GUEST POST: Cautions with Prescription Sleep Aids for Those with Depression

Guest Post:

This story is relevant to the readers of the Shadowing Abigail blog, because very often, part of the response to abuse and trauma is disrupted sleep and/or depression. We are not opposed to the use of medications in treating either condition, and we believe in removing any cultural stigmas against using medication when necessary, so that those on their path to healing can freely access everything they need to get well. However, more and more, cautions are coming out about the prescription sleep aid Ambien. Victims of abuse and trauma regularly experience thoughts of doubt, worry, and anxiety, even without medication being involved. Those thoughts may be amplified, intensified, or, as this guest writer points out, seemingly normalized when medications like Ambien are being used.

It’s our desire to share this story so that you and your loved ones can know what to watch out for and recognize that it is possible for a medication to have truly negative, harmful side effects, in which case, it should be discontinued and medical advice sought immediately. If you already suffer from even mild depression symptoms, please tell your doctor when seeking medication for sleeplessness. The two together—insomnia and depression—need to be addressed when a sleep aid is introduced. Protect your own life and the lives of others and please share this cautionary tale. Also, remember that there is no shame in needing medication to address these health issues—and therefore, no shame or stigma in talking about how you are responding to your meds. Tell your family and friends what you’re taking so they too can be watching how you respond, in case you don’t notice a change in your behavior and thinking processes.

"This is not the typical story of abuse for this blog, but I am writing this in the hopes that it will help someone.  I now call myself an “Ambien survivor.”  That may sound silly, I know, but a couple of years ago I went to a doctor because I was feeling down.  I had passed the Bar and had acquired the job I had been working toward while in law school, so feeling sad didn’t make any sense to me.  The doctor diagnosed me as just needing more sleep and prescribed Ambien.  In his words, I should take Ambien when I knew my caseload was going to be particularly heavy the next day. 

            However, as I continued to take Ambien my personality began to change.  The day after taking Ambien I was on a “high,” almost a “manic” mood, kind of like I was on stage.  But the low that came the next day could be crushing.  As time went on, the highs and lows became more and more pronounced. The scary thing was I couldn’t see what was happening to me until it was almost too late.

            I thought what I was feeling was normal at the time because it felt normal to me in what I will call a “drugged” state.  However, I was living in a state of progressively higher highs and lower lows.  I was quickly becoming a functioning drug addict.  I began to hear voices in my head telling me to do horrible things to myself and to others.  The voices became louder and louder and I started to forget what it was to be “normal.”  In fact, the suggestions the voices were making began to seem reasonable to me.

I just wanted to make the voices stop.  Suicide became a very viable option.  I left the office one day during the work day and went home.  As I lay on my couch, I was relieved that there were no guns in our house.  I just lay there and looked at the ceiling.  I wrote one line in the memo box of my phone;  “The loneliness of a single wave breaking on an empty shore.”  I have never felt so alone and isolated in my entire life.  And I also felt completely detached from reality and almost devoid of feelings.  I honestly believe that if there had been a gun in our home that day I would not be here to write this. 

That day finally shook me up enough to figure out that something was very wrong.  It’s funny and scary that it took near suicide to make me realize how out of kilter I was mentally.  The interesting thing is that I didn’t see it because I was living it.  I was too close to it.  That day suicide felt as logical as getting off the couch to get something to eat.  There was no emotion to it.  It would have been just another act in my day.  It’s hard for me to believe I didn’t see it before that day.

I told my wife and my dad that I was having serious thoughts of suicide.  When I told them, I know they were taken aback by my matter of fact and disconnected tone.  But they both listened and took this seriously.  They knew I was not acting or sounding like myself. I scheduled an appointment with a therapist that day.  He called me to do a phone interview and asked me if I was taking any medications.  I told him about the Ambien and he told me to stop taking it at once.  He also said that I never should have been prescribed Ambien because I was already exhibiting some signs of mild depression.  I later learned of the Ambien legal cases ranging from sleep driving to suicide.  It turns out that one of the main side effects reported is severe depression on the “come down.” 

