Abused In A Christian Church

It only takes a moment for a child to be abused sexually, but it continues to haunt the child for the rest of their life.  Sure, many child abuse survivors manage to find a way to thrive and get beyond it, but when you take the innocence away from a child, they live with that for the rest of their life.

Growing up, I was abused by my father, older brother, and some unknown individual that went to a church we went to and found me in the church basement bathroom.  All of these people messed with my mind something fierce and many of them told me that they were doing this because "God wanted to show his love to me".  They did it because God told them to do it.

It messes you up...

I'm sure in their sick and twisted minds, they believed what they were telling me.  When you're taught from a little kid on up, that if God gets angry at you, you are going to that bad place, this stuff screws your mind up.  It really messes you up because you're not allowed to breathe, eat, or think anything different than what they teach you about God.

What makes me really want to puke my guts out at the thought, is when I see the baptism video of my older brother on Youtube.  Once again, he rededicated his life to Jesus.  Jesus forgave him of all his sins once again.  I've lost track how many times that has been now.  He had a good teacher, because my father was the exact same way.

Here's the blog post that I just referred to about the baptism video of my older brother.

(click image to read)

Of course, it sickens me to see how his childhood friends stand up for him and act as if he is some poor victim.  Yes, I'm sure he was abused too, but unlike him, I didn't go on and abuse others.  He made that choice and all the forgiveness by Jesus will never change that choice in my mind.

These goodie-two-shoe family of Christians that support him act like I'm the brainwashed one.  They act like I'm the criminal and the bad person for daring to break the silence and expose what they did.  I guess, I should take some solace in these fine upstanding Christians that got caught by the IRS for how they ran their shady businesses.  Hey, that's okay.  You can lie and cheat and steal and God will forgive you, but don't you dare expose a child abuser because you are the bad person.  Maybe that is why they built that church for a community I lived in?

Sickened by Child Molesters...

I know, I've been through this area of my healing many times and I have made great progress.  At least I can attempt to be respectful in what I write here, unlike before where the language would have been much worse.  Even though I try to get away from it, it still haunts me.  I'm still sickened by the way these child molesters are treated and how the enablers feel sorry for them.

It isn't just the Catholic church that abuses their little boys and girls either.  This was all done while we attended a Baptist church of the GARBC (General Association Of Regular Baptist Churches) with M.O. Burman as the minister.  It also happened in other churches too because we skipped around many times.  Life was go to church and pray and sing hymns to Jesus on Sunday and then Sunday afternoon, go home and abuse those weaker than you or at least the children and your siblings (and the wife). 

I'll never understand most likely how the sick and twisted are coddled by those that enable them while shouting praises to God in the highest.  I'll never understand why there are some that steal the innocence of a child.  It will always be a mystery to me.

I keep working it...

For now, I keep trying to continue my own healing in child abuse.  I've made tremendous strides over the years, but sometimes the anger of what I see by the ones that abused me attempts to engulf my own life.  What I went through lasted for most of my growing up years and believe me, it is not easy to free myself completely from it.  I keep working on it though!

You can read more about this church we went to in the blog post, Haunted By Ghosts Of The Past.

(click image to read)

Question Of The Day

We're you abused in the name of religion or God or a church?  Feel free to leave a comment if you were.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Let Me Tell You How Wrong You Are

We are high and mighty these days in our society.  It doesn't take much for us to proclaim to the world what THEY should do!  The meme of our day seems to be, "LET ME TELL YOU HOW WRONG YOU ARE"!

I'll forewarn you, this blog post is a little bit of a rant on something that just grates on my nerves.  As always, I do try to write with a point that hopefully when you're done reading this, it may help see something a little differently.  At least, that's the goal.  So bear with me through this one.  Sometimes I just have to get on my soapbox!  

Let me tell you how wrong you are!

• Don't believe me?  Take a look at online social media, especially when it comes to politics.  Those that support a candidate view all others as stupid, broken, ill-informed, or uninformed.   No, this is not meant as a political discussion either. 

