For most of my life, my story was dictated to me. God had already planned my days, and if I wanted to honor him, I was supposed to follow my father’s interpretation of the Bible in order to fulfill God’s plan.

I was always a secondary character in this story. One could say the protagonist was God, the controller of the universe, but since he’s invisible, his stand-in was my father, eventually to be replaced by my future husband.

I remember once as a twenty-four-year-old, when I was trying to assert myself, I was told, “You can think whatever you want, but you can’t act on it.” That statement encapsulated the essence of the spiritual abuse I was experiencing…

ArticleCait WestApril 14, 2022spiritual abuse, abuse, church abuse, narrative therapy, storytelling, sharing stories, christian patriarchy, stay at home daughter, exfundie, exvangelical, exfundamentalist, deconstruction, therapy, mental health, healingComment

Silent No More

Sometimes I write because I want to talk back to the patriarchy, the fundamentalists, the Vision Forum thought leaders who spoke into my life so much, with so much damage. Who put law above love. I want to be authentic with who I am and what I have experienced, speaking after so long of being unable to use my voice. . . .

JournalCait WestOctober 29, 2020silence, patriarchy, feminism, misogyny, survivor, abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, church abuse, churchtoo, trauma, fundamentalism, vision forumComment