I was raised in a religiously abusive household and should have been allowed to escape. Religious parents think they have the right to spiritually threaten and abuse their children until they accept the parent's beliefs. I remember I wanted to be a scientist as young as five, I always had a logical and rational mind. But when my mother and her congregation would talk to me about confusing things about god, like how god always existed and had no beginning, I would get confused and find it hard to believe. I asked questions about things like dinosaurs and how they could have existed before Adam and Eve. For this I would be horribly abused and scolded for relying on human thinking rather than on what I was being told by the religious organization, I was worshipping myself and self-centered, I was rebelling against my mother, and I was basically cultivating evil. They knew I wanted to be a scientist and often demonized me by saying that scientists think they are god. Just because I think scientifically does not mean that I am evil or think I am god, and I should not have been made to feel there was something immoral about me.
But it was worse than this. I also had my own independent spiritual beliefs. As a young child, I became interested in witchcraft and began studying it. This was found out and I began to be tormented and tortured. I was told I was possessed by demons and would eventually go insane and end up killing myself. I was told that this could possibly lead to me being raped by demons in the night. I was forced to burn my possessions and give up my pets because they were demon-possessed too. I was isolated from other children and adults and was not allowed to interact with anyone. People said that my demonic aura disturbed them so I was forced to sit in another room in the congregations so no one needed to see me. My mother's co-religionists put added pressure by not allowing the rest of my family to attend events because of my spiritual condition, so then my brothers and sisters turned against me. Special talks were given to make people fear witchcraft and heighten my persecution. All this because I had chosen my own spiritual path.
Today I don't practice Witchcraft, but at the time it meant very much to me, and at the very least I knew I did not want to be my mother's religion. I had my own morals; unlike my mother and her friends, I was not homophobic, I was not misogynistic, and I did not condemn everyone else who did not believe like me as wrong. Being brought to church and having to hear disdain for pagans, gays, and women hurt my sentiments and I felt I was involved in something immoral. Now religious parents think they have the right to force these kinds of things on you, that you have no say when it comes to matters of morality, but this is just not true and it is time for children to prove it. Are you being raised in an abusive religious household? Here are some suggestions I wish had been made to me:
1. Stop loving your parents. Your parents are abusive evil people who are bigots and hypocrites and anti-science and have no good intentions for the world or you, they want everything to be cruel and abusive like they are, and they want to destroy you for not being like them. Parents expect love no matter what but they almost never love their children for who they are, if you don't come out the way they want you to come out, they will abandon you as an adult.
2. Prepare to come out. Eventually, if you want freedom, you will have to cause disturbances in your home by stating your opinions. However, you should first go to school officials and tell them you will be experiencing abuse at the hands of your parents for your convictions. You need to find adults who understand and side with you, you need people outside of your home routing for you. When you finally tell your family what you think, they will attack and isolate you, you need to feel as though you are going into this with people already supporting you. When you leave home to go to school, adults need to know what you are going through and you can get school counseling. Get outside adult and even child support.
3. Stand firm. Once you tell your parents what you believe and they start attacking you, stand firm. Your parents may hit you, shout at you, ground you, take away your possessions, refuse to let you out, spiritually threaten you, rape you, turn relatives and friends against you, and much worse. You must not back down when this happens and for a period of time you may have to experience some abuse, but this abuse will convince you your parents are evil and that you need to get out.
4. Plan your escape. Once the persecution starts, you need to plan your escape. Your parents will likey harm you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to the point that you feel you cannot go on anymore and become suicidal. If you are suicidal you need to get out of your house. You must tell school officials or police that if you are sent home you will harm yourself. You must REFUSE to return to your house. Teachers and police are trained to return you to your parents so you must be adamant that your life is at stake and you can't handle it anymore. If they do not listen then simply refuse to go home on the bus or on your own and sit on the floor and don't move until they try to force you home. If they try to force you start screaming and fighting until they must detain you. If they do get you back to your house run away and go to the police station and hold on to things until they get the message you are not going home. If they don't listen then openly threaten to kill yourself so they are forced to take you to a hospital where you can speak with them to arrange never going home. Refuse to go home! If you must threaten suicide!
5. Prepare for a better life that is still difficult. If you leave your parents, you are going to end up in state or foster care. State and foster care is not perfect, many children don't like it, but it is much better than being raised in a religious household and if you are abused then you can be moved to another facility or home. You may feel as though you are in a hard place until you grow up and get out on your own, but at least you escaped one kind of abuse and got into an environment where at least you have a chance.
6. Tell your story. Once you are out of your house make sure people know of your story and what you went through, make sure your parents are publicly named and shamed so that other parents fear doing the same thing. Encourage other children to escape their homes as well.
If you are being religiously abused you need to escape. Religious people will tell you it is better to endure the abuse of your parents than live in a state home, but that is not true. To be honest, I would have preferred to be assaulted once by a state care worker who is then fired then have to deal with constant assault all day from my parents and I can never escape and they are never punished for it. You need to protect yourself and destroy your parents, follow these steps and it should help.
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