Ruth Barron penned the following account and posted it on social media this past Wednesday. Part of my purpose in creating this blog is to lift up the voices of my fellow survivors who are able and willing to share, so I asked Ruth if she would give me permission to repost what she wrote here. She has agreed at the time of posting; however, please be aware that as part of my policy to protect survivors’ interests first and foremost, should she ever ask me to take the post down, I will.
I was struck by how well Ruth’s writing here represents my own experience in many ways, and I’m sure it will do the same for many other victims of abuse as well. You may find validation and reassurance in her words, but please note the TW: this story contains references to child physical and sexual abuse and religious institutional abuse.
I have left the story in its original form, only lightly edited by Ruth herself, so that you may encounter her just as she is in her own words.
Last night, I noticed I was playing mindless games over and over and over without enjoyment. This is one of my default numbing activities, when my life has felt formless and without void, I play games like hard core spider solitaire or mahjong, and repeat each game until I win. When I can’t sort out/resolve what is going on in my life, I can at least sort out/resolve a game. When I realized what I was doing, I searched my heart to see what was happening and I felt tears that wanted to spill out.
This weekend has been hard. It should have been a good weekend. I have been asked to contribute a chapter on the church’s response to abuse, and it was due on Sunday. I finished it on time. I think it is well-written. I have a sermon on abuse being published soon. I am on a scheduled break, and this is the first break I can remember where I didn’t completely collapse with exhaustion. I have been so proud of myself lately. Things I used to think I was bad at, I have found myself developing skills in, now that I am not under a constant assault of criticism.
I have been telling myself daily for the past few years how proud I am of myself and naming specific things I'm proud of. After four decades of no one in my life being able to name anything good about me (including when I asked my previous employers to name even one thing I was getting right), I told myself I couldn’t make anyone around me stand up for me, but I would stand up for myself. When I started telling myself how proud I am of myself, it was like pouring salt on a wound, or like ripping myself apart. It felt like such a lie to name anything good in myself. It was incredibly hard to continue, but now I am seeing the fruits of that work. I feel more secure and confident.
But I am still an abuse survivor with triggers to manage, and this weekend has had a number of triggers. Even finishing the chapter had its triggers. I am about ~500 words over the limit, and it would seem that isn’t a big deal: just edit, but suddenly I was feeling again the emotional blows of all the times people set standards I then punished me harshly for not meeting them. I couldn’t breathe or think.
A colleague had asked me to look over his chapter. He is an academic and converses easily in Academese, which uses longer sentences and more complicated thoughts. However, the goal for the book is to be academic in scope but non-academic in the writing, so as to be accessible for a broader audience. I am really good at this type of editing. The second reader for my thesis said my thesis was the easiest to read he had ever read. I have helped others do this with their writing, but I sat frozen on the first just the first paragraph for over an hour. You see, my colleague isn’t a peer. He is an authority figure, a full professor, head of the project, and I was again feeling blow after blow: all the times an authority figure decided I was criticizing him and punished me harshly. And I was grieving how much has been stolen from me so that even what I'm good at becomes virtually impossible for me.
Then, this Sunday at church, three of our former colleagues visited. These were among those I thought had valued me, but when our org made accusations against us, not on of them asked us for our perspective, not one of them spoke up for us. The most hurtful part was seeing the huge smiles and seeing them being family to each other. Suddenly, I was crying about yet another family who abandoned me, feeling abandonment after abandonment, watching others smile and laugh together while I was isolated and in deep pain, just wishing that even once one of my families: biological, friend group, church, or work had valued me enough to hear me and help me when I needed them.
I still remember the second semester of my sophomore year of college. I was 19. I had just told my mom about the sexual abuse by my dad and learned that she had suspected all along. She had told me it was my fault because as a nine-year-old girl, I had been too seductive for my dad to resist. So back at college, I was in deep crisis. One of my friends had also been abused by her dad. She had talked openly about it, and we had supported her. So I turned to those friends. That friend told me I was strong and could handle it on my own, but I couldn’t. I was in crisis. And when I couldn’t keep my pain in, my friends told me they never wanted to see me again. I signed up for the free counseling with a psychology professor which the college offered. I told the professor that I had told my friends about my childhood sexual abuse and they had told me they never wanted to see me again. She spent the hour telling me I needed to learn how to be a better friend. That hour set me back for decades. I remember thinking, “I thought the abuse was a big deal, but she didn’t think it was. Why can’t I get it together? I'm making a big deal about nothing.” And for the next two decades, I beat myself up for my own trauma symptoms.
