By Elayna Baranova
When I was 2, I was adopted along with another kid from Russia. My adoptive parents were really focused on image and optics, and so that was trained into us at an early age. Unfortunately, they were also abusive. My father was sexually abusive to me, and my mom was emotionally and spiritually abusive, growing progressively worse as the years went by.
My parents did not actively go to church, but my aunt took my brother and I to church. My mom had to quit her job as an elementary teacher due to health issues when I was in the second grade and then started homeschooling us during third grade. That was also optics because she did not actually teach us at first because she was sick and then because she always found other things to do, and so my brother and I fell behind.
Furthermore, she blamed me for that illness, and life became about whether my behavior showed that I was trying to make up for “ruining her life” or actually felt bad about it. As the years passed, my mom upped her control on me, often using religion. Nothing I did was ever good enough. I was taught that I could lose my salvation every time I did something wrong.
Disagreed with my mom = lose salvation.
Disrespect = going to hell.
It was really intense, especially when she would use God to condone her own problematic actions. She’d say, “Lord knows I’m not lying,” and we couldn’t argue otherwise we were accusing her of using God’s name in vain.
As I got older and told her about my dad’s abuse. My life became a whirlwind of trying to avoid my dad, being blamed for his advances, and being controlled by my mom. I became so depressed and often thought about suicide. Yet, my family continued with optics, adopting two more children and appearing to the rest of the world like an ideal family.
When I was 12, we moved to a new church. I made friends, and I learned more about Christianity. I got saved when I was 12, and that was important to me, so the idea that I could lose my salvation became even more depressing, because at home, that was what we had to believe. It was unarguable. When I heard about how salvation secures a relationship with God and knowing Him and being secure in that, it made me want salvation, especially since before then I had only known salvation as asking for forgiveness when you sin so you don’t go to hell, and that’s it.
Inconsistency was also a normal part of life. I was taught about purity while trying to reject my dad’s advances. However I was taught about purity and innocence. When my mom found out exactly how extensive the abuse was, I was ridiculed. I was told that graduating high school and going to college was important, but I didn’t know anything past a 5th grade level, with the exception of reading comprehension and about an 8th grade level of English and writing. I was supposed to believe that God was loving and gracious, but at the same time would send me to hell simply for the smallest thing. I was exhausted of the optics and the control, and I started to think that simply accepting I was going to hell and not worrying about repentance or my family being happy.
I began to self harm. I was suicidal. I was trapped. And I just wanted to get out. I put my focus on how to “please God,” and I agonized every time I “failed” by maladaptive day dreaming, self-harming, or planning how to commit suicide. Eventually when I was 16, I asked for help with my family situation, and social services got involved. The social worker, however, was a family acquaintance, and I got scared so I recanted. I then had to live with this “lie”. That made me feel even further alone and constantly reminded of how “bad” I was.
The control and spiritual abuse continued. When I asked my mom if I would lose my salvation if I was lying, even if it was to protect the family, she basically told me that I better hope I have time to repent right before I die. When she would notice if self-harmed, she told me I was demon possessed and going to hell because no normal person and no Christian would harm themselves. I was never allowed to get help, even when I attempted suicide, because it was my job to protect the secrets of the family.
Freedom finally was supposed to happen when I went to college. How I landed at an ultra conservative college? I have no idea. Pieces fell in place, and I thought how bad could a conservative, fundamental approach be? My dad was only worried about me becoming a Republican, and my mom said skirts and hymns aren’t so bad. So they let me leave, and I went to college.
The escape was nice, and the stress reduced, ironically. However, my mental health issues weren’t fixed. I of course received no mental health care at home, and that continued at college. An investigation into the school had triggered a lot of academic and schoolwide communication about knowing and responding to signs of sexual abuse in churches and other settings with youth and children. Those conversations made my own struggles to hide my parents’ abuse more difficult.
I soon found myself seeking help and receiving biblical counseling from the dorm counselor. I eventually opened up about my family. Reflecting on this, I think the biggest issue with not seeing how the organizations like ACBC and others like this school and just religion in general was similar to my family was because they did denounce the way my parents handled things. So if they were saying that, surely the way they were teaching the gospel was right, surely.
However, what was being taught was highly performance based. There was a sense of focusing on how sinful stuff like being suicidal or self harming was. There was no encouragement to reach outside of biblical counseling. And I attempted suicide at the school several times. The first semester of my sophomore year, after a very rough summer with my family, I was asked to leave the college. The school told me about Vision of Hope as a way to have more extensive counseling and assistance. I did not want to go home, and so I agreed and moved to Indiana to stay with a friend’s family until I went to VOH.
VOH is a residential ministry that claimed to assist women with a variety of issues including addiction, self-harm, and eating disorders. They primarily used Christian teaching and ACBC practices (Association of Certified Biblical Counselors) to do this. I went to VOH 3 different times: once in 2015 for a short period, and then once in 2016, and once in 2018. Time there could really be boiled down to shame and being broken down. The rules were extensive, and counseling sessions were hallmarked with a discussion about how you performed that week and anything you were “in trouble” for. There was often this sense of shame for being a resident and needing help, and there was a focus on your imperfection and need for God. I struggled with this – I knew I “needed God,” but I didn’t know how to get him to help me. I tried so hard to follow the rules, pray, read and memorize the Bible, think on Christian things instead of daydreaming or thinking about dying. Nothing ever seemed to work.
It took months to bring up my trauma in counseling, and I already felt like I needed to minimize it based on the books I had read because of the extreme examples of trauma the books talked about. So, I often felt guilty for “exaggerating” my trauma. Furthermore, there was focus on how I responded wrong to abuse and how I was still responding wrong by being focused on memories or self harming or seeing myself as worthless.
I was good at seeing everything as my fault, so in some ways, I was not able to be broken by the staff like a lot of the women at VOH were. Because I was already broken. It was not surprising to me that I couldn’t do anything good; I had been reminded of that constantly. It did not bother me that sinning affected my value because I believed I had no value. So while I rejected that I could lose my salvation, I became so weary of being told that I was not praying enough or reading the Bible enough or that maybe I wasn’t saved. That was kind of the final trigger each time I left – my trauma and PTSD symptoms would overtake any attempts to be “Christian enough,” and then I would find myself in trouble and my Christianity being questioned.
After VOH, I still stayed somewhat connected to the program. I saw it as a program that was not good for people who have had significant trauma in their life, but maybe there was some merit for it as a program for some. I tried further biblical counseling but not much came from it. It still was performance based, and while people were more understanding, no one really knew what to do with my growing struggle with reckless behavior with men. Eventually I “broke down” and started having hookups. I always felt a confusion of shame and anger because I kept being told and believed they were wrong, but at the same time why did God and people get to say sex with guys was bad but God allowed my dad to do what he did to me?
I moved to South Carolina, and I started to get into more trauma-focused counseling and started medication after a suicide attempt. I didn’t know what else to do, and the biblical counseling route was killing me as much as living with my family as a kid and teenager was.
I was diagnosed with a variety of mental illnesses, but some professionals began to explain to me how complex post traumatic stress disorder is, and I started to work through my trauma, slowly. I am still working through that trauma.
Now, over the last 5 years I have felt stuck between two worlds—the world where certified biblical counseling is celebrated and views like “to be Christian is to be conservative” and legalism is both frowned on and yet practiced, and the reality where people are hurting and the church isn’t helping, at least not unless they are shaming first.
I’ve started to withdraw from the church. It’s a hard journey. I want to and do believe in God, but I cannot accept the approaches that I have been around that dismiss and reject hurting people as people who just need to accept God or pray more or work harder, any more So, here I am.
As for my family, they eventually stopped speaking to me. That has been difficult, since my mom basically says she doesn’t speak to me due to protecting herself because I was “abusive” and tried to “destroy the family”. It is hard to have so much loss and loneliness from people who claim they love God but practice shunning…whether it’s my family, organizations like VOH, or churches that “church discipline”.
That is why I’m so thankful for Hope Restored and to be part of a team and community that gets the harm of not only Vision of Hope or ACBC, but also toxic, perfectionistic religion.
As I consider my journey, it makes sense how I found myself down this pipeline, and it’s hard to get out.But as I continue to heal and to find community, I have hope that healing is still possible.
If you have been hurt by religion, whether that was through a group, family member, church, or school, Hope Restored has peer support communities that offer a safe space to voice your journey. Learn more by visiting our Connect page.
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