Truth Via Flashbacks
By: Susan Deborah Schiller
From the series, "Diary of a Battered Preacher's Wife"
Introduction: I was once called "the most abused wife" my counselors had ever met. I was married to not one, but two sociopaths. The first marriage lasted 20 years; the second, nearly 10 years. Both of of my abusers are ministers. Friends have asked me to share the story of how God helped a preacher's wife escape to freedom. The escape route is recorded within 83 diary entries, and I am sharing one diary entry per day.. This is not a step-by-step blue print of how to escape a sociopath. But I will provide links within each diary, if you wish to receive specific information.
Trigger Alert: These diaries are the raw, uncensored heart cry of a woman ravaged by rabid religious beasts who is ministered to by her friends. She finds love, acceptance, and begins to reinvent her life. By the end of the story, she has turned from a timid mouse into a roaring lioness. If God can do this for me, He can definitely do it for YOU!
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Note from the future: Don't be afraid of memories, whether PTSD flashbacks or regular memories. With the precision of Eagle eyes, you will have gained the perspective of Time. These memories are serving to fill in the gaps, to retrieve missing pieces of of yourself, and to restore your soul.
You may want to consider the help of a counselor, friend, or minister in processing these memories. Be patient with yourself. Take care of your body. Take time to pray and play. Laugh and be with people who love you just the way you are. Enjoy the flight!
I use photos of beautiful places I discovered throughout my recovery, and I have placed them in my story here, to help me remember that even in the darkness there is a blazing, beautiful Light that restores our souls – beauty.
September 12, 2011
An unexpected revelation hit me this weekend. It's like I've been experiencing flashbacks to 2003, our 1st year of marriage. By February 2003 it was discovered he was still married to his 3rd wife… so I discovered we were married but not married.
Note from the future: The Internet was still relatively new, back then, and information about abuse was limited. We depended largely on church ministers to teach us about relationships, back then, and the common teaching was on submission, "God hates divorce," grace, and forgiveness.
When you missing balancing those good principles with justice and righteousness, you end up with a wide open door to abuse.
As these flashbacks keep bursting into my mind, the pieces are falling into place…
One Sunday morning, in the middle of July '03, I told R, who had been in a continuous rage for many weeks (dealing with his 3rd wife problems) and had been projecting his anger on me… so I told him that it just wasn't working out and I was going to have to leave. As if it were yesterday, I can see his face and hear his words.
I was sitting up in bed and he was standing over me. His face contorted and he began to groan. He clutched his chest and said he was having a heart attack and that I'd better take him to ER.
In a panic, I called our pastor (we were new to town, having just arrived to do a hazmat job only a few weeks earlier), and I asked him where was the best ER to take Randy. I didn't even know the streets!
Our pastor met us at the Bakersfield Heart Hospital a few minutes later, where R collapsed in a heap at the registration desk. Hospital personnel had to carry him into the examining room and I was not allowed inside until after they were finished.
When I went into the room, the doctor was writing on a chart, not even looking up at me. He told me R had acute bronchitus and he was prescribing an antibiotic. Instinctively I knew this was wrong… R had not been sick, no upper respiratory symptoms at all.
Note from the future: Using sickness, threats of suicide, and other crises is a common form of control … but those of us with a gift of mercy, who are naturally caregivers are often manipulated by an abuser through this mechanism.
Note from the future: Sociopathic abuse is cleverly disguised, but I think Gandhi has a point, even for those of us victimized by sociopathic violence. If we recognize the abuse for what it is, we can escape. But it takes a revolution, a movement, a body of people to rise up, as One, to make a difference.
Co-parenting with a sociopath, for example, means you cannot get out of the path of destruction. It's in your face every single day. And the courts, churches, and civic leaders condone the abuse. It's imperative that we rise up, as One, to gain knowledge of this type of sabotage.
The "pain" did not let up. Randy was screaming in pain, especially at night.
I told our boss on Monday morning what had happened and he told me to take R to another ER. So on Tuesday morning (I know this whole story so well, because I've had to tell it hundreds of times… and it was also made into a movie and is available on DVD… I didn't want the movie, tried not to have it filmed… but it was out of my hands)…so I took R to a 2nd ER and the doctor diagnosed "chemical pneumenitis" and told us to go to a lung doctor….we went to the lung doctor… was told it might be "Valley Fever"… and on and on and on…. specialist to specialist.
For eight months, we exhausted the medical resources of Bakersfield, California and began making trips to Los Angeles and La Jolla.
What does it mean to love someone with all your heart? It means to love with all your emotional feelings and with all your devotion. Surely when you love your wife with all your heart, you cannot demean her, criticize her, find fault with her, or abuse her by words, sullen behavior, or actions. — Ezra Taft Benson
Long before a diagnosis was made R had had several surgical procedures, and the first two were experimental, including a nucleoplasty, designed to simulate a broken back. It was meant to coach the brain to heal whatever needed healing. What it did was make his back appear to be broken, indeed. Kids at the RV park called him a hunchback.
By then R was indeed in much pain and he was bent over with this "simulated broken back". They were trying to help with the pain, so they installed an electronic nuero-stimulator, something that was experimental at that time, in the thoracic spine. It disabled R substantially but it allowed the swelling from the nucleoplasty to go down.
Bottom line? I'm not so sure R was actually hurt that weekend in mid-July 2003. He didn't indicate he was hurt until I said I was leaving him.
How I put this piece in place…. R came over to my house a few days ago, with his daughter. My granddaughter was also here. The first thing he began talking about was how tired he is. He said he needed help. He talked about his back and how painful it was, how he wasn't sure if he could keep on going.
Note from the future: R was accustomed to gaining my sympathy (and attention) by claiming his back was hurting. This strategy used to be highly effective, and caused me to stay with him for 9 more years, following the "injury".
