362- Growing up in religion cult part 3 : stunted emotional growth

Trigger warning : trauma material. Religious cult. Abuse. Suicidal ideation. 

For PTSD awareness month,  I pursue my series Growing up in a religious cult. Today's topic refers to stunted emotional growth, through the aspect of denied romances during my teens, for which I quote post 334 : " I was never to initiate any kind of romantic or sexual activity.... Straying from this spiritual path of unity under his guide and rule of thumb came with a death sentence, of which he reminded me often. With this Damocles sword above my head, I was unable to pursue romantic feelings I had towards any of the girls, and later of the young women that I'd met and was interested in." His, refers, if you haven't read the full entry or others on this blog, are my father's rules, as he was the cult founder & leader.


One of my earliest teen crushes was M's sister (the same classmate who introduced me to music, as explained further down in 334 and also in 229). I can still vividly recall the day I decided to tell her my feelings : I took a detour from shopping errands I was on, to this sister's boarding school. I paced back and forth under a torrent of rain, the drops beating my head and face. My heart was racing, and my head was aching, and that was due to the fears that my father would fulfill his threats and kill me with his bear hands, and that he'd also turn against her. I knew that my father was capable of extreme violence, and feared that he'd fulfill his threats, so, after a long while, I withdrew, never telling her my feelings.

The fury and beatings that followed my  late return from that errand, as well as on 2 incidents (see 257) when my father had discovered my clandestine teen, adult activities, remained with me throughout my adulthood and stopped me from having any romantic relationship in my younger years. These beatings added to my other physical, mental and psychological abuses, and the lack of relational experiences, would have dire relationship consequences throughout my early adulthood.

Each subsequent experience when girls, and later young women, awoke feelings in me, my trauma recreated the same effects, the same fears, anxiety and avoidance, even after I'd left my father's cult and reunited with my maternal family. 

Thus, my teens in that faraway country were horribly isolating and depressing. I couldn't tell my feelings to anyone - as initiating meant crippling migraines and intrusive images of severe beatings that I would be subjected to if I was ever found out to have disobeyed the rules by even speaking to girls. 

I couldn't confide in anyone, to ask if this was okay or normal, but came to the conclusion that it was a cruel threat, all on my own.  Unable to share love, with a death threat looming over my head, and still not seing any improvement to come, my depression grew so strong that around ages 17-18, I experienced severe suicidal ideation. I tried to act on them a few times, before giving up, as I couldn't find ways to do so without feeling pain or blood - and thus my blood phobia and low pain threshold withheld my actions. Other factors included psychotic audio hallucinations, which helped infuse me with hope for a positive change.  It eventually did, as told in post 258. 

After I came back to my birth-country, I realized that not only did I lack knowledge in social graces as well as some intellectual and cultural knowledge due to my isolation in the religious cult, but that I'd also suffered many delays in emotional growth and it took years before I could even talk to a woman without getting these migraines and flashbacks, as those intrusive images mentioned above.

More precisely, once back to my maternal family, the trauma had created similar effects, adding flashbacks of the beatings that I had experienced during all my youth, childhood and teen years. These, in turn, made it extremely difficult to bond in friendships, and I'l discuss in another post the negative effects of this kind of experiences on bonding and friendships. 

Growing up in this religious cult into which I was born, meant that I had no frame of reference for most aspects in life, that a normal person learns from their parents. (Normal only in the sense of a person who doesn't grow with religious mind-warps).  It took me years to accept that I wasn't my father and that I could, possibly maybe, one day, meet a person to share enough life path and not repeat the violence that was my sole example of married life - as indeed you could read in any of my posts about witnessing domestic violence.

After many confusing experiences of one-sided romantic feelings, attempts at real person and online deeper friendships and romance, I did eventually meet a person who saw the potential between us, came and have been with me ever since - that is my wife, of course. 

Healing from these psycho-emotional wounds and stunted emotional growth means that my traumas created multiple mental illnesses, which condition and limit my possibilities and that my traumas have marked all my relationships - friendships and romantic alike, by severely blocking me and tainting everything that I experience. 

Despite this, I am happily married, but wish that some of my mental health battles hadn't intruded into this life experience which should be a lot happier and easier to live.  I have to strive and to improve, to heal and to build, regardless of my heavy past. 

Even without physical punishment, religious indoctrination is a form of child abuse and constitutes a possible source for trauma, as it warps your identity, your senses and your experiences. It sure did that to me.  I have experienced physical beatings, meal deprivations, drilling of dogma, repeated prayers and chants, and so many rules that one is bound to be left scarred as I was, have been and still am.

I doubt that I can ever have full healing, but I endeavor to heal as much as possible, to tell my trauma story, to share experiences, raising awareness and to fight, every day, against the multiple mental illnesses and scars that I have been marked with. 

You'll see why I repeat so much my stories in a fuller, separate blog entry to come later this month of PTSD awareness.