I haven't written since last August. I don't think I was ready. Nothing made enough sense and I didn't know how to articulate what was going on inside. I don't know if I'm ready now but I'm going to give it a go.
I'm still sad, but it's so much better than it was. I still experience post traumatic stress responses at times, but I'm much more able to manage them and recover.
I still struggle with feeling that "it" wasn't bad enough, that the leader of my previous church didn't really misuse his power enough to justify my struggle to recover. Sometimes I just wish the behaviour had been more obvious. That I had more evidence to account for the scars.
Because I don't. I was shouted at occasionally, as a church worker....but he would say it was just 'raised voices'. I was ignored for four months after questioning his treatment of another staff member...but I don't think he would call it ignoring. I made a joke once and was subsequently "told off" and had to decide if I had the grace to keep working at the church...but I think he would feel that was justified. There were other times, things that might seem petty on their own, but over six years they built up until I was scared of putting a foot wrong, taking the blame for anything if it meant I wasn't going to be told off and living in a state of high anxiety, which increased to constant hyper vigilance by the end.
I read a book about bullying a few years ago. It was then I realised what was happening to me. I thought if I talked with people, trustworthy people, in the church then they would help things to change. I didn't want to "bring down" this leader, I wanted to work together to find better ways of relating. I wanted him to understand the effect his behaviour had on me and others. I was sure that if he could see it, he would want to change. I believed his heart was to do good even if something wasn't quite right.
I was wrong. I became the problem because I had raised a problem. I was told I was making serious accusations. My friends began to question my sanity and my character. Very few believed that there was anything the matter with the "strong leadership" that was getting great results and numerical growth in our church. I questioned my understanding, I questioned my sanity, I re-read the book and recognised my experience.
"The doubt in your own mind is bad enough, but to prove to others that you are being bullied is harder still. It’s frequently one person’s word against another with few, if any, witnesses. Like sand slipping between your fingers, the evidence of the existence of bullying quickly disappears and you are left with nothing tangible to explain." [Insight into Childhood and Adult Bullying (Waveley Abbey Insight Series)]
It's about ten months now since the situation became unbearable and we "took a sabbatical" from our old church. I didn't want to leave, I wanted a summer break to be enough. In a way it was. I recovered enough to realise that there was nothing healthy about returning and that it was time to take a new path.
I'm so sad and so glad we did.
