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Normal, healthy response to abnormal, unhealthy treatment

Writer's picture: Ruth WiseRuth Wise

In early 2020, I went to see a psychiatrist within my UCLA medical network. I was having symptoms of anxiety, depression, panic… all making it impossible for me to function as a middle school teacher (my full-time job).


I explained to that doctor the shortest version possible of the recent couple years’ events in my life. I was 100% transparent with her. There was no way I could fully encapsulate everything, but I tried to tell her as much as I could to get any possible help. I’d exhausted myself trying to get help from my church community, though I was experiencing extreme abuse from someone who was an elder, trainer, and church board member - who was/is also my husband, the father of our precious young-adult children, who were also suffering similar symptoms as I was…. And the abuse was not from one angle within the church, but from my in-laws and other prominent church members, as well, from whom I had been seeking help.


The doctor told me at the end of my appointment that I was doing the right thing to take some time off work and to seek medical attention, but that in her assessment I was exhibiting a healthy, normal response to a very unhealthy and abnormal situation.


I thanked her and began taking the medicine she prescribed to treat my anxiety and depression, and have continued getting therapy and joining support groups as consistently as possible since then.


Over 4 years have passed. As I’m starting a new school year as a middle school teacher, I am taking the "mandated reporter" training required every year. Today I read and watched videos about abuse, neglect, and mandated reporters’ responsibilities.


I will post a blog soon related to mandating reporting, because I have been told and observed throughout my experiences over these past years that many leaders in "the" church don’t know what to do when facing situations like mine, situations that minimally should raise reasonable suspicion of abuse.


Legally, members of clergy are mandated reporters just like teachers. My abuse did not start in my adult years; it started when I was a minor, and I should have been protected and helped then by leaders in the church. Instead, some leading ones have been perpetrators of abuse, responsible for cruelty rather than bearing the responsibility of shepherding the flock. And those perpetrators' fellow responsible ones cover up the works of darkness and shame the victims and witnesses that dare to speak out. But that’s another topic.


What I want to focus on in this blog post is the normal and healthy response human beings should have to have to an abnormal and unhealthy situation, whether the situation is their own or another person's situation. My training included extensive information about the effects of hearing about others' experiences of abuse that mandate our reporting.


Victims are seriously affected by abuse, living with the aftermath, often, for the rest of their lives. Those who become exposed indirectly to abuse are also likely to suffer what is called secondary traumatic stress (STS). When we become aware of a fellow human being's suffering, we can experience the same symptoms that they go through. This is human, it is normal, and it is also scriptural. When one member suffers, all the members in a body suffer.


Here are a few notes I took from my Mandated Reporter training:


Being exposed to the abuse of another person can cause Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). 

Symptoms of STS can be similar to that of the direct victim of abuse, including intrusiveness, hypervigilance, and suspicion of others. Symptoms can be categorized as:

1. Cognitive symptoms (powerlessness, avoidance, isolation, failure, doubt of one's instincts)

2. Emotional symptoms (anxiety, stress, frustration, anger, guilt, sorrow)

3. Physical symptoms (depression, sleeping difficulties, body aches, headaches, fatigue, ulcers)


However, in my church community, I was raised under a teaching that we should avoid any “negative” speaking - anything that gives us any sense of sorrow, depression, pain, heaviness…. referred to as "the sense of death”. I was taught that if we avoid anything that gives us such senses of death, we will then have "life and peace." This is based on an interpretation of Romans 8:6.


[From a quick search... Here is a sample of such teaching. A short excerpt: "Most of the teachings of today’s Christianity are focused on morality and good behavior. They do not care for this inner sense of life functioning to make us know whether we are living in the natural life or in the divine life. Since we are seeking after Christ as our life, we must take care of this sense of life. If we do not have the positive sensations of strength, satisfaction, peace, rest, release, liveliness, watering, brightness, comfort, etc., we must realize that we are not living in the divine life; it must be that we are living in the natural life." And another: "All of the saints are lovable, and no one is worthy of being criticized, so we do not need to spend time on the negative things....

"From now on I hope there will be no more negative talk. Whenever you hear something negative, remind one another not to talk in this way. Say something positive, wonderful, and beautiful." (From http://www.ministrysamples.org/excerpts/OUR-SHORTAGE-OF-THE-SPIRIT.HTML)]


I hope my concern is clear: When a member is suffering due to treatment of others in the church, there must be a way to speak and to be heard, though speaking about untenable abuse is not "positive, wonderful, and beautiful". If targets of abuse are mandated to speak only positive things, they can be (and are) silenced and shunned and shamed, abusers can fool congregations by speaking "positive, wonderful, and beautiful" words, and silent abuse is perpetuated. One cannot and should not be expected to speak to no one in the church, and only to go to legal authorities, to avoid "negative speaking" among their church family members.... If someone indeed needs to go to law enforcement, someone in their church community is likely needed to help and guide them in that direction.


My mandated reporter training left no room for teachers to avoid "negative speaking", for teachers to shut down reports of child abuse, whether being made by a victim or a witness, by a child, a colleague, or anyone else. One is not legally allowed to silence a person speaking out about abuse, even if the sense that the teacher gets is pain, anxiety, fear, isolation, or depression. A teacher is required to listen, even if the result is inconvenient, emotionally painful, physically sickening, or cognitively crippling - sleeplessness, anger, or a host of other symptoms caused by traumatic experiences. Mandated reporters must be there for the vulnerable, because we are a line of defense in our community. We are responsible for the safety and well-being of our students - not as specialists, but as caring adults in their lives.


Church members, especially "responsible" ones (referred to as clergy in many Christian circles), bear responsibility for the safety and well-being of their congregation - typified in the Bible by shepherds of sheep. No, they are not generally trained specialists in such cases - just as we teachers are usually not trained doctors or therapists or law enforcement officers. They are normal humans who care, who are likely to suffer from Secondary Traumatic Stress, but who accept that risk because the alternative is perpetual abuse of the vulnerable, at the hands of evildoers, resulting in trauma that affects generations to follow. They are normal and healthy people responding to abnormal, unhealthy behaviors.


As a teacher, I am legally required to complete training on mandating reporting, to do my part to prevent abuse in our community by adhering to human government's protocol. If I don't meet that requirement, I can lose my job and even be put in jail. As God's people, what requirements are on us? Micah 6:8 says that our Lord requires that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. Let's all take His requirement seriously. Abuse and neglect have no part in healthy and normal communities of people, made in the image of their Creator, living as their Lord requires: acting justly, loving kindness, and walking humbly with their God.


P.S. The day after writing the above... I am now reviewing laws on harassment. Again, I have been told by a church elder that if any law is broken, one should go straight to legal authorities (He added, "Full stop.") However, sometimes it takes decades for a victim to process unlawful violation of one's person and rights, and in a church setting, I believe complaints about offenses should be taken seriously, and victims/witnesses should never be silenced, threatened and shamed when seeking help from "responsible" ones (or from whomever they feel safe and comfortable enough to open to).

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