One of the hardest things about pushing a church for more accountability is the overwhelming pressure to “make nice.” Most of us feel this pressure, in one way or another. Women in particular are taught to do emotional caretaking, to accommodate and take responsibility for the feelings of others. For someone with the kind of childhood that Kathy had, however, this pressure can feel like life or death, because in the past, it has been life or death. For many abuse survivors, people-pleasing is a survival skill. Part II, among other things, is a story of Kathy struggling to navigate between the survival skill of people-pleasing and her pressing need, as a child abuse prevention professional, to push her church leaders for more accountability. Asking for care, for recognition of our particular vulnerabilities as survivors, is not easy, and it’s doubly challenging when your needs are treated as a burden. The story here is unfortunately a common one in churches: a perpetrator’s wife is viewed as the victim most worthy of protection, and her desire for silence becomes a weapon used against other victims to inflict shame on them for speaking and insisting on accountability. These are hard details to […]
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