Weird Cult Stuff

“Debriefs” after a mission trip are basically damage control. Specifically for the damage that comes from pushing people beyond their physical and mental limits.

It’s bringing a bunch of usually traumatized missionaries into an environment that finally feels stable and safe. After months of honestly sometimes inhumane deprivation, you finally give them food, and coffee, and water, medical attention, air conditioning and heaters, soft chairs, clean clothes. Let them cry, finally. Listen to their stories and let them unload all the stress that comes with being under that kind of insane pressure in unfamiliar situations. Encourage them to talk about the difficult things, their doubts and fears and traumas and sicknesses and how relationships and psyches have cracked under the stress .

And then

Then you do damage control. You repeat everything they’re saying back to them, in a way that tells them all the hard stuff was positive, purifying, noble. You define their doubts and fears and regrets as weaknesses, struggles, feelings they can work on getting rid of-and reassure that they have our support while they do!

You put quick bandages on the strained marriages. Yeah, he wasn’t present for the delivery of their first child, but he was out doing the LORD’s work and now they have two months to spend together as a family and he doesn’t even have to go to work for that time because he’s still on church support!

Debrief is a place where you try to get them to say all the things you don’t want them to say later. Their arguments with each other, whatever grudges they held against the injustices of the mission board, the culture shock, the racism, the sicknesses and deaths, all the trauma. Get it out of their systems. Figure out who would have the most damaging things to say, and make sure they’re soothed or reassigned or sent on a retreat with people who can keep a close eye on them.

And honestly? If I hadn’t had Debriefs after my mission work, I would have really cracked. Like, I had a rough time as it was, but debrief was a huge huge psychological help. It made the ludicrous make sense. Gave me a framework. Gave me three days to sort of numbly feel for my emotions, to eat full sized meals, to rest my bones.

Debriefs, at least the ones I went to and the ones I later organized, were manipulative af. But I know someone who just missed their debrief after a six month mission trip and when I heard that I felt panic and so much sadness and compassion.

For people with no access to therapy, I still think debrief after missions is essential. I mean, it’s manipulative and it’s broken and the counselors usually aren’t that qualified and missionarying is a problem in its own right, but how the fuck do you just go back to normal life after something like that with no debrief???? You can’t. You can’t. You will have lasting psychological damage, and you will be in a shitload of pain for a long time. Fucked up.

I am so angry that the mission board responsible for this person didn’t ensure they had a debrief. I know this work, I used to organize these things. How could they drop the ball like that??

🎵 He’s got the whole world in his hands 🎼

🎵 Well it’s nice to know that we’ve all been damned 🎶

[lyrics from the song Feed The Machine, by the band Poor Man’s Poison]

Not my art! Not sure who or where to credit.

New podcast I’m listening to.

These are conversations I’ve had.

This is why it’s nice to talk to other people who have left.

Its good to be accepted. It’s good when people get your jokes. It’s nice to not have to explain how it all went down before you can just talk about your life. It’s nice to be with people who are growing in some of the same ways. It helps you feel less alien.

Every time I see those things about asexuality that are like “literally who would hate asexuals?? Why?? They’re doing nothing!” I do understand the sentiment, but I also know a whole group of who would and why.

To many of the people in my family and home community:

Cute, huh? That’s Paul for ya. The rest of the chapter gets much worse.

ANYWAY.

If you’re asexual and want to do any kind of dating, or want to openly identify as lgbtq+, you’re opening yourself up to a lot of pushback and homophobia from communities/families like mine and that sucks. And, before/without coming out, you’re likely to experience a lot of pressure to have sex, get married, have children, etc. and it can be really difficult to go through sexual relationships, interactions, and interventions that you don’t want to be in, in an effort to “fix your attitude toward sex” or just “do your job” and fulfill your “natural use,” etc. It can be painful and humiliating and you can feel a lot of shame having to do things and talk about things with people when you don’t want to.

