Emotional Repression From Abuse and Religion

Crimes of Emotion: Emotional Toxicity and Repression in Christian Fundamentalism.

From the video above:

"Our emotions play a huge part in our ability to navigate daily life,and the distorted emotional responses drilled into us by relentless rehearsal in the abusive environment can disrupt our functioning at the most subtle levels"

All my life every emotion was invalidated except by very few. Every ACON knows the results of being made into a narc puppet where you are trained to shut down all "unacceptable" emotions" and how this pans out in one's life leaving you as a target to new narcissists and dividing you from yourself. Narcissistic parents shout, "I will give you something to cry about!" and "Why are you laughing like that?" They tell us how to feel, aka smile at Mommy and Daddy's work party and pretend like life is great or else!

Theramin Tree compares high control religion groups with dictatorial gods that mandate certain emotions and love and how they operate the exact same as narcissistic families, that shut down emotional honesty and put compliance and conformity first.

This video reminded me of one subject I wrote about earlier, where I believed my drinking of the fundamentalist Kool-Aid was related to my earlier narcissistic abuse.  Others told me what to feel rather then emotions being able to lead the way.

  As I age, I have been dealing with serious problems regarding emotional repression. There's few places to express any and trying to seek after authentic ways of being are difficult.  This area is so reticient to the max. Think "Minnesota Nice" married to extreme Midwestern reservation. I haven't even seen an argument in public in 15 years. There was no getting used to this.

You never know if someone is really mad at you or not. The other day online, with an online support group of understanding people, I wrote, "I wish I had friends to cuss with!" Well I do with Mr. Peep, but there was something that overtook me, where the cloaking from Aspergers and survival fear, made me more of a repressed reserved person to the extreme. It's like I am two people, around him I will joke and cuss, and am loud and talkative, but in public and social situations, I feel like I am measuring words with teaspoons, and it has gotten worse as I got older. Also the going deaf does not help.

Some of this is happened because I didn't want narcissists to feed. Vulnerability in too many cases meant the predators came in, but now I feel so shut down.

Some people tell me "find your tribe" but whoever they are, they aren't talking and emoting around here. Tribes are found far easier online. Some ACONs may find that learning to feel their emotions outside of the mandates of negative religions and families is a process.  We also realize the lessons missed in expressing emotions around regular people to the point it's even hard to show positive ones. At least we start listening to ourselves and our "inner voice" instead of those who tell us to shut up constantly.

Those who deconvert, realize how much their religion gave them an image of a "good Christian" they were supposed to follow and how this was tied into emotional repression. The demanded constant "thought policing" of Christianity now pisses me off. Prayer even seems to be a demanding "numbing" ritual that focuses on thoughts instead of actually "doing" something. It upset me how I was trained to control my own thoughts as "not being good enough". "Don't be mad at mother, be forgiving!" "You shouldn't have negative thoughts about others, it's wrong!" even if said negative thoughts are sounding the warning cry! "Give people the benefit of the doubt" and so forth.

Then as we are told to shut down other emotions, the demands to produce fake emotions is constantly there.

For Christians, this is centered around being nice, and kind and "gentle" especially for women who are told that meek, mild and "having a servant's heart" is the way to go. If you are a brash, loud, more aggressive person, this is like being shoved into a box that is too tight.

The one demanded emotion is love. In Christianity we are told to "love" everyone. Thinking about this while some people are lovable, and add great things to your life, I thought about how I was told to love people who treated me like crap. Love itself gets degraded when it's expected to be shared with everyone.

Speaking up for yourself was considered "sin", so much was centered around being a doormat. Often, I felt guilt inside because I did not love everyone, I felt neutral towards most, loving towards friends or kind strangers or cute children, but there were people who did not bring out feelings of affection. Even yelling at someone who almost drove into you, was considered "sin".  Somehow I was supposed to manufacture this new "persona" of loving benevolence towards all, the problem is that it was fake. The "love everyone" stuff puts toxics in charge and makes doormats of others when one is told to shut down their own thinking about how they truly feel about someone. If you think about this, teaching people to have no preferences breaks down alliances between them and gives a church organization far more control. 

One thing mentioned in the video is how we are told to love God, and there is this idea of producing an emotion for what I believe now is an imaginary being, that never takes the time to interact with us. Somehow we are supposed to drum up intense feelings of affection for Mr. Silent Treatment. What does this do to the human psyche to drum up intense feelings for a Being that simply refuses to talk back? Here too, we have entered the realm of manufactured emotions. How can you truly love and know someone outside an imaginary sense if they offer no personality or words back?

Like life with narcissists, you are told to love your mother and father no matter what they do to you, and the same applies to God, "Though he may slay me, I will trust in him" Job says. That is the epitome of what we are told to all say when it comes to our abusers. God can do anything to you, let your life become a bombed out crater, betray, remain silent, indifferent, show no love or response to you [since it does not exist the way they say it does] and you are to remain a smiling cipher singing songs of praise at your evangelical or fundamentalist church. So Theramin Trees brings up great points about how our emotions are repressed in both toxic religion and in toxic families.

