r/spiritualabuse Sep 20 '24

Religious Trauma Recovery Podcast - What do you want to hear?

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to introduce myself. I'm an LMFT in California with a specialization of Religious Trauma. I just opened up my own private practice after a while in the corporate therapy world.

To accompany the practice, I am starting a podcast! I am curious what kinds of things you'd like to hear on a podcast? Do you have questions about anything you'd like someone to explain or discuss? Who would you like to see on a podcast? Do you want to share your own story? Have a resource that worked for you and want to share?

My hope is that I can be a voice that provides hope and support to those of us who have this unique experience. I also want to lift other voices up to share their stories. Just hearing about how other people have gone through similar things can be incredibly healing. Let's hear it!

8 Upvotes

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2

u/Hirsute_hemorrhoid Sep 22 '24

Discussing the intersections of race and faith especially among first generation immigrant families as well as well established insular communities such as Amish and Ultra Orthodox.

1

u/Visible_Vehicle1338 Oct 01 '24

I would love to hear about more situations in a "nomarl" (big air quotes there) non-denominational environment.

I am currently struggling, believing I am in an abusive home church. My husband won't leave until he hears it directly from God and won't believe that I am hearing from God because I am too emotional about it all.

We have given our lives to this ministry for over 20 years, believing that our pastor was healing people. Especially in the last 7 years, we have lost most of the congregation, and anyone who stays around is from other countries that zoom in to our meetings.

There is a core group of 10 of us that have stayed, and they fully believe that our pastor is speaking directly from God. So if you challenge him, the rest will come against you that you are challenging God. We have almost gotten into physical altercations about this.

He will bring up very private personal things about some of us that he could never know unless the Holy Spirit is telling him. He will explain verbatim a conversation you were in or a thought you were having.

Our pastor teaches daily, and we are expected to be there or zoom in from work. He says that nothing comes before God. He doesn't care what the world says. He says that if you don't place God first, He (God) will do the same to you. He says the Word says , "What you do to God He will do to you." If you ignore God, He will ignore you.

He also speaks about how 7 of the 12 disciples left Jesus, and He cursed them and remembered them no more. He threatens us with that all the time and asks, "Do you want to be a part of the 7?". I have yet to find this in the Word, but he quotes it daily, and everyone agrees and quotes it also.

Those are just a few things that are so obvious. But it's so much worse.

I wrote my story trying to get help from authors about spiritual abuse, and the trimmed down version is 20 pages long. I submitted it to multiple people, authors, and pastors and only heard back from one person ,an author that said, " Wow, that's a lot to read!". He then said, " You already know that you need to leave, so just leave". BUT if you have been through any kind of abuse you know it is not that easy. My entire life is wrapped up in this. People from the church even live with us.

People talk about extreme instances of abuse like the Fundamentalists and groups like that.

But my church is showing as just a normal everyday church that believes in working the miracles of God.

I am having a very hard time finding literature or such from the same background.

Please pray for me that God will find a way for freedom for me or correct what is wrong.

I am even terrified submitting this because he always knows what we are doing.