Hi there. These next few posts are painful - but I hope you'll find them enlightening and helpful in your learning about Gender-Based Violence. The next few posts are excerpts from a blog a friend of mine wrote detailing her experience with GBV. It's well-written but raw, well-researched and compelling. Here we go...
Wrong With Me
I grew up in one of those houses other kids were jealous of. It was big, new, and perpetually clean. To this day, the sight of fresh vaccuum lines on a carpet brings me back to my childhood room – beautifully decorated in dusty rose and cream. Dusty rose, not pink. My mother clarified every time she gave a tour. My parents had good jobs, my mom as a office manager and my dad as a manager at the local paper mill where most of my friends’ parents worked. We took piano lessons, played sports, and went to church on Sundays. I’m sure it looked almost perfect.
And it might have been. If not for me. For as long as I can remember, I knew that there was something wrong with me. I wasn’t quiet and well-behaved like my siblings. I was loud and impulsive and full of all the feelings. Like every feeling. Ever. My mother suffered from an undiagnosed mental health disorder during my childhood. She’d grown up in an abusive home and had married my dad six months after her 18th birthday. She was ill-equipped to raise a tsunami-child like me.
That’s what I was. A storm. Whatever was wrong with me was wild and turbulent and unrelenting. That was the lie my mom told herself. And I believed that lie. It never even occurred to me that it was a lie.
When my mother hit me (but never my sisters) or dragged me across the room by my hair or pushed me
down the stairs, deep down I knew it was my fault.
When she told me that she wished I’d never been born, I understood. Sometimes, I wished I’d never
been born too. I was so ashamed of being me. When my mother called the local priest to come to our house and cast demons out of me, I closed my eyes, gripped the sides of the chair, and prayed desperately that the evil would leave me. When I had a hard time paying attention in school and the teachers told me I was lazy; when I didn’t get invited to a single birthday party; when I ate lunch alone at school (which was most days); when my siblings told me that no one would ever love me... It hurt, but I understood why. And when, at 18 years old, I was raped by the first boy who ever asked me on a date, it seemed like something I deserved. Just the natural progression of things.
Two Reasons Women Don't Just Leave
And here we’ve hit on two of the reasons I believe women don’t simply leave abusive situations. Some reasons begin long before the relationship does. Childhood abuse and trauma actually rewires the brain and normalizes violent and abusive behaviour (Marusak et al.,2014). If love, as a concept, is learned, not innate, these children learn that love is cruel, unforgiving, and conditional. If they see any other kind of love, in the media or between other adults, they don’t draw the conclusion that love is good and kind and
free. They draw the conclusion that if that kind of love exists, they must be undeserving or unworthy of it (Johnson & James, 2016).
A number of studies were performed in the 80s and 90s to explore the psychosocial and emotional effects of trauma and abuse on children. These studies indicate that children who are abused often believe that they are at fault (Hall & Lynch, 1998). This belief does not just disappear once the child reaches adulthood; I suspect that it simply plays into adult relationships (Hall & Lynch, 1998; Johnson & James, 2016). A report by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness says that those who experienced abuse before the age of 15 are almost three times more likely to experience hidden homelessness (Gaetz et al., 2012). As someone who has experienced both, it’s easy to see the twisted path from one to the other. Women who have experienced childhood abuse are also more likely to experience tumultuous relationships with family as adults, which leaves them with few places to turn for help (Dobson, 2003). It makes sense, then, that a woman in this situation would seek a community where she can feel a sense of belonging and safety.
In the Name of God
Okay, now we’re going to talk about Jesus. But not the real Jesus. The Jesus that people made up to justify their indifference and blatant hate. It won’t be that bad. Promise. If you ask my parents, they’ll tell you I was raised right. What they really mean is that I was raised in a fucked-up, fundamentalist faith “community” that filled my head with nightmares about the devil and rivers of blood and burning in hell for all eternity. I grew up in a world where women were submissive to men, all songs were about Jesus, and Saturday afternoons were for picketing abortion clinics and praying for our friends who’d gotten drunk the night before. Oh, and gay people. Always praying for the gay people.