But two decades later, I read the book “The Body Keeps the Score” and finally realized that I had trauma. I was so proud of myself for finally recognizing what should have been clear. I had been in four years of conflict in the org, and my trauma was highly activated. High conflict is not healthy for a victim of severe child abuse. I went to my org and told them I was going to seek trauma counseling, and I asked them to address the conflict. I was so proud of myself for that. But they punished me harshly for it. They told me I was just imagining my childhood abuse onto the org, that the solution was to get my dad out of my head. They found a counselor and talked to him about me. He agreed he could help me be a better teammate. Better daughter, better friend, better teammate, I was never good enough. I always had to be better, and if I would just be better, the abuse would stop. I spent decades trying desperately to be better, but I never managed to be better enough, and the abuse always continued.
My trauma brain did its beautiful God-designed job to try to protect me. My brain started flooding, where my brain was overwhelmed with traumatic memories and emotions. My brain could see a number of similarities between my current situation and my first molestation by my father. As a 9 year old, I and all my siblings had come in late from playing outside. I was the only one dragged away by my father to be punished. My teammates and I were all locked in conflict, and I was the only one being dragged away to be ”fixed.” When I protested to my org, they told me it was like marriage counseling: the whole team was receiving counseling. I was getting in-person intensive counseling, and the team would be a letter from the counselor.
My father had given me a choice at 9 years old, between punishment with a paddle or stripping and being punished by his hand. He offered a choice between two types of abuse. I didn’t understand what I was choosing. But now my org was offering me a choice: go to their counselor who would force me to strip naked emotionally in order to correct my failures as a teammate, or be forced out, exiled from community, not just the org, my entire community.
Everyone condemned me for not submitting to authority, no matter that the requirement was unethical and violated the org’s own policies. So I tried to reason with myself as I had done for decades: come on! You’re masking a big deal about nothing. It’s just a little thing.” I said to myself all the words everyone else was saying to me, but my trauma brain refused to be ignored any longer. Any time I tried to reason myself into going, my brain would skip. Suddenly, I would be thinking of something like flowers, with no clear idea how I got there. If I tried to trace my thoughts back, my brain would go completely blank. My brain absolutely refused to allow me to agree to something it recognized as incredibly similar to my childhood abuse. But, just as in my childhood abuse, there was no way of escaping abuse. It was a trap and both choices led to abuse. The only thing different was that this time, I had not said yes to abuse in any way, but the community said yes to it.
And it was a trap because I couldn’t even tell anyone what was going on. The org already insisted that the problem was I was imaging my past onto the present. Explaining would have convinced them even more that they were correct in doing what a counselor told me was the very worst thing they could do to someone with trauma. It would also have given them more knowledge to weaponize against me, as they had weaponized my voluntary acknowledgement that I had trauma. But then my mentors and bosses condemned me for failure to communicate enough, even after acknowledging that I had been completely transparent at the beginning. I should have continued being transparent and trusting while they were being untrustworthy, unethical, and, I assert, abusive.
And so I cried through church again, grieving yet again the siblings/coworkers who knew they had been involved too, but who watched me be dragged away for punishment and agreed that yes, I did deserve it, and they did not. And I grieve that I have never been allowed to be weak, to receive grace for failures, to need support. I grieve that I have had to feed myself and meet my own needs while being expected to provide support for everyone around me without being allowed to need support myself. And yet I'm also so so so proud of myself for how far I've come with so many obstacles and so little support. I remember when I was 11 and I tried to say no to my father’s sexual abuse, but he overpowered my no, and I'm so very proud of myself for being able to hold onto my “NO” despite the overwhelming powers wielded against me. And I grieve that what the community should have recognized as healing: my ability to hold onto my no, they instead saw as a sign that I was hopelessly deranged by abuse, as I sign that I deserved all the abuse I experienced. And I cling to God’s declaration regarding Job: “blameless.” I am not to blame for my abuse.
Ruth Barron is a #metoo/#churchtoo activist who has worked in full-time ministry since 2000 and as a missionary in Kenya since 2007. With degrees in English and psychology (BA from Milligan University) and Christian doctrine (MAR from Emmanuel Christian Seminary), her focus is on the intersection of trauma, theology, literature, and church polity. She has developed curricula for Maasai and Turkana churches and writes essays, poems, and stories, including “For Whom Will the Church Be Safe?” Priscilla Papers 37, no. 2 (Spring 2023): 18–21.
Please leave a comment or a “like” for Ruth to encourage her and tell her how much you appreciate her entrusting us with a piece of her story.
Thank you Ruth!
“I had not said yes to abuse in any way, but the community said yes to it.”
--- THIS! Exactly!
Have you read Don Hennessy’s books? He turns the spotlight on how society at large has been so cunningly manipulated by abusers that almost all people professionals are enabling abusers to continue getting away with abuse.
I relate a lot to your story.
I think I know you from survivor networks years ago. Did you participate in Give Her Wings?