Childhood Abuse, Spiritual Abuse, and the Need for Emotional Intelligence
Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash
An analysis of my Twitter feed would indicate an odd dichotomy that speaks to the very complicated relationship I had with my father. Unofficially, about 48% of the feed is dedicated to news about the sports teams I’m interested in and the other 48% is dedicated to voices that speak for those who have been spiritually abused by Christianity. The remaining 4% would be categorized as “other”.
Childhood Abuse
A plethora of studies have indicated that adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) (e.g. emotional, physical and sexual abuse or neglect, and family dysfunction) (Rawlins et al., 2020, p. 590) or childhood emotional maltreatment (CEM) (abuse and neglect that is typically associated with persistent and extreme denial of a child’s basic emotional needs) (Lassri et al., 2016, p. 504), have the ability to negatively affect a child’s mind to the point that when they become adults they continue to make choices that are extensions of the abuses they endured. Those choices can then turn into enduring relationship patterns (Lassri et al., 2016) or even lifelong struggles that are plagued with negative symptoms like depression and anxiety (Zhao et al., 2020). Studies also indicate that adults lack the cognitive abilities to realize the direct relationships between mom and dad’s mental health issues and their own (Kuijpers et al., 2014), which then leads to continuously perpetrating cycles of abuse by simply neglecting self-care.
Practically speaking, the pattern works this way. A child experiences ACE’s or CEM from a parent or caregiver who most likely experienced the same from a caregiver of their own. To be specific, I’ll use the emotionally abusive pattern of constant criticism. Most people are familiar with the developmental phase known as the “terrible-two’s”. It marks a time during a toddler’s life when they begin to differentiate between themselves and their parents and they do so by seemingly responding “no” to every request made by a caregiver (Green, 2013). Understandably, most caregivers see this behavior by their children as defiance that needs to be treated with varying tactics labeled as discipline. In homes where parents are simply reacting to behavior rather than understanding it, there is a potential for these disciplinary tactics to mirror those used by their own caregivers without much thought given to the potential long-term ramifications of those tactics (Green, 2013).
In homes where emotionally abusive tactics are used, like constant criticism, the child repeatedly receives messages about the deficiencies of their behavior and how their behavior is a burden to the caregiver. Keep in mind that these experiences become some of the earlier building blocks for a future sense of identity which means that a child who is constantly criticized for exercising a sense of autonomy, will soon become hypercritical of everything they do (Green, 2013) (Lassri et al., 2016). Show me an adult who is constantly berating themselves for mistakes they’ve made and I’ll show you a child who was never “good enough” for mom or dad or grandma or grandpa. Another pattern that emerges, is that the individual fails to see the deficiencies in the person who is criticizing them (they tend to accept the emotionally abusive person was always perfect) and then they end up in relationships with people who have the same kind of emotionally abusive profile (Lassri et al., 2016).
Earlier I opened with an unscientific anecdote about my Twitter profile. I mentioned how it reflected my complicated relationship with my father. There’s a lot of stuff about my life that I could say reflects different aspects of my abusive relationship with my father. Some good, some bad. My love for sports is one of the good things, what used to be an obsession with sports would be the bad. There was a time when sports was easily 90% of what I used Twitter for. But then I fell victim to spiritual abuse and things changed. I changed. I’ve healed. But first, I had to learn the hard way how my ACE’s and CEM’s set me up to accept spiritual abuse as something that was an acceptable part of my identity and an acceptable part of who my God is.
Spiritual Abuse and the Link to ACE’s and CEM
Spiritual abuse can be defined as the “misuse of power in a spiritual context whereby spiritual authority is distorted to the detriment of those under its leadership” (Lang & Bochman, 2016, p. 57). I first learned about spiritual abuse while earning my masters degree in 2011 while enrolled at Trinity International University (TIU). I didn’t accept that I was a victim of spiritual abuse until I began to experience symptoms that I describe in a previous podcast titled A Woman and a Robe. Even though those symptoms began in 2012, I continued to find myself submitting to varying spiritual authorities until the pandemic sent most of us home in 2020. It wasn’t until I read Diane Langberg’s book Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church, when I finally understood the degrees of spiritual abuse my wife and I had endured and why I had become so distant from God even though I was active in varying ministries all throughout those years. I would pray, and read the Bible, and preach, and teach, but would feel very little. I had moments here and there where I felt like things were going well but overall; I knew something wasn’t right.