I asked the therapist why a GP would prescribe Ambien when I didn’t even complain of trouble sleeping.  He told me that Ambien is the number one prescribed sleep aid in the United States and doctors incentives for prescribing it. My therapist said that the fact is that we as humans have bad days and sometimes we do get sad.  He said that being sad is just a part of life and that too often, doctors may be willing to cash in on people’s sadness by prescribing drugs like Ambien which only aggravate the problem.

Now that I am no longer taking Ambien and my head is clearing, I am able to see how mentally destructive I was becoming.  I see or speak with my therapist regularly.  Through my discussions I realized part of my problem was the fact that I didn’t like my job even though I was good at it.  That’s one of the reasons I was sad when I passed the Bar.  If I had failed it would have given me an “out,” but passing locked me in, or so I thought at the time. 

A couple of weeks after “getting clean,” I spoke with my boss and told him that I was unhappy in my job.  Instead of telling me to “get a dog,” or some other such Band-Aid solution, he actually created a hybrid position where I could do more of my work from outside the office and from home.  Now I am out of the office more and I get to go places and do things.  I feel happier and healthier.  I now realize that I am going to get sad and I am going to have bad days.  But one thing about bad days is that they end.  They don’t last forever—and the voices that suggest they do are lying. The bad days do end. And this seems like a good place to end this.  I hope this helps someone.  Have a good day. " 

Note: Our guest poster has asked that his name and identity be withheld for the sake of privacy. 

Leslie Vernick: Sexual Abuse in Marriage

Maybe you've heard it from your church leaders or other wives: There's no such thing as sexual abuse in marriage. Your body is no longer your own. He can do with it as he pleases. No good wife every refuses anything sexual her husband desires. His needs, his needs, his needs...

That was the main idea behind the Christian objection to 50 Shades of Grey. It wasn't that the storyline was based on abuse, manipulation, coercion, perversion. It was that the sex didn't take place inside a legal marriage. Abuse dissolves with a marriage certificate, right?

What?!

If there had been a wedding, then THAT would have been rendered good?

Sexual abuse within marriage does happen, and it is sinister, damaging, and evil.

Leslie Vernick on her blog from March 25, 2015, shares one woman's account.

As we've said before, "Satan is a one-trick pony." This could have been this writer's story, down to most every shared detail. The husband's actions and underlying mindset, the wife's responses, the church's reaction to her cry for help. It's time to bring this into the light so that the next generation does not suffer so.

Read Leslie's blog here: http://christiancounseling.com/blog/

And just from my experience: Be encouraged. My marriage took from me all my innocence, but God has restored my purity. I am his and he has washed from me all the filth of that relationship. Healing is long and seems slow to me, but it is happening. The purification, however, is a sealed deal. I am his and he is mine and nothing can separate me from his love that is mine in Christ Jesus.

Imposed Widowhood

I was combing her baby-fine wisps of hair upward away from that sweet freckled face when, in the mirror, she cut her too-large-for-her-petite-face eyes upward to catch mine in the reflection.

"Mommy, are we a widow?" she asked, with absolute honest innocence.

The matter-of-factness in the statement felt like re-bar through the gut. I didn't cry. Yet. But I felt my shoulders sag as I thought about how to answer her--how to give this tiny one the bitter reality that she ought to, ought to, ought to be protected from.

"Well, according to the Bible, yes. I think we are. We say "widow." But the Bible just says, "a woman without a man."

It was enough. She seemed satisfied. But I keep thinking on it. Am I satisfied? In a way, I think we both can be, because our Father God is love, and he declares that he loves the fatherless and widow, and judgment on the wicked sends. But it's hard to believe it, because so much of the so-called church has no love for us.

We've been condemned very recently. I cannot return to the danger, destructiveness, uncertainty, objectification, dehumanization, intimidation, dishonesty, theft, and agony we lived through. Almost all my adult life was spent under that and I have been set free by God when I would not free myself. I cannot prostitute myself to gain anything in this material world--not financial "blessing"; not the good opinion of the judgmental in "the church." But that was what was held before me earlier this week. Return to your former prison. Go back to Egypt. There's garlic and onions waiting for you if you do, but it you don't, no help for you!

