Raised by "Christian" Narcissists

[Elizabeth Jack]

(Possibly Triggering, I feel like it is impossible to know what is triggering to everyone else.  I'm all amped up because of a mouse right now and I don't even know why, so I'm at a loss  )

For reasons, I'm calling my oocyte donor Don, and my spermocyte donor John.   

I hardly know where to start.  I was raised by hypocrites, and monsters, and yet I still claim the faith, and serve, and am involved in ministry.  Yeah.  It's freaking hard. 

For me, I realized that the god that my parents, and their parents serve (besides themselves) isn't the same God that I serve.  They serve someone who is weak, who can't see what they have done.  They serve something in a box, something that they can in fact, control.  Just like they controlled me.  Just like they controlled my entire perception.
I used to view God as someone who hated me, just like John, and Don.  They hated me.  They hated my face, they hated my quirks.  They never laughed at my quirks, or loved anything about me.  I was a product of their shame, and to be as perfect as possible for other people to marvel at their amazing parenting. 
That isn't God.  That isn't the love that my husband taught me.  My husband doesn't have a biting thing to say, for every thing I say.  He doesn't cut me down at every opprotunity, or love to see me hurt. 
My husband isn't God, nor a god, but he showed me that there is something real in the word love.  My parents said they loved me after beating me, and bruising me, and cutting my emotions to shatters so that my heart literally ached. 
So, yeah.  I still believe.  I share my story.  People know.  They are sensitive to my triggers and go out of their way to be aware of them.  Other Christians have even helped me work through them, and they don't make fun of me for the bells on my doors.  Men even, in my church, I can be hugged (fully knowing they are there of course) by, and not be terrified. 
God has redeemed a lot in me, and a lot of triggers have been dampened a lot...

My thoughts are so scattered.  I saw a mouse go into the control panel of my stove, and for some reason I'm in an adrenaline surge like nothing else, and it's so freaking exhausting.  Thought I would share kind of a different perspective I guess??? Wondering if everyone who has experienced religious abuse completely shunned it, or if I am not the weird one.  I don't judge, at all.    We've been through too much for that. 

[Dutch Uncle]

I'm glad you have found your faith, and not the poisoned faith of your abusive parents.

Wondering if everyone who has experienced religious abuse completely shunned it, or if I am not the weird one.  I don't judge, at all.    We've been through too much for that.

I never had much faith in the faith I was raised in, a calvinist protestant faith. The only part I did keep is the "protest" part of the "ism".  I've worked extensively in the Near- and Middle East where having no faith is a big NoNo, and I have always felt some pride in being able to write "Protestant" under religion, as literally speaking it's not even a lie.    My interpretation is just not very religious.

My dad is becoming very strict, religiously speaking, as he has learned himself Hebrew to be able to read the Torah in it's original text. He is very much in search of the Word of God. He takes the "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." very literally.

My mother has drifted into New-Ageism, which one might say, I shun. But I was not raised in that faith.

[theaquarist]

  hi there
I can relate to some things going on in your post. I was raised in a mormon christian household, as a lgbt woman. Lost my brother while he was on his mission serving, one of the "elders."

Most of my family is still mormon. I feel that I knew by the time I was 8/9 that the religion made me feel trapped. I so badly wanted to be close to god, to be remarkable, to be worthy of gifts like prophets or other scriptural figures. But I was crushed to learn that as a woman, it couldn't work like that.
By the words of my bishop at 16, I was told to repent for my sexual abuse. I haven't looked back on leaving the church once that happened.

I struggle a lot!!!! with reconciling the religion and what it did to my psyche.
I haven't been able to think of god as something real since then. But it doesn't eat at me. I think I might be numb about it somewhat.

What does staying devout in your church help with? What throngs do you still enjoy? Personally I miss the music and the community. I think about joining a "safer" religion to get back the healthy aspects I was raised in. Just don't know what church to start with.

[Elizabeth Jack]

Dutch Uncle, I understand your father, somewhat.  After I became a Christian, I started doing a lot of Bible reading, and studying.  But without balance, Bible study can become... toxic, I became a total jerk to my sisters, while presenting a great "holy" face at school.  I read the Bible with a mental check list of all the ways I was evil, ways I had to change myself, and ways to reinforce my own self righteousness.  My whole "religion" was based on how I thought people viewed me, and not what the Bible says.  When somebody cut me down, I lost everything.  I stopped reading, and praying, and worshipping, and everything else.  It's taken me a very long time to undo some of the damage.  But I realized that I read the Bible all wrong, I viewed God all wrong.  I had no friends, I had no healthy relationships, I was in an abusive home, and my view of a paternal figure was beyond messed up.           