"People who've been subjected to different kinds of abusive environments often show highly convergent themes in their descriptions of their experiences. Years ago, when I began talking in depth with people who'd been recruited by religious and pseudoscientific high-control groups,

hearing them recount their experiences was like hearing a gigantic tuning fork resonating at my own pitch.

Their observations about life inside a high-control group echoed private observations I'd made about my life inside a narcissistic family.was the same divisiveness, where loyalty to the dictatorship came before any personal relationship between other members;

the same social isolation tactics, trying to sabotage external relationships with friends or lovers,

the same attempts to maintain child-like dependence.

Parallels have repeatedly been noticed between scriptural tales of vengeful, dictatorial gods and abusive relationships, noting the same threat of dehumanising brutality, the same capriciousness generating erratic, inconsistent demands. the same sense of all-pervading invasion into every aspect of the target's life, with no boundaries and no privacy. The details of abuse vary from situation to situation, with different levels of intensity or sadism.

but the essential underlying mechanics merge.

At their core, all abusive environments are about gaining coercive control over others.

So, it's not surprising that abusive individuals and groups of all kinds -religious, political, academic, familial, romantic -converge on the same manipulative tactics to get people to sacrifice their autonomy and authenticity, and submit to fixed roles."

  I've realized with age, I have been dealing with serious problems regarding emotional repression. It may be the area I live in, it is so reticient here, it drives me nuts. The other day online, with an online support group of understanding people, I wrote something like I wish I had friends to cuss with! Well I do with Mr. Peep, but there was something that overtook me, where the cloaking from Aspergers and survival fear, made me more of a repressed reserved person to the extreme. It's like I am two people, around him I will joke and cuss, and am loud and talkative, but in public and social situations, I feel like I am measuring words with teaspoons, it gotten worse as I got older. Also the going deaf does not help.

 Is it just me or do people seem more like closed books?  It's harder to get to know people, openness is long gone. I've dealt with some awful stuff in some circles, where classism seems to rule, and some of these folks don't believe in emotions or openness. In fact their first instinct is to shut me down and this can be over the most mild of opinions and I am not yelling or showing anger. I've had two recent instances of people shutting me down, like I was invisible. One lady who was an ally at one group I was at, came to me to talk to me how both I and her were shut down at a political book discussion we both went to. She was upset. I told her I wondered if the community book discussion group on a political topic was actually being held and financed by a conservative group. I mentioned the phrase "economic inequality" and the consensus people came running to shut me up. It was nice to be validated though by someone else who saw the manipulations going on.

In the second case, I was at another discussion group in my community, there was a wealthier high status boomer going after me, talking to me like I was ten years old. She was new to that discussion group, and was issuing edicts and rules on us all. Everyone's heads were bent down and I knew I'd have to fight back.

Sadly like what happens too often the leader of that group, was bending to a would be narcissists demands and throwing the rest of us under the bus. Later I would be told by the group leader referring to herself, "I didn't enforce the rules properly" so the narcissist's shaming methods worked. A group that previously had no problems was thrown into chaos by a would be narcissist.

She played overly diplomatic and seemed to take the side of the other person. I even said at one point, "Don't you think they were even a bit overbearing?" She said she didn't enforce the crosstalk rules enough, and I responded "Why do things have to be so rigid and controlled for such a small group, well for future people you need to make it more clear you are following the AA like no cross talk rules." She said something was in the "Covenant" of the group and that's part of the program. [One odd thing is during the original argument, I said, that was the ideal, and I know the only time I interrupted was to ask someone to speak up]

She conceded to me, that you have to do what is right for you, and keep your boundaries. I said I will and for her to be careful of toxic personalities. I said, "I am not going to take disrespect from anyone, and do not regret walking out." Husband backed me up and said "this lady took things to the extreme, she was spending 100,000 to make a 10 dollar point and would not let up." I left the room and tried to redirect the conversation multiple times.

Oddly she then claimed that others had complained about the "crosstalk in the group" and that they had been interrupted too often and did "not feel safe". I never saw this. My husband who was there said, "I never saw that happen." I said something about how conversation flows can be hard for Aspies, but I never interrupted anyone's turn to talk, and knew I had to waited my turn and did and with my hearing have to focus on words anyhow. At this point I said the group is "too rigid" then for me. I think she wants us out of the group. I said at this point, "Maybe the group is too structured for me, and it's not for me." I told her these extreme rules destroy connection. She then suggested other activities.

The extreme rigidity in this community is taking a toll. The toxic person gained control. The group leader wants to please the people with power. Toxic people will use rules to wrap people up, and claim they are breaking rules to get others to dissuade them. I notice people go running to to please personalities like this.

I ended up walking out of the room and have no regrets in doing so. The me of yesterday would have sat there and taken it, trying to please but the me of today knows there was reasons for my anger.

 There seems few places now in American society where you can "be yourself". I feel uncomfortable in some higher class circles where they seem to want a higher level of control. It's horrible around here, especially among the corporate "professional" and wealthy people. Formal registers of speech are shoved down my throat. My personality does not fit among their circles. The endless rules and formality are stifling as hell. The pecking orders and competition do not allow for honest sharing.