Religion that is pure and undefiled, before God the Father (that's OUR Father) is this: to visit widows and orphans in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Gradually, God is taking from me every idol. I pray the children see it and my own forced surrender will help them hold more loosely as they mature. Every good thing can become an idol. Every. Good. Thing. And sinful, power-hungry men and women can play upon us in our weakness, to blur the lines between real righteousness and worshiping the creation instead of the Creator and Giver of all Righteousness in his Personhood. I've been there. It is a daily spiritual battle not to return.

He called us out of horror and into widowhood. He will gently lead those who have young. Can I embrace this imposed widowhood despite how hard it is, how contrary to all ideals? If I have him, his favor, his presence, his promises, yes. Even this. Even, "Mommy, we are a widow." If she knows he loves the widow, she knows more than I could ever give her in an intact but severely broken household.

A Cry for Justice Responds to Bethlehem Baptist Church

A Cry for Justice acknowledges the sermon from Bethlehem Baptist Church, promising a change in the church's formerly lax and even supportive view of domestic abuse. After a legacy of soft discipline and "no-divorce-ever" policy under John Piper, the words coming from the BBC session seem to note a radical change in position. But is it? A Cry for Justice wisely asks some very direct and specific questions to "root out" the practical application. Be sure to read the comments for more response from BBC's own representative.

http://cryingoutforjustice.com/2015/04/30/john-pipers-old-church-is-admitting-to-fault-in-how-it-has-addressed-domestic-abuse-and-making-changes/#comment-63156

A Strong Statement Against Abuse from Bethlehem Baptist Church

"We, the council of elders at Bethlehem Baptist Church, are resolved to root out all forms of domestic abuse (mental, emotional, physical, and sexual) in our midst. This destructive way of relating to a spouse is a satanic distortion of Christ-like male leadership because it defaces the depiction of Christ’s love for his bride. The shepherds of Bethlehem stand at the ready to protect the abused, call abusers to repentance, discipline the unrepentant, and hold up high the stunning picture of how much Christ loves his church."

There is nothing passive in this statement. "Resolved to root out all forms of domestic abuse..." There is nothing victim blaming. "The shepherds of Bethlehem stand at the ready to PROTECT the abused..." There is nothing here that excuses abuse, but recognizes it for what it is, "a satanic distortion of Christ-like male leadership because it defaces the depiction of Christ's love for his bride."

All church leaders and the women's ministries that support the church should read this and take seriously the awareness that abuse is a satanic distortion. Praise God! He is opening eyes! Previously, John Piper was very soft on abuse, reluctant to risk ruffling the feather's of men's egos even to suggest that an abused woman should escape an attack if she could--but calling her to endure it until she could seek help from the church another day. I am staggered to see how much God has been working since those statements were made. Praise! Doxology! 

Read the article here. Includes a link to the complete sermon.
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2015/04/28/hyper-headship-and-the-scandal-of-domestic-abuse-in-the-church/

Leslie Vernick: It takes time and maturity to recognize an abusive marriage

Leslie Vernick writes about the long process of opening eyes toward the reality of abuse. For some, realizing the reality leads to knowledge of the relief (and allowable option) of divorce under abusive circumstances.

It can take decades for the scales to come off our eyes when we have lived with abuse, when we desire to be godly and have God's favor, to see a whole home in the way that we envisioned it in our youth. Co-dependency and fear, self-judgment and the judgment of others slow us down, drive us further into abusability.

Leslie's entry here may help other women open their eyes and act for their own well-being sooner, limiting the destruction. (In some cases, that limitation early enough in the relationship may even lead to a saved marriage.)

Read her blog here:

Shortening the Learning Curve

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A Voice for the Abused #6: Lundy Bancroft

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

This book has been recommended to me numerous times. I have not yet read it, but I have been spending a little time over at the author's blog, Healing and Hope. There is much there to validate what the abused actually experience. There is much there to help initiate opening the victims' eyes to the reality of the abuse she is experiencing. I wish that one person in my sphere had known of Lundy Bancroft's research and conclusions somewhere in the couple of decades of my abusive experience. No one did, or at least no one directed me to these truths.