The bible was to be taken literally. God really created the world in seven days and then covered Adam and Eve’s nether-regions with fig leaves. (Only God knows how – fig leaves aren’t that big, guys, I checked). And there really was a giant flood that drowned all of humanity – except for one family who survived on a boat full of parakeets and elephants. They were all safe and warm and nobody ate anyone else. Central to our faith was the idea of penal substitutionary atonement. I know, I know, big words. I can’t let that theology degree go to waste. Basically, it’s the idea that even though God created us, we are all so totally depraved and abhorrent to him (or her!) that we’re going to hell. Literally. And the only way we can be saved from this fate is by praying this little magic prayer and “accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.” (My fingers were literally shaking typing that out). #vomit I’m not going to get into what I believe about Jesus now because you didn’t sign up to read that. But I’d like to point out that I still (miraculously) consider myself a Christian. So I’m allowed to throw a little shade.
I sometimes wonder how I would have reacted to this message if I hadn’t already been so aware of my own inadequacy. But things as they were – me being nothing but a worthless, unlovable problem – you can see how the idea of being saved and loved was a lifeline. So I prayed the prayer and I was in. My broken, annihilated heart had found a home. As a teenager, my faith kept me from a lot of the mistakes (and fun) most kids experience. I missed out on parties, hangovers, kissing, and sex. Instead, I had bible studies, bible camp, and youth group (where we went to talk about the bible).
All of this would have been fine and dandy had my church leaders been, you know, educated about the bible. Like at a real university. Of course they weren’t. Because universities are where Satan waits to trap questioning young minds and lure them into the worship of knowledge and intellect forever. Instead, I was taught about this ancient religious text by men (always men) who’d spent three to four years being brainwashed at some fundamentalist Christian college.
We had to study the bible as much as possible because it was the only way God talked to us. He wrote us a letter. And it was a perfect, inerrant letter. It told us everything we needed to do and believe in order to remain in God’s good graces. By the time I was 18, I’d dedicated most of my energy to being a Proverbs 31 woman. Proverbs 31 is this chapter in the bible that talks about what a woman should be. Despite the fact that this was an ancient proverb written by men and not a prescriptive instruction for life, I was told that it (along with other scriptures) would guide me to a pace of true peace and joy. And I needed guidance because, as another proverb clearly stated, I could not trust my own heart (Jeremiah 17:9, New International Version [NIV]. When I think back on those days now, I can still feel the guilt and fear. I was never good enough and that meant I could never be sure that I was truly saved.
Women Don't Leave Because Their Values & Beliefs Won't Let Them
There are a multitude of studies exploring the relationship between patriarchal Christian subculture and domestic violence and abuse. One talks about the danger of unilateral forgiveness and how it empowers and enables abusers, and another explores how and why abused women are silenced by the church. The reality is that conservative churches, with their patriarchal worldview and demands for indiscriminate forgiveness, are breeding grounds for abuse of all kinds (Westenberg, 2017). Combine this with an emphasis on finding strength in “suffering with Christ” and the ever-looming threat of complete social isolation and eternal damnation, and it’s easy to see why many Christian women are afraid to leave abusive partners (Westenberg, 2017).
If you’ve never been a part of a faith community like this, it’s hard to understand how anyone could buy into it. The truth is, we’re taught from a very young age that the world is dangerous. Any belief or action that doesn’t line up with the conservative Christian paradigm has the power to push you one step closer to hell. After all, the devil prowls in the night looking for anyone he can devour (1 Peter 5:8, NIV]). He can disguise himself as an angel of light and the only thing we can know to be true is the “word of God” (the bible) (2 Corinthians 11:14, NIV). Even your own heart is deceitful. You are always one step – one decision or question or mistake – from backsliding down a slippery slope in a fiery abyss.
From a young age, we’re taught to defend our faith against every opinion and argument. Against logic and empirical evidence. We gather in homes and churches and camps to practice rebuttals for every argument we can think of. We lament that the rest of the world can’t see the truth. We pity those who do not believe. Pity, but never listen. Argue, but never thoughtfully consider. If you listen, if you question, you could lose everything. Your family, your friends, your community. And your soul.
To be continued...
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