If you don’t want to have sex, if you don’t experience attraction at all, that’s okay. You’re not defective. It doesn’t matter why. You’re still good. There is a place for you in the world. You don’t have to get better, or change at all, you’re good the way you are now.

If you want to date a girl, that’s okay. Love is good. You are okay. Hold her hand and let yourself be happy.

If you don’t want to have sex with your husband, or partner, that’s okay. If you don’t want to talk about sex or attraction or whatever with church leaders, or counselors, or anyone, really, that’s okay. They should respect that, and if they don’t it’s not your fault and you don’t need to put up with it. You’re allowed to say no. You’re allowed to leave. You owe your body to no one.

💜 🏳️‍🌈

A friend introduced me and I’m now in love with these comics by Jonathan Burrello (website: The Big Insane Happy)

I’ve been thinking about it a lot and, even though I already answered the question, I think I’ve figured out a more concise way to explain it. I’ve had trouble explaining how it works to my therapist too, so this was helpful to think about and sort of get a clearer sense of.

So

It’s all about categories of what is justified and what isn’t. Actions that cause physical damage can be divided up into a lot of different categories, and extreme fundamentalist anabaptists have different categories than people from other cultures might have.

I feel like most people, more or less, agree with those categories. But what actions fall under each category was different in the radical communities I was raised in vs. the general secular world that I’m in today.

The secular way files a lot of what my family categorizes as discipline under abuse. My family’s way files under self sacrifice a lot of what the secular way categorizes as self harm.

If a woman was raped by her husband, that would not be categorized as rape by the communities I was raised in, it would be categorized as sex. Marriage, for a woman, was considered consent.

If a kid’s arm was broken by a parent as a part of a discipline session that got out of hand, the communities I was raised in would probably categorize that as abuse BUT they probably wouldn’t really hear about it and there probably wouldn’t be real consequences if they did. The culture and power structure (google the umbrella of authority, it’s really easy for people in these communities to abuse people lower than them on the umbrella) is conducive to covering up abuse. This means people who abuse other people pretty much just can, which sucketh majorly for pipsqueaks like myself.

It’s complicated. But on a case by case basis, most of the things that you might consider physical abuse could be explained and justified by the church if needed. Not all! But most. And, due to the emphasis on forgiveness and redemption and not being vengeful, an apology is generally all that’s required to return someone who did heinous things to good graces.

There are also a few categories that the secular world deems justified and the communities I was in deemed unjust.

This is where you hear about those non-violence and non-resistance doctrines. The ideas and traditions behind those doctrines are complex but a basic intro to them is this:

Military violence is wrong because God told us in the Bible to love our enemies and pray for those that despitefully use us, etc. and also “Vengeance is mine, saith the LORD, I will repay.” And also there is a general idea that we should be missionaries by example, and fighting in wars is not a good example of a loving God. There’s also concern about the many innocent parties that get hurt in wars. There is some old old history of persecution from Catholics to Anabaptists and those stories are retold a lot, really impacted my psyche as a kid. The violence was horrific. Tbh I still kind of get sick thinking about wars and the violence in them. I have a difficult time even conceptualizing the military as a positive thing in any sense.

Self defense is wrong because of the ‘gotta be a good missionary and example of God’s love’ bit again and also because, on a more nitty-gritty note, if you were to kill someone who is hurting you they would be sent to hell for their obviously sinful state and you would go on living even though you have assurance of eternal salvation. So, the loving thing would be to let them hurt/kill you so you go to heaven, and hopefully they will use their extra time alive to convert and also go to heaven. (I endured a LOT of hurt while under this principle. I’m done with it. I don’t think it’s loving to let anyone get hurt if you can stop it, and that includes the self. I differ with this doctrine because my understanding of what gives humans intrinsic worth has changed. I disagree strongly with the “I’m nothing without God” and “people who don’t serve God should just burn in anguish for eternity” idea.)