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Killing Me Softly: Emotional & Psychological Abuse

~ Now that physical abuse is in the limelight and punishable by law, abusers have resorted to more insidious forms of control. The effects are just as destructive, more enduring, and more difficult to overcome.

Category Archives: spiritual growth

Using Religion to Justify Domestic Abuse

04 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by Melinda Jensen in Abuse, Abuse condoned by the church, Abuse victims, blog, Blog about abuse, Christianity and abuse, Christianity and domestic violence, Controlling People, counseling, Counselling, Divorce, Emotional abuse, healing from domestic abuse, healing from emotional abuse, mysoginy, Narcissistic abuse, Oppression of women, Psychological abuse, Relationships, Religion and Abuse, spiritual growth, Spirituality, Uncategorized

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I’ve had the privilege of being a personal assistant to a gifted psychologist who is also a dedicated and genuine Christian. During that time I was privy to hundreds of patient files containing their narratives, their issues, their hopes, their dreams and mostly, their pain. Due to confidentiality requirements, I’m not going to share any of their stories here.

I can, however, share the insights I gained, not only from access to personal information but also from my own conversations with clients I formed relationships with as they sat in my small office, which doubled as a waiting room. Hardly able to contain their emotions while waiting to be called into my boss’s office, many opened up and spilled aspects of their stories while I did my best to make them feel welcome and safe. I’ll ever be grateful for their trust and for what they’ve taught me about life, love and learning.

In itself, faith in God is not to blame.  Narcissists however, use their religious beliefs to manipulate, control and dominate you through fear. To them, religion is a golden tower behind which they hide their dark, shadowy side; standing firmly behind that golden tower while they whip you with out of context scriptures and archane, patriarchal (usually but not always) tactics designed to keep you downtrodden. They tend to have impossible standards of spiritual and moral perfection you have no hope of attaining, leaving you feeling insecure and inadequate. As soon as they perceive that vulnerability, which they’ve carefully cultivated in you, they’ll hone in on it and use it against you at every turn.

Let’s look at that much-quoted and misrepresented biblical admonition for wives to ‘submit’ to their husbands. This is, of course, a misogynistic favourite. It’s all too easy to wield it over the heads of women who desire, with all their hearts, to live according to God’s word. ‘Submit!’ shouts the priest from the pulpit, shaking his fist at a sea of bowed feminine heads. ‘Submit!’ bellows the controlling husband, waving the holy book in front of his wife’s tearful face. ‘Submit!’ order the religious texts written by those ignorant of the nuances of language and translation.

Submit. This one six-letter word has been used to strike fear into the hearts of millions of women for thousands of years…but what does it really mean?

Its original meaning is simple and beautiful. To ‘submit’ means to ‘lift up’. We are to lift up our menfolk to encourage them, and to give them comfort and support. We are, of course, to lift them up in prayer. But there’s another aspect to consider, one that is rarely spoken about. It’s this. We are to lift up our husbands by helping them to stay on that narrow path God calls us to follow; and that means we are to correct them, albeit respectfully, when they stray from that path, and help guide them back to the light, if you will. That means saying ‘no’ sometimes; disagreeing; insisting on respectful and loving treatment and objecting when they become too steeped in worldly things. Ah yes, that’s something narcissists don’t want to hear.

And let’s not forget it works both ways. That is, we are to submit one to another. Yes, husbands must uplift their wives also. It’s worth noting too, that the instruction to submit is specifically meant for husbands and wives. It does not imply that all women are meant to submit to all men; or vice versa.

Sadly, I have witnessed many pious women, their shoulders hunched and eyes cast down, enter through the therapist’s door. After years of ‘submitting’ (in the wrong sense of the word) to controlling husbands, waiting for God to intervene and mend their marriages and their hearts, they come to a Christian counsellor for instruction. Those who walked through my employer’s door were lucky indeed. They’d found a psychologist with an educated understanding of scripture and a rich, deep faith. Without a doubt, she is also one of the strongest, most assertive women I’ve ever met. Those downtrodden women invariably left her office with their heads held a little higher. It was a pleasure to watch them blossom as she taught them how to become the women God intended them to be. Sometimes, that meant the end of their marriages, a possibility they believed God would never condone.

