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Post by toolittletoolate on Mar 12, 2023 22:14:07 GMT
triplesense I also have had those thoughts. I have found that abuse doesn't make sense. There is so much chaos and confusion. Many lies are told. I have for so long tried to understand and I feel that I have come to terms with my not understanding it. Here is something I wrote when I was beginning my journey of healing: "I did think about the abuse, and I questioned if he had been intentional. I gave him excuse after excuse. I thought there is no way that he could have known what he was doing and still continue. He must not have known. It was all my mistake. No way could somebody intentionally use my body that way. No way could somebody do that without an apology. He didn’t know. I would go round and round with those thoughts for years." For so long my mind had to believe he didn't know what he was doing. He knew. It is am important lesson to learn that people can be deceptive. People in your own family and/or people in the church. That is why telling our stories of abuse is so important. Reading other people's stories have helped me come to a place of clarity. The dynamics of abuse seem to be played out over and over again. We have so much information now more than ever and there are many tools and skills that can be learned for healing. Abusers do not like what survivors find healing, so watch out for those who are blocking the path of healing. Bless you for sharing @unwrittenrules.❤️
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Post by igottalightup on Mar 12, 2023 23:58:04 GMT
triplesense I also have had those thoughts. I have found that abuse doesn't make sense. There is so much chaos and confusion. Many lies are told. I have for so long tried to understand and I feel that I have come to terms with my not understanding it. Here is something I wrote when I was beginning my journey of healing: "I did think about the abuse, and I questioned if he had been intentional. I gave him excuse after excuse. I thought there is no way that he could have known what he was doing and still continue. He must not have known. It was all my mistake. No way could somebody intentionally use my body that way. No way could somebody do that without an apology. He didn’t know. I would go round and round with those thoughts for years." For so long my mind had to believe he didn't know what he was doing. He knew. It is am important lesson to learn that people can be deceptive. People in your own family and/or people in the church. That is why telling our stories of abuse is so important. Reading other people's stories have helped me come to a place of clarity. The dynamics of abuse seem to be played out over and over again. We have so much information now more than ever and there are many tools and skills that can be learned for healing. Abusers do not like when survivors find healing, so watch out for those who are blocking the path of healing. they are showing that they are lacking the Holy Spirit in their lives. This is why its so frustrating when the church, which preaches repententance, doesnt underatand it and falls all over itself to pander to these abusers and then continues the abuse upin the victim. You are not alone in feeling that the church's actions in regards to abuse does not make sense. It truly does not. It is not you.
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Post by questioneverything on Mar 13, 2023 0:04:44 GMT
triplesense I also have had those thoughts. I have found that abuse doesn't make sense. There is so much chaos and confusion. Many lies are told. I have for so long tried to understand and I feel that I have come to terms with my not understanding it. Here is something I wrote when I was beginning my journey of healing: "I did think about the abuse, and I questioned if he had been intentional. I gave him excuse after excuse. I thought there is no way that he could have known what he was doing and still continue. He must not have known. It was all my mistake. No way could somebody intentionally use my body that way. No way could somebody do that without an apology. He didn’t know. I would go round and round with those thoughts for years." For so long my mind had to believe he didn't know what he was doing. He knew. It is am important lesson to learn that people can be deceptive. People in your own family and/or people in the church. That is why telling our stories of abuse is so important. Reading other people's stories have helped me come to a place of clarity. The dynamics of abuse seem to be played out over and over again. We have so much information now more than ever and there are many tools and skills that can be learned for healing. Abusers do not like when survivors find healing, so watch out for those who are blocking the path of healing. they are showing that they are lacking the Holy Spirit in their lives. This is why its so frustrating when the church, which preaches repententance, doesnt underatand it and falls all over itself to pander to these abusers and then continues the abuse upin the victim. You are not alone in feeling that the church's actions in regards to abuse does not make sense. It truly does not. It is not you. In a very real sense, the Protestant Reformed Churches of America play a part in the grooming.
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Post by unshackled on Mar 13, 2023 0:06:50 GMT
When I was young we raised chickens and we made soup out of the roosters. At first I was sad when we killed them but after a while it didn't bother me. I still didn't like doing it but I was ok. Maybe abusers go through a similar response destroying human beings? Maybe RVO looks at you and me the exact same way a farmer looks at a chicken, as something that exists only to serve him and has no value beyond that.
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Post by blessed2be on Mar 13, 2023 0:14:11 GMT
they are showing that they are lacking the Holy Spirit in their lives. This is why its so frustrating when the church, which preaches repententance, doesnt underatand it and falls all over itself to pander to these abusers and then continues the abuse upin the victim. You are not alone in feeling that the church's actions in regards to abuse does not make sense. It truly does not. It is not you. In a very real sense, the Protestant Reformed Churches of America play a part in the grooming. It is the breeding ground for sure. I truly believe that.
