Christian Cult of Personality headed by abusive narcissists

[flatliner]

**Lots of trigger warnings, be warned. I have a lot to get off of my chest.**

Well, I'm new to this forum and have come here in the hopes of working through some things that have been haunting me for the past five years after finally leaving years of emotional abuse, gaslighting, financial and emotional slavery, and struggling with forgiving the unforgivable and trying to move on with my life and being unable to freely do so.

So here's the back story.

I followed my parents to my current city to help a starter non-denominational Christian church get on its feet after a few years of the Pastors (husband and wife team) burning out their children and other helpers trying to get the church established and growing. It all started as a very reasonable premise, my parents moved there to be associate pastors and since the head pastor had his real estate license, used him to find their house. I became the worship leader and was tutored by the pastor's wife. Once settled in and working full-time for the church for free and tithing exactly what the pastor needed to pay his bills, we were subjected to intense micro-management, and attended constant meetings to improve our progress: constantly berated for not doing enough, what we needed to be doing to be better servants and how we could never live up to the expectations and requirements of our responsibilities. I've honestly blocked out most of the details to the point of it all being a giant freakish horrific blur of shame and fear, of not being able to make decisions for our own lives, having outside influences pushed out of our lives so we no longer had any sense of what was reasonable or normal. Pastor turns out to be a bipolar narcissistic control freak who has to publicly humiliate all who dare to not agree 100% with his deranged ramblings and who had to fight and win every conversation and argument at all costs. His wife, bitter, controlling, and a spiteful blamer who would crack her face into a fierce smile and lie through her teeth to get you to agree with her and do anything for her. Lovely people. She decided she hated people in general and couldn't stand her life so she divorced her husband and took as many people with her out of the church as she could, just to ruin him. She was so confident the church would collapse without her devotion and constant vigilance. I took up her slack in making sure everything she had taken care of for the basic weekly functions of the church were maintained, and the handful of people still attending the church still showed up regularly. My Dad became the pastor's only 'true friend and solace" in his grief from the divorce, and his engineering income financed the church to make up for the dip in tithes from those who left with the pastor's divorced wife.
My dad was completely wrapped around the pastor's little finger, even to the point of admitting to me that he was trying to get my dad to divorce my mom so that my dad would really understand his grief. There's gaps in my memory, and I'm unsure of whether this was before or after my dad had his thyroidectomy which he never properly recovered from. He was eventually found to be mentally retarded and fired from his great-paying engineering job that was financing the church. The church folded, the Pastor bled my father completely dry financially to the point of not being able to care for my ailing mother driven mad and suffering from early onset Alzheimer's.

Both my parents are still alive, but I've lost them forever and will never get them back. My dad is living in an apartment next to the facility where my mother is being cared for. They're both on disability and are essentially wards of the state of our birth, where at least they have siblings with stability to help out. I'm half a country away, still living in the town next to where this all took place, suffering from chronic pain and working daily just to pay my mortgage. Pastor's ex wife remarried and is playing a large role in the church their eldest daughter established in another town five hours away, and Pastor found himself some poor woman to marry and get his feet back under him again before skipping town. I don't know where he is, but he still owes my dad thousands of dollars he took as a personal loan.

But I've been trying to forgive and move on. Churches trigger me into panic attacks, as does driving around the small town where this all went down. I'm grateful for the disk disease and chronic pain because it cut straight through the bs and opened my eyes to just how toxic this all was and I got out. Unfortunately it took over a year before my parents finally took my warnings to heart and left the church, but wouldn't cut the Pastor out of their lives. He literally bled them dry and moved on to the next resource/victim.

To be honest I'm not sure where to go from here. I've been feasting on psychology for closure, and to better understand how a human being can blind themselves to how evil they are and do such ruinous things to so many people.
I want to heal. I want to thrive. I want to not get filled with the dread of guilt at the thought of Mother's day or my Dad's birthday and I'm so far away and at my wit's end trying to survive that I'm no help whatsoever.
I'm burned out and so tired of being trapped by all of this.

[Kizzie]

Hi and a very warm welcome to OOTS Flatliner     

We do have several members here who suffered abuse in a religious/cult context as you've no doubt read in this forum. If you don't get a response from one of them right away, please do stick around as abuse/trauma is something all of us have lived with and we can relate to the feelings and symptoms it leaves you with.  At its core, CPTSD involves interpersonal abuse, betrayal, exploitation, etc., which is clearly what you have endured.   

You may want to search "forgiveness" on the site as it is something so many of us struggle with.  Some of us will never forgive, some do - in the end it's up to you to decide what you can live with, but many of us find it's necessary to let yourself be angry initially without beating yourself up for feeling that way.   

Glad you found your way here and I hope you are able to  find the information and support you need 

[flatliner]

Kizzie,
Thanks for your recommendation and affirmation. Forgiveness is something I keep trying, but feels like a brick wall I keep running into instead of progress. <3

[woodsgnome]

First, thanks for the 'trigger alerts'. Coming from a cult-church environment hidden within the folds of a major denomination, I too tread carefully whenever I run into this material; it makes my skin crawl, my mind freak out, and my urge to get away extreme (and I already do live deep in the 'sticks').