The helplessness and hopelessness of being in an abusive marriage is that everyone expects the victim to be able to resolve the problems. "Why can't they just work it out?" outsiders ask. "Throw them into a little counseling; it's all about miscommunication; she pushes his buttons; he has deep insecurities and she needs to accept that she took on that baggage when she chose to marry him."

None of those comments recognize the reality of the belief system an abuser is operating from. None of them recognize the deep, deep, deep dishonesty that the abuser will perpetuate to achieve his goals. None of them realize that even those speaking such comments have fallen under the manipulation of the abuser who has charmed them with a false, contrived persona.

But Lundy Bancroft seems to understand, and lights are going off all over the place as I read his blog entries. I highly recommend his blog for anyone who IS abused, who knows someone who is abused, who wants to help the abused and/or the abusers, who sits in a pastor's or counselor's role either professionally or by nature of circumstances.

Do not presume to think you understand the reasons for abusers' actions until you read some of what Lundy Bancroft is saying. Most counselors, pastors, and even friends are getting it wrong. I would venture to say that ALL of the abuse victims who stayed in their relationships long enough to be harmed are also getting it wrong. He is not just angry. He is not just fearful. He is not just insecure. There's something deeper going on and getting to that is not an easy task.

Flee from evil. The best thing you can do for an abusive man whom you love is make him face the consequences of his abuse so that he can be brought to face the reality of his belief system. You cannot love it out of him. You cannot quietly serve it out of him. It will not get better over time without a great deal of highly trained professional involvement and something radical to open his mind to raw honesty about how he thinks of himself and others.

I was so naive. I was so blindly optimistic and hopeful. That cost me deeply. 

Injustice Is Not "After God's Own Heart"

A woman I know was excommunicated from her church this week.

Why? Had she committed adultery and refused to repent? No.
Had she abandoned her maternal responsibilities to pursue some fantasy of mid-life? No.
Had she recanted on her faith in Christ alone for her salvation? Definitely not.

No, but she did what she felt was following God's call in her life and separated from her emotionally abusive, intimidating, manipulative husband. After more than two decades of holding on and enduring, hoping, praying, and even seeking the church's help for change.

She is now being treated as if she were an unbeliever, when her faith is more tested and possibly more strong than that of those who sat in judgment over her.

We call this blog "Shadowing Abigail" because Abigail was a woman in the Old Testament who knew what it was to be married to an abuser. And yet, Abigail somehow did not lose herself. God was with her and he led her to step out of what is commonly considered submission to act contrary to her abusive husband's desires.

Is she called "contentious"? No. Not at all. She is called "my Father's joy."

God saw his daughter Abigail. He knew her suffering. He knew the harm that man Nabal (which means "fool") had done and would continue to do to God's daughter Abigail, his joy. And God did not endure it patiently forever. When the time was right, God said, "No more," and he killed Nabal.

God did not look on Abigail with judgment and contempt and punish her for the "sin" of not obeying her abusive husband. He did not cast her out when she took action outside of her husband's foolish, harmful, and intimidating plans. She did what she needed to do in order to protect herself and others under the care of her household.

But God did not only free Abigail from her abuser. Freedom is a wonderful thing for those of us who have lived long years in oppression. God did one more for Abigail. He made her the wife, not just of another man, but of the very man whom God had called "a man after God's own heart." David. King David would become the husband of Abigail.

David was far from being a perfect man or a good husband. We can read of his failures. But we do know that David loved God and had an understanding of the heart of God. With the power of a king, David could have refused Abigail. He could have seen her as rebellious and cast her out, like our rulers in churches too often do to the damaged and desperate daughters whom God has chosen to liberate from their bondage. But those rulers are showing that, at least in that instance, they are not men "after God's own heart."

A man after God's own heart understands that it was never God's intention for women to be trodden upon by the men who are supposed to love them, cherish them as their own bodies, and image God to them with sacrificial, servant hearts.