theaquarist, I used to struggle a lot with being a woman in Christianity.  Felt like I was lesser, and it made me resentful, and angry.  Which was made even more difficult having what is described as "gifts more befitting a man" in some circles; teaching, wisdom, and pastoring...  In addition to my upbringing, that made me embarrassed of my femininity, I struggled a lot with my identity as being born XX.  I hated God for it at times.  I finally came out to a few people as being Gender Fluid.  But I had to choose, and I have to choose every day, whether I am going to honor my vows to my husband, and the vows I made before God... That may sound super weird.  But I tell you my story, to tell you that there are people, who like God, love you where you're at.  I screw up, all the freaking time.  I struggle with accepting how God made me, and all I've been through.  But, slowly I'm seeing how God allowed me to be raised so masculine, so I can actually appreciate feminity in a new way, and see how beuatiful it actually is... Not the burden I thought it was. 

What does staying devout in my church help with?

Relationship.  My abuse was relationship based, from my parents, and through my church I have new mothers and fathers.  It's redemptive.  It's pushed me, with my anxiety, and given me the peace when I just couldn't do it.  I almost had to leave church this morning, because the speaker was too loud. 

What throngs (things?) do you still enjoy?

I'm not terribly sure really.  The church I grew up in, and how I viewed it, is so different now.  But I've always enjoyed intellectual discussion. 

[woodsgnome]

Hi, Elizabeth Jack...

When I first saw this thread, I avoided it, but just poked into it a little today. Thanks for the trigger alert--religion is pretty rough water for my psyche to handle. I'll try and explain.

While I should stop before I get carried away (admittedly I did that on some old rant-laced posts), suffice to say I was in an abusive church/school situation right through my high school years. Abusive? Mild word, in the context of what I experienced there. Afterwards, I explored a variety of spiritual/philosophical takes  (mostly to prove them wrong), and while I found tolerance for certain x-tian groups and approaches, I finally concluded that none of it applied to my life's path anymore. Good deal--I could dare to breathe. 

Oddly, the early abuse actually boosted my sense of humour. About the only comfort I found was by running little inside scripts (silent of course) in my head about the abusers. These 'mind-plays' In turn probably helped develop an instinct for improvising ways to deal with what was going on. Later on I chiseled out a partial career in improv theatre, aided in part by those reactions. So my first experience in that field was honed within the firestorm of abuse from people wearing clerical garb and hiding their hypocrisy behind self-satisfied leers that I've only seen from the falsely devout.

While a part of me 'made lemonade out of lemons', I have nothing but contempt for the 'gifts' of what I had to endure in the process.

In the end my chief survival tool was twisting them into comic characters. It soothed the horror a bit, but it also reinforced a pattern of intense cynicism that had set in. I rather enjoy watching hypocrites antics, actually, especially at a distance; but it still brings an instant cringe, too, at all the horrors those people are capable of behind their walls of sanctity.

I do, however, have a religion. Mine is called Apatheism--which even has an entry on Wikipedia! . The combo words reflect my take on the whole game--I'm apathethic regarding anyone who feels a pull towards religion or its practices. I rather like church architecture and some of its music myself--ignoring the theology (theo-illogical being my term).

While I once had an automatic triggered reaction to the mere mention of religion, I've known enough people who seem comforted by it and find that it gives their life meaning to have altered my harsh take on religion a small tad. I'm better at seeing that now, decades after the original horror show I was in. But here's the difference--yes, I'm apathetic and don't give a twit about anyone's beliefs, doctrines, etc., until it crosses the line into rants and intolerance, power and control.

Just my own experience; and cool--I got through expressing a view without slipping into an angry rant myself, even though I know there's lots of it left in the tank.

[Elizabeth Jack]

I really appreciate all of your responses, even if you do not share my beliefs... It's validating.  I often feel... inadequate, it makes me anxious.  I invalidate my own religious abuse experience! I think I should be all okay, and that is just not realistic.  (I really hope you guys don't read that as condescending  I don't mean it that way at all)   

[writetolife]

Thank you for sharing Elizabeth.

I grew up in a similar situation, in that my primary "Christian" influence, my dad, was a narcissist.  He used the Bible to control, shame, and demean everyone in my family.  To this day, when I see him take out a Bible, I panic a little bit.    But I haven't left Christianity either.  Just because my dad is messed up, doesn't mean that God is.  I've found in other Christians the first people who loved me despite my weird reactions and sensitivities, although most of them couldn't understand them at all.  They were the first (only?) people to make me feel like a real human being. 

[Three Roses]

This had been my experience with most Christians too. You do get the occasional dud but that's true with any group of people.