My Honor Academy experience wasn’t nearly as overtly abusive as other people’s was. Sometimes I feel silly for even wanting to write down my story because I didn’t have any of those nutso experiences. I feel like my experiences don’t really matter because the hurts were all “little.” Even now while I’m writing this all down and getting ready to send it in, I’m asking myself if my story deserves to be listed. However, after talking about it, I realized that there was in fact a pretty big issue that was probably badly mishandled that has in all likelihood affected me in very big ways ever since I graduated and continues to affect me to this very day. But that’s at the end of the year and I’ll get there eventually. Forgive me if I ramble, I have no clue what I’ll write with this or where it will go.
My involvement with Teen Mania began in the summer of 1998. A few friends from church, including our pastor’s son, heard about TM and went on some mission trips. They came back with such a passion for God and missions and with some incredible stories of how they saw God move. I prayed and felt like I was supposed to go on a trip the next year. So, in the summer of 1999, I went on Panama Z, a two week trip. I loved it. I came back so in love with God and feeling passionate and zealous. I immediately started fundraising and saving so I could go again the next year. In 2000, I was accepted to go to Poland. However, after I was accepted, the trip was canceled and my mom and I realized we had both been feeling like Panama was really where I was called. I ended up going on Panama A, a one month trip.
I came back from Panama very much in love with the country, the culture, and the people. I still am. I absolutely would love to go back to Panama to visit. That month I had a lot of great experiences. I also realize now that it was my first experience with the elitism, legalism, and judgmentalism that exists. A girl from my team was dismissed and I felt loftier than her, that she had “sinned.” I was the better Christian because I hadn’t engaged in a relationship I wasn’t supposed to have. *snorts* I felt that I was a stronger Christian somehow than all the other teens who didn’t go on a mission trip. I was hearing God, I was sacrificing and obeying! I was horrified when a friend of mine from church was dismissed from her trip. Again with the judgmentalism. Between the two trips, I was totally convinced that I was called to go to the Honor Academy when I graduated high school. My senior year I went to a preview weekend with my parents and they came away suitably impressed. We all were.
I had a rough year in 2001 – 2002. My dad had been laid off so things were tense at home. He and my brother fought a lot and I felt like I got stuck in the middle and felt like they took their frustrations out on me. Whether that was true or not I’m not really sure. What I do know is that my brother, who was 2 ½ years younger than me but taller, was verbally, emotionally, and occasionally physically abusive. Literally every single day of my senior year he would tell me that I was dumb, stupid, fat, ugly, and no guy would ever be interested in me as anything other than a friend cuss at me, etc. This set me up for failure down the road with guys but that’s also another story. Anyways, I tried to tell a friend at church, someone I considered a very close friend and a spiritual mentor of sorts, definitely someone I looked up to. They told me that I needed to stop whining and stop throwing myself a pity party. Nobody I tried to tell at church believed that my “perfect family” could be having such a rough time; we put on a darn good façade. We later found out that my brother had started using drugs and alcohol which explains a lot, but still, it was very hurtful. I started believing my brother and even though I can look back now and know that I was FAR from fat and, quite possibly, a little too thin, I felt that I was chubby and would sometimes not eat or go try to make myself throw up.
It didn’t help that I was having a rough year socially at school. It was a small private Christian school at a Baptist church and I was one of very few non-Baptists. I, unlike them, believed in speaking in tongues, dancing, etc., and Bible class was often rather… ahem… passionate… since I didn’t hesitate to ask questions or speak up when I didn’t understand or didn’t agree. In fact, the period that I was in Bible class, our teacher ended up first banning the discussion of the subject of speaking in tongues, and then had to further forbid us from even saying the phrase/word. It got that nuts with people going off on me. I was also pretty mild mannered and soft spoken so I was a perfect target for a lot of other kids, including kids in my own class (To give you an idea of the size of the school, grades 7 – 12 totaled somewhere between 60 and 70, my graduating class, at 11 I believe it was, was larger than the year before, when 4 graduated). I was an easy target for bullying because I didn’t ever do anything to strike back. Pretty much every lunch period was spent in the cafeteria kitchen (I was friends with the lunch lady and her daughters) crying and asking why they were so mean to me. As a note, the girls from my class who were so mean to me have since come to me of their own accord asking forgiveness for how they treated me and we have come to be actual friends. I feel I should say that out of fairness to them.
Moving on. I went in to my year at the HA with this background of “Wow, I really suck. Even my brother doesn’t like me. I’m fat, dumb, stupid, etc.” and having no sense of belonging. The atmosphere of being surrounded by people my age who loved me and weren’t mean to me, of having people I could actually trust, was a balm to my wounded soul. I especially gravitated towards my brother core and some of the other guys on campus, partly because I grew up with a bunch of guys and was just super comfortable around them – mostly guy cousins, playing sports and managing the guys basketball team my senior year, etc., – partly because as far as I was concerned since no guy would ever be interested in me I (and they) had nothing to worry about from hanging out, largely in part because it was such a foreign feeling to have guys who actually treated me the way a brother was supposed to. I had always envied other girls their big brothers and certainly the last couple of years had envied anyone who had even a minimally decent and at the very least civil relationship with their brothers, so to have guys who cared about me as a sister and treated me the right way, it was huge. It was foreign. I wasn’t interested in any of them and having been homeschooled and then gone to a small private school the last few years, I had never learned the social games. I had no idea how to flirt or anything of the sort and saw guys as friends, so why wouldn’t I hang out with them? It was like a new toy!