• Don't believe me?  Take a look at many of the religious postings in online social media.  Unless you believe like they do, they will not even talk to you.  They won't discuss things with you because it is their way or no way.  No, this is not meant as a religious discussion either.

My Recent Experience

In fact, I just had an experience the other day that proved this without doubt.  I was traveling.  The rental car company gave me a very big vehicle to drive.  I had no choice to take the car they gave me because of the way I rented it.  If I wouldn't have taken this car, I would have paid a lot more money.

Anyway, I'm driving to find something to eat and parking was limited.  Keep in mind, I am trying to get this vehicle in and out of a parking spot and that was not easy or comfortable for me.  It made me quite nervous and anxious.  My anxiety was extremely high.  Sometimes I get animated when the anxiety is high.

After circling the parking lot several times, I stopped to regroup and figure out what I should do.  Unfortunately I didn't realize for a minute or two that I was blocking a lady trying to back out of a parking space.  It was inadvertent.  The moment I realized what I had done, I moved from the spot I was in.

When I parked the vehicle, another lady came up and rolled down her window.  Apparently the person that I had inadvertently blocked in the parking spot, was her daughter.  She started out telling me how I needed to be more "CHRISTIAN".  I'm not even sure where that came from because it wasn't like I self-identified with that in any way.  It didn't matter when I tried to explain to her what had happened, she had already judged me to be this horrible person that got mad at her daughter and blocked her in.

We exchanged words and I gave her an earful back.   I normally don't do that, but this lady instigated this and would not stop.  She had to be right.  She had to tell me how wrong I was.  There was no backing down and somehow she was a holier-than-thou type of person telling me to be a better Christian.

When I walked away from her after I stood up for myself, I felt like someone had just covered me with icky slime.  I felt like I needed to take a shower to wash off all the evil junk she spewed at me.  I'm sure she went to her next prayer meeting and told everyone the story or at least her version of how awful a human being I was.

When we have the attitude of...

When we have the attitude of "let me tell you how wrong you are", we have lowered our self from the status of human into the status of something less than.  Thinking that we know it all and we can judge another person, does not even rise to an enlightened or spiritual person.

Later, after I brushed off what this lady did to me, I could not help but think that what if I had just had some horrible news that day or maybe I realized it was my last few days to live.  Would she have treated me differently, or was she so self-absorbed that she wouldn't have cared.  My point is, we never know what another is going through and to judge others and act this way to other people, could be very hazardous to their health and well-being.

This was not love that she showed.  If she was a christian, she maybe misunderstood the concept of love and judgment.  Unfortunately, it isn't this person only in situations like this.  It is far too prevalent in the world and something NO ONE should be proud of or endorse.  Yet, we all do!

So that is my soapbox.  I could have done without this event that day, but my greater point is that we need to stop and see others with love, not judgment.  It is not our place to cast judgment on others and tell them how wrong they are.  In fact, more times than not, we need to take an inventory in our own life of what we need to work on.

Here's another blog post that talks about judging others and makes some good points.  Click the image below to read the blog post, Before You Judge Me.

Click Here To Read

Let me know if you have been judged like this by others or if you do the same thing.  I'd love to hear your comments below.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Selected Bigotry By Religions

I see this all the time and it really bugs me.  In fact, I just read a Facebook comment that said "if Christians and other people of faith were not required to accept and service the homosexual lifestyle choice and marriage against their will and faith, that basically the religious people wouldn't care so much.  Hmmm... let me think about that one some more.

I normally don't wade into the social issues much because there are so many people screaming.  It just bothers me when I see comments like this posted.  It feels like selected bigotry by religions.  Their statement makes them feel validated but that's about it.  It is highly disrespectful to gay people that they so vehemently hate.

