spiRituaL abuse

 Growing up evangelical, you don't get to adulthood unscathed by spiritual abuse.  

When I was a new teenager, we were at a church where my father was an elder and on the board and the pastor and his family lived across the road from us.  Our families were close.  My mother also worked for the board in some context, one of those independent churches that I can no longer make sense of the hierarchy that it once served.  Suffice it to say, it was a shell corporation for a church - with the pastor's friends on the board, all awarded power and influence - basically creating a small pond for these big fishes.  I was best friends with the pastor's daughter.

Everything eventually fell apart.  These things do.  And it was messy, as these things are.  I was commanded to stop being Lee-Ann's friend and not to hang around with her.  Best friends, like first loves, are soul mates at this age, and we both defied our parents and continued to be close.

One day I came home to my mother in tears - terrified because of a vision God had showed her about me and Lee-Ann still hanging around, and angry that I defied her and that God "had to" intervene.  I remember being afraid and emotionally moving away from Lee-Ann after this.  We moved not long after, as did they.  We did not keep in touch - it was what God wanted and it was long before facebook.

Some time later I found out that my mother did not have a vision, she saw us.  I didn't know what spiritual abuse was then but I do now.  

I was about 14 or 15 when this happened and 53 now.  Before facebook, there was no way to reconnect.  I found her on facebook once but she didn't reply.  I heard she "had seizures" but I was a nurse by then and knew they were manageable and that it was probably a pain in the ass.  Time continued to pass.

3 weeks ago my mother asked, "did you hear Lee-Ann died?", and all the pain came back.  I wanted to ask, "how could I?  you intentionally killed that friendship." but didn't.  I found out that her seizures were intense.  She lost her job, couldn't work, and had been in a care facility for years.  In a town I had just visited two weeks prior.  I could have said hello.  Or goodbye.  No one told me.  I was right there.  She was right there.  The teenager in me broke again.  Life is so unfair.

I don't know what to say to my parents.  My mother, as she wrote on Lee-Ann's parents' facebook pages didn't even spell her name right.  And she's friends with Lee's parents again.  Of course she is.   I'm so tired of being the victim of my parents' spiritual decisions - and being treated like I'm lesser because I do not subscribe to their version of christianity.