Once Upon a Time in My Oceania

  Accepting that life is not a puzzle I can solve, a code I can crack, that it doesn’t come with a roadmap has been one of the biggest obstacles I’ve encountered. I’ve encountered a lot of change in my life. For years, it felt like things would never turn out my way. I was stuck in this cycle of just hanging on and settling in–true survival mode at its finest. I lost years to crippling anxiety and depression, and so many moments curled up on the floor in flashbacks.  I remember one of the first flashbacks I had ever encountered. I couldn’t make myself get in the car to go to my IFB church. I was about 20, and I could not make my body get ready– no brushing my hair, no putting on my limited makeup, not being able to iron my long skirts. I just couldn’t do it. I watched as my family left without me and I curled up on the floor of my bedroom and sobbed in the fetal position on my green scratchy yet soft rug. I was a failure! I knew I would once again hear from the church people t...

I recently came upon this term, glimmers, from a friend. I was instantly captivated at such a notion. A beautiful notion, at that. If you have complex and chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the word “trigger” is not just a word; it’s an experience. It can look like many different things connected to our senses: smell, touch, sound, sight, a taste, an emotional state—our senses are powerful mechanisms that connect the past to our present. However, sometimes these senses produce scrambled signals to our brains and if you have PTSD, you know all too well that it makes you feel the traumatic event is happening right in the here and now. Suddenly, the musky scent of a basement makes me cringe thinking of a few family vacations where the sexual abuse I endured as a child never got a break. Or the sight of a white church steeple reminds me of the house of worship where I was spiritually abused for years and felt stuck. Sometimes, it’s the taste of grape juice that we drank during commu...

  They told me to wait. Don’t give your body till your wedding night. After that, you can never stop giving it. Guard your purity. Guard your testimony. Guard yourself. Also, be the guard for all men. Protect your testimony and theirs, too. Help them not lust. Be a shield for their eyes. Do not put on that skirt, that top, that color. Do not tempt them with certain looks, certain laughs, your secret charms that are also secret to you. Prevent sin at all costs. Do not be a temptress for your fathers, brothers, and brothers-in-Christ to stumble. Do not flirt, bat your eye lashes, use a soft and sweet voice unless you’re obedient. Men are unable to control natural urges. Your job is to help them out. All the while, women were never helped. We, women, were responsible for every crime involving men… except it was never considered a crime. It’s just how men are built, after all. Purity Culture only benefits the patriarchy.  

  Last month, I celebrated one of the happiest days of my very life. I got to marry a wonderful, safe, and fantastic man. I got to do the things I had always wanted to when I envisioned my wedding day . I was the first of my family to have a secular wedding, something I’m not only honored by but treasured deeply. Through hard work and tears, I am making a life that I want. It’s so far from my upbringing but it’s the truest and most authentic of lives I’ll ever have, and it’s brought immense peace to me. My wedding day was not held in a church. While I have felt the uncharacteristically comfort within a house of worship before, I would not say sacred vows to my partner in a system of abuse. I also had to look after myself and practice self-care—I have chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from what the Church has done to my body, brain, and soul. My C-PTSD has been managed really well for over a year and I need to keep that going. And of course, my fiancé and I did not want to have...

  I was always terrified of the outside. The world was scarry and dangerous. As a little girl, I was always aware that evil lurked around every corner—in the churches with different names on them than my own, in those who were at ballgames, my neighbors, and even some of my unsaved relatives. It was so ingrained in me that I avoided all those that were labeled the “lost.” I would protect my testimony, myself and my family and not dwell with sinners. The world on the outside was viewed from the lens that I was conditioned with. Most have heard of “red colored glasses” and seeing the world in that light… well, mine were those of suspicion. Suspicion and fear because of a religious dogma that put commitment to your spiritual family above all. Even when that spiritual family physically beat you, screamed how terrible you were and that you were unworthy of good things, even when that family sexually abuses you or keeps you from help—that spiritual family deserved your loyalty. Loy...

  I dreaded my wedding day when I imagined it as a child. I dreaded the prospects of marriage but dreaded the lack of prospects as well. When I grew up, lots of girls got married. I chose that word—girls—for a reason. Most girls I witnessed get married were, in fact, that. Some were very young. I knew two who married underage. Outside of that, I recall the lack of understanding, experience, and information provided to the young women who made them anything but prepared for marriage. It was all about the marriage bed. About that first night where you were to lose your virginity and keep giving your body sexually to your Christian husband from there on. Then, there was how to “keep home” and raise children. As a victim of abuse, I knew more of what to expect or at least that’s what they liked to tell me. The fact that they would say to a survivor of child sexual molestation that I knew more about sex is very telling to me... sexual abuse and sex are not the same thing, but I guess ...

  What is peace? If you asked me as a fundamentalist, I would have answered “a peace of that passeth all understanding,” which because it was far beyond understanding, I never truly did, well, actually, understand it. I never felt peace in abuse. I never had piece of mind either. I just got through it. I wanted to have the capability to experience the peace that was preached but now I know it was simply not feasible in that environment. For many years, I was led to believe that the issue was with me, not the church. If I did everything exactly as I was taught, as the man of God proclaimed, as the Bible “clearly” stated, then, I would no doubt have that peace they always talked about. But I did not. I felt like an anomaly. The odd one, that I was one that had deep wounds that I had caused to myself where peace evaded. The irony is that I was always very confident in that world. I knew that I knew the teachings with my heart and my head. I knew the rules and believed in following...