Running

Phase three

The nightmare was so very real. People had heard me talking to myself, they took it to mean I was possessed. God told the mentors I was possessed. That I had a demon because I talked to myself.

I had been drawing and writing and putting things up on my walls. I had all these things I had to pray, books I had to read, workbooks I had to do and scripture I had to memorise. My every move was scrutinized and they tried so very hard to break me, to break this manipulative and defiant spirit they accused me of having.
Then one day I get called into my mentors office and her second in charge is there. They performed an exorcism on me. They said they saw the spirit leave. They said to go to my room and burn everything I had made and written and to take everything off my walls and to do a cleansing prayer on my room.
I was too terrified not to do everything they asked of me. So another mentor went back with me to make sure I did as I was told.

Apparently the demon wasn't the thing holding me back though.
So against the doctors advice, they halved my low blood pressure medication, made me fast lunch and then told me I was attention seeking when I got dizzy. While also telling me I didn't need my inhaler because it was just another attention seeking thing.
The mentor that liked me, she let me have my inhaler in my room after that.
Eventually the fasting stopped and the next doctors visit they restored my usual medication.

Christmas was when we went home for a week and I visited my family and hated every minute but liked the freedom.
Church was different though, people I loved and cared about didn't want anything to do with me. It had been 6 months since the letters and I just wanted my church to love me. I can tell you that they didn't, that bitterness had taken root and everyone around seemed to be ok with that, ok with how they treated me.

But then it was back there with new bruises from my dad and more pain.

Phase four brought about change.
My mentor was switched to someone new, someone who saw me with fresh eyes and made her own calls about me rather than listening to my former mentor.

No longer were my prayer journals covered in red pen with statements saying "this is attention seeking" of parts crossed out as wrong, but she put nice stickers in them. She treated me kindly even when other mentors mistreated me.

She never made me fast again and I appreciated that so so much.

She trusted me

The final 3 months were internship. I had passed everything and I could finally countdown the days. And count I did, percentages and everything.

Still they tried to slip me up though, but by this point I was too good at being their robot that they couldn't. Finally I had weekends off, every second weekend I would stay with someone in town, usually. My first weekend off, well I didn't get it because again they wanted a reason to discipline me, I was feeling too free for their liking.
My first actual weekend off was the weekend my parents came down and the fear... I I was terrified and my dad took his chance... he did what he had done for my entire life... he had fun raping me, both my parents did...

The Sunday I went back and my mentor checked on me but I said nothing... I couldn't... It's not like they would believe me anyway...

The following weekend off I got sent to lady who was friends with one of the mentors that hated me and she told me I could be honest but then I got disciplined again... the next weekend off was spent at site as a result where I was just the other interns lacky and made to work anyway...

My last one... they found someone to take me and I wasn't hated. I wasn't mistreated. I wasn't punished. We prayed and sung hymns and I think even played board games. I was relieved the 3 months was over and relieved to graduate.

My church could never send me back again.

The months and years that followed saw me facing a new kind of hell, a new kind of abuse... an abuse that was the direct result of that rehab and those letters, one that destroyed me more... that would've killed me... if I didn't escape...

For 12 months I sang the rehabs praises, re-establishing trust and building friendships within my church, while still being so so terrified "they'll send me back, I can't go back, don't make me go back, they're watching me, I can't go back, I can't tell anyone what they did to me, I can't go back, i can't go back, don't make me go back"

I saw my parents every week and dad would drive me home and it started with inappropriate movies and conversations to then inappropriate touching in the car then to him raping me every week when he drove me home.
My mind blocked it and people at church noticed the bruises and I honestly didn't know how I got them. My mind wasn't ready to handle the truth yet.

Within 6 months of my grandmother passing away I reduced contact to then go no contact.

That's when the seizures started, vivid real sensory flashbacks, like I was reliving it in fast forward. There was someone I trusted in my church and I told her the truth, that the letters were the lies not me. She didn't believe me.
It was shortly after that that I was sexually assaulted by someone I trusted who wasn't from church. I had no one. The darkness overtook me and I started self harming again, having seizures that lasted longer than 3 hours and reliving memory after memory after memory for hours on end.

My pastor thought if I spent more time with my family I would see the truth. He would say we were catching up and then my parents, my dad would be there. It was a ruse because I wouldn't see them willingly. No contact means no contact and he didn't care.

I left in 2018. I tried doing a week without church and I hated it, it didn't feel right, so I found one.
I had stayed in touch with some from my old church and one had mentioned to my dad when he was looking for what church I'd moved to the suburb the church was in.
One of my best friends still and a dear sister to me is from that church and told me "your dad came looking today". 2 weeks later he was in my church. Less than 12 months later I had moved churches to the one I'm in now.