Spiritual Abuse Triggers

 

It was a rare morning. I had successfully made it to church on a Sunday morning with my kids. Well, three of my sons, anyway. We shuffled into the loaded service. There weren’t many seats open so we ended up sitting closer to the front than I would normally choose to sit with my young boys.

 

We were standing for worship when I noticed some abnormal movement closer to the front. I’m not very tall and it was difficult to see through the cracks of singing congregants to know what was happening. I do remember seeing a middle-aged woman’s face pop in and out of view. The spotlight shone brightly on her as she moved around, highlighting that she was intermittently facing the wrong direction. 

 

Not long after, I saw a female police officer walking up the middle aisle towards the front of the congregation. I stopped singing. My body stiffened as the pastor continued to strum his guitar and sing the chorus. I watched closely as the officer spoke with the woman I had just seen. Soon after, I saw the lady pick up her oversized bible and purse and be escorted back down the main aisle; out to the foyer. 

 

The removal was seamless. Everyone continued to worship as if nothing had happened. The pastor made some familiar remarks about God. No heads turned. I didn’t even see anyone lean to the side to question what was happening to the neighbor beside them. I began to wonder if everyone knew something that I didn’t. After all, I was not a regular attendee of this church. 

 

As each minute passed, I became more and more uncomfortable. Question after question bombarded my thoughts. Was that woman okay? Why was she removed? How humiliating it must have been for her to be escorted out of a church service in front of a couple hundred people. It didn’t take long for me to connect the dots that this would be the experience I would find myself in if I tried to attend a Sunday service at my previous church. What if this woman had been excommunicated from this church?

 

What if she was like me?

 

I felt sick. I couldn’t piece together any of the words the pastor was preaching. The intense sensations in my body combined with words and inquiries clogging up my brain stole my focus. I couldn’t just sit here as if nothing happened. Not if this church was exerting inappropriate power and obliterating a woman’s ability to ever enter through the doors of a church again. 

 

I was triggered.

 

I inconspicuously got the attention of my boys and let them know that we were all going to walk out. They were confused, but they quietly nodded letting me know that they understood the instructions to follow me. We stood and I did a half crouch as we moved out of our pew, attempting to avoid causing any unnecessary disturbance to the sermon.

 

As we exited out of the doors to the foyer, the boys began asking me what was happening. I didn’t have words to answer them. I didn’t know what I was doing, only that I couldn’t sit there another minute as if nothing had happened. They had not been able to see what I had observed with their short statures and I did not want to bring their attention to it. They didn’t need another reason to be fearful of church buildings.

 

As I moved toward the front doors I saw a group of men gathered with lanyards around their necks. I could see one of the lanyards labeled “Security”. My boys had just spotted some hard candies sitting on a table a few feet away and began asking if they could have one. I agreed as I impulsively decided to have a conversation with what I assumed was their security team. 

 

I politely interrupted them. 

 

“Excuse me, I saw a woman being escorted out of the service by a police officer. Would you happen to know if she is okay?”

 

They assured me that everything was okay now and that they had “taken care of the situation”. I could sense his focus was on the establishment being “okay”, or those still within the sanctuary doors being “okay”. My concern about the woman’s well-being was lost in his reply. 

 

When I pressed a bit further it was clear he was trying to be discreetly polite. However, my firm belief is that removing people from worship is any church attendee’s business. His vague answers were unsatisfactory. I didn’t understand how any of his reasons constituted being removed from a church service by a police officer, again, in front of everyone. At one point I became very straightforward and let them know that my family had experienced a serious case of spiritual abuse making this experience very disturbing. The level of power and control they had exercised over someone’s church attendance was a recurring nightmare for me. They furrowed their eyebrows in pity and said they were sorry, but an apology was not what I was looking for. I walked out into the silent yet full parking lot with my boys’ feet echoing behind me and we left church early that morning. 

 

I was determined to not be another minion sitting in the pews, submitting to an unknown authority that was possibly making very harmful decisions. I decided to follow up with the lead pastor through email. He had been on the stage throughout the incident. He assured me that he was also concerned for the woman, but had entrusted this decision to the police and security team, noting that the police ultimately believed the situation could become unsafe. At that point, I knew I had no right to further question their decision. An unsafe visitor couldn’t be tolerated. I had to officially dismiss my concerns about the wellbeing of the strange woman who I did not know, and trust the decisions of these other people that I also did not know. 

 

The thing is, maybe they did make the right call, but spiritual abuse triggers can prevent someone from being able to trust even the best decisions. Although this particular experience was pretty rare, it is quite common for me to be triggered. It happens day to day, but especially when interacting with people of faith. Allow me to share some frequent spiritual abuse triggers.

 

1. Sunday Mornings, Church Rhythms, and Traditions

Sunday mornings were very hard for a long time after we stopped attending our church. I’d say for over a year I would experience a very noticeable shift in my mood on Sunday mornings. My body and mind had spent more than 30 years getting ready on a Sunday morning preparing to worship and hear a teaching from God’s word. As a young girl, I would often wake up to my dad singing as he got ready for church, “Rise, and shine, and give God the glory, glory!” Sunday mornings were full of anticipation and joy.