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Post by Andatlastiseethelight on Mar 13, 2023 0:17:51 GMT
I think there is an overwhelming sense of trying to understand abuse from the mindset of logical/kind/gracious loving people.
The presupposition an abuser has is that people are expendable—to be used for their benefit. Some of their best jollies are off the deception of doing this in plain sight (and getting away with it). It’s a whole skewed mindset that can’t be cured with excommunication (other than taking that demographic of people away from them).
The Jimmy Hinton Speaking out on sex abuse podcast goes into this world a bit because he dug into the deception practices/technology/mindset so we’ll of his own abuser father.
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Post by igottalightup on Mar 13, 2023 2:18:19 GMT
they are showing that they are lacking the Holy Spirit in their lives. This is why its so frustrating when the church, which preaches repententance, doesnt underatand it and falls all over itself to pander to these abusers and then continues the abuse upin the victim. You are not alone in feeling that the church's actions in regards to abuse does not make sense. It truly does not. It is not you. In a very real sense, the Protestant Reformed Churches of America play a part in the grooming. absolutely.
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Post by triplesense on Mar 13, 2023 3:14:09 GMT
triplesense I also have had those thoughts. I have found that abuse doesn't make sense. There is so much chaos and confusion. Many lies are told. I have for so long tried to understand and I feel that I have come to terms with my not understanding it. Here is something I wrote when I was beginning my journey of healing: "I did think about the abuse, and I questioned if he had been intentional. I gave him excuse after excuse. I thought there is no way that he could have known what he was doing and still continue. He must not have known. It was all my mistake. No way could somebody intentionally use my body that way. No way could somebody do that without an apology. He didn’t know. I would go round and round with those thoughts for years." For so long my mind had to believe he didn't know what he was doing. He knew. It is am important lesson to learn that people can be deceptive. People in your own family and/or people in the church. That is why telling our stories of abuse is so important. Reading other people's stories have helped me come to a place of clarity. The dynamics of abuse seem to be played out over and over again. We have so much information now more than ever and there are many tools and skills that can be learned for healing. Abusers do not like when survivors find healing, so watch out for those who are blocking the path of healing. they are showing that they are lacking the Holy Spirit in their lives. This is why its so frustrating when the church, which preaches repententance, doesnt underatand it and falls all over itself to pander to these abusers and then continues the abuse upin the victim. You are not alone in feeling that the church's actions in regards to abuse does not make sense. It truly does not. It is not you. (Primarily about men abusers/victims) "Abuse does not make sense." So true ... I think many of us have tried to use our logical minds to 'figure out' abuse, and it is a waste of time. I have concluded usually that the abuser is broken psychologically and does not think the way other people think. There is broken mental wiring which cannot easily be fixed. I think they often feel unappreciated (that they do not have 'enough', should have more love, respect, money, sex, etc), misunderstood, angry (think incels), and they often want far more control than they perceive that they have. Or they feel 'disrespected' (roll eyes) and lash out and justify it; often they should be disrespected due to bad choices they make, but men especially do not like to face that there may be very valid reasons why people have lost respect for them. Abusers tend to be narcissists, sociopaths, or full psychopaths. I have met people who fit all those descriptions and they are completely selfish up to people who actually enjoy inflicting pain. They all lack pathos to some degree, or have absolutely none at all like the psychopath. About 10 years ago I stumbled on some articles that dove into what an empath was; I had never heard the term but it was astonishing to me since it described me in many ways and helped explain a lot of my feelings. But since an empath is the opposite of a psychopath it helped me also understand just how depraved a psychopath can be - they literally feel zero connection or sympathy towards anyone, allowing them to do unthinkable things and have no impact on them. I realized there is no way a normal caring person can really understand an abuser since they usually fall into one of the above categories that just does not make sense to us. I did see that abusers are often created by abusers as well. The emotions created by abuse, maybe especially with men, tend to manifest in similar behaviors. Anger, loss of control, confusion over love and sex, threatened masculinity, enhanced homophobia or fear of attraction to men, and so much more. I am a guy so I have seen the impacts of sexual abuse on other guys and I can only speak for men of course. The impacts of men abusing boys is devastating in so many ways; it often changes them dramatically in their minds, but it is unbelievably shameful/difficult for a man to talk about or admit he was abused by a man. Us men are not generally encouraged to share our feelings anyway, so most abused men can be far more damaged than they would ever let on or talk about. Guys like Bleyenburg and Faber cause tremendous destruction in their victims. I am a guy, but I have a wonderful daughter that I love and am very proud of. She is incredibly kind and caring, as is her husband, and they do a lot of Christian outreach, which is just wonderful. While raising her, I did worry a lot about her safety (and many of her friends too). (Thank you Lord that she never experienced any abuse!) I concluded long ago that sexual abuse of any kind is so damaging that abusers should have punishments similar to murder. "They are lacking the Holy Spirit", which explains so much of the PR behavior toward abuse. You so right. Don't look for sympathy or help where there is none.