A church ruler who does not nurture and envelop a hurting, abused woman when she comes to him for help must realize that he is imaging the fool and the enemy and not the God of love and compassion who delivers his church, his people, his daughters too, and gives them himself.

So What DOES Make a Relationship Work?

Marriages with domestic abuse rarely last until natural death parts the partners. Those that do make it to that point usually sacrifice the personality, spirit, and mental health of the abused. That's hardly a marriage to hold up to the light as an example of "making it," and rightly so. Such is not what marriage is supposed to be, not even in a world tainted in every corner by sin.

So what does it take for a relationship to work, if persevering through abuse isn't ever going to come to the fruition of a stable, loving, mutual partnership?

This article compiles the results of relational research that reveals it is possible to have a good relationship, and it doesn't come from being a better housekeeper, or giving up your career to make your spouse feel like he's more successful than you by worldly standards, or having sex on demand every time, all the time. It doesn't come from being supernaturally, spiritually strong enough to take every slap, curse, lie, manipulation, oppression in silence and submission.

Many of us who have managed to break free of abuse, when asked, will say that the single most important trait a person we would be attracted to again would have is kindness. Over and over again, kindness comes up as the essential characteristic.

The science supports that. Kindness is key.

Two Traits for a Lasting Relationship



"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, KINDNESS, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. and self-control." -- Galatians 5:22, ESV

Quivering Daughters: A resource for rebuilding the abused

"It is a grave disservice to the heart, soul, body and spirit of a woman when she is given the subtle message that the truth of her own pain is not as important as the reputation of the ones who inflict it." -- Quivering Daughters

Lots of good information for defining and understanding abuse, abuser tactics, and abuse effects on this site, but all of it wrapped up in this truth as well:

"It is important to reach an understanding of words and what is meant when terms are used. But while one could argue definitions all day, please remember that meanwhile, there are some desperately hurting individuals in this world who need healing."

Knowledge comes with responsibility--to speak, to act, to defend those who cannot defend themselves. We are here to help, to break bonds that harm and to bring healing.

Quivering Daughters website: http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/

The Snake in the Grass that No One Else Can See

It's rare to find anyone else who understands narcissism and the abuse and crazy-making that comes from years of it. Unless you live with it, it's unlikely you'll know much at all about it. And even if you do live with it, you may never know what it's called. That was my case. I lived with it for over a decade and a half before finding out it was a real condition with a definition and very consistent set of characteristics. Once I saw the package, though, lightbulbs went off everywhere. What a solid fit.

So it was surprising and encouraging today when I met someone who knew something about this condition and what it is like to live in it. Her husband had been married before to a narcissistic woman. He too had experienced the shift in his own thinking--the desperate need for stability and security, the questioning of self about everything, the lack of rational foundation for any discussion, the shifting sand, the depression and anxiety--that women under abuse generally experience. Even a man can be so manipulated and destroyed when he loves a narcissistic abuser.

She said he went through much counseling to recover, and one of the affirming illustrations his counselor gave him brought me some affirmation and comfort today as well. He compared life with a narcissist to the following:

Say you are standing in ankle-deep grass. At your feet, your partner is a venomous snake. The snake is writhing and striking your heels, and you are trying to dodge and move and avoid the bites--but you are bound to the snake and so you cannot actually run away from it. You must stay with it and try to evade the harm it wants to do you. Meanwhile, the people around you see only you, dancing and jumping, crying out, flailing. They don't see the snake in the grass at your feet doing this to you. They look at you, point, and turn away, muttering, "Crazy! That one is crazy!" And it is sort of true. You are being driven mad and no one gets close enough to see what's really going on just out of sight. Occasionally the snake will slither out, with its cunning smile, and a perfect demeanor, when in view of others. And they will say, "Oh look, what a lovely snake. It's so well-behaved and interesting." And the narcissist is affirmed. The ploy works. But back into the grass he goes, and when out of sight, the torment begins again.

The only way to regain your sanity, says the counselor, is to get away from the snake. Others will see and they will judge. They won't volunteer to live with a snake at their own heels, but they will judge you for setting yourself free.

