Robin Stemberg

What if?

May 20, 20161 Comment

A few years ago I was talking with my close friend Michelle*. Our daughters have also been good friends for years and I noticed that one of the male workers…

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Out of the Shadows

WE ARE A VOICE FOR VICTIMS! Out of the Shadows mission is to raise awareness, educate and activate the public on sexual assault and abuse issues. We currently have a petition started for the State of Indiana to abolish their SOL. Please sign this: @ http://chn.ge//FOWEKh.

SURVIVORS, CAN YOU RELATE TO THIS COMMENT?

Recently I posted something about trauma.
Not religion, TRAUMA. Not forgiveness, TRAUMA. Not bitterness, TRAUMA.

Here is the exact quote:
“Stop telling people to just get over the past. Trauma is not about something that happened in the past. It’s about how that Trauma has left its IMPRINTS on the brain and body.”

Here is a response from a friend from the past to my quote: “There are wicked people that do us wrong often throughout our lives and forgiveness is difficult to offer to those who have violated us, but, it’s imperative that we must do it, so that bitterness doesn’t reign in us.”

Please, friend from the past, please show me where in this quote, you have assumed I have not forgiven and that I’m bitter? Where? And how did a post about trauma become about forgiveness and bitterness?

Is it because you know my personal story of being abused within the church?

Honestly, I get it. I really do. I understand how you could make that quote about forgiveness and bitterness. I get it because, that’s how we were raised to think within the church. Everything becomes about forgiveness and bitterness instead of honestly understanding willfully inflicted trauma, its effects on the victim, the church, and what to really do about it and how to responsibly handle it. It’s just easier to make it about forgiveness and bitterness. Right? Instead of really understanding trauma, victims, pastors who rape, and silent church members?

I know you meant your words to be “helpful” and you “meant well”. And, some would say, just overlook it and move on. But, no, that can’t happen anymore.

Because it’s not helping anyone. It’s triggering. And wrong.

In actuality, I have imprints left on my brain, as do many other survivors, because of these very kind of comments. Those comments trivialize trauma. And, they’re manipulative and silencing. Comments like these have absolutely nothing to do with trauma. They are empty, religion wrapped words that are said out of “well meaning” yet complete ignorance.

TRAUMA is individual, complex, multidimensional, and physiological with a wide variety of responses.

I’ve always believed when there is sexual abuse {TRAUMA} from within the church, you absolutely have spiritual abuse intertwined with it. They go hand-in-hand. You can’t have one without the other. Trust me, it’s one of the most difficult things to try and unravel. Trauma within the church is horrifically convoluted. When trauma within the church isn’t dealt with, the imprints from that trauma alone are things only a survivor understands. Survivors are left with shame, guilt, and feelings of unworthiness, and yet all the while we’re hearing from the pulpit that we are worthy and Jesus took all our shame and guilt. {Except for the shame and guilt you’re left with because you’re being raped by a “God loving” pastor}.

So yes, the imprints are deep and ugly.

So, your “well meaning” words that sound proper and religious make it just that much harder. Survivors from within the church are fighting years and years of careless words with no understanding being thrown at them. It’s insensitive and destructive.

Are forgiveness and bitterness areas to be confronted in our lives? Yes. But, by carelessly throwing those words at survivors at their expense as they try to overcome the imprints of trauma? No. Not until there is careful understanding, and education. Because you can’t make trauma just about forgiveness and bitterness.

Joy R.

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