But trust me, God does not condone abuse.

But the bible says God hates divorce, doesn’t it? Well, yes, it does…sort of.

In fact, the word divorce turns up in the scriptures a number of times, in both the old and new testaments and in different contexts. These contexts are important, as are the nuances of language and the difficulties of translation. Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic (the language Yeshua spoke) cannot easily be directly translated into English. Translating first into Greek, as most of the scriptures were, adds another layer of complexity. There can be several degrees of separation between the original meanings and contexts of words and phrases, and their current meanings and contexts.

The word divorce is a perfect example. In Matthew 19, for instance, it is made clear that a man is not to ‘put away’ one wife and marry another. In modern texts, this ‘putting away’ is translated as ‘divorce’. Seems clear enough at first reading, doesn’t it? But let’s look further.

What does to ‘put away’ really mean? Wisdom dictates that it means much more than to separate physically from a woman, or to instigate legal proceedings for divorce. A man can put a woman away from him by a thousand emotional and psychological cuts. (Please note that in the author’s opinion, a woman can do exactly the same thing but they are not as easily excused in religious circles.) Words have the power of life and death over the human spirit; they can be wielded like a sword. In a spiritual sense, words can be used to murder. If a man and a woman become one – a unity in spirit – and yet one of them severs that unity with a spiritual weapon, is this not putting that person away from them in the most brutal manner?

This then, is what God truly hates. In His eyes, divorce has already taken place at the severing of the spiritual and emotional bond between a man and a woman; a bond that is meant to be both tender and strong; a bond that is meant to fulfill a higher purpose.

Abuse (not only physical and sexual abuse but psychological/emotional abuse, too) severs that bond. From a spiritual perspective, there is no difference. Yet the Church frequently teaches us the contrary. And so domestic violence in all its forms is aided and abetted by religion, despite God Himself prohibiting it in no uncertain terms.
Read more at Narcissistic Religious Abuse Tactics.

I’ve not attempted to delve into institutional abuse in this post. That hotly debated topic could take years to unravel and is, I believe, not within my area of expertise. If you have been abused at the hands of anyone within a religious setting, the damage will go deep. You need love, acceptance and understanding. I urge you to seek outside help…and to keep searching until you find a caring, supportive therapist you feel comfortable with. It will undoubtedly be extremely difficult for you to trust someone in authority, and with good reason. Don’t give up. You were meant to fulfil a unique purpose in your life, not to suffer endlessly because of the heinous actions of other human beings.

One of the most disturbing phenomena occurring within church circles, and which receives no press, is the tendency to alienate women who’ve made the decision to leave abusive husbands, after years of cruelty.  Far too often, I’ve witnessed these women being ousted from their spiritual families. Cut off! Deprived of spiritual and emotional support. Quite literally, they’ve been told they’re no longer welcome in the church ‘family’. Their spouses, however…men…remain safely cloistered within patriarchal circles. Their spiritual lives don’t miss a beat. Their friends and mentors don’t drop away. For women…hurting, abused and used women…the story is so different. They find themselves alone and friendless, carrying all the guilt and shame the church ‘fathers’ have foisted upon them.

It’s time to shine light upon the darkness.

I have no doubt that abuse is actively or passively promoted by certain factions within virtually every religion, be it Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Scientology or Callithumpian! I’ve spoken exclusively from my own experience within the Christian community from both sides of the therapist’s door.

Love and light.

 

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Traumatic Memories & the Trauma Response

23 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by Melinda Jensen in Abuse, Childhood wounds, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Counselling, Emotional abuse, healing from domestic abuse, healing from emotional abuse, help for abuse victims, Narcissistic abuse, Neuroscience and abuse, Personal growth, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Recovery from abuse, Relationships, Retraumatizing, self love, spiritual growth, Triggering, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse

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Abuse, blog, Counseling, Domestic Violence, Narcissism, Psychology, psychotherapy, Sexual abuse, Spirituality, Writing

 

silhouette of a man asking for help

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/foto76

Memories can be wonderful … but not always. Sometimes they thrust themselves into consciousness without warning or invitation, knocking the air clean out of our lungs. Like a kick in the gut with steel-capped boots, an unwelcome memory can force us to your knees , gagging, or send us stumbling numbly in search of a dark, dark cupboard in which to hide … a cupboard that holds no Narnia on its other side, but only ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.

