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| Graham Chapman / Monty Python |
Everyone who has walked through the process knows that moment well when they felt the foundations of their trust fail. It's a point at which the the pain necessary to maintain group membership suddenly, significantly, and painfully outweighs any benefit and gain. I believe that people who remain in a group often have such moments, too, but they choose to ignore the conflict so that they can remain a part of their group.
Upon
reading my
account of my experience with my pastor, one might think that
this relationship served as the epicenter of my dissatisfaction with
the church. I would say that it was the “last straw” after
countless seemingly small problems or perhaps the first “nail in
the coffin.” My understanding of how my church abandoned and
blamed wives for domestic abuse under gender hierarchy unfolded over
time, finally culminating in the painful realization that my pastor
abandoned a woman who called him for help from a locked basement.
This was really just a metaphor for the authoritarian rule and leader
privilege/preference within the group which I knew prevailed but did
not want to acknowledge or admit. That tension accumulated over
time.
My pastor's response to the woman in the basement
was just my epiphany moment –
the peak of the crescendo in the mounting cognitive
dissonance. For my husband, his moment came when he was
summoned to an elder's meeting where he was interrogated
and falsely accused of challenging the authority of the elders.
(He'd actually written to them to address what he believed was a
critical need within the congregation and to offer help.)
In
hindsight however, when my husband and I were able to step back from
the group and learned about spiritual abuse, we realized that we
really “awakened” to the true nature of the group gradually. We
finally became willing to entertain doubts and confusion that we
experienced and suppressed once we'd exited the Honeymoon Phase and
entered the Tension Phase of our tenure there. (Read
more about the cycle of spiritually abusive groups HERE.)
The
Splinter In Your Mind
When the
“honeymoon phase” ends, a member begins to notice irregularities
in their group experience that don't quite make sense to them.
Because things have been very positive up until that point, it seems
to be reasonable (and is much easier) to attribute these
irregularities and poorly explained situations to chance because of
confirmation
bias. That bias is something of a “mental shortcut” for us,
shaped by what we already believe and want to keep believing.
One of
my own favorite descriptions of what this feels like can be found in
The Matrix
film in the scene wherein Morpheus offers Neo the choice between the
blue and the red pill. You feel that there is something wrong with
your church, but you have no substantive evidence or time or
opportunity to think through the matter at hand. You just have a
pervasive sense that things are just wrong. Morpheus describes this
feeling of dissonance when he talks about the “world
that has been pulled down over [Neo's] eyes to blind [him] from the
truth.” You know that
there's something wrong, but you don't know how or where to begin to
understand it. You don't know that there are predictable dynamics
in manipulative groups, and you don't have the language to describe
them. The feeling of dissonance is the “splinter
in your mind.”
In
the film, Morpheus seeks out Neo and presents him with a moral
choice. Does he want to stay in a dream world, or does he want to
see the truth? In spiritually abusive groups, tension, painful
circumstances, and open conflict push the member to a similar place
of choice.
The
Shelf of Dissonance
I
recently attended a lecture which gave an overview of the process of
recruitment and exit from spiritually abusive groups, and the offered
this analogy that a former member offered to describe this crescendo
of confusion (cognitive dissonance) that culminates in that moment of
epiphany.
Think of
each moment of the confusion created by cognitive dissonance as an
object that can be placed on a shelf. Because the group uses so much
deception and manipulation, those items accumulate over time. The
more serious moral matters end up weighing more, too. The death,
demise, or resignation of a beloved group leader becomes a very heavy
item.
Eventually,
that shelf breaks, and the member of a spiritually
abusive system must come to terms with the accumulation of so many
instances of inconsistencies, deception, and mistreatment of self and
others. At this point, the person must make their own moral choice
about whether they want to exit the group (picking up and
re-examining and interpreting the past events with discernment).
This is the point where people will start seeking information about
spiritual abuse so that they can make sense out of what happened to
them. Some people make the moral choice to stay in dream land.
Instead of using a shelf to hold their dissonance, they abandon the
shelf and convert it to a heap on the floor.
Waiting
for the Epiphany Moment
If you
have concerns about a loved one who has joined a spiritually abusive
group, it is very unlikely that they will leave before they've had a
painful epiphany. If they are enthralled in the honeymoon phase of
their experience with the group and its leader, they will not be
willing to entertain doubts. Think of an infatuation when someone
has started to fall in love. That person will not listen to anything
negative about their love interest. But approach a wife who has been
battered a few times or a husband with a wife who has cheated on him,
and they will likely be more willing to hear about your concerns.
You must wait for the person's willingness to see the truth. They
will first need to accumulate a few weightier items on the shelf of
avoidance in their mind to have reason to listen to you. Their own
pain as they progress through the cycle of abuse will prepare them to
hear what you have to say. In the meanwhile, prepare to help them by
learning about the dynamics of spiritual abuse and thought reform.
This will also help them heal when they are ready. Remember that
most people walk away from spiritual abuse on their own (after their
mental shelf of doubt breaks).