My home life bred in me an identity of compliance and submission. My dad’s drinking, drugging, adultery, and pedophilia, required my silence. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what I saw or what I heard and somehow, speaking about what was evil would result in me becoming equated with him. Anytime I did try and speak up about what he was doing, I would break down in tears and find myself embarrassing the family and ultimately bringing shame on myself. I learned that when men, specifically powerful men, are acting in ways that are abusive, the only acceptable way to act was to stay quiet and to take it. I was living proof of the research mentioned above.
So even when I finally left my home church, I ended up in my wife’s home church, only to experience abuse there. There were signs of abusive and toxic behaviors everywhere: tales through gossip, rumors, sexual innuendo, jokes, etc. But it wasn’t as bad as the place I just left. Plus they gave me responsibilities, they gave me the pulpit and opportunities to teach, and none of the “bad stuff” really affected me; until it did. Then we moved on to another place. My wife was the first to voice her concerns but again, silence, submission, and compliance was my identity. Those were the building blocks formed by my ACE’s. Again I rationalized: they gave me responsibility, opportunities, they didn’t really seem that bad, and none of those things really affected me. Until it did affect me…and then the pandemic forced us to go home, I read a book, and finally my eyes were opened.
I strongly suspect that many people could link their patterns of ACE’s and patterns of CEM to the abusive situations they find themselves in at church. In fact, some research has been done on this subject and the authors refer to the concept as “distorted spirituality” (Lang & Bochman, 2016, p. 57). Specifically, distorted spirituality is defined as “rule-bounded, performance-oriented, graceless Christianity that trivializes the gospel and misses the richness of a deepening relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ” (Lang & Bochman, 2016, p. 58). In the study, the authors go on to explain that people with a distorted spirituality end up basing their view of God on fear and shame which in turn roots their faith in performance and judgement (Lang & Bochman, 2016). So not only do they have trouble connecting with God on a deeper level based on love and grace, but they also have trouble connecting with people as they constantly judge others for their failures and lack of ability (Lang & Bochman, 2016). In other words, the spiritually abused become spiritually abusive, an ironic twist that I must also repent from.
The Need for Emotional Intelligence
I know it can be overwhelming parsing through all of this information and not finding answers; especially for those who are still struggling to connect with God in a meaningful way. For those who still attend church services but don’t want to be there and for those who read Bible passages or pray but wonder why they even bother to do so. People who have been spiritually abused get to a point where church hopping isn’t good enough anymore. Talking to people about their problems isn’t good enough anymore. Reading articles and books aren’t good enough anymore. I do have an answer but it does require some work.
It starts with what’s called emotional intelligence which is the “ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions and to identify and use this information to guide one’s own thoughts and behaviors” (Zhao et al., 2020, p. 2022). In other words, emotional intelligence is the competence to sit down and break down the feelings one has, as they experience them, and to note the situations that draw them out. Traditionally, emotional intelligence has been divided into five parts: empathy, self-knowledge, regulation of emotional conditions, self-motivation, and regulation of interpersonal relationships (Hartanto & Helmi, 2021). Working together, the parts enable a person to manage emotions of both themselves and the people around them. Developing emotional intelligence is actually easier than most people think it is. The approach I take with students and/or people I’m working with, is to start with an emotions chart like the one pictured below. They’ll go through the chart and check off any emotions they identify with at the moment. Then they’ll write or we’ll talk about anything that might have happened that contributed to those feelings. Sometimes it’s necessary to distinguish between emotions like frustration and anger. Or sadness and depression. Or anxiety and shame. Building up a database in which one can identify emotions correctly, develops emotional intelligence which then functions as a protective factor against depression and anxiety (Zhao et al., 2020) and has been strongly linked with greater life satisfaction (Hartanto & Helmi, 2021).
Why is it that I believe that emotional intelligence can help with those who are struggling to connect with God at church or through reading the Bible or even through prayer? Well, as mentioned before, studies have shown that people unintentionally find themselves in environments that are psychologically linked to ACE’s and CEM’s. So the truth is that those negative and abusive experiences at home become models to follow for future relationships and enviroments. Using emotional intelligence, I believe one can break out of spiritually abusive environments (as well as abusive relationships and abusive work environments) and find way to connect with God. Here’s how.