Some time after the witching hour last night, a memory came to visit. I tried to grab it by the throat and force it back through the door of my dreams, but still it came … stealthy and relentless. And then came another … and yet another. Today I’m barely able to function.

Such is the reality of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a response all too common to survivors of verbal, emotional and psychological abuse. I wish I could tell you how to make it stop. Psychologists will teach you cognitive behavioural techniques (CBT) – the mode of therapy that is currently flavour of the month. It aims to mediate your emotions by getting you to control your own thought processes and attitudes. What the ‘experts’ don’t seem to understand, or tell you, is that the deep-seated feelings of horror and terror that result from years of cruelty actually circumvent the normal neural pathways. And that lack of understanding comes very close to ‘victim blaming’; it unleashes a barrage of guilt and alienates us from much needed love and support.
During my own (long-ago, pre-illness) studies of psychology, I learned that it is, in fact, not possible for researchers to determine whether the physical responses associated with anxiety – the release of stress hormones, which lead to rapid heart rate and pulse, etc) – pre-empt the feeling of fear itself, or whether the fear triggers the physical response. It’s the physical processes that make us shake with fear or paralyze us; that make us feel sick and our palms sweat as the blood thuds and throbs through our heads, leaving us spent. Researchers still don’t know whether the chicken comes before the egg.

Truth is, memories or events that evoke a trauma response trigger automatic emotions first … and the thoughts then follow. From there we scramble to make cognitive sense of them while our fight or flight responses are on auto-pilot, ready to take off like a jump jet. Add in the fact that stress (in all its forms – anxiety, fear etc) shuts down our normal cognitive processes, making it impossible to think straight, and we have a wrecking ball massive enough to demolish the very fabric of our being.

Under these circumstances I believe it’s virtually impossible to be rational – although I baulk at fully embracing that concept with its implication that we just can’t help ourselves. There has to be some level of personal responsibility, certainly, but there needs to be an attitude of compassion, too. Compassion not only from others but also compassion for ourselves. Sometimes we need to cut ourselves some slack. That doesn’t mean allowing ourselves to be out of control; to rant and rave at others; to get drunk and drive fast in an attempt to get away from ourselves; or to engage in any other forms of destructive behaviour.

What it means is to understand that the feeling itself is okay.

We are NOT DEFECTIVE! We are injured and may always carry painful scars that adhere to our souls … wounds that are easily reopened. It is NOT OUR FAULT. We are who we are. Survivors.

shy girl

We need to accept ourselves with all our battle-scars even if no-one else does, and we need to nurture our own wounded inner child. Imagine how you might treat a little girl or boy who has been irrevocably damaged by some adult monster. What would you say to her? How would you soothe and reassure him? If you were harmed by an intimate partner and not by a parent, your inner child is still just as wounded. We all carry that vulnerable facet deep within us and it is this very precious, fragile part of our souls that our abusers hone in on in their attempts to destroy us.

Some of us turn to God and hand our brokenness to Him; the perfect parent; the ever-loving spouse who cherishes us in a way no human being ever can. He is the keeper of my soul and my only true solace when the demons of trauma return to torment me. He scoops me up and cradles me in His powerful yet gentle arms and kisses me like the wounded child I truly am.

 

 

 

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Feeding misogyny: what it means to be naked

07 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by Melinda Jensen in counseling, Feminism, Feminist debate, Gender equality, Gender inequality, History, mysoginy, Oppression of women, Pornography, Psychology, Relationships, spiritual growth, Uncategorized

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Abuse, blog, Counseling, Domestic Violence, Gender equality, Gender inequality, History, mysoginy, Oppression of women, Personal Development, Pornography, Psychology, Rape, Relationships, Writing

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Original artwork by Melinda Jensen

For the past few days I’ve procrastinated about bringing up a controversial and volatile subject; but that ‘still, small voice’ is so insistent, I’ve decided to wade right on in. Past experience assures me that the topic – ‘nakedness’, or ‘nudity’, in all its nuances – raises strong opinions and heated debate on both sides.

