 Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 9:22 AM
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[Moderator's note: moved from Recovery and Health Issues » When health becomes an obsession]
Anonymous Posted August 5, 2008 @ 12:14:11 PM
Hi,
I'm just jumping in. I just found this site today. I am relieved to find a place where people might understand what my life has been like.
I am a fourth generation Christian Scientist, raised in the church. In a way, because my parents were not rock-solid CS (they drank wine), I became even MORE of an adherent to CS in rebellion. I joined the Mother Church and branch church at 12. I went to the Adventure Unlimited camps at Buena Vista. I went to Principia College for my B.A., and then went through class instruction. I was second reader at my branch church after I got married to a wonderful man I met at Prin, also class taught.
Then it fell apart. My husband had been struggling for years with homosexuality. He prayed, he sought help from the church and practitioners, and all they would tell him was to pray and be healed, and, essentially, marry a nice CS girl. He loved me, but eventually he had to be true to himself, which I support. But neither of us had any kind of support or knowledge of how to deal with the grief of divorce and failure, much less after suffering a miscarriage shortly before we separated. I was so stunned to think that I did everything "right", that I thought this marriage was truly a demonstration of God's love, how could it possibly fail? What did I do wrong? How could this have happened? And my ex struggled with self-acceptance plus the guilt over hurting me and breaking his vows, plus the very non-CS life of a gay man in our society. The church offered nothing to either of us. We both left the church, but felt cast off and adrift, having no idea how to live in a world that was nothing like what we'd been taught it would be.
Eventually, my ex returned to the CS church. He told me he found a tolerant church in Atlanta (which I find hard to believe! But if he was happy, that was fine with me.) I never returned to the church. I more and more began to realize how much "blame the victim" thinking there is. If you are healed, it's due to God and Mrs. Eddy -- if not, well, you just don't have enough spiritual understanding, and you "let the error into your thought." I have struggled for years to understand that life just happens to people. Every failure, from cancer to a flat tire, cannot be ascribed to my faulty understanding of spiritual reality. Sometimes you just run over a nail, for crying out loud!
Back in the CS church, my ex of course had no medical checkups, so he did not know he had Hepatitis B until he collapsed one day and was rushed to the hospital with liver failure. He was put on the transplant list and had to take a battery of pills and follow a special diet. He struggled with this in a way that was so painful for him -- he had more than enough stress to deal with, but the extra stress of fearing that he was not being healed because he was trying to combine CS and medical treatment was overwhelming. He struggled with the fear that his being gay was "letting error into his thought", thus he had "let" the hepatitis into his experience. And his ambivalence about the medical treatment caused him to sometimes ignore it in favor of prayer. In the end, he died just as a liver transplant was made available for him -- his body just gave out.
I have seen two uncles die under CS treatment -- one of leukemia, the other of something never diagnosed. My grandfather also died of something undiagnosed but being "treated" through CS.
I do believe spiritual healing sometimes works. The mind/body/soul connection is complex and we don't understand everything about it. But to insist that you must choose between medical care and your religion is downright cruel. The idea that the church, which should provide support and spiritual comfort, offered my ex nothing during his great struggles in life, makes me so angry, and yet having also been raised in that church, I can understand why he still went back to them, finding perhaps some comfort and connection to his mother (who died while we were at Prin, again of something undiagnosed while being treated through CS.) My ex did not even know how to grieve for his mother -- he was expected to be "healed" of grief.
In the wake of divorce, loss, grief, I have sought out the compassionate fellowship of grief counselors and fellow grievers in support groups, and learned to my amazement that emotions are normal, grief and loss are part of life, and that I did nothing to deserve this. Grief and loss are not punishment for "erroneous thinking", they are part and parcel of being human, and they teach us how fragile life is, and how important compassion is. But denial seems to be the watchword of CS. Although my old college friends of course were sympathetic when my ex died at the age of 50, they did not seem to know what to say about him, my gay ex-husband who was having medical treatment for a life-threatening illness. My friendship with some of them was deeply strained by their refusal to discuss my feelings of grief, and their discomfort with my support of his acceptance of his homosexuality. My ex's gay friends, who took me into their hearts and shared my grief over his loss, gave me far, far more than the church ever did.
Thanks for listening -- I can't believe I left the church back in 1984, yet the effect of CS still gets to me sometimes. My grief counselor called my feelings "complicated grief" and "disenfranchised grief". My family is similarly unable to process grief. I was asking myself just this morning what it is that seems to keep my anger and grief alive -- in stumbling over this website, I think this is what I have not fully realized, the anger I feel over the broken promises of Christian Science, and the damage it did to my life.
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Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 9:53 AM
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Thank you, Do Go Be Man -- I realized after I wrote this that it should have been posted in this forum. 
Ann
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Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 1:35 PM
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| Welcome! I was also told by a grief counselor that I was suffering from "complicated grief" as well! I witnessed a very close family member die a slow suffering death under Christian Science treatment and then had to watch the family cheerfully tell me that all is well, they just go on and I was feeling this way because I wasn't spiritual enough too! Yes, I know that those who have passed on are in a better place, but I think so much of it is that they were snatched too early from us when many might have been saved. Even if they couldn't have been saved by medicine, they at least would have had the benefit of comfort measures available in hospices or hospitals. Also, to watch the people who lived and breathed this religion and spout its glories their whole lives and then it lets them down when the chips are down. And, like you said, they are blamed for their own illnesses and deaths instead of a flawed false religion. It is so tragic and a pain that is beyond enduring. I hope that you find some comfort in knowing that we are here and you are not alone.
