When A Victim Speaks Up, is it “Airing Dirty Laundry” or Exposing Evil?

When A Victim Speaks Up, is it "Airing Dirty Laundry" or Exposing Evil?

By: Susan Deborah Schiller

The only thing harder than living with a narcissist or sociopath is leaving one. Here's the trap: When the true victim dares speak up, usually after years of silence, she is told not to "air dirty laundry" – and she is told to shut up or be shunned. Her abuser has already prepared her intimate circle of friends and family to reject her words, painting her as crazy, mentally ill, or worse.

A successful smear campaign relies on the cooperation of good Christian people who will broadcast her altered story on the grapevine… sorry, the prayer line. This is "airing dirty laundry" as far as I'm concerned. 

The "Christian" abuser is all the more devious because he/she inserts Scriptures, may shed a few tears, and knows how to pull the sympathy card. The victim rarely stands a chance because the smear campaign is launched in secret, behind her back. It may go on for a year or two before she discovers what has been done to her story. Her reputation crumbles as her very character is attacked.

Usually, by the time she discovers the existence of the smear campaign, her identity has been simultaneously stolen as she works harder and harder to gain the abuser's approval. She is willing to do whatever it takes to make the relationship work. She will lay down her life gladly for the abuser. She'll give up her education, she'll give up her dreams, and she'll change herself to become what her abuser needs her to be.

She genuinely loves him. But it's never enough, and it's not a healthy kind of love.

The emotional void within an abuser is so deep she can never satisfy him half enough and soon she is drained, empty, and has nothing left to give.

Finally, at the end of her rope, she screams. All her pent up emotions are released as she breaks her silence. It's messy and she may not say everything in the most objective way. She looks and sounds crazy, mad, a raving lunatic. How could this nice, Christian man who preaches from the pulpit be what she is saying?

This is not "airing dirty laundry". No. She is breaking her silence by exposing the evil done to her. She is releasing a scream that is heard in Heaven but is normally stifled on Earth.

Worse, she is blamed. Blaming the victim is standard operating procedure.

She is coached to correct her own problems first. After so many years of being treated as worthless, her self-esteem has already taken a beating. She's read and applied all the self-help books. She bought the tickets and attended the conferences. She went through inner healing and deliverance. She's prayed and prayed and prayed.

She's half-convinced what her abuser is telling people is true. After all, how could SHE be the only one on her side? The weight of public opinion on the balance scale of justice would seem to prove she's off her rocker. Not accustomed to independent thinking, it's a fierce battle to cling to reality. Most people fail right here. They choose denial over embracing messy reality. They want to believe what they want to believe. Only God knows the whole Truth.

I open my life to you in transparency, and that often makes me feel vulnerable…but it's for HER sake, HIS Bride. The King's Bride married a devil called "Religion" and God wants her to divorce him. But there's a smear campaign launched against her and she's still in the clutches of evil. She needs to escape to freedom.

The etymology of "religion" is "re ligare" and it means "return to bondage". Religion is an evil that has infected Christianity, and exposing the works of darkness is the beginning of the Cure.

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ~ Ephesians 5:11

Dear reader, will you help me to be the Voice of the King's Bride, to speak up for all the women, who like me, married "good Christian" husbands who abused them, stole their identity, drained them emotionally dry, sucked their finances dry, and then launched a smear campaign to silence their voice?

You can help be a voice for those suffering behind the painful prison doors of spiritual captivity and marital abuse by sharing this article on social media. Together we can help SHINE the Light of Truth into the darkness of religion… not to air dirty laundry, but to expose the Light of True Religion into the darkness.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~ James 1:27

Love looks beyond the material world and listens with one ear to the speaker and the other ear to the Spirit. Love calls good Good and evil Evil, not the other way around. Love doesn't fear exposure. It exposes evil to the radical radiance of Truth, and truth sets the prisoners free.

There is no dirty laundry when a victim speaks up. It's a heart that is speaking her truth and being honest, open, and real.

Love would rather be crucified unjustly than to pick a fight. Love is messy. Love listens empathetically. 

Let's choose love!

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With all my love,

Sue

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