reconciliation...

Another long gap. It will soon be two years since we limped away from our church of 21 years. Many people expected my views would change as time went by, I would be "less emotional", see things more clearly,

They were right. I am a bit less emotional and, from a distance, the view is clearer. But it's not the view they were expecting.  Put bluntly, I'm now certain I was bullied and exploited by a church leader who displays many traits of a narcissistic personality. It's possible it was unintentional. It's possible that his sense of entitlement is such that he believes his behaviour was appropriate. I realise now how churches can provide the perfect environment for narcissistic leadership to thrive.

A few weeks ago the leader of our new church sent us an email. Apparently the leader of our previous church had been in contact.

He has had a dream about you and has been thinking.  He doesn’t expect to reach agreement with you about all things but he does have a strong desire for reconcilliation nonetheless.  I believe he is looking to make peace and move on not drag up history.  Thus he would like to invite you to meet.  He is happy for me to be present.

Great. Reconciliation. That must be good right? But I felt anything but good reading the email. I felt trapped. We were being offered a meeting where discussing the past would be "dragging up history". We were to "move on" otherwise we would be obstructing reconciliation.

Eighteen months ago we were the ones offering to meet, suggesting it on two occasions as we left the church. When we observed that our offer hadn't been taken up, we received the strangest of replies. "May we remind you that the refusal to meet is yours" he wrote. We have assumed he was referring to our request for more time a few months previously, when he had asked that my husband present himself before the elders, seemingly to find out if we were "with him, heart and soul". In the same letter he requested that we didn't communicate with him directly, from now on we were to communicate with him only through the leader of the church we were about to join.

As I've written that paragraph I can feel some of the emotions, the confusion, the fear, the sadness. How could a request for time be twisted in such a way? Why such blatant triangulation tactics? How could the elders and trustees, our friends, agree and put their names to such a letter?

This is not a world to which it would be wise to return. If nothing else the email demonstrates that very little has changed. Perhaps if it had, the email might read more like this.

He has had a dream about you and has been thinking. He is sad about how things ended between you and is wondering if you would still like to meet. If you do he is interested in pursuing reconciliation together. Given the past he realises that this could be a painful process and you may not feel able to go through more pain at this time. The offer is open ended and if you would like to start this process then he would like you to contact him, if and when you feel ready. 

I don't think we will ever receive an email like that.

bullying?

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.

process

Writing a blog. Why am I here? Why now? I've thought about it before, but never felt a strong enough push. It seemed a luxury, self indulgent even. But now I think I need to write. Not for anyone else, although maybe I'd like some 'readers'. But I need to process and I think words on a page might help.

It's hard to know where to start. Right now I'm waiting, paused for breath between old and new. I can't quite see 'new' and I feel sad when I think about 'old'. Now is definitely OK, but it's hard to be present without past and future competing for attention.

And I find it really hard to just state the facts plainly. Maybe because those facts don't seem enough for the emotions that go with them. Paragraph three and I've managed vague references to old and new. Why can't I just say that 'old' is my church of twenty one years. My church that I'm leaving. And 'new' is a different church, perhaps a different outworking of my faith. Just writing those three sentences and I'm crying. I'm so, so sad.

So I'm going to write because I need to acknowledge how I feel. For almost seven years I've thought my emotions should be hidden. Particularly in church. But not just hidden. I've ignored my feelings, thought they weren't trustworthy. Ignoring turned out badly in the end. Perhaps more about that next time.