Now, before you get all up in arms with me and accuse me of intolerance,  religions are protected in the constitution and they have buildings to go and preach at whatever they believe every single day of the year.  They take in lots of money in a year and while I don't think they use it wisely most of the time, they don't pay taxes on it.  Lots of people in the church earn a good living and some have a pretty nice income.  Some religions and people of faith understand things good and too many others show the evil side of religions.

Father's Touch, Part 2

This is part 2 of a series in reviewing the impact of the book, Father's Touch, by Donald D'haene. Please see PART 1 for the beginning of the review.

Here are the links to all three parts of this book review.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

In this part of the book review, I'm going to pull out various passages that stood out to me and connected deeply within me. I'll try to share how they impacted my mind at the time I read them.

1) Blew them to smithereens

“Mother told us to tell her if it happened again, but she couldn’t stop the game from happening. Father kept a shotgun in the pantry. On several occasions, he blew our favorite pets to smithereens. We knew enough not to get papa angry.” (page 99)

Wow, this hit me like a ton of bricks dropped from the world's tallest building. If you know anything about my own story, you know that I witnessed my cats being killed. I am haunted by their screams to this day and if anyone dares to hurt an animal, you have no place in this world in my eyes. Even my dog that I had was shot at and to the day she died, the Veternarian that spent the final hours with her could still see the buckshot lodged in her legs. There were other stories that involved one of our sheep, my brother's little dog, a cat I had while I was gone to college and probably too many more that I cannot even keep track of. In all cases, my father either got mad at the animals or thought they were getting too much of our affection or just wanted to teach us a lesson. You see, animals to me were always sacred and seeing something I truly loved and that loved me in return be hurt or killed made me into a believer that if I did something to upset my father, it may be me that was hurt or killed. As a child, I dreamed of a day when the pets would rise up against the humans and go kick some serious butt! In those moments, I knew my father would be one of the first to get his butt kicked.


2) Block them out of my mind

"Fellow Christians believed in placing negative experiences behind them through the practice of prayer and positive thinking. Putting my path behind me seemed far easier than dealing with the dysfunction within my family. We certainly had troubles and I wanted to make them disappear. I did have bad memories, but they only showed up in the reels that played in my mind. New experiences were added to that memory bank daily. The only way I could feel better was to make believe each situation was non-existent. Each would be assigned a fresh reel." (page 140)

This part gets me on a couple different sides. In church we were just supposed to forgive and forget and be happy people in Jesus. While I know many people find solace in that, it is hard to be happy in Jesus when your father is abusing you and telling you that this is what God wants him to do. It seemed like those that wanted to abuse me could do whatever they wanted and then go pray and ask forgiveness for it. In addition to the church and the people who just turned their heads and closed their eyes, my dad was into the Norman Vincent Peale books that basically you were just supposed to think happy. I'll tell you, it is hard to be truly happy when your life is being ripped apart fiber by fiber. The only thing I could do during this time was escape into a world that I would hardly remember and act as if nothing was going on. I became a good actor in life. For if I didn't hide all that was going on, you can sure as bet, father's rage would be waiting for you.


3) Am I really going to charge him?

"In my bed this night, the peace of sleep eludes me. Am I really going to charge my father with something that isn't real to me? Life with Daniel seemed to last an eternity, but I can't remember my father's face, how he felt, or the sound of his voice. I wanted to force him out of my mind, and I did. However, why are the home-movie reels so vivid? How do I conjure up such images and yet feel nothing? It happened to my other self. I know it did." (page 156)

Even though I know what happened and even though I have indisputable evidence of these events, my mind loves to play tricks with me. My mind likes to minimize all that I went through and say, this really wasn't that bad. Being raped isn't such a bad thing after all. And yet, most people would cringe at hearing these words and in reality for most of my life, this was normal. I have had to stand on my own in what I remember and in the failings of my mind to piece my life back together. I remember one attorney that really wanted to me to take my father to court but at the time, I did not want to endure the torture that it would put me through. Now, I'm at a different point and the thought of taking him to court has crossed my mind more than once. I'm not the weak little boy that he once knew and he is no longer the big mean monster that I always hid from in fear.


