By: JANA GREENE
Can we talk honestly about denial in the name of religion?
For most of my marriage, I have unintentionally masked. I told my husband everything, but not everything. Not intentionally by sin of omission, but because I couldn’t – I had stuffed it so far up my own ass for survival’s sake, I had built up a memory meltdown. Let’s just move forward. But you can’t move forward until you switch the gearshift from reverse. Otherwise, it’s just idling.
And it worked, for many years. If I was upset, I’d stuff it. Or banished it in the name of JESUS. Traumatic memory would surface, but I would rebut it with but you’re happy NOW. And to be honest, if some of it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe it. It’s a got-damn wonder I am not locked away somewhere to protect me from myself, much less sober.
One of the reasons I am estranged from members of my family of origin is that they know. They know, they remember, and so long as there is distance, they don’t have to make amends. I have accepted that they can’t. I only write about the least violent incidents. I polish it up pretty nicely. I am not saying all that I could say, I promise you that. My intention is not to make anyone uncomfortable, but if it does, maybe it should. I am writing this transparently because I know so many, many souls are walking wounded here, being told that their trauma has been Houdini-ed in the name of Jesus, but still feeling bereft.
But I will admit I remain damaged, and that is okay. It all took a toll. How silly to expect growing up in an environment of daily screaming, physical violence – and indeed the worst thing that can be done to a little girl – is expected to be taped over by some of the laughs and good times, like an unfortunate VHS performance. That’s what a lot of people won’t tell you about growing up in an abusive home. There were good times too. I suppose they are supposed to override the bad? But the bad was bad, and it’s stuck in my gray matter, petrifying until solid, since childhood. I was steeped in it.
I dealt with it by Denial by Religion and Busyness. I engrossed myself in ALLTHETHINGS, all the distractions, the past 20 years. Raising three teenagers. Battling a chronic, as-of-then undiagnosed illness. Pretending to give a rat’s ass about my “career” – ANY “career.” Launching two city-wide recovery programs. Getting Recovery Coach Certification.
Need a greeter at the church? OKAY! Need a prayer person to pray with people crushed by their own abuse and pain? I’m ON IT. Fuck my own damage, let me weave sincere and elaborate prayers for the hurting. God is good. Amen?
I was getting up early every day to have coffee with Jesus and Joyce Meyer. Just feels like the devil is stompin’ me when I miss Joyce! I would say (and sincerely mean it.) Later, be the best wife, because you have the best husband. Your marriage is proof that miracles still happen. Don’t fuck it up with your trauma and neediness! Be the best friend, mother, warrior, Bible-reader. Smile, even though the physical pain is searing. Smile, even though you have unresolved trauma like some people have freckles. It’s all in your head anyway, you’re crazy. (It’s all in your head may be the gaslightiest self-gaslight of them all.)
I mentored the crap out of anybody with a heart-wound in those years. And for that, I am not sorry. Everyone broke my heart. Everybody got a little piece of me. Every ounce of trauma was healed in the NAME OF JESUS, AMEN?! God gave me permission to stuff it, what with all the Christian counseling I’d gotten that taught me to “pray it out!” It’s been CAST OUT, as far as the EAST from the WEST! God’s ways are not our ways, brethren.
In other words, GET OVER IT.
So, the trauma sat. Because whether by flaw of character or complete ignorance, I couldn’t seem to get over it. It took residence in my body, every tissue marked by it.
In all of us lives a whole preschool of children. Not in a multiple personality way, but layered like a cake of a hundred of layers. As many layers as went into our development, as many memories went into the batter at that time. We live in the frosting – the Present – but we sit upon years of joys and sorrows, expectations and traumas. Without it, there is no reason for the frosting. But frosting is no good all on its own.
My inner 4-year old’s pain hasn’t been cast out – ironically, because she had been cast out all her little life. Just try telling your 4-year-old that memories aren’t ghosts, and POOF! they are all gone because words were said over her, named and claimed. That’s not fair to her.
Joyce Mayer’s loud, booming voice frightens her. The Lord comforts her, but not in a magical instant as advertised. She used to hide in her toybox, when things got loud at home. The lid to the box slowly lifting with a great creak, and a hand of assistance is offered. It isn’t a “one and done” experience, though – that lifting. Every day, she hides in her toybox to some degree, and every day, the lid is lifted, the sun pours in, and a hand is offered. So, I, in my 4-year-old wisdom, take the hand again and again, and sometimes, that is what grace looks like – what miracles look like. We want out of the toybox altogether, but we do it by taking the hand every day, even when things are scary.
Getting the chance to nurture her with the help of The Greatest Therapist of All Time (PERIOT!) is an honor and privilege. I hope to hear out all the past versions of Me, with a little more compassion now. And I am writing raw for the first time, instead of just idling.
Blessed be, friends.
(Part 2 to come…)
Words by Jana Greene 
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