In the film, in my own testimony, I said to the camera, "We were BOTH getting hurt every day." It was normal for both of us to be in extreme pain. It was just another day in the hazmat field.
Bullies may be the perpetrators of evil, but it is the evil of passivity of all those who know what is happening and never intervene that perpetuates such abuse. — Philip Zimbardo
So all these years I have been protecting R, nursing him, on suicide watch, praying him through the hard days…. what was real and what was an act? In my heart I know it's true… he used the pretext of abnormal pain to get me to stay.
And he's still trying to dupe me.
He's pushing my COMPASSION BUTTON…. because our marriage troubles were always conveniently overshadowed by his huge medical problems…. if he began to get full of rage and direct it toward me, it was excused as "too many narcotics, it brings out the monster". But in reality, the monster was there before he "got hurt".
He managed to avoid the real marriage issues in the pursuit of relieving his physical pain.
So when God healed R's back (a true miracle) our marriage issues should have been put on the front burner, but instead, the international ministry who healed him came in and began directing our future.
I was traumatized by all the years of pain. I had stopped my life to care for R and I knew I needed time for ME! My body is full of pain, and has been for more years than R and I were married. Tendonitis from lower back to feet. Fibromyalgia. Chronic Fatigue.
So when R was healed in 2006 I thought I could finally rest… and heal myself… but R was anxious to move on… and fast. I couldn't keep up. My body resisted by getting sicker.
I began bleeding uncontrollably… for 7-months. I lost so much blood that my face was very pale, a grayish tint, and I could no longer walk very far. I couldn't leave the house for very long because it might start heavy hemoraging.
I almost died in 2009. Then God healed me, but it took 11 months for my blood to be built up and my strength regained. By then R was already gone on increasingly longer trips.
In writing this I'm recording this journey as seen through better lenses… distance and time increase clarity in vision sometimes.
So R is back… geographically, that is. It's been such a pattern of mine to hear about his pain and want to comfort him, to help him. And that is the button he uses, whenever we have been face-to-face… he talks about his pain!
HIS pain. Oh, oh, oh…. I have been such an enabler.
Note from the future: R was molested by a priest, as a child, and later in life, by a school coach, as well as a number of other people. Can it be as simple as learning to stop predators, to protect our children, and to help them get help? What cost does society pay for the children who suffer alone, in silence? Who are told to "be quiet" about their trauma? Could this, possibly, be the fertilizer for pathological behavior to grow? Could this have been the point of origin? I don't know, but it makes me wonder…
My heart is about to burst with this revelation, for it's the key to understanding why I put up with so much abuse for this long. I truly want to help people who are in pain.
Even as I write this, I want to still believe what I used to believe…. that R truly was in pain, that I truly was helping him. But in my heart I know the truth and I am free if I cling to the truth. Tears stream down my face as I write this, for my heart knows the truth, even if my mind wants to pull the wool over my eyes.
In some small way, writing the truth out in this forum brings healing to my soul, even though grief pours out in liquid form through my eyes that are just beginning to see.
My God…. I'm not bitter, I don't think… but I believe something GOOD has to come out of this. That was a 9-year investment. Prior to that I had an abusive marriage of 20-years… that marriage was like Josh & Kimberly's, minus the happy ending.
So… once we finally get OUT of these relationships, it's like there is such a clean up in our minds & hearts, right?
Oh…. and the movie that was made of our lives and this "miracle"???????
The flashbacks include portions of the movie…. filmed by CHRISTIANS!
Anyone who understands domestic violence and pathological relationships would immediately recognize the words and phrases of an abused woman in that movie:
- "He was sometimes like a monster"
- "I didn't think our marriage would make it but suddenly I realized it was because he was in pain" or a dozen other such things!
But NO ONE, not a single person, as this movie was distributed world-wide, recognized the symptoms of an abusive marriage!!!!!!!!!
MaryJane: You've got to almost go into hiding, somewhere he would never expect to find you! He does NOT have your best interests at heart! He has been sent by the enemy, to steal, kill, and destroy! Your children and grandchildren are not safe with him either. No matter HOW sweet he is with them. It's a LIE!
Note from the future: In speaking to a therapist recently, she told me she suspected R was a "plant" – like a tare, in the Gospel parable.
Lifegiver: Dear KingsBride,
I will be praying for Gods will and direction for your immediate future. He knows what you are to do and where you are to go, so I will pray that you will hear clearly His voice and then follow what He tells you. You are blessed to have such a good core of people that love you and are willing and wanting you near them. Thats tremendous and such favor. God has not brought you this far to let go of you now.
You are already highly favored by God and beloved by Him deeply so Trust Holy Spirit completely…He has a good plan and purposes in store for you. I love you KingsBride!
Note from the future: I am supplying explanations and observations from the "future me" – who I am today – which will explain what you are hearing in this story. Join me below for an up to date discussion, if you wish!
With all my love,
Sue
Susan Schiller knows how it feels to lose everything: marriage and family, church and reputation, finances and businesses, and more. Susan's upcoming, interactive memoir, "On the Way Home," tells the story of how she came to be known as "the most abused woman" her counselors had yet met and how she learned to navigate her way out of hell to a rich and satisfying life. In her lifetime, Susan has served in duties ranging from home school mom – to pastor – to full-time deliverance minister – and to Midwest regional prayer coordinator for a large international ministry. These days you can usually find Susan soaking in her favorite hot springs pool, reading a book (or several), blogging, baking bread, or hanging out with her family and friends. You can pre-order a free copy of Susan's upcoming book, "On the Way Home" by registering here.
Copyright 2014, Susan Schiller, http://TeamFamilyOnline.com. For reprint permission for any private or commercial use, in any form of media, please contact Susan Schiller.
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