Perhaps you can imagine my absolute shock and horror when eventually I was confronted because someone had noticed that I spent a lot of time with one of the guys in my brother core (we often sat together at class, in the Cafeteria, would chat briefly at work, that type of thing) and that they were getting the impression I had a “sunflower.” (TM speak for a crush) The thought had never entered my head. I tried to explain that that was just me being friendly and that I didn’t mean anything by it and certainly didn’t have romantic feelings but I was told that that was the impression I gave and basically, that I needed to fix it. I promised to “cool it” (I can’t remember what exact phrase I used but it was something along those lines) and then proceeded to completely ignore him. If I saw where he sat in class I would choose the farthest away seat. If he sat down near me I would get up and move as far away as possible. I refused to look at or speak to him, if I needed something from him or his office at work I would ask someone else to get it for me… “Hey, would you mind since you’re already going back there?” If I saw him walking along I sped up, dropped back, or (the preferable option) took a different path, even if it put me out of my way for where I was going. I was pretty ridiculous but I felt like that was what I had to do to prove that I was an obedient intern. I am thankful that eventually I got over being spooked and we were able to be friends again…I just didn’t spend nearly as much time with him.
Whenever I was confronted, I generally got the impression that whoever was doing the confronting was automatically right and if I tried to explain myself I was being argumentative, stubborn, and needed to have a “teachable spirit.” My experience was that confrontation did not leave room for discussion unless you wanted to have a nice chat with your CA and/or Advisor and possibly/probably end up on probation, campused, or dismissed. Throughout the entire ministry, confrontation seemed in quite a lot of cases to be in a more judgmental spirit, with an attitude of looking down one’s nose at the other, than the loving one it should have been with an open mind to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you really did misunderstand/misinterpret whatever you were confronting the person about and certainly a willingness to hear them out.
I look back now and I think it is absolutely ridiculous that I couldn’t speak up for myself without fear of getting in trouble. I also think it’s ridiculous that whether or not you were confronted for how much time you spent with a guy or how you dressed seemed dependent on how attractive and popular you were.
Speaking of how you were dressed, that was another thing I got told I needed to be better about. My appearance. I grew up make-up free and without an emphasis on popular fashion. My style was (I suppose is still) very eclectic. One day I’d wear something cowboy, the next I was girly girl, the next I was professional, the next I was preppy, the next rocker, etc. Not to be a poser, just because I liked various styles and felt like dressing in different ways. I had a cowboy hat (black felt with a tan band) that I absolutely loved. I wore it with pretty much everything. Another favorite was that I liked to pull my hair back under a bandanna, sort of like a headband. It reminded me of my mission trips to Panama and I liked how it looked. However, I was told that I needed to start putting more effort into my appearance. I needed to start actually doing something with my hair and spend some time on my makeup and try to look nicer, and not just “throw my hair back in a ponytail” or “throw on a hat or a bandanna” because I needed to look my best for God and be respectful of others. This reinforced my belief that my brother was right and I was ugly. Looking back, who CARES if I wanted to wear a ponytail every single day? I’m pretty sure God didn’t, nor did He care if I spent any time whatsoever on my makeup.
5 comments:
Ericsays:January 9, 2012 at 10:25 AMReply
Emotional abuse and bullying can be every bit as harmful and destructive as the more “overtly abusive” forms of cruelty. There are many news stories in recent years of young people who have been driven to suicide by bullying. It’s simply unconscionable for Honor Academy to foster an environment where those forms of abuse are seen as acceptable (when they’re couched in polite Christianese of course; “confronting” my gluteus!)
To say that your story doesn’t matter because your hurts are too little is to say that you don’t matter because you are too little. Neither is true.
That redheaded onesays:January 9, 2012 at 11:32 AMReply
Your hurts are just as valid as others. I would hazard to guess there are many who may read this part of your story and realize that many of these things that they felt not right about during their year are the same ones you felt from day one take heart you are not alone!
Anonymoussays:January 9, 2012 at 2:59 PMReply
i have a question for someone about the being spooked around the boy thing.
what causes is that? i know a lot of girls that felt that way.
how did guys respond?
Anonymoussays:January 9, 2012 at 4:18 PMReply
Elizabeth, you have every right to tell your story- what you went through was damaging. Emotional and spiritual abuses are the hardest to get over, because they hit to the core of your soul and can damage your identity in the Lord. I am glad to hear your story, because it helps me to know how to respond to those who are hurting. This kind of religiosity is destroying the loving relationship we are to have with Christ Jesus. He never taught this kind of Christianity and it is sinful.
The Lord bless and keep you.
shannon-ashleysays:January 9, 2012 at 5:46 PMReply
Elizabeth, I’m so glad you shared your story. It’s true that your hurts at the HA are as valid as anyone else’s. A lot of abuse goes unreported because we feel that people will judge us for being whiny, etc. but the truth is that you are brave to speak out about your experiences.
Your story resonates with me because I felt many similar things during my time with TM. And I did the same thing when I was confronted about guys I had no interest in–I completely avoided them, and that spilled into my college years. If anyone mentioned that someone thought I liked so-and-so, I would go as far as being rude to avoid that person.
I am interested to hear the rest of your story. These “little” things infiltrate our souls so subtlety but the truth is they are small at all. These are wounds from a ministry we trusted to help us hear God’s voice, and what they ended up telling us was that we were always wrong, always broken, etc.
Thank you again for sharing.