It is a mine field for an Aspie too. I think here I need to listen to myself more on the type of people I am trying to communicate with and have made the decision to limit some of the socializing, why go out time and time just to get hurt again?

Some here have chided me for my negative view of boomers, but I am sorry to say, while there are some allies and good boomers, I have noticed it is mostly women who are 15-20 years older who are invalidating me, treating me like I am 10 years old and practicing unrestrained classism and ableism. Around here, the majority of the boomers I am talking about are very religious and politically conservative. There's others that would fit the neo-liberal label too.  I don't think I am imagining this and I have seen differences in Silent Generation people who sadly are now growing very aged and millennials in how I am treated.

The "OK Boomer" meme exists for a reason. Some people I think got tired of being lectured to, and sadly too many of them feel they have the right to tell you to be silent and to invalidate you. I am learning to avoid people like this. Around here, their numbers are legion too. They are people that can make one feel extraordinarily lonely and silenced.

There's unwritten rules some types follow where emotional repression is the name of the game, don't act too boisterous, or tell jokes, or get too pedantic, stick to business only and everything must be conformist or emotionally flat. There's a lot of people wanting to repress you emotionally now and using a variety of tools to do so. There's this feeling inside that my fire burns too hot, and just by opening my mouth I'm burning them. I refused to submit to the one making demands and walked out of the group and the room when they wouldn't leave me alone. The Cluster B scent is strong, and I'm running for the hills.

There is huge disconnection being forced in people where we are always to be striving fitting in and jumping endless goalposts and hoops. Rules of communication I have noticed are very severe in higher class circles, and that seems part of the emotional repression to me too. That too works to deaden emotions and where people are taught to wear masks and to not have real connections.

Many people who deconvert too, talk about how in their churches, emotions were policed, being too sad, or upset was not acceptable. Once at a church I said I was upset over being sick, and was chided over not having "trust in God". Everything there the message was to close down all emotions, and conform. Depression, anxiety, angst, anger were all seen as "sins" and against God. The "holy" Christian was always happy, eager, smiling and joyful.

I thought more about that "commanded to love" video above. Theramin Trees nailed the whole process of love being forced and producing emotions at command. Natural emotions are shut down for produced ones. Often I struggle with the idea that people want me to be someone else then who I am. My emotions were controlled at narcissistic demand, and I was told they were wrong, they never were accepted, this would continue until I walked away. My abusive childhood taught me to suppress emotions and then add the layer that I had to learn to "cloak" massively to fit into society being on the autism spectrum. One therapist told me I was intelligent enough to figure out the code so to speak. I am trying to figure out still feelings that are about emotional disconnection.

Society had few answers for instance with someone with severe rare illness that deformed their body too. I am learning to listen to myself more but it's scary what I am seeing, I blocked out a lot in how I was seen and treated. ACONs as they are trained to "go to sleep" emotionally to offer narcissistic supply, may find the waking up process to be kind of scary, especially if they exist in a lower status position in American society. Socially I may struggle the rest of my life, others are telling me they are encountering the same thing, where they feel silenced everywhere.

I have learned to protect myself more but I am realizing as I have aged society has gotten far more closed down, there is far less emotional closeness and openness. The social "rules" have become far more oppressive. I don't feel very safe in a lot of places anymore. This worries me for my future. So wonder people are becoming more lonely and mentally ill in America.

Fundamentalism too was all about emotional repression. Repression is a word that I thought of as I deconverted. I felt REPRESSED. When I threw off the yoke of abusers and went no contact and walked away from so many, deconversion was bound to happen.The two are tied together. I was told to be this certain type of person among the Christians and told to be a certain type of person among the narcissists. I never measured up. I never was allowed to BE MYSELF.

I had to get honest about the emotional repression of Christianity, that told me to be this certain type of person. One thing I think about is how Christianity pushes this fake persona on people, and I know I wasted years now, trying to be something I was not. It also taught me like the abusive family to only display certain emotions and invalidated true feelings and thoughts. As time went on, I realized I was "not fitting in", I left all churches a few years even before my full deconvert, tired of the forced cheerfulness, tired of being told NOT TO FEEL, or that all feelings were SINS. We were given not only THOUGHT control but FEELING control. The religionists and narcissists all joined together to tell us what was proper to feel and what we had to close down.

Intuition and our connection to ourselves got closed down from their prison for the soul. I had to get real even about how I felt about their God. I didn't like it anymore. I realized I did not love God anymore, leaving the religion was like a divorce from a cruel persona that betrayed me over and over, with it's silence and indifference. Instead of loving the "dictator", or shaming myself to do a fake smile anymore and "force" myself to love it and believe, I was done. One thing I had to do as I recovered, was listen to my OWN feelings, and stop letting people tell me what to feel and think. Learning to own your own emotions and processing these things can be a process. We have to throw away these dictators of the soul to be our authentic selves. Don't ever let anyone tell you what to feel or what not to feel. I'm no longer a puppet being told to love something and someone who never talked back and being told to love people who treated me like a piece of garbage. Listen too and pay attention to those who are out to control your words and your emotions, they are people to be avoided.