A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts: The Subtle, Insidious Nature of Spiritual Abuse and Life on the Other Side

Novelist Spearing (Hartfords) shares a heartrending account of her recovery from religious trauma. Raised in a patriarchal evangelical Christianity that viewed men as heads of the home, mothers as “helpmeets,” and girls as future caretakers who were to remain in their father’s household until married, the author grew up starved of freedom and conditioned to “align my desires with the Lord’s.” Doubts were seeded slowly in her mind and reached a breaking point at age 25 when she accepted a job at a different church without her father’s permission, and was told to leave the house. Spearing shares the ups and downs of her healing process, which involved somatic (body-based) therapy; learning to feel emotions—like anger—that women are expressly forbidden to show in restrictive, “high-control Christianity”; finding language for the abuse she’d endured (like a “thousand tiny paper cuts” that may heal but will leave scars); and founding Tears of Eden, a nonprofit support group for survivors of spiritual abuse. The author is eloquent and precise in her critiques of high-control Christianity—the most damaging elements of which, she notes, seep into less extreme versions of the faith—while acknowledging the legitimate needs that give rise to it and religion in general, a “heart cry of people who are searching for comfort, for a way to explain the unexplainable.” Believers who’ve been harmed by church communities will find strength and understanding. (Oct.)