My sound mind is returning. The friend I saw today said she could tell. She could see joy in me now--something she had not seen in the three years we've known one another. She says she can tell I was made for joy, and I was.

When speaking of slaves, the Apostle Paul encouraged them to "gain their freedom" if they were able. There was a time when women were not able to gain their freedom from abusive men, though those men were instructed by God to return their wives to the wives' fathers' homes if the man was going to abuse and not protect and provide for her. There are still cultures in our world today in which a woman is not able to gain her freedom. But in my culture, that is not the case. I am able to go free, and one thing I am noticing now: It is easier to face the judgment of those who don't understand when I have my own sanity than it was when I was on the brink of cracking. There is strength in freedom.

It isn't easy, but it is better.

She just told me she's abused at home. What do I do?

After finding out that I was suffering all manner of abuse under my husband, a woman who considered herself in a position of spiritual authority over me asked, under false pretenses, "Oh, how can I pray for you?"

I ventured out to trust her, and shared with her a very intimate "secret" that was causing me much guilt and shame. The abuse had become so bad, and I so broken, that I could no longer be intimate with my abusive husband. I thought I was the one who needed fixing. I told her she could pray for me to be able to give myself to him again, because that is what married people do.

But she wasn't really asking about how to pray for me. She wasn't really concerned about me at all. She had prepared in advance a verbal and emotional attack against me and the inquiry was simply a way to get my attention so that she could launch into a tirade against me, telling me it was my fault, that I was causing it, that I needed the accountability of a mature woman (namely her) to keep me in my marriage, that my refusal to give myself physically to my husband was manipulation to try to make him leave the marriage and exonerate myself by claiming abandonment, even that I should count it joy to die in my abusive marriage as a martyr for her view of righteousness.

Kicked when I was down? You bet. Satan worked through that woman that day to take me out again when I thought I could go no further, when I had tiptoed into trusting someone I thought had good intentions. I can still taste blood in my mouth from it, even though she never actually touched me. She might as well have.

There truly ARE appropriate ways to respond to a person who tells you she is suffering abuse. It is so very difficult and shaming to admit to it, and by the time we are forced to tell it, we are usually so incapacitated by its effects that we are approaching death. (My counselor calls it detachment, preparing to die.) We are hopeless in our hurt and sense of being trapped. Yes, Jesus is the only Savior of my soul, but it IS his will to act through his people to save others in a temporal sense, and abused women may just need such a temporal savior too.

Leslie Vernick has some fine bits of advice for the person who hears a cry from an abused person. Knowledge comes with responsibility. You don't have to cross over to the other side of the road from a sense of helplessness. If apathy, then you have to stand before God and confess that. But helplessness can be solved. Read what Leslie has to say. It's not nearly as difficult as it seems to offer real, life-saving, soul-saving help.

Five Things You Can Do by Leslie Vernick.

A Reason for Praise

The media is finally condemning domestic abuse.

I've never much been in favor personally of making celebrities out of athletes. It seemed like a risky move to me, just as putting any human being on a pedestal for worship and intense adoration is likely to be. But if our culture did not make celebrities out of athletes, it is very possible that our same culture would not be seeing the progress it is finally seeing now. People are beginning to pay attention to the horror and prevalence of domestic violence. Finally.

The attention and outcry are getting louder. People are realizing that just as those Boston citizens could say, "I had no idea he could do something like plant a bomb at a marathon. He seemed like such a normal guy," or those Cleveland citizens could say, "But I lived next to those guys for ten years; I ate barbeque in their backyard. I had no idea they had kidnapped women in the bedroom upstairs," or those Oklahoma City residents could say, "But Tim seemed like an average guy to me," they too can say, "I had no idea that normal looking family man was a brute and a beast and a sociopath with the wife who stuck by him for so long."

Domestic violence is a type of terrorism. It depends on the same things to flourish: secrecy, privacy, outward appearances, threats, intimidation, the element of surprise.

