To Bully and Beyond
It’s Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month and I’m using this time to share more of my story of experiencing Spiritual Abuse. I will add more details and explanations in the footnotes. This writing reflects my present recollections of experiences over time. Names are pseudonyms. All comments are moderated. Read first installment of my experience with Otis HERE
To Bully and Beyond
They canceled our youth summer mission trip because of political unrest in the country we’d chosen. Rather than canceling completely, Otis planned a backup trip to a different country. [1]
I had spent significant time on the mission field and had been on nearly thirty mission trips domestically and overseas. I had extensive experience in organizing and running mission trips. You could say I loved them, based on the evidence.
But this trip did not bring joy to my heart. I could not fathom going to another country—with a dozen teenagers—and having to navigate another culture with Otis by my side. I prayed the trip would be canceled.
It wasn’t.
For a few months (it became more obvious after Otis dropped his mask ), Otis had slowly been cutting me out of the ministry: planning meetings without me. Making decisions without including me. Ordering me to take notes for meetings but never asking for my opinion during the meeting. The mission trip was no exception. He assigned me menial tasks and did not acknowledge my expertise in missions. [2]
The thought he would now tamper with something I found delight in was enough to cause grief and confusion in proportions equal to—well, it was hard to find a comparison. I had worked so hard to find an identity outside of my cultish upbringing. Now someone was attempting to undermine that identity—trying to erode the self I had so painstakingly created.
On the mission trip, we would run a Bible camp for a small church. We put each of our students in charge of different parts of the camp. Celia was placed in charge of crafts. She was highly creative and came up with some fantastic ideas. I was her assistant based on the fact she wanted help and the fact I wasn’t doing much else for the trip. Otis was running everything. I also wanted her to grow in her confidence and wanted to make sure she had what she needed to succeed.
We arrived at our destination and had our first day working with the kids in the community. The room they assigned us to work on the crafts was basically a storage closet made of concrete. Celia became overwhelmed with the number of children in the small space.
So the following day, we asked the local pastor if we could move our station into the sanctuary of the church building. Celia had the idea to line the table down the center aisle and have the students stand on either side. The kids had a lot of energy, so sitting wasn’t really working. Plus, we could fit more kids around the table if they were standing.
We were in the middle of setting up when Otis appeared. He didn’t give a reason, but he called a few students and had them move the wooden pews and flip the table so it crossed the center aisle. Then, he had those same students set up chairs around the table, directing like a conductor of a symphony, but never once lifting a finger to help. [3]
Celia wrung her hands as she silently watched Otis move the table.
I watched as the panic and overwhelm appeared in her features. I knew she was upset, though she wasn’t going to say anything to Otis. (I also knew better than to protest.)
But I’d had enough of him pushing people around. It was one thing for him to sabotage my plans or my work. It was quite another for him to bully the students. [4]
So as soon as he was out of the room, I said to Celia, “What do you want? Do you want the table like this? Or do you want it back the way it was?”
“I don’t know,” she said, distressed.
“Tell me what you want. If you want it back the way it was, we’ll move it.”
I watched her inner conflict. She chewed her bottom lip and glanced at the door through which Otis had just departed.
“What do you want?” I repeated. “You’re in charge of crafts. You get to decide.”
Her face shifted from overwhelm to resolute. “I want it back the way it was.”
“Okay,” I responded. I then recruited two teenage boys to help us move it, little caring how Otis would make me pay for it later.
As the trip came to a close, we were hard at work cleaning up the church where dozens of kids ranging from ages four to nineteen had had free range for five days. We were short on cleaning supplies, with one dustpan to five brooms.
I was sweeping the tiled floor near an outside door to the side of the sanctuary. Debris in the form of grass, dirt, and leaves had been tracked in and out all week. Considering it best for the grass and dirt to go back where it came from, I started sweeping it outside.
Otis appeared with a dustpan. He dropped it at my feet.
Was he watching me sweep?
“Better to put everything in the trash,” he said. “Don’t sweep it outside.” I stared at the back of his head as he walked away.
Did the motherfucker just tell me how to sweep the goddamn floor?
As I think back on these incidents, I wonder if Otis moved Celia’s table because I was helping her. Did he target me by targeting her?
It was enough to make a person feel crazy. But without this explanation, his behavior made no sense. [5]
You might say he liked control. But it feels like an understatement.[6]
—
[1] Going on a mission trip as a “backup” was completely against my philosophy of missions. You don’t go on trips like this just for the heck of it. I believe Otis wanted to show off the success of the ministry by adding foreign missions to the repertoire. This is just one area where our approaches to ministry were very different.
[2] These behaviors reveal not just Otis’s approach to our working relationship, they also reveal the obtuseness of the environment in which we worked. The leadership wanted us to resolve our “conflict.” Otis made a big show of wanting that very thing. But when people were not watching, he was undermining and sidelining me, subtly driving a wedge between us while simultaneously blaming me for the distance.
[3] In his own twisted mind, Otis might have believed he was doing us a favor.
[4] It’s terrifying to think how long this organization allowed this man to work with minors.
[5] I have since learned, a common feeling when dealing with a narcissist is the feeling of confusion. If you are left in a state of constant confusion in any relationship, it is definitely a sign the relationship isn’t healthy.
[6] Rather than major episodes, my experience with Otis was a series of small injuries over time. It’s important for people to understand, some forms of abuse can present as petty grievances. Even to those of us experiencing it. We ask ourselves, “Why did such a little thing make me so upset?”
But all these little things, observed side-by-side, are enough to paint a picture of a calculated attempt by the abuser to destroy someone’s sense of self. In the eyes of the abuser, however, you deserve everything they dish out. When I look back on my experience with Otis, he saw me as insubordinate and someone bent on stealing his job.
In truth, I just wanted to work hard at something I really loved. I even—initially—wanted to partner with him to do it. I had no intention of stealing his job, though I fully planned on taking it once he left for something else. (When I was interviewing for the position, he had shared with me he intended to leave the church once he finished seminary—a seminary degree the church was paying for.)
For further reading see What Happened to Rankin Wilbourne? & Their Smiling Faces