Several years ago I wrote a trauma history on register tape, and when I went to the therapist's office, I flung it on the ground dramatically and we both laughed when it rolled under the couch. That sucker was long though.
I've used a lot of different metaphors to talk about healing from pervasive childhood abuse. That it's like an onion: you heal in layers. The outside being the easiest, and most superficial, then the interior layers getting more raw, more intense. Currently, my favorite metaphor is that healing is like trying to untangle a box of necklaces after a move. It's challenging to figure out what to untangle first, because no matter what chain you pull, it's attached to every other chain. Try to tease out the roots of your eating disorder, and BAM! suddenly you've pulled "Why I hate sloppy kisses" into your lap. Pull too hard, and suddenly every damn issue you've ever had is laying on the floor in a giant mess and you can't take a step without triggering yourself.
I think the Gordian knot at the center of my pile of necklaces is tied up with my faith of origin and my father's insanity with regards to faith healing. I was raised Pentecostal Assembly of G-d. To me it was just church. I had no context to put it in, and I didn't know that it was a relatively small, recent Christian denomination. I did not realize that it was born at the turn of the last century and came of age during World War I. I couldn't articulate that it was a desperate attempt to claim control in a world that must have seemed increasingly out of control. No, to me it was just The Truth.
I was born with a condition called amblyopia. Crossed eyes, in the vernacular. I remember being dragged to many optometrists and opthamologists from the time I was two. It was universal consensus among the doctors that I needed corrective surgery to save my vision. It was my father's opinion that surgery was bullshit and that Jesus would heal me. In fact, I remember one painfully embarrassing visit when I was quite young, pre school age, so four or less, when my father had coached me to tell the doctor to "Go fly a kite because Jesus will fix my eyes." I asked over and over if it would REALLY be okay for me to say something so rude. Random Opthamologist: I'm sorry. I'm so, so very sorry. Really. My dad was a dick, and I was an idiot. In my defense, I was four. So, um, yeah. That happened.
Anyway, by the time I was seven, my mother had won the argument, and Dr. John Edwards of Saint John's in Tulsa, Oklahoma did the corrective surgery. But by that time it was cosmetic only, just a clip of the muscles so I wouldn't look weird, and kids wouldn't make fun of me. My brain had already decided that my left eye was a troublemaking little bitch and it was totally going to ignore it from here on out.
However, the interesting part is what transpired BETWEEN the ages of four and seven. At some point in there, my father decided that just praying on our own wasn't doing it, so he started taking me to faith healing services. Most of them were at our little church, some were at other little churches, and a few were far away in bigger churches in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
It worked like this. They would have a sermon, and during the altar call, the preacher would ask for people to claim their healing from Lord Jesus. Sorry, LORD JEEEEEESUS! The sick person would walk up to the altar, and the preacher would anoint them with oil. I always got olive oil rubbed on my eyelids. Then he would lay hands on them and ask G-d to heal them. It was pretty sedate and ordinary (for a Pentecostal service anyway).
But a few times a year, we would have something called a revival meeting. Revival meetings were to call the faithful back to true repentance, and renew our "zeal for the L-rd". Revival meetings lasted one or two weeks, and instead of going to church three or four times a week, you were there every damn night, and twice on Sundays. We usually had a guest preacher there, and our regular Sunday giving was expanded to nightly "love offerings".
The guest preacher was always bigger, louder, more everything than our local preacher. The music was always bigger and louder too. And so the healing services were bigger and louder. On this particular night that I'm remembering, there was a loud, booming, angry sermon, and then they gave the standard altar call and my father led me up to the altar. The guest speaker picked me up and stood me on the altar. He took my head in his hands. He called for our pastor, my father, and all the elders of the church to lay hands on me with him. I remember being excited, and scared all at the same time. Then he started screaming at me and shaking my head. He was praying in tongues, and in English all at the same time, all mixed up. He kept ordering the "demons of blindness to leave this child of G-d in JESUS'S NAME!" Every time he said "In JESUS'S NAME!" he would either give my head a violent shake, or he would hit me. My pastor kept whispering that if I just believed enough, G-d would heal me.
I don't know how long that went on, but at some point I decided to make a deal with G-d. I would prove to G-d that I believed. Now, I was terrified of the dark. My mother's not-so-helpful advice that "there's no reason to be scared of the dark. The dark can't hurt you. Only what's IN the dark is scary." was, unsurprisingly, not helpful. I decided that the offering I could make to G-d, to prove that I believed in him, was to voluntarily remain in the dark. I would close my eyes, and not open them till the next morning, at which time, I would obviously be healed.
So I closed my eyes and I prayed to Jesus with all my little heart. I clung to my daddy's hand on our way back to our pew. I kept my eyes closed until the service was over. I kept them closed on the walk to the car. I kept them closed on the drive home. I got undressed and ready for bed with my eyes closed. I kept my eyes squeezed tight shut as I climbed into bed and eventually fell asleep.