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Post by blindrealist on Mar 13, 2023 5:20:28 GMT
they are showing that they are lacking the Holy Spirit in their lives. This is why its so frustrating when the church, which preaches repententance, doesnt underatand it and falls all over itself to pander to these abusers and then continues the abuse upin the victim. You are not alone in feeling that the church's actions in regards to abuse does not make sense. It truly does not. It is not you. (Primarily about men abusers/victims) "Abuse does not make sense." So true ... I think many of us have tried to use our logical minds to 'figure out' abuse, and it is a waste of time. I have concluded usually that the abuser is broken psychologically and does not think the way other people think. There is broken mental wiring which cannot easily be fixed. I think they often feel unappreciated (that they do not have 'enough', should have more love, respect, money, sex, etc), misunderstood, angry (think incels), and they often want far more control than they perceive that they have. Or they feel 'disrespected' (roll eyes) and lash out and justify it; often they should be disrespected due to bad choices they make, but men especially do not like to face that there may be very valid reasons why people have lost respect for them. Abusers tend to be narcissists, sociopaths, or full psychopaths. I have met people who fit all those descriptions and they are completely selfish up to people who actually enjoy inflicting pain. They all lack pathos to some degree, or have absolutely none at all like the psychopath. About 10 years ago I stumbled on some articles that dove into what an empath was; I had never heard the term but it was astonishing to me since it described me in many ways and helped explain a lot of my feelings. But since an empath is the opposite of a psychopath it helped me also understand just how depraved a psychopath can be - they literally feel zero connection or sympathy towards anyone, allowing them to do unthinkable things and have no impact on them. I realized there is no way a normal caring person can really understand an abuser since they usually fall into one of the above categories that just does not make sense to us. I did see that abusers are often created by abusers as well. The emotions created by abuse, maybe especially with men, tend to manifest in similar behaviors. Anger, loss of control, confusion over love and sex, threatened masculinity, enhanced homophobia or fear of attraction to men, and so much more. I am a guy so I have seen the impacts of sexual abuse on other guys and I can only speak for men of course. The impacts of men abusing boys is devastating in so many ways; it often changes them dramatically in their minds, but it is unbelievably shameful/difficult for a man to talk about or admit he was abused by a man. Us men are not generally encouraged to share our feelings anyway, so most abused men can be far more damaged than they would ever let on or talk about. Guys like Bleyenburg and Faber cause tremendous destruction in their victims. I am a guy, but I have a wonderful daughter that I love and am very proud of. She is incredibly kind and caring, as is her husband, and they do a lot of Christian outreach, which is just wonderful. While raising her, I did worry a lot about her safety (and many of her friends too). (Thank you Lord that she never experienced any abuse!) I concluded long ago that sexual abuse of any kind is so damaging that abusers should have punishments similar to murder. "They are lacking the Holy Spirit", which explains so much of the PR behavior toward abuse. You so right. Don't look for sympathy or help where there is none. Such good material here. Thanks so much for joining and contributing.
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Post by DementedTulip on Mar 16, 2023 1:35:47 GMT
It's pretty incredible that no one cares. At least no one cares who can do something about it, anyway. Clearly some elders and ministers care. The overture was brought by a consistory, also known as "people who can do something about it." Clearly they don't care enough. But I'm going to guess and say you knew that too. If we know anything about the PRCA we know that they won't change even if their life depends on it. Eternal life. Clearly there will be some serious responsibility involved with all of this. So much for the TULIP.
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Post by prnolonger on Mar 16, 2023 20:58:37 GMT
New Bullet Point tomorrow morning.
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Post by ExposeTheRot on Mar 17, 2023 11:26:25 GMT
New Bullet Point tomorrow morning. It doesn't surprise me in the least that there will be more cases of abuse and my inclination is that it won't be the last. The symptoms even in this thread all point to a cycle of abuse.
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Post by prnolonger on Mar 17, 2023 13:07:18 GMT
I have posted investigation Bullet Point #8: Steven Holstege in the Sanctuary forum and linked it here in the Narthex thread.
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Post by Heidi Woldhuis on Mar 17, 2023 13:26:01 GMT
I have posted investigation Bullet Point #8: Steven Holstege in the Sanctuary forum and linked it here in the Narthex thread. [br Thank you so very much for a very well written bullet point. My heart goes out to the victim who truly portrayed what rape feels like. She is brave beyond words. Thank you for honoring her and showing her how much we care and support her. What you are doing is truly remarkable and will make a huge difference. I pray over you daily as I can only imagine the attacks directed towards you.
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Post by roddy1988 on Mar 21, 2023 19:30:50 GMT
When will the bullet point on Ron VanOverloop be published?
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