4) Touch makes my skin crawl

"I can't stand being touched by men or women. Especially if someone comes from behind and touches me before I know who it is. Oooh! It makes my skin crawl - I don't know why. Is that stupid or what? The fact that I don't like being touched is kind of sad to me. But just talking about it helps." (page 195)

For a long time, if anyone got close to me, let alone tried to touch me my skin would crawl like ants running up and down my body. That may sound gross but for a long time in life, I would constantly check my skin to see if there were bugs on it. It took a great deal of courage and strength for me to go to massage school and learn to be touched. It was agonizing at first but now after the deep healing work I have done on my body, touch is something I welcome. Of course, my body is very sensitive to touch and so what some may consider extremely light body work is indeed very deep work to me. It does not take much for me to get a tremendous amount from just a light touch. My body was taught to fear and avoid touch but since I have been reclaiming that part of me, I'm finding there is a world that is so healing and so beautiful and full of compassion.


5) Healing has no graduation class

"The truth is that the path I chose is one of the reasons that I am alive today. I found my way of surviving. I want to continue my journey of self discovery, but there is no graduation class, no point where the past means nothing. My experiences and choices have molded and shaped a character that is truly unique. I believe that if every victim were to experience the awakening I have, he would find the world is not such a bad place to inhabit. I have an awareness, a sixth sense that cannont be bought, taught, or taken away from me." (page 288)

I so love this part of Donald's book because I find it so true. To many times I have been told by others that they hope I get to the point where I have moved on. I've heard this in so many ways from so many and while it is a nice thought, my life is about going further into discovery and awareness. I want to reclaim all parts of myself no matter how difficult it is. I want to become more aware and more conscious of who I am. In my view, healing from trauma or child sexual abuse does not have an end point or as Donald says, "graduation class." It is a journey and while the journey may put time and space between the events and where an individual is at in their life, future consciousness is what matters. The more we become aware of all parts of ourself, the more we are human. Often these journeys of recovery occur over many years and they come and go as tides crashing on to a short. There may be periods of rest and then there may be periods of hard work but all of it is connected to each other. The more I journey into the land of the unknown and fear, the more I discover parts of myself that I never knew existed. That to me is the greatest single joy which can never be taken away from me.



Please come back tomorrow for part 3 of the book review of "Father's Touch" by Donald D'haene.

Click here to Purchase the book on Amazon, Father's Touch.



(c) 11/9/10 by Don Shetterly - use by permission only

From Intolerance To Acceptance

We stopped at a Christian thrift store the other day. While inside the store, I heard a very loud and boisterous man talking about his view of God and religion. It is a free country and he is perfectly allowed to do this. However, he was very rude in making sure everyone in the store heard what he had to say. It was like forced religious babble.

As he continued speaking loudly, he began to talk about a group of people that to him were evil and a threat to our way of life. The hatred, intolerance, and bigotry spewing forth from his mouth infuriated and disgusted me. The things he was saying were so vile and so full of hate that I could barely stomach any of the words he was speaking.

I finally had to leave because I could not take one more minute of what he was saying. I felt sad for the group of people he was degrading. I felt even more sad for this guy's intolerance. I am sure this man most likely never met the ones he was degrading.

He was hating this group of people out of not truly knowing them. His hatred seemed to arise from his fears. To be honest, I'm not sure where in "HIS" Bible, it shows that Jesus hated others and would talk this way. Yet, the man that purported to love Jesus and follow him must have missed the lesson Jesus taught where he said "Love One Another."

My ears had heard enough and to keep myself from reacting in a way that I would have regretted, I left the store. It took me awhile to let go of the anger I had at hearing these things. Every button from my past had been pushed.

