Anyone here SA’d as a teen by a parent but felt at fault because of how shame and fear were normal at church?
I was born and raised in the Apostolic Assembly of the faith in Christ Jesus which is essentially Hispanic Pentecostal’s.
Between the ages of 12-16 my mother SA’d me. I always felt at fault because I initiated it and felt ashamed and guilty about what happened. It’s still hard to process but eventually I was able to stop the abuse that was happening on my own behind closed doors and developed boundaries for myself that should have been taught to me. Till this day my mother has never addressed it and expects endless access to my kids and acts heartbroken when I don’t give her that and surprised that I’m for the most part estranged.
I was always so confused and ashamed about it but as an adult and newly minted father for 2 years now I see what happened differently now. It hurts that church instead of being a place where I could have gotten help became an institution that normalized the shame and guilt I felt behind closed doors. My mother not only did not stop the behavior but let it continue and shamed me for it but never corrected it. I’ve always felt responsible and eventually broke that shame driven behavioral cycle in me at the age of 16.
As a dad if any of my kids experienced that I would not only get them the help they needed but I would also hold that adult regardless of who it may be accountable. There would be no church or institution that could save them or any pastor that could use the spiritual authority card on me or my family, that’s a huge part of why I eventually left. If my kids where to explain what happened to them and it was my word for word experience I would say they were groomed and some behaviors that weren’t normal in a parent/ child relationship were normalized and that the way they responded even tho not okay was not their fault. I am much harsher on myself though, part of it is because of how the church was anti therapy, anti psychology, ant higher education and anti anything that was opposed to oneness doctrine/ spiritual authority.
Can anyone relate to this? Sometimes I feel like I’m blowing this out of proportion.