Your biggest need with all this is right here--

I've written elsewhere on this forum about some of my horrific experiences, which went on for my entire childhood 'til age 18. I won't bore with any repetition of that here, other than to say that I did have a front-row seat to hypocrisy and double-meaning ("GAWD loves you, but we hate and will punish you in his name"  ...stuff like that).

Forgiveness is tricky; seems like the thing to do, it's what so many in the psychological field insist one has to do. Well, I tried, and can't--it seems like just another flip of the hypocrisy coin. On the other hand, I feel like there's nothing there anyway. It happened; I was victimized by cruel zealots, and it's back there. I have scars that heal at various rates, but forgiveness won't add to the healing, for me. For-give what?

It seems like forgiveness is almost a cover for saying gee, no harm done, eh? And for true friends, it probably does have a place. But those people were in no way my friends. Acknowledging their abuse; and leaving it on the movie of my old life doesn't heal my pain, but neither does feigning forgiveness. It's the sort of hypocrisy I'd rather leave with them; and in a way, that's for-give-ness, anyway.

[arpy1]

hi Flatliner,
this is the first time i have posted on the site for months after i got really badly triggered by something and then life events took a turn for the worse. but on impulse i clicked on here today and saw ur post, which moved me very much.
i just wanted to tell you you're not alone. i can relate to so much of what you said, having come out of a cult myself in the last five years.

sounds awful, and it was awful and i know exactly what you mean about the fear and shame. it just doesnt' go away just like that, nor does the pain and the trauma, i'm afraid. but at least you're reaching out and finding support and that's amazing. i guess i should be doing the same, and this is the first time i have even felt the faintest hint of the courage to do so once again. so thanks for inspiring that !!
i will keep an eye on this thread and hopefully can support u a bit in the days to come.
one thin g that helps me - to just put the forgiveness thing on one side for now... u have enough on ur plate at the moment, like healing and stuff.  forgiveness will wait. and the other thing i am trying to learn is to believe that it's ok for me to be just the way i am, right now, i don't need to be better than i can be.

anyway, support to you
arpy1

[unisus]

I grew up with a "Christian" home of narcissistic parents who just basically criticized and abused.

The narcissist is emotionally blind inside; mammals are different than other species in the sense that we have evolved a higher ability to stick together. On the great scale you have the Holy Spirit (the whole spirit/species); this dancing organism is our larger self.

But being warm-blooded is fairly new, and many people are simply born with varying degrees of ability to sense this spiritual force. So, you end up a lot of times with people who don't feel love, but they pretend it and steal the fruits of it.

A narcissist can suck people dry and move on because they are incapable of feeling emotions—only exploiting & reenacting them. He is emotionally blind.

[sanmagic7]

i've also struggled with the concept of forgiveness, and at one time i believed that it wasn't actually my job to forgive.  i had a discussion once with a pastor's wife about this, and i told her that what i'd read in the bible was jesus saying 'father, forgive them ... etc." rather than 'i forgive you'.  jesus had left the forgiving part to god.  i thought that was a great way to tackle that whole issue.

in the therapeutic world, of which i'm a part, forgiveness is a big deal for many therapists, saying that until one forgives, you just can't move on with your life.  i've also been part of the 12-step world, where the same ideology is espoused.  and, the religious world as well (i used to be very involved with a church as a sunday school teacher and on the church council.  it was when i was on the council that i saw the hypocrisy behind the 'smiling, welcoming faces', and i got out.  i don't even call myself a christian anymore.   i wanted to get as far away from all that as possible.

at any rate, i just recently read an article about how forgiving is not imperative for a person to continue to move forward and thrive after abuse, it may come about naturally at some point, but it never needs to be pushed for.  that was such a relief to read!  i don't forgive my narc x for what he's done, and i don't know if i ever will, but that has become a moot point now, and one i don't have to worry about, and that feels great.
i've gone back to my original premise - forgiveness is not for me to be concerned with.  it's between the person and whoever/whatever s/he believes in.  i will forgive if it feels right in my heart and gut, and comes naturally.  otherwise, someone else can take care of that. 

i agree with arpy1 that you have plenty on your plate now, and the whole forgiveness issue can take a back seat to getting yourself stabilized, healing, and feeling better about yourself, who you are, what you want out of life, etc.  your focus is allowed to be on you right now - you deserve that.  other people and issues will take care of themselves in their own time.  my own opinion.

that's not to deny anything you're feeling, have gone thru, or the trauma that has hit you smack in the face with all this.  my heart is with you.  one thing i have learned is one step at a time.  thank you for posting.  you are definitely heard, supported, and among caring people here. 

[Three Roses]

 

Welcome, unisus we're glad you're here.

I wasn't raised in any particular faith but as a young adult I became a Christian. I still consider myself one, although I have withdrawn from church/churches. Groups of people are just too uncomfortable for me, always have been but I suppressed my feelings.

In any case, you're welcome here, and we hope you feel our validation and support!