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Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 2:56 PM
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Thank you, Gentle Dove. It is very helpful to come here and find people who not only know what it is like to have been raised in CS, but many who went to Principia and the A/U camps as I did. For many, many years, I have had no one to share such memories with, except old friends who are still staunch CSists.
I'm so sorry to hear of your having to witness the suffering of a loved one. I think what I find hardest about the legacy of CS in my life is the struggle I have with the so-called "negative" emotions of grief, pain, loss. These are normal and human and they need to be expressed and shared. But in CS we are supposed to immediately demonstrate healing of all those things. I really stood up for myself when my ex died. I flew across the country to his memorial service (my family was stunned) and I let myself grieve as much as I needed to, over the loss of his life, and the loss of his friendship. I still believe we continue after death, but I keep reminding myself, I grieve in proportion to my love for him, and there should be no guilt over that.
I will always remember that the first day I went to class instruction, one of the class members was a young woman who had recently gotten married. She and her husband were signed up to attend. One week before class instruction began, her husband suddenly "passed away". She came to class anyway, "healed" of her grief. Even then, I thought there was something very off about that. Now, with what I have learned about grief, I am sure she was still numb through shock. Whether she ever was able to process her grief, I'll never know. But my aunt essentially did the same thing. My uncle had leukemia. This was back in 1962, and there was little treatment for leukemia. My aunt, raised in CS, was determined to heal him, and she enrolled in class instruction in California. When she was about halfway through class, my cousin (who was only 9) woke up one morning and found his father dead on the bathroom floor. He called my father, who called my aunt. My aunt met with her teacher, and decided to finish class instruction, though she had more than a week to go. Can you imagine, her children had just been orphaned, not to mention the trauma of my cousin actually finding his father's dead body, and their mother couldn't even fly home to be with them at such a time? And the teacher actually ENCOURAGED this? My grandparents took care of my cousins until my aunt came home, but they were CS too. I remember that Christmas my cousin tried to talk to me about his father's death, but I pushed him away (we were both 9.) I had been trained to never speak of illness or death. It might make it happen. What a childhood!
Ann
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Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 4:31 PM
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| Welcome Ann, great truth in your quote. In the wake of divorce, loss, grief, I have sought out the compassionate fellowship of grief counselors and fellow grievers in support groups, and learned to my amazement that emotions are normal, grief and loss are part of life, and that I did nothing to deserve this. Grief and loss are not punishment for "erroneous thinking", they are part and parcel of being human, and they teach us how fragile life is, and how important compassion is. But denial seems to be the watchword of CS. Despite leaving the religion many years ago, I always considered myself a "natural" fit for Christian Science, given that I seem to be a stoic personality; always struggling to express or even accept the necessity of open emotion. Even more so than most men, I have a innate proclivity towards denial of painful truths. While I left CS for different reasons than some (I don't believe it represents an accurate picture of God or man), I nevertheless continued to consider emotions as pointless & petty until I pondered the greatest man ever stopping his work to embrace emotion as he joined in with those openly expressing their love for Lazarus (John 11). There are a lot of non-CSists who need to learn to embrace emotion as well; but the problem with CS is ithe fact that it reinforces this character deficiency. zoarean
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Posted Tuesday, August 05, 2008 8:55 PM
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| Welcome, Ann. I echo Zoarean's comment about your statement. You posts did a good job describing how CS damages people's emotions. I know many former Christian Scientsts who struggle with unprocessed grief and unresolved emotional trauma stemming from their Christian Science childhoods. I attended the AU camp in 1971 and graduated form Prin College in 1977. Perhaps we knew each other.
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Posted Wednesday, August 06, 2008 8:01 AM
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Linda,
I went to the A/U camps in 1971 and 1972, and graduated from Prin in 1975, so I am sure we did know each other! Is it allowed to exchange names on this forum?
Ann
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Posted Wednesday, August 06, 2008 8:12 AM
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Ann,
Is it allowed to exchange names on this forum?
You are welcome to do so, however, you may want to consider the implications of Internet security. You can privately reach Linda through the private message feature of the forum or through contact@christianway.org. When using the private message function, please remember that if you are not logged in that she cannot reply to an anonymous poster that way.
Do Go Be Man
<><
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Posted Wednesday, August 06, 2008 8:21 AM
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Thanks, I have sent a private message. I keep forgetting to log in.
Ann
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Posted Wednesday, August 06, 2008 9:33 PM
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| I've been away from the forum for a while ... it got too intense. I'm glad to be back. When I read some of the posts it feels like I could have written them. I just read the posts about "complicated grief". That's the diagnosis my counselor gave me as well. It still amazes me that 31 years after I left CS I'm still working thru the effects of it. But the important thing is that I am working thru it. To those who are just starting this journey, hang in there. It does get better! Polarbear
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