mourning the loss of a part of my life – my story.

“River Street” – has died. I mourn for it, for the loss of a significant part of my life, while also processing all that it meant to me, good & bad.

I need to put those things in their rightful places, say my final goodbyes and move on.

Mourning.

Anger.

Angry for what he had done to me. Now he was gone and was free of it, but I still had to live with it.

“Act like” it never happened – but, it did, and it was wrong, and while you are “free” of it, I have had to suffer for years. Now you are becoming dead to me, I need you to die/to be dead to me, I am angry because you take a piece of my story with you- an ugly piece that is your fault and you should have no right to take with you and act like it’s all okay, and move on – you should suffer too.

But, you can’t now/you won’t.

That’s not fair.

Look at what you’ve done to me. How can you get away with this? This is why I resent your sick, smiling, successful faces. You make me want to puke.

But, I miss you.

I wish I still had the intimacy I had with you – the excitement – the heart racing, swooning feelings – the sense of importance – the sense of doing something, being someone, that matters – making a difference. The heat of the moment – the fire/heat of life/living.

Mourning.

Anger.

Loss.

Resentment.

Letting go.

Authority

16 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in All Posts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When I was a Christian it was easy to do things to help others in a way that felt very monumental; after all, I was doing God’s work. Believing yourself to be a direct conduit between God and others is pretty major.

I walked in, what Christians like to call, “authority.” I had the authority of God with me. What I did, what I said, it was greater than myself, it was done with a believed God-given authority.

The belief that I was part of something bigger, that I had a “calling,” and that I was doing “God’s work,” gave me the confidence, or the imagined authority, to get involved in situations and in people’s lives that could seem, and does seem to me now, to be intrusive.

One thing I realized many years ago, when I first became an atheist, was how Christians use the idea of prayer as a free ticket to pry into people’s lives, and make assumptions.

I was taught to “pray with authority,” even though you know that you can’t tell God what to do. Part of being a responsible pray-er was to be as specific as possible. Therefore, it was important to know specific details about people’s lives and struggles, in order to pray for what was needed with more authority.

One thing that has not changed for me since becoming an atheist, is my love and care for people. I still want to do what I can to help those around me live their best lives. I like helping and supporting people. I like being able to celebrate with them, or be there when they need a helping hand. But, this is much harder to do without this sense of “authority” behind me, without a feeling that I’m doing God’s work, and therefore am infallible.

I know better. I know and have witnessed how much harm can be done by those who try to help, but are not professionally equipped or trained to do so. I have experienced how “the power of God” has been an insufficient tool to deal effectively with complicated situations. The truth is, the “authority” under which Christians operate is dangerous because it gives the believer a sense of entitlement as well as a false idea of ones ability.

But, as I was trying to drift off to sleep tonight, I was missing this feeling of authority and wondering how things might be different if I still felt as though I had authority. Could I find somewhere else from which a sense of authority could be plucked? Can the authority to assume I have the answers to someone’s problem, or am a solution to their struggles be found in my humanity? Separated from a celestial being or deity?

As I finish up, I will be drifting off to sleep thinking about this: Can I conjure a similar feeling or level authority from the idea that who I am as a human gives me the authority needed to help who you are as a person, not because some God exists and says so, but because my humanity can reach out to yours and find common ground?

The Best of Times/The Worst of Times

12 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in All Posts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I frequently have dreams that place me in various times and places of my “previous lives” with people I haven’t seen for years.

There was, what is now, a short period of my life that has had an enormous impact on me. By the amount of emotional and mental baggage it has left, you would think it spanned more than 15 years, when, in reality, it was around 5.

Spanning the years between (roughly) 2001-2007, I lived an incredibly exhilarating and intense life that left me feeling burnt-out, beat-down, and deflated. Though, not right away. Some of this settled-in over the years as I reflected on the life that I have lived, the experiences I had, and how horribly underprepared and unqualified I was for so many moments I found myself living.

I’m going to attempt to unravel this time of my life that has kept me tied in knots for over 15 years now.

This is me just putting it out there and starting the process for myself.

Watch this space.

These are the Times

25 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by in All Posts, Seeking Life Now

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sometimes I get lost in nostalgia. Today is one of those days.

I lived in Toronto for 11 years in two different time periods. There was pre-New Zealand and post-New Zealand and the experiences are vastly different from one another.

This morning I find myself in deep reflection, once again, on my time there pre-New Zealand. This was an intense time full of deep relationships, friendships, emotions, highs, lows, struggles and heart aches.

During this time I led a reflection activity for a group of young people using Billy Joel’s song “This is the Time,” encouraging them to make the most of their young days because they would not last forever. I didn’t realize how true these lyrics would become for me. I truly thought that this was a time that would last forever; at least for me.

Watch on YouTube: This is the Time

As I sit here writing this, listening to these lyrics again, I am almost surprised by how much things have changed. I was certain that my life was going to continue-on in the same manner, that I would be surrounded by the same people, doing the same things, for the rest of my days.

But, everything has changed.

There are beliefs, lifestyles, locations and people long-gone that I thought I would never leave, or leave behind.

Despite the fact that I was encouraging a group of young people to be mindful of their current situation, that it would not last forever, I did not seem to grasp this reality for myself.

There is one truth I know in life – things will change. I miss my friends, I miss the city and sometimes I even miss some of the experiences. I never thought I would be sitting here, miles away, having not spoken to most of these friends for many years, worlds apart from one another, living completely different lives.

In-between us now sits the large ocean called “Life,” and it seems impossible to cross.

“Sometimes it’s so easy
To let a day slip on by…”

 

Remember What You Love to Do

28 Monday May 2018

Posted by in All Posts, Seeking Life Now

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s so easy to get sucked-into the stresses of life and lose-track of the things you enjoy. I love to write, but I tell myself that I have to do all the other “important” things first before I can focus on the things I enjoy, and then more often than not, never get-around to doing what I love. I do not stop to take time for myself.

I am currently taking 3 condensed university courses and struggling just to keep-up. Not to mention the fact that I have a precocious 4 year old who is keeping me on my toes.

On my desk there sits a daily calendar that offers vibrant, artistic, inspirational quotes. I was underwhelmed by today’s message, until I glanced-over to it while stressing about all that I had to do and all that I have been unable to do, and realized that its message was one I desperately needed to read: “Remember what you love to do.”

Remember what you love to do.

Don’t get lost in all the stress. Don’t fill your day with only that which has to be done, but take time to do something that you want to do – something you enjoy. Don’t forget to do what you love to do.

And, I love to write.

Yes, there are assignments, tests, quizzes, books to read, papers to write, rooms to be tidied, chores to be done…

But, in all of these things, I should never forget what I love to do – because, if I do that, I forget myself.

We all have responsibilities, chores, tasks and maybe even deadlines, but it is so important to not allow these things to become who we are. They are not more important than taking the time to do something we enjoy, to express ourselves and allow ourselves to rest and to be renewed.

Therefore, even though this is just a little note, I sat still and allowed myself to write before running-off to fulfill my next responsibility and in so doing, discovered that taking 5 minutes for myself not only allows me to remember what I love to do, it also reminds me to love who I am and to be kind to myself.

Remember what you love to do.