I have had to keep it (what happened) inside mostly for various reasons. But, that is not good for various reasons. I need to tell what happened, but only on a safe place. I think now that this is a safe place.
A lot of time has gone by, but yet a bad scar remains from the 'mark' that he made on me. It is literally called 'marking' in that church organization, when what he did to me was done. First I must regress, I was in counseling with him for the emotional, physical and sexual abuse that I received as a child from my parents. I grew to totally trust him. He said that he would always be there for me, that he cared for me. Then, I started to go through a bad spell, where I was getting very depressed and wound up in the mental hospital over a weekend (I took myself there). Shortly after that - a couple months, when I was still not feeling well, and I still had not yet found a new psychiatrist, so I didn't have one (even though I was trying hard to find one), I became very anxious... and I emailed him after one of his sermons because he said something in it that made me feel bad so I asked him to clarify. He explained, but it only served to make it worse; we weren't communicating correctly. Then I asked him if he cared about me. He said like he had said before, impatiently to take a step back and look over what he had already written to me before, or something like that, very impatiently. So, I asked him please would he just answer if he still cared about me. I was feeling suicidal right then. He had yelled at me before, and had almost 'marked' me before, but stopped when I was ill. So, I asked please do you care about me, to him. I know I should not have cared what he thought, but I was not thinking right.
He said I am NOT going to answer that. Look at what I already wrote before. That told me no, he didn't. In my suicidal mind, I emailed my friend who worked at the headquarters office and told her that if I died that night that it would be his fault. She immediately sent him the email. Guess what he did? Did he check to see if I was o.k., because he cared if I committed suicide? No!! He called me up and told me not to come back to services and that I was NOT allowed to talk to anyone in that whole church organization.
I never even heard of 'marking' anyone before that. They always talked about 'disfellowshipping' - which is forever dismissing someone from the church organization. But 'marking' - is the same thing only it is only from the local pastor not the head of the entire church organization to everyone in it. So, slowly he began telling first the heads of the different areas, then other members... not to talk to me, as they asked about me he would tell them not to talk to me, clear up until today and that was a couple of years ago, and I and my family attend another church now. This of course brings me flashbacks and is even worse than when the kids at school would get the entire school yard full of kids to chase me around the school shouting that they wanted to see a fight - just because I was different - I was taller than everyone else - I guess, and I had no friends. I was terribly scared and bullied all through school. If you have read through my posts you have read where I was almost killed by another teenager with a knife when I was just 14. Anyway, you can understand the flashbacks I got from the 'marking'. It left scars, and even on someone without these PTSD issues it would have left scars!! And that's not mentioning the hurt caused from the betrayal of a trusted friend whom you trusted with the emotional pain of an abused traumatized childhood.
Thing is, I forgive him. But, I did need to voice these thoughts and feelings. It is necessary to say and express our hurts our pain and grief so that we can let it go. Now that I have spoken it, I can let it go. In fact, one day I hope that all of my abusers will repent and we can be reconciled. Until then my forgiveness is like a gift, waiting in a package to be opened upon their repentance and conversion before God; because really, they have sinned before God, and they have wronged me their fellow human being.
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