Once Upon a Time in My Oceania

  Christmas used to be banned while I was just a child growing up in the IFB world. With the often complexity that can sometimes be in homes and in churches in that environment, some members would celebrate, and others would not. Some embraced Christmas trees and Santa to a degree, while others swore such things were complete evil and would shun them. In my experience, the first IFB church to influence my family had shunned everything to do with the holiday, including gift giving. My family celebrated gift giving on a day that emphasized thanks and gratefulness more, and that was on Thanksgiving. This tradition brings back a lot of fond memories for me and as child I would be so excited to get my gifts a whole month earlier than most kids. However, when I reached a certain age and realized that others, especially the outside world, celebrated Christmas in a more acceptable way, I longed to experience that Christmas spirit in the same way. My first Christmas was when I reached the...

  I knew it was possible that the new people in my life may stumble upon what I write on religious abuse, trauma, and cults. I also knew that they could possibly learn more about me than I was ready to share just yet. When I first started writing a blog, my articles, or social media posts on the abuse I survived, specifically in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, I didn’t worry too much about that particular aspect of being vulnerable about my experiences, on the internet, no less. I had a goal in mind, and I followed it. I started writing, raising my voice when I could about the things I cared about in the moment. I was all about “giving the damn” for once. It was with my first real connections post-cult, especially those of the romantic and friendship variety that really brought my writing to the forefront. At first, I struggled to know how to share about my passions surrounding abuse advocacy, mental health, and especially cult awareness as they are paramount to me....

  Part of recovering from a cult is healing the parts of you that the cult hurt. In my case, a cult controlled, and its fear ruled my entire childhood. There are only photographs of my childhood days in cult clothes and doing most activities connected to the church. It’s very hard for me to even look at these photos without feeling a deep-rooted sorrow for my child self. I know now what I had missed, but mostly am aware of what was taken. I’ve been out closer to a decade after spending my first adult years as well inside. There is no secret key to healing from a cult experience. But there are strategies through things like professional counseling and connecting to survivor communities and such that can prove helpful. I’m not simply healing from a cult (although there is nothing “simple” about surviving a cult), I’m also healing from emotional, verbal, mental, physical and sexual abuse and overall neglect. It impacted my everyday life, has touched even my future in ways like diffi...

  Much of my life has operated around this broken and problematic thing called black-and-white thinking. It’s how my beliefs were ingrained into me, how I made my decisions and the lens through which my emotions were translated. One thing was either one way or the other, and there was never any middle ground. It was either wrong or right, black or white, good or bad. There was never an in between, no place for doubts or unanswered questions. Everyone around me displayed this mentality, and because children often mimic the adults in their lives, I, too, grew up with much of that mindset. Even after leaving fundamentalism that thrives off such thinking, those thought patterns have unfortunately followed me. While trying to find my views, my values, and my own way, I’ve found that the mindset I grew up with still finds ways to seep into my subconsciousness. For example, humans make mistakes, and a good person can do bad things, but still be a good person. That is just a part of being...