There is a certain niche culture that embraces and even worships the human body at its most exposed; artists and sculptors endlessly depict it, actors wantonly portray it and photographers of a certain ilk are somewhat lecherously obsessed with it. Other sections of society are more coy, though coyness is fast disappearing in a world that rewards image over substance, superficiality over depth. Where ordinary mortals may once have been relatively protected from exposure to mass human nudity, needing to actively seek it out in order to experience it outside their own mirrors and bedrooms, today’s similarly ordinary mortals are subjected to nakedness any number of times in a day, without their consent. Why? What does it mean? And how do we cope with the onslaught?

Let’s take a look at what history teaches about the implication of nudity as it is used to express societal attitudes. There is little dispute that in the beginning of time, when humanity was just emerging, the issue was merely a practical one. Clothes were fashioned and adopted according to the dictates of climate, habitat and mode of living. As humankind’s thought processes became more advanced however, what was once merely a practical consideration began to take on a host of possible meanings, bringing with it an even larger host of emotional responses.

Greek and Roman gods were often depicted naked, with a couple of theories being put forward as explanation. Some sources indicate that in day to day existence, ancient Greek and Roman citizens wore long, flowing robes and even in the public baths, where people disrobed freely, the sexes were generally segregated. Other sources insist that communal bathing, with the genders mixed, was not uncommon and that Greek citizens frequently dropped their robes to work naked in the fields, to dance, and of course, to exercise.

According to the first theory, there existed a widespread cultural attitude of respect for the human body, and Greek philosophy held that health of both mind and body were of paramount importance to spiritual and psychological maturity. The display of the body was considered a sign of health and strength of character, and did not elicit responses of lust and ribaldry. It is thought that in the depiction of gods in particular, nudity was used to indicate that a hero or god had passed beyond the need for such protection as clothes offered.  And while it is true that Olympic athletes originally performed naked, historians believe this was both to prevent cheating and to allow them to move more freely, since the clothing of the day was restrictive and cumbersome. It is also noteworthy that women were not allowed to participate, and married women were not even allowed to attend. At a separate festival, celebrating the goddess Hera, young women were permitted to participate in foot races but were covered in loose tunics that fell to their knees.

Nudity was reserved then, almost exclusively for men, as evidenced by a number of surviving sculptures. And the prevailing attitude towards that nudity was one of respect for the health, strength and spiritual achievements of those depicted.

What seems indisputable is that during that particular period in history, a state of undress denoted a certain respect for a being’s divinity or accomplishments.

Yet…such are the vagueries of history…that other sources insists the Greeks were, in fact, vain creatures who succumbed to the lures of the flesh from very early on. This contradictory view argues that the rampant displays of nudity were fueled by vanity and hedonism, and that the Olympic games, right from the get-go, were characterized by orgies, dope-taking, prostitution and blood-lust.

How can we make sense of such blatant contradictions? For the purposes of my post, either scenario can be used to argue against the acceptability of today’s pornographic images, which center almost entirely on the female form (gay porn aside).

Considering the first scenario – can it be said that today, women are being displayed naked as a symbol of their strength, health, power and spiritual achievement? The answer must be a resounding no. They are there for the viewing pleasure and titillation of, in fact for the arousal of, lust in men. (Mostly! Yes, I hear those of you who are protesting that there’s a growing culture of women who use porn for the same reason.)

Considering the second scenario – that historical nudity was linked to hedonism, orgiastic behaviour, drugs, prostitution and blood-lust – what does that tell us about today’s culture of porn, including the so-called ‘soft-porn’, whereby fashion magazines, movies, television and even newspapers feature partially naked or even fully-naked women? It clearly tells us that a woman’s nudity is used for ribald and lustful purposes, certainly not to empower or engender respect.

Think of the image of Miley Cyrus on her wrecking ball.  I hardly think it conjures up respect, nor a reverence for her spiritual (or other) attainments. It conjures instead mirth, derision or lust, and frequently all three.

So how has the panorama evolved since the days of myth and legend? Firstly, to state the obvious, today’s nudity is overwhelmingly female. The one constant is that these ‘objects’ of lust have been almost exclusively used for the pleasure of the masculine of the species.

