Christ is the Head of this house
So far, in parts 1-17 of my story of what I needed to do to survive psychopathic parenting, I have talked alot about emotional abuse, emotional neglect, narcissism and the drama triangle, and the eggshells that had top be continually walked upon. I haven’t really talked about the spiritual weaponising that associated all of this as I grew up.
At the same time as all of the events I have described went on, it was all occurring in a ‘home’ that outwardly professed to be a ‘Christian’ one. So much so, that for most times in my life I would have said ‘I grew up in a Christian home’ . Now id say I grew up in an abusive home and my parents also had an evangelical faith.
What did this mean?
It meant that I grew up with a distorted sense of God.
‘Family’ mealtimes of course included ‘saying grace’ – but also this ritual meant having to be ‘serious’ and ‘saying grace properly’ – and at times having to be thankful for food that was delivered with little care or value.
Breakfast was accompanied by an elongated daily bible reading – usually ‘Our Daily Bread’ and lengthy prayers by the parents afterwards.
The unseen guest
Prayers that were often messages, sorry, prayers that were messages of morality to us as children. Im not going to say that they didnt pray for exams or issues (that they knew about) – but thats not really what I remember. This time was enforced on me (us as it included may sister too) , it was as important as the eating part.
It enforced daily that God was on their side. It enforced daily a time that they projected outwards to keep casting moral messages to us as children. They knew God, God was on their side. God was a weapon they used to control our behaviour.
The Silent listener
‘We pray that we (though looking at me) dont behave like the older child when the prodigal returned (on the brief occasion my sister started going to church)’
‘We pray that the lost are returned, and you accept us when we return (looking at my sister who had stopped going to church)’
There were many that were worse than this.
Im not sure that the writers of ‘Our Daily Bread’ had this in mind, when they ensured that evangelical parents were starting every day with this, and reading it publically in front of their children as a control, a weapon.
Christ is the Head of this House
The Unseen guest at every meal
The Silent listener of every conversation
Was hung bold and in a red (not green) background large and proud in the dining room.
On a blood red background.
In a place where it had to be walked past every day to get the kitchen, or to where our shoes were kept in the back room.
It was put there as deliberately.
God was on their side. God was to be terrified of.
God was watching us. (he wasnt watching them)
In his book ‘Ghost Ship’ A.D.A France-Williams writes…
My mum would point to this piece of terror art and use it as a motif of her and Gods total surveillance. So whatever I was getting up to at home, I was being watched
A.D.A France-Williams (2020)
My mum would always sit on the side of the table nearest the kitchen. That may have been one reason. The other was that it meant that, as she dominated every conversation, that picture was in view behind her head. She didnt point to it, as the author of Ghost ship described. In my case the picture was to be as feared as its message.
God was to be terrified of. He was no help in the emotional abuse, in fact he was on their side.
A.D.A was right though. This was terror art.
We were being literally watched.
From being Sunday school leaders and Primary school dinner ladies. We were being watched.
If we didnt behave in church that morning, or in Sunday school, there were repercussions afterwards.
They were watching, God was watching. God was to be terrified of, because she was to be terrified of. The God who was said to be about love – was delivered by the parents with bucketloads of added fear, terror and morality.
God was abused by them.
As an older teenager , who fearfully stayed within the box, I remember going to one of the bigger christian festivals in the mid to late 1990’s, and someone there talked about ‘Father God’ and if what we might need do ‘if people have a poor image of God because of a damaged relationship with their Dad’. Which is all perfectly legitimate. But I wonder about what space there was to talk about a damaged relationship with God, because of the way that he was presented as a child. What about the effect an abusive mother who was a powerful evangelical woman, could have on the image of a child, a teen..and me? What about, as I know now, that God the father to me was unprotective, abused and also silent?
As she damaged the whole family, doing so claiming that God was on her side.
Fast forward 40 odd years to me writing this now. looking back, what did I do to survive?
I did what I had to do, and that was try not to upset or go against them, or make things difficult for them. Those eggshells to navigate on the ground were multi facetted. I conformed, out of fear. And eventually, and only because they left that church, it could become a place of safety. (Yes, they left the church, thats been a common pattern ever since)
Its no wonder I grew up with a large dose of evangelical fear and self loathing . I internalised all of that fear, guilt, shame. I hid myself, disconnected, and ultimately ran away as far, geographically as I could.
Before then though, I had started to re think God. I felt home, and also something of a different God in places where I felt safe. However, I, took on the same devout faith as them, usually not because I wanted to, but because I thought it was make them proud or pleased of me. An impossible task, as I have realised now. Its what abuse does to you, you keep going back for more beatings even if you’re carrying a bunch of flowers, flowers you think they will like.
I did discover that God was and is love. Though removing the shed skin of being traumatically terrified of God can be hard to shift.
Im working on what faith is, beyond trauma, in the midst of reconnecting with myself all the time. Im learned that I dont have to keep going back to God with flowers to show my efforts. I can do what was always words sung, I can ‘be still’. Be still and know. As I’m learning to know myself, and to be myself, im discovering faith new again.
James Ballantyne 
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