Let Them Leave

 

I’m not sure I’ve really deep dived and shared about what it was like in the weeks of leaving my IFB church. The events that led me to that decision were years in the making and very traumatic. Still to this day, there is a part of me that is still baffled that I actually made it out. It didn’t come cost free though. I lost a lot, but gained, in many ways, much more.

That last sentence is very hard for me to write, because leaving a church, especially one that your entire existence was based around, means you leave a complete lifetime behind. At the time, I started transitioning into the real world in some ways. I had started listening to music of the time instead of just the hymns and Southern Gospel I was raised on. I started wearing jeans sometimes in place of my long skirts or awkward culottes, albeit terrified church people would see. I wore makeup but was constantly ostracized for it. Those were some surface things. Down deep, I was never prepared.

I was still very awkward, silent in men’s presence and had crippling anxiety and depression that made it impossible to socialize with others. I couldn’t order food off of a fast food menu, couldn’t enter a store without feeling like I was suffocating, and interacting with neighbors, some who were very unkind, would set me back for so long. I now know that I was experiencing flashbacks, hypervigilance and severe anxiety due to PTSD. I would hide in my room, away from any person who visited, and every sound felt like it was cutting me apart. I would have crippling panic attacks at sounds and would huddle on the floor. If anything resembled pastors screaming, I would have flashbacks or get either weepy or severely angry.

That last emotion I feel protected me in some ways on the days I was gradually leaving. Contrary to what they had said in the days of me disappearing from my pew, I was a true believer. I believed so solidly, I questioned when others, especially those in authority, did not also follow the rules. I still to this day struggle with rule breakers. The only exception to this is if a rule is harmful and hurting a person or others. While I was taught it to be true that there was a hierarchy of authority figures over me, I didn’t really feel this to be true in my heart. I knew my mind; knew my heart and I didn’t believe it was all right that a Christian was above another just because they had a penis. I remember saying that about a beloved preacher. His literature was filled of hateful rhetoric and stances against women. I felt sorry for his wife and daughters, but I remember vocalizing that he thought he was a “gift to God’s people” but he only got to be that way because he had a penis. If he had been a woman, he’d have no respect.

This hypocrisy, this hurtful and frustrating “belief” didn’t feel biblical; it felt desperate. Like why would it matter if a woman stood behind a pulpit? I recall doing so when no one was around in the church. I crept up to the sacred desk and looked out at an empty congregation, imagining what it would be like to have that reverence from hundreds of people. I soon realized that a few inches off the ground did nothing for a person’s character, but I understood it was an ego boost certainly. I had this interesting idea hit me in that moment looking out at an empty auditorium… meeting people where they were had a bigger impact. They’d listen better, I concluded.

These kinds of conclusions I kept finding myself come to really tilled the soil to allow the seeds of leaving to be planted. With each traumatic event, that soil was fertilized with the bullshit I was experiencing and witnessing. With every time, the pastor scolded us, I hit the swinging door to exit the auditorium harder and harder and spit out “fuck you” louder and louder. I bit my tongue until I mumbled without control, angered, frustrated, and betrayed. I stopped singing for the congregation, stopped playing piano for others, stopped participating in anything that used to give joy to the pastor.

I was not happy that known predators were around me and children. I was not happy that abusive parents still had their children. I was not happy that I was being forced to be married off. I fought hard to appear uninterested, rebellious and not easily tamed for a future husband. I blared rock music in my ears as soon as I reached the car on the ride home after every service. I listened to lyrics suggesting that God was approachable and not something to fear. I started wanting to scream at the top of my lungs that I mattered. Fuck the God of the Independent Baptists. Fuck the pastor of Faith Baptist. Fuck the song leader’s son who harassed me on weekdays. Fuck the father of a boy I loved who would groom me and then when I wouldn’t go along on outings when I was uncomfortable made fun of my health issues. Fuck these church people who think I’m a harlot when I was pure, who talked evil of my late mother, who criticized how I cleaned a home, made food, dressed, and would wear the same outfit Sunday after Sunday, unable to ask my parent for another shirt because I didn’t want to be a burden. Fuck them for not believing me when it was made known I was molested for years. Fuck them for showing that they cared when I was what they wanted me to be and then turning their backs on me when I tried to fight for a bit of autonomy.

All of these feelings were strong and ongoing when an adult relative who had sexually molested me for years, physically beat me, and nearly killed me on numerous occasions came back to the church. A younger sibling confronted him, and they were physically assaulted and the pastor did nothing. I realized then I would never be safe. That I had never been safe from the beginning. I broke. I broke and I left.

It’s been nearly 8 years since my last service at my IFB church. I spiraled into a deep dark depression and physically crumbled after. I was no longer able to go back, but I was also freeing up my spirit to allow me to say so. I sat down and had long conversations with my family and shared that I had no pull to return, that choosing my health was important. I also realized that I did not like the church anymore, at all. I had no respect for the pastor. I had family there who treated me horribly. I stayed away. I wrote a letter to a former friend who was afraid that they had done something to push me away from God. In response, I shared I no longer believed the god that we were taught to believe in. That the god I was learning was loving and kind, and did not make us stay in oppression. I said I would not be back, that I was no longer an Independent Fundamental Baptist. I chose my own path and said as much.

But leading up to that was that no one cared. I had older siblings praying God would kill me if I wouldn’t come back. I learned that wasn’t love. I realized I did not want or believe in that kind of “family.” There was nothing keeping me there, so it was easier to leave. Then I remember the moment when the church gave up on me and some siblings’ absence. “Let them leave. Let them go quietly and not ruin the church’s testimony anymore.”