And God hates it. Women are just as much a part of his "treasured possession" as believing men. He uses women as the very symbol of his own Bride, the church, whom he himself died for. He loves women fiercely and jealously and he will not remain patiently silent and merciful forever toward the men who harm his daughter, or the men in authority who will not come to their aid. It is these men in authority to whom Jesus was speaking when he told them that God did indeed allow for divorce, but why? Because their hearts were hard--the leaders', the men's hearts were hard. God allows for divorce in order to protect his daughters because men will not repent, have empathy, use their power for the good of the women they are to cherish and care for as their own bodies and as Christ loved the church.

It is to these abusive men, who have forgotten the bride of their youth, to whom God says he hates--the men who did not love their wives but instead created an unthinkable rift with them, these men who clothe themselves with violence (Malachi 2:16). Yes, God hates the rift in relationship that is divorce, but he gives permission for legalizing that divorce in order to protect the woman who is being destroyed by her faithless husband.

Your maker is your husband! And he will not forsake you. He is coming. He is coming back. And he is not coming as a lamb this time. He is coming as a GROOM and as a WARRIOR.

The trumpets are being sounded. Men of the church, are you listening? John Piper, are YOU listening? Will you use your power, your authority, your influence to defend the widows, where God's heart is, or to keep them in oppression, fear, and turmoil forever?

The evidence is clear. Abuse is wrong. The dividing lines are being drawn. The martyrs crying out, "How long?" are heard, and God is moving in his church. His justice is sure. We who have cried out and had our cries fall on deaf ears are heard. That's reason for praise!

A Voice for the Abused #5: Boz Tchividjian

Another prominent voice in the church speaks out against spiritual abuse of church authorities who deny, rename, and compel women to stay in abusive situations.

John Piper, are you listening yet?


http://boz.religionnews.com/2014/09/12/whyistayed-churches-support-spousal-abuse/

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After the Monster: Struggles of an Abuse Survivor

Why is controlling, manipulating, threatening, intimidating, and sometimes even physically destructive abuse so damaging to the personhood of the victim? Why don't we just bounce back when it ends? What is it like to be the survivor of an abusive relationship--both emotionally and practically?



This writer sometimes thinks that no one else can possibly understand the internal turmoil that was caused by years and years of abuse. Every day is a battle to hold onto truth and to chase away the lies that robbed me of my identity, dignity, stability, joy, and worth.

I'm told it gets better with time, lots of time. I'm also told that it is normal to be standing where I am now and not be able to see the end result of healing that I'm hoping for. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, unexplained anxiety, self-doubt, fear of disapproval, fear of personal expression... these things are conditioned in and reach into the whole person, but I am told they will be chiseled away a little at a time and that one day, life won't be so unmanageable.

I'm not there yet. I want someone to understand what it is like to be me. Pastor Dave Orrison does a good job of explaining what this place in life is like for me and other survivors like me.

You can read the entire piece here: The Monster's Legacy. The "monster" he refers to is not an individual but the condition of narcissism and sociopathy (anti-social personality disorder) that is the seed of much abuse in intimate relationships.

"Inability to make decisions, fear in personal relationships, nagging false guilt and shame, broken connections with others, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. These are some of the normal internal struggles. Then there are the external struggles. Financial stresses, custody and visitation issues, the need to find a job or the loss of a job, the physical consequences of stress, and so much more. When you look back at the end of a narcissistic relationship, you usually see a wide path of destruction."

Sociopaths in the Church

Most of us go through our lives unaware that we are living and functioning alongside sociopaths in our communities on a regular basis. Until we finally identify that we are living with one, that is, and then, it is as if our eyes are finally opened and we can see how others are able to appear so normal to the outer world while deeply harming the people closest to them in secret.

Sociopaths are in your church too. Church is an easy place for them to hide and thrive. This article helps explain how that comes about and gives some valuable input into how to separate and then reunite in our thinking the appropriate ways to show grace and hold accountable those with this disorder who are harming others.

This is a "must read" for anyone. Victims of sociopaths will find encouragement here. Those who have escaped victimhood can find light to shine into the darkness for the victims in their midst. God put us in churches to help one another. Those under the control of a sociopath need love, fellowship, support, and ears to hear the horror they have experience and the emotional void they have a starvation to fill.