It was not until we walked into another thrift store that the lady said, "welcome to our store," with a smile on her face, that I felt love and compassion for others shine through. This was not another Christian thrift store but one that valued all people as humans. In that moment, her smile of love and compassion connected with my heart. That one simple act meant the world to me in that moment. It was at that moment that I was able to let this go and change my thoughts from anger to acceptance of this intolerant man.



(Above Picture taken at Dandelion Communitea Cafe, Orlando, FL - (c) 09/17/10) Listening to the band, Dreamcatcher, perform on 9/17/10


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My Fear Of Snakes

Normally I try to write things that are more positive but today for reasons I do not understand, I have decided to write about my fear of snakes. I just feel prompted to write about this and so I will. After all, this is a subject, I'd rather avoid so maybe that in itself is part of positive side for writing this. And no there will be no snake picture posted with this entry for obvious reasons. In the picture that is posted, is the bush that HAD the snake which has moved on for the moment.

You see, today I looked out in our yard, just feet from our pool on the old half dead, purple flowering bush. This bush took a pretty hard hit from a freeze this winter and we actually thought it was completely dead. There are some signs it may be coming back to life but I really need to prune it. As I looked at it, I noticed something odd on the top of it where the sun was hitting the dead branches. You guessed it - one of those s-n-a-k-e-s. And moments later, when I looked again, I saw not one but TWO!

The minute I saw the snake, my breathing almost stopped, my body wanted to freeze and all I wanted to do was get the heck out of there. Through the frightened feeling I felt, my body wanted to run, hide, disappear, cry and be anywhere but where this snake was. For me this is a common reaction to snakes whether it is one that I see physically around me somewhere or one that is on TV or in a magazine. The same reaction happens. It isn't fun. It wipes me out and exhausts me. And the entire time, I struggle to understand just why this event is so powerful.

Many people have suggested over the course of my life to just ignore it and not think about it or make light of it by saying, not all snakes are harmful and you need to learn which are and which aren't. The thing that these well intentioned people fail to see is that it isn't about any of those things. And trying to ignore it and think that it isn't there is like having a 650 pound gorilla sitting on your lap and trying to ignore that!

In addition to the s-n-a-k-e spottings in our yard, I've had the dreams where you could not have convinced me that a snake was not right there. It has been so bad that I had to turn on all the lights and strip the bed down just to prove to myself that there was no snake. Of course trying to go back to sleep after these dreams have startled me so badly is almost impossible.

I've read many things online and heard many people talk about snakes may mean this or that. Some say they have a strong connection to people who are Christians because they see the devil as a serpent. Some say it is a warning or a sign of wisdom/new information coming to you. It could be some childhood trauma playing out as well. The list of explanations could go on and on.

For me, all of these explanations sound nice and look pretty but they don't make any more sense to me than my fear of seeing a s-n-a-k-e on TV. I know that there were some childhood trauma moments around snakes but I most likely don't fully remember the entire event. I know I grew up in a very strict fundamentalist church where Satan, the devil (i.e. serpent) was a very very bad thing. I am coming into new information and awareness each day but it isn't the kind that startles or scares me. It feels pretty safe and welcoming to me. There is nothing in any explanation to this point that makes sense or seems like the key to unlock the door.

Of course, I do realize that fears are not normally rational. They are the connections of neural pathways in our brain and the emotion or memory experienced in the present may not have necessarily been directly tied to the actual event. The fear episode may be strangely connected to something that has entirely nothing to do with it. So, I realize that the story playing out may not have all the facts.

And I know that fears can be overcome. I have done that with many in my life and many of them were not easy to take on, but once I was able to take my power back from them, the fears looked like tiny little spineless nothings. I've learned also, that the more I face my fears and accept them with open arms, the more I am able to reclaim that power. It is through embracing and accepting them that they are no longer enemies.

The answer to this mystery right now is beyond my current consciousness and knowledge. I wish I knew the magic button to push and make this all go away. I wish I understood why it is happening. For now, all I can do is just acknowledge that this exists and will hope that my path leads me to understanding and release of this fear.