The Confusing Complexity of Religious Abuse

Trigger Warning: This post discusses religious trauma and spiritual abuse. Please prioritize your well-being while reading

Reading about Complex-PTSD leaves me with two distinct impressions: (1) I definitely have CPTSD, and (2) I barely relate to any of the examples. How did I get this trauma?

My parents don’t display clear indicators of toxic personality disorders, and their consistent neglect seems minor to me. My physical needs were taken care of, affection was displayed, and despite the issues, my parents were proud of me at times. My father’s lectures and moods were unpleasant, his drinking was limited to a few beers (daily), my mother fell short of fully soothing me when needed, but would still try, and so on.

Nobody at church was directly harming me (seemingly). They all had smiles and superficial presentations of well-being, offered good conversation, and stories of travel. So, at 12 years old, I became a baptized member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was told the baptism represented my commitment to God, but the commitment to the religion took precedence. However, I wouldn’t discover the true demands of the organization until my high school graduation.

The Abusive Organization

My first clear trauma happened when I was 13-14 years old, but the trauma grew out of already existing dysfunction instead of dysfunction emerging from the trauma. Let me explain.

In lieu of an individual abuser, the Jehovah’s Witnesses evenly distribute abuse and neglect by tying themselves to the abusive organizational structure of the religion. Every baptized member is forced into dysfunction by the threat of “disfellowshipment” if any of the strict moral codes are broken without “remorse,” and the judge of remorsefulness is left up to a judicial committee of three elders. What happens after disfellowshipment is public shaming and complete ostracization from the religious community. If one wants to return, they must attend every public meeting indefinitely without speaking to any other members, with limited exceptions granted to family relations.

Only very recently has the organization begun to reform due to state pressure and various lawsuits.

In short, an off-brand Sword of Damocles hovers over every baptized member, which may fall the moment they smoke a cigarette and enjoy it. Meanwhile, some abusers are actively protected by the JW’s judicial criteria. They believe that if someone is accused of wrongdoing and they don’t admit their fault, two people must witness the abuse directly to punish the wrongdoer. Meaning, anything done in private between two people can be denied, and nothing will be done. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the horrors of such a policy.

Living in alignment with such policies makes every faithful member an abuser. Period. The level of abuse may be low individually, but it compounds collectively.

Within the abusive organization, every member must develop wide-ranging trust issues, strong personas to mask normal human messiness, and many resort to covert addiction and serious abuse to maintain the facade. True love and support are virtually impossible since any confided mistake or struggle could be reported to the elders and result in disfellowshipment.

The Elders participate in a psychopathic contest to maintain purity within the congregation in order to advance in the organization. Some elders go so far as to perform surprise visits to members’ houses to ensure there aren’t Christmas trees installed or anything else “anti-Christian” lying around the house. Music tastes, dress, grooming, speech, educational advancement, and so on are regulated and policed by the elders.

Even now, after being disfellowshipped for over 10 years, if any JW I once knew finds this article, I may be labeled as an “apostate” and “mentally diseased” servant of Satan’s world, which the organization will still try to use against me to retain control.

Where Things Get Confusing

Without the abusive organizational structure, I doubt I’d have C-PTSD or PTSD today, even if I experienced all of my eventual traumas. The fracturing and distrust within my family due to organizational priorities is the primary cause of the neglect I faced. This is where my first clear trauma comes in as a telling example.

When I was around 13-14 years old, a friend of the family discovered that his daughter had been abused by another family friend’s son. The abuser, whom we’ll call Jake, was a year older than me, and though we lived states apart, I thought he was my best friend. When the news came out, and the police got involved, Jake accused me of being the abuser and that his daughter falsely accused him. Jake was eventually convicted, and I was cleared, and nobody doubted the outcome, besides my parents.

My father sat me down one day and stated his position: he and my mother would remain agnostic and support whatever decision the courts came to. This was a serious matter, and they wouldn’t take it lightly. I did not understand and remain unconvinced that I fully understand this decision. However, I can see how the organization’s extreme individualization of guilt and punishment tied into my father’s decision. He may have thought that this would serve as a character-building experience, but he may have been afraid of getting caught up in the religious fallout if I was guilty and he backed me.

At the time, I was only confused and internalized that I had done something deeply wrong without knowing it. Regardless, in a couple of weeks, I was betrayed by most of the people I loved and did not know why.

What (I think) it All Means

A lifetime of trying to live in and by the rules of an abusive organization can convince someone that betraying their son is the moral thing to do. An otherwise self-reflective, caring person can become a vehicle for abuse if the organization they belong to has an abusive structure. The ambiguity of my abusers being victims themselves and plausibly unaware of the abuse they produce is overwhelming. The only abuser I can accuse and fully blame is the set of abusive policies and organizational incentives of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion.

Sometimes, I crave the seeming simplicity of having one clearly toxic person as an abuser, but I think my experience sheds light on a largely unrecognized and invisible form of psychological abuse, organizational abuse. A bad job, political cause, religion, or hobby group can suck people into a structure that makes them abusive to others in the organization and/or at home.

Photo credit: Unsplash

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