I recall the day of an actual car breakdown, the moment I finally felt free from the clutches. It was another bad experience with the PT Cruiser, which I now unlovingly refer to as a "Piece Of Crapper", and upon returning after a dog walk and trying to start, it would not. Anger at first at the once again of a regularly repeated occurrence, then the heart sinking feeling of the prescribed fear base teachings whispering "if only you had been obedient" came rushing upwards. But, this time, at that particular moment, reason took over brought in by the love of other former fundie friends whose laughter had brought healing and the lack of not being a part of the control for then 6 years made it also possible, to fully and finally achieve grace. Looking down in the car console, I saw my friend's toy sonic screwdriver left there from a few days ago filming. Happily, I picked it up and gleefully sat playing with it while waiting for the tow truck. On that moment, I was fully and finally free from the fundamentalist toxic control of Calvary Chapel.
As the days and years progressed, there were other avenues and connections of abuse to disentangle and heal, but my religious abuse was relieved. No longer did I feel the anger, the heart-break, the need to rescue those still involved. Instead, I felt the warmth of gratitude for their season in my life and the overall experience, both positive and negative, it taught me in my soul's evolution. No longer do I feel the need to comment to correct or am triggered by something they post that no longer aligns with my socio-political or spiritual beliefs. If I feel the need to address something, I reach out to them privately. I no longer feel the need to 'save the saved from being saved'.
In my spirituality now, as born-again wiccan (I lightly practiced such in high school and college) and agnostic, I no longer feel this pressing need to convert anyone to any ways of my personal thought or belief (unless it pertains to Night Court being the best TV show ever, obviously I am compelled to do that).
All that to say, recently a sweet friend started posting about her conversion experience to Christianity. In her early twenties, this dear friend found her way into the confines of a local Calvary Chapel in recent years, seems to become heavily to lightly to then heavily involved, seemingly based around personal life troubles and adjustments. Her story and connection to Calvary Chapel is all too familiar to mine. Like her, I discovered Calvary Chapel's brand of Christianity in my early twenties when a boyfriend dragged me to church, the same boyfriend who was emotionally abusive and controlling, during the early days of my mental illness breakdown. Similarly, my friend has shared with me and others her struggles with a very toxic and abusive familial upbringing. I relate hard to this and can fully understand how on the surface, of which I, too, experienced in the early days of my Calvary life, seem in direct opposition to that of the abusive.
But, that which will eventually become an abuser does not first come out as abusive, rather, there are tactics that are taken to instigate and ensnare, the first being that of 'love-bombing'. What seemingly feels as authentic friendship and positive attention, and sometimes is, takes on a sinister meaning when the reasoning behind is to eventually control. Now, I must admit that there were for me connections within Calvary that were positive, and most likely for my friend, however, there was and is an element that the purposes for overwhelming positive attention falls into a area increasingly more toxic. Coming from a shaky place of instability of emotion, trauma in early life and mental illness, makes one more susceptible to anything that appears, at least, on the surface to be an antithesis of that.
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