I did leave. I left quietly… for a few years. Then, I found the truth, and no longer believed I was the problem. I found thousands of survivors online. I learned, researched, and learned some more. I grieved all the years that I couldn’t leave, but let out a breath, thankful I eventually did.

Things changed once I became vocal against abuse, when I shared my first story of surviving abuse and how the pastor and church did nothing. It gave me the confidence to write again, again, and repeatedly. My family showed up again to tell me to be silent, to shun me publicly and I kept writing, kept speaking. I don’t regret it. I held my tongue only to avoid abuse. Then, I realized that I was being abused even in my silence, so when I understood that, I realized that I wouldn’t take it silently.

I’ve returned to a few IFB churches in the past 8 years. Never as a member, and never have I felt the need to return as one either. I returned to celebrate a young niece’s accomplishments in school and then for a Christmas play. I went to one funeral. I went to one service to show my partner what the IFB could look like. The one pastor who knew my last name, approached me to inquire about an older missionary sibling. I had no news for him as our last “conversation” was him screaming at me in a parking lot that I was damned. The pastor then asked what my first name was again… I said, “I’m Lydia Launderville.” His smile faded and he cleared his throat, and stepped back and said gruffly, “Yes, I know about you.” I smiled.

His opinion doesn’t matter. He’s part of the problem. I was there for the only family I have left as the others have shunned me but are also abusive, so I’m no longer part of those reunions. I showed up a few times for special occasions, blaring my rock and roll as the rebellious older teen surviving from one service to another in the years before. I stopped showing up when I realized that I could put boundaries down and love my family in ways that didn’t hurt me mentally. I don’t need to return to the scenes of the crime. (Scenes because there were many crimes.)

I left the IFB without permission, without the pastor’s approval, without most of my family. I left and felt alone. But I found freedom in making my own path, with disagreeing in order to listen to my conscience, to never allowing myself to be subjected to that abuse again.

In the past nearly 8 years, others have also left and reached out to me. One family read my blog quietly for 2 years and then told me they found the strength to leave fully. I was so proud of them. Other young girls I knew have grown into beautiful and loud women who I’m proud to see proclaim the patriarchy is abusive.

I have seen other young people, too, who have left and spiraled and my heart hurts, because the church did this. They abused their young people and when their young people fall into abusive relationships, drug abuse, or alcohol abuse, they say, “see that’s why you never leave the church!” The church abused them all over again.

The truth is that you should always be welcome to join a church, and then, leave as you see fit. You shouldn’t face judgement, you shouldn’t be shamed with domination, with being made an apostate in the church’s eyes. But you are, because these churches are cults. It is truly what separates them from healthy religion and harmful cults that use religion as their fuel. True, they believe they are truly Christian. In my experience, I’ve never been abused more by that Christianity than anything else in my life.

I vividly recall being in the kitchen of my childhood home, a home I was stuck in for years due to the environment I was raised in, and having an adult preacher brother speak to me and my twin. He told my twin, that I was lying, that my sickness and fears were of the devil, that I was trying to pull her out of the church too. Shortly later, she too left. By pulling us back, they pushed us away. I thank God. I thank myself.

To be clear: they never truly let me leave. I ran. I crawled over glass and fire. I limped away wounded by the shots they fired at me. They damaged my brain; they hurt my body. They crippled my spirit. They stole my light. They snuffed out my life over and over again. They pushed me nearly to suicide until I was angry, angry and angry some more that after everything, a Christian would push me to ending it all. So, I fought for myself. I fought to validate myself. They never let me do anything. I let myself stop believing in their utopian picture of abuse. I let myself dare to think differently. I let myself question. I let myself say no to the only life I ever knew. I let myself leave. I let myself heal. I let myself live.

Two years ago, when I started living more and more, I came across this song by The Score. It was called, Never Going Back. At the time, I shared it with who would be my first boyfriend post cult. I was confiding in the first person to believe that I had been in a cult. The retelling of my cult experience hit me hard, it broke me into pieces all over again. I grieved deeply on losing a community I had only known, a culture of words, dress and beliefs that no one else in this world held for real. I did not belong, but it was I knew beyond anything else. I grieved missing the births of nieces and nephews I had never met. I had grieved years and years of not being able to sing songs I knew by heart. I gave up so much to escape abuse. But the words of this song spoke of how far I had come, and as always music became a balm to my soul.

I'm never gonna follow

Just because they say so

I'm never gonna let go, let go

They won't win this fight

I've already hit the low, oh-oh-oh-oh

I've already felt the cold, oh-oh-oh-oh

So I'm never giving up, never gonna crack

Never giving in, never going back

I've already fell below, oh-oh-oh-oh

I fell depeer than the snow, oh-oh-oh-oh

So I'm never giving up, never gonna crack

I'm never giving in, never going back

"Let them leave..."

Nothing comes easy in a cult, not really. And they never "let" you do anything. That's why it's so hard to do anything, especially leaving because it's the first time you'll experience making a choice for yourself. Questioning is going to be the first thing you let yourself do. Considering another life outside of it, is the second. Walking away is the hardest decision. Not going back... that's where you choose yourself over and over. Don't go back. Never go back.

I grieved when they gave up on me, as it was the final nail in the proverbial coffin of being IFB. But I'm also indescribably grateful. That gratefulness isn't something I think on every day. It's been awhile now that I even think about the cult on a daily basis. I definitely don't think about the time I left often. But something will bring it up and I do a little introspection, hence, this post. It's then that I feel a tinge of sadness. I follow it with a deep breath. Then, a smile appears. I left. I left. I left. I left.