Thread by @acnasurvivor

What happens when you speak up about abuse in a church… a 🧵:

When the spiritual & emotional abuse happened to me at an ACNA church, I didn’t share anything about it for a long time. Who would believe me? /1

When I finally did share (because what had happened had torn me apart and it was impossible to continue to pretend nothing had happened), the responses and reactions made things so much worse. /2

I was disbelieved; the abuse was minimized; I was blamed for the abuse; a so-called friend held an intervention because I “had a mental illness” because of how I was reacting; close friends in the church turned against me and chose to align themselves with the abusers. /3

How people treated me when I talked about the abuse compounded the pain—I now had to work to recover from the abuse (which it took me a long time to understand); on top of that, I had to try and heal from the many damaging reactions that people had to my abuse. /4

I was not myself; I was a walking bundle of trauma—and of course, when I couldn’t fully function because of the trauma that had and was occurring, what happened? You bet I got blamed some more. /5

I got name called and labelled as all kinds of things because I wasn’t behaving like a “nice person” or “stable” at times. /6

To save myself, I had to start over completely—new living situation, When you are in the midst of trauma, some days all you can do is survive; you will make “mistakes” and you will misstep. /7

Do we expect someone who had a major car accident with massive injuries to simply walk away? No, we make room for the injuries, the need for help walking, the recovery time. /8

But with emotional and spiritual abuse, we assume the person should just carry on as normal, and shouldn’t be limping or even need a very long recovery period. /9

The fallout from abuse is not just the abuse experience itself; it’s the damage community does in reaction to reporting the abuse (which is why so many don’t), and it’s the long-term damage done to one’s identity. /10

The reaction to abuse needs just as much education as understanding abuse itself. Be careful and kind when you learn about abuse—don't add to the great suffering that is already there. @ACNAtoo @acna #spiritualabuse #emotionalabuse #abuserecovery #abusetrauma #acnatoo /11