The next morning after I realized I was awake, I was afraid to open my eyes. Eventually though, I did open them, and my eyesight was unchanged. I couldn't make sense of that, because I had prayed, I had believed. I was completely confused. But my father wasn't confused. He had listened to the sermon, and he knew what was wrong: demons.
The next time my mother brought up the subject of eye surgery, my father relented and told her she could do whatever she wanted because "the devil has that one anyway."
This is another one of those things that I never forgot, I just forgot how it felt. I can't imagine being that five year old girl, standing on that altar, surrounded by old creepy guys with their hands all over me, while a screaming maniac alternately shook me and hit me, yelling about demons the whole time. I LIVED THAT, BUT I CAN'T IMAGINE THAT. I know I must have been so scared. I don't know how an entire community could look at that as some kind of religious theater, and not just run up and snatch that poor little girl up, hold her tight, and tell them all that they were wrong and what they were doing was evil. I CAN'T IMAGINE HOW MY OWN MOTHER SAT THERE WATCHING THAT.
But yes, that is the center of it all, as far as I can tell. That is the fracture line of my brokenness. And everything else spirals out from that. The molestation that I couldn't stop. My father's belief that I was evil, and thus a whore. All of it.
It worked like this. They would have a sermon, and during the altar call, the preacher would ask for people to claim their healing from Lord Jesus. Sorry, LORD JEEEEEESUS! The sick person would walk up to the altar, and the preacher would anoint them with oil. I always got olive oil rubbed on my eyelids. Then he would lay hands on them and ask G-d to heal them. It was pretty sedate and ordinary (for a Pentecostal service anyway).
But a few times a year, we would have something called a revival meeting. Revival meetings were to call the faithful back to true repentance, and renew our "zeal for the L-rd". Revival meetings lasted one or two weeks, and instead of going to church three or four times a week, you were there every damn night, and twice on Sundays. We usually had a guest preacher there, and our regular Sunday giving was expanded to nightly "love offerings".
The guest preacher was always bigger, louder, more everything than our local preacher. The music was always bigger and louder too. And so the healing services were bigger and louder. On this particular night that I'm remembering, there was a loud, booming, angry sermon, and then they gave the standard altar call and my father led me up to the altar. The guest speaker picked me up and stood me on the altar. He took my head in his hands. He called for our pastor, my father, and all the elders of the church to lay hands on me with him. I remember being excited, and scared all at the same time. Then he started screaming at me and shaking my head. He was praying in tongues, and in English all at the same time, all mixed up. He kept ordering the "demons of blindness to leave this child of G-d in JESUS'S NAME!" Every time he said "In JESUS'S NAME!" he would either give my head a violent shake, or he would hit me. My pastor kept whispering that if I just believed enough, G-d would heal me.
I don't know how long that went on, but at some point I decided to make a deal with G-d. I would prove to G-d that I believed. Now, I was terrified of the dark. My mother's not-so-helpful advice that "there's no reason to be scared of the dark. The dark can't hurt you. Only what's IN the dark is scary." was, unsurprisingly, not helpful. I decided that the offering I could make to G-d, to prove that I believed in him, was to voluntarily remain in the dark. I would close my eyes, and not open them till the next morning, at which time, I would obviously be healed.
So I closed my eyes and I prayed to Jesus with all my little heart. I clung to my daddy's hand on our way back to our pew. I kept my eyes closed until the service was over. I kept them closed on the walk to the car. I kept them closed on the drive home. I got undressed and ready for bed with my eyes closed. I kept my eyes squeezed tight shut as I climbed into bed and eventually fell asleep.
The next morning after I realized I was awake, I was afraid to open my eyes. Eventually though, I did open them, and my eyesight was unchanged. I couldn't make sense of that, because I had prayed, I had believed. I was completely confused. But my father wasn't confused. He had listened to the sermon, and he knew what was wrong: demons.
The next time my mother brought up the subject of eye surgery, my father relented and told her she could do whatever she wanted because "the devil has that one anyway."
This is another one of those things that I never forgot, I just forgot how it felt. I can't imagine being that five year old girl, standing on that altar, surrounded by old creepy guys with their hands all over me, while a screaming maniac alternately shook me and hit me, yelling about demons the whole time. I LIVED THAT, BUT I CAN'T IMAGINE THAT. I know I must have been so scared. I don't know how an entire community could look at that as some kind of religious theater, and not just run up and snatch that poor little girl up, hold her tight, and tell them all that they were wrong and what they were doing was evil. I CAN'T IMAGINE HOW MY OWN MOTHER SAT THERE WATCHING THAT.
But yes, that is the center of it all, as far as I can tell. That is the fracture line of my brokenness. And everything else spirals out from that. The molestation that I couldn't stop. My father's belief that I was evil, and thus a whore. All of it.
I am just so terribly sorry.
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