What else? We’ve all heard that the only constant in life is change, and history bears this out. As the centuries rolled by, along with changes catalyzed by ever-expanding exploration, discovery, industrial and scientific inroads and social change, so too has the context and connotation of ‘nakedness’ changed. There have been epic landmarks to note these changes.

No human condition more clearly depicts gross inequality and injustice than that of slavery. A slave has no worth above that of his monetary value, a value set by his potential owners in the same way it would be set for pigs or cattle or even farm produce. He is valued only for his perceived capacity for hard labour and obedience. He is beaten and abused because his life has no value and he is assigned no dignity or inherent worth. A slave is an object of degradation. At the moment he is sold into slavery he is stripped of his humanity at the same time as he is stripped of his clothes and paraded naked for the inspection of his masters. Not allowed to so much as look upon the face of a white woman without risking punishment, even death, he is himself (and herself) able to be intimately scrutinized in all his naked vulnerability. The message is clear. To be naked correlates with inferiority, dis-empowerment, humiliation and being at the mercy of a ruling class.

From the Christian scriptures we learn that Jesus was stripped naked, flogged and tortured, then hung on a cross to die a brutal death – classed as a low-life criminal. He died, bare and exposed to his detractors, laughed at and ridiculed as they shredded his robes – the ultimate humiliation. His nakedness too, marked him as inferior, dis-empowered, and at the mercy of a ruling class.

Where does this leave the argument of modern day feminists who forcefully insist on their right to parade naked and semi-naked, enter prostitution, pose for porn magazines and movies, claiming it is empowering for them to do with their bodies whatever they please?

Frankly, they’re on shaky ground. Clambering to appropriate some prized position as if it truly were an indication of equality and empowerment. Playing right into the industry’s hands … and dare I say it, right into the hands of the dominant culture; a privileged white male culture, who once again, achieve exactly what they want. That is, an endless supply of objects for their amusement, titillation, and (as I have shown above), objects of humiliation and inferiority who have been successfully brainwashed into believing they are joining a ruling class, when in fact, they are simply still being ruled by it. In a different manner to which women have been dominated throughout the centuries, yes. But dominated all the same, through manipulation of their psyches.

Much research points to the likelihood of pornography inciting violence against women, and when we view the historical context of nudity, and perceive it as the tool it has been – one used to dominate, humiliate, denigrate and dis-empower – it isn’t difficult to fathom its role in today’s escalating culture of violence against the feminine.

The subtleties of the game have changed. But the game itself has not.

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Nurturing souls and their abusers

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by Melinda Jensen in Abuse, Abuse victims, Counselling, Emotional abuse, Narcissistic abuse, Psychological abuse, Psychology, Psychopathology, Relationships, spiritual growth, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Verbal abuse

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I’m reblogging this beautifully and succinctly written piece from ‘Sanctuary for the Abused’. It speaks directly to the heart of the matter. Note: The genders are interchangeable.

A Nurturing Soul Does Not Compute with a Sociopath

Angel imprisoned Pictures, Images and Photos

Many are often shocked to find an otherwise healthy and strong woman in an abusive situation and wonder why and how this happens.

This women is a nurturer. She has nurtured her own soul, conquered herself to find joy in the world.

She meets a man who seems to be so close to winning. He’s almost conquered himself. She finds great pleasure and joy in watching and taking part in the nurturing of other’s souls. She sees how beautiful he is. She wants him to win his inner battles. She wants to be a part of this great battle.

She sees his behavior change from kind and loving, to mean and cruel, and believes she is watching an inner battle of self being waged. She wants him to win the good fight. She sees the worth of his soul, and feels the battle is worth the wages.

This loving, nurturing woman joins the man in his own personal battle as a loving friend and wife.

But she doesn’t understand his swift mood changes from kind to cruel, are not representative of an internal battle over self, but merely manipulative behaviors, designed to gain power over others.

He is not battling over self control, but dominating the souls and hearts of others.

In the end, she finds herself in a painful powerless position having lost herself serving him, loving him, sacrificing for him, in the illusion he will be moved by her love to win.

But their is no battle within him. His heart is not moved. There is no battle to be won. She will lose everything in a quest that never was.

And the devil will rejoice in the crumbling of another soul, that was once previously strong.

Her whole life, her great quest to save her husband, is nothing but a lie.

by Natalie Fleming

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