Be the church. Educate yourself about Anti-Social Personality Disorder and how it harms others. Start here: Anti-Social Personality Disorder in the Church.

Discipline or Abuse: Adrian Peterson in the news

So, is anyone else feeling anxious about the children in the life of Minnesota Viking Adrian Peterson?

The man has not been tried for a crime of child abuse, and so judgment must be withheld until a verdict or confession is made. However, this writer is anxious and unsettled by what the news is reporting.

A man with two four-year-old sons by different mothers spends time with those children unsupervised. While in his care, both children receive bodily injuries that are evidenced by breaking of the skin. One is supported by photographs--a minimum of 16 switch marks on the child's skin. The other claims a scar on the face above the child's eye, which occurred when the four-year-old tried to resist the original punishment.

In both cases, text messages from Peterson affirm that he did cause the wounds while disciplining the children. In one case, he admitted via text that he struck the child in the testicles. In both cases, he claimed to feel bad about the injuries--and called the testicular injury an accident (presumably from loss of control), but he continued to stand by the firmness of his disciplinary choices.

Can we at least agree that the purpose of disciplining a child is to lovingly redirect or restore the child, and not to punish or inflict a wound or scar? Can we agree that before administering discipline, a parent must examine himself or herself to be careful not to overreact out of anger? These little ones are being shaped under our own hands. If we lash out in rage--and 16 or more lashes with an object can hardly be imagined as controlled action--what are we really teaching? How does one restore trust and love after something like that?

Withholding judgment is turning out to be hard. Pray the little ones get the support of knowledgeable adults who will speak for them. Pray for truth to be told.

One of Those Nights

It's one of those nights.

One of those "will I make it through tonight" nights.

The Internet is presently flooded with commentary about depression, suicide, mental illness, personal choices, seeds of faith and faithlessness, courage and weakness. Robin Williams, beloved comedian and actor, took his life a few days ago. After 63 years of fighting it. A few people think they have the answers. Many others want to share what those few have to say. I feel like they are trying to analyze me at the same time, and each article I read is a reflection of myself.

I don't know his story. I only know my own, and tonight's a night I don't want to own my story. Tonight's one of those nights.

Ten months ago, I sat in my car in my driveway, engine running, alone. I sat for a long time. The garden hose was just outside, sprawled languidly across the front landscaping bed as if no one cared to tidy it up. That's because no one truly did. I saw myself over and over again, with the hose, the exhaust pipe, a cracked window, and me. I know I sat there for most of an hour. I don't remember how I got out, or even why. I just know somehow, after a time, I didn't do what I saw, and I was inside again.

All the TED Talks in the world are not enough to shake it when depression wraps you in its Ring-Wraith embrace. That kind word someone offered three days ago? Gone by now. What do I need to snap out of it?

I know it is different for everyone. Again, my story, not yours. But I need time and purpose, and time is always there, ticking on so very slowly. The awareness of how slowly it moves does nothing to help, but time itself does function to move me through the stage to another side. Just hang on. But purpose. That's a big one. My marriage failed. It was doomed from the start, but nothing I could do could fix it, not even giving myself up completely into it. It never got better. In my head, I cognitively, intellectually know that the problem is a deep pyschological one that is not my own. But the message of all those years is that it was me--not good enough, not lovable, worthless, a disappointment at best and a disgust at worst. A vessel of wrath--wrath poured into me until I cracked and crumbled. Did I make it out alive? I'm still not sure.

And this is one of those nights.

Just the tiniest thing sparked it in me: a suggestion of a way to participate, be useful, be in camaraderie with others, dangled, then taken away again. It was not by ill will that it was taken again, but practicality, but the stool was kicked from beneath my always-so-precarious foothold and the doom descended like an executioner's hood. Why'd that have to happen? You know the answer: useless; worthless; not lovable; not a part of the camaraderie; not a part of the team. Tolerated at best, but never loved.

The whispers are insidious, and persistent, and what my head knows my heart cannot believe. It became too ingrained.

And this is one of those nights.