Practical Use of Emotional Intelligence
Have a running journal with dates and times and learn to distinguish between anger and frustration. Between sadness and fear. Between anxiety and shame. It may sound like busy work but learning to identify your emotions and the connection between those emotions and the situations in which they arise, is the first step in becoming an emotionally intelligent person. As mentioned before, it’s been proven that emotional intelligence can help to mediate the negative experiences associated with ACE’s and CEM (Zhao et al., 2020) and so it stands to reason that it can help to tease apart those negative experiences that one might be having with a pastor or a church.
For example, a pastor starts reading a Bible passage and strong feelings start to rise up. Take out a journal and note the feelings. What are they? Need help identifying them? Use the emotion chart. What is the passage? Is there a memory associated with it? Was there a previous interaction with the pastor that is interacting with the current interaction? For instance, if he’s reading a passage about loving neighbors but you remember he posted something on Facebook that was hateful, then your mind and emotions are feeling a conflict about his hypocrisy. Maybe the passage is linked to a memory with another spiritual authority like a caregiver or a Sunday school teacher.
Or suppose the strong emotions you have are when you have your quiet time. Perhaps it’s when you are sitting in bed with a Bible open and you are flipping through the pages looking for something to read. Take out the journal and start writing. Are there memories associated with this particular practice of “quiet time”? Was it something prescribed by someone in your past you had negative experiences with? Maybe a youth pastor who taught you to do it but then abandoned you in some way?
Sometimes what we need is a fresh perspective, a new way to connect with God. Another way to use emotional intelligence is to focus on positive emotions like joy, happiness, peace, and laughter. I have absolute peace when I sit in my backyard, under my string lights, in the late evening, with items I won’t describe here because of the judgment of others. They bring me peace, joy, and delight, and so I invite God into this space because it isn’t associated with the ways my mom or even my dad used to force spirituality into my life. Something I can share, is that sometimes, when the house is empty, I grab my djembe, put on worship music at full blast, and play along as loud as I can and just sing. I’m not very good at singing or playing the djembe but I have so much fun doing it, and I know my God is there.
Final Thoughts
The most important aspect in all of this is to be patient with yourself and to take your time. Know that God isn’t in any kind of rush and the reality is, He can do a lot in just a moment. You don’t even need a Bible or a song or a book. All you really need is honesty. It wasn’t too long ago when I was telling Him that I hated Him for giving me the worst dad in the world. I hated Him for giving me a girl that shattered my heart into a million pieces. I hated Him for making me feel alone, depressed, and suicidal. I hated Him because I knew that if I killed myself He still wouldn’t leave me alone. Honesty led to realness. Realness led to exposure. Exposure led to healing. Healing is still happening.
I’ll be reviewing this material in my next podcast. Until then, feel free to contact me on social media or the contact page on the website with any questions/comments you have.
References
Green, C. (2013). A Sense of Autonomy in Young Children's Special Places. International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education, 1(1), 8–31. https://eric.ed.gov/? id=EJ1108047
Hartanto, H., & Helmi, A. (2021). Meta-analysis of the correlation between emotional intelligence and life satisfaction. Anatolian Journal of Education, 6(2), 63–74. https://doi.org/10.29333/aje.2021.626a
Kuijpers, R. M., Kleinjan, M., Engels, R. E., Stone, L. L., & Otten, R. (2014). Child self-report to identify internalizing and externalizing problems and the influence of maternal mental health. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(6), 1605–1614. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-014-9964-x
Lang, J. A., & Bochman, D. J. (2016). The lived experience of distorted spirituality: a phenomenological study. The Journal of Youth Ministry, 14(2), 56–83. https://www.aymeducators.org/journal-youth-ministry/
Lassri, D., Luyten, P., Cohen, G., & Shahar, G. (2016). The effect of childhood emotional maltreatment on romantic relationships in young adulthood: A double mediation model involving self-criticism and attachment. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 8(4), 504–511. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000134
Rawlins, B., Brooks, M., & Khan, R. (2020). Posttraumatic stress symptoms mediate the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, avoidant personality traits and resilience. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 33(5), 590–601. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2020.1768532
Zhao, J., Xiang, Y., Zhang, W., Dong, X., Zhao, J., & Li, Q. (2020). Childhood maltreatment affects depression and anxiety: The mediating role of emotional intelligence. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 19(6), 2021–2030. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00297-x