 

It was also a time that I would look forward to seeing my friends and my kids seeing their friends, especially as a homeschool mom. But when that rhythm ended so abruptly, I now became familiar with a cloud of sadness that stuck around until dinner time every Sunday. Those same feelings also came around certain times of the year when we had previously participated in seasonal church activities. VBS, Trunk or Treat, as well as the Easter and Christmas seasons, can all be very difficult times of the year; marking the loss of tradition.

 

2. Common Christian Sayings

 

Christians speak a certain language with one another. When you’ve been immersed in it since birth, you get used to it. But after spiritual abuse, the language reminded me of the community that I used to be a part of. It made me think of all the Christians that I had known who had used these terms but had also stepped aside while my family was thrown to the wolves. Sayings like, “Amen!”, “God is good!”, “Praise the Lord!”, and many others, can be a struggle to hear at times. It’s hard not to perceive them as fake habitual sayings.

 

Another difficult experience was the response of some Christians to hearing our story. Instead of attuning or sitting in grief with us, they’d make spiritualized hopeful statements to try to pop us out of our circumstances. Things like, “But, God!”, “Remember God didn’t hurt you, people did”, and “God is going to use this for good!” There are tons more, but it really revealed to me how we Christians can be very uncomfortable with the valleys of life. There’s a time and place for hopeful messages, but they are not all the time.

 

3. Worship Music

 

Is there a particular worship song that your church seems to play on repeat? What about a certain song that they’ve played for years and years? There are worship songs that I can’t listen to anymore. The experience of being in my old church belting out certain melodies comes flocking to my mind and drags me unwillingly down memory lane. Many victims of spiritual abuse also struggle to listen to worship music in general. Many of the faith and joy-filled tunes are out of touch with someone who is wrestling with religious trauma. They can feel superficial too. Lyrics from songs like, “Worship Through It” or “Way Maker” fall off one’s favorite song list quickly when they can’t muster up the ability to worship and there seems to be no “way” out. 

 

4. Scripture

 

It is very common for spiritually abusive leaders to use bible verses and passages to manipulate and control. When this is done for a long period, a spiritual abuse victim can find it hard to connect with the words in the Bible. I am aware of this as I write, knowing that if a blog post is peppered with too much scripture the message can become lost on those who have had bible passages weaponized against them.

 

Sometimes verses are also used in a disconnected way. For example, the elders concluded our excommunication letter with Lamentations 3:21-23, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” I’m still unsure of how this verse correlates to the message that preceded it. It is not appropriate to cause significant harm to someone and then attach a bible verse to it. 

 

5. Words and Titles

 

”Elder”, “Investigation”, and “Accusations”, are some words that catch my attention immediately when spoken. Certain words and titles of people that were a large part of a spiritually harmful experience can carry a lot of baggage. Pretty much anytime someone has made an introduction of themselves as an elder I can feel my body tense up. I immediately begin to wonder if they have a good guy facade that is thoroughly fooling everyone. I wonder if they are a wolf. Also, due to the seriousness of what we had witnessed in our church leaders, an internal investigation was performed. We heard and used investigative terms surrounding that process pretty excessively. Now random words kick my memory back to that time. A recent game of “Clue” with my kids was my most recent reminder of this trigger.

 

6. Movies and TV Shows

 

I had never realized how many movies circle around the themes of betrayal and abuse of power; children’s movies included! Both my husband and I have taken our kids to the theaters in hopes of having a good time with our kiddos and end up stuck in a sea of horrible flashbacks. The parallels can be so precise. Certain songs and one-liners can cut like a knife. Some of those movies have been Wish, Transformers One, and The Karate Kid.

 

Movies depicting faith communities can also be very unsettling. Sometime last year, I unknowingly started watching The Hill, starring Dennis Quaid. I was not prepared for all of the triggering dynamics in that movie. Lastly, some obvious content that can initiate a trauma response are documentaries detailing spiritual abuse. A more recent documentary we watched was Shiny Happy People. Proceed with care when choosing entertainment that includes these elements.

 

7. Repeat After Me

 

It can be quite common for churches to have parts of the service where they ask the congregation to “repeat after me”, or have them read something collectively from the screen. Sometimes it’s a bible verse, but most other times it entails reciting unknown content. I can’t participate in repeating words and messages that I’ve never seen before. I don’t think it’s wise, and I don’t believe it teaches personal discernment. This creates an environment of just doing and saying what is asked instead of knowing and believing what one is saying. Blind recitations never bothered me until now.

 

As I’ve said before, this shouldn’t be considered a complete list of triggering events for victims of spiritual abuse. Each person and experience is different. While the map to healing is not always linear, I can tell that my window of tolerance for the above triggers is getting wider, meaning that my trauma response is not as sensitive as it used to be, but that progress is not always predictable or consistent. Thankfully, as I educate myself on the process of healing from religious harm I know that what I’m feeling is normal.

 

Have you experienced spiritual trauma? If so, are there any triggers that you would add to this list? Can you see any improvement in your response to them over time?