Theft of Autonomy: When Spiritual Abuse Redefines Faithfulness

The control wasn’t loud.

It was quiet.

Calculated.

Disguised as obedience.

The system didn’t just demand action—it rewired how we thought, how we interpreted God, how we defined faithfulness. The deepest damage happened in places no one could see.

We were dehumanized.

Our autonomy was stripped from us.

An entire mental framework was formed there.

The 16-year-old girl that stepped onto that campus was carefully, systematically broken down by him, and then re-built to serve him.

It would take a book to express how deep this ran, but the core conviction he installed was:

“To please God, you must please me.”

That was the underlying script that governed all of my thoughts, actions, fears, beliefs, etc.

If the leader wasn’t happy with someone, their soul was in danger.

He had a system.

It demanded:

Perfect loyalty.

Perfect obedience.

Perfect submission.

If you worked for him at any point, I can promise you that he was intentionally breaking you down.

He often bragged that he broke people like someone who broke horses.

Place pressure on the point of resistance until they break.

If you came with a boundary, that was deemed a point of resistance, and it was considered unacceptable. The unbearable pressure they placed on you? He was systematically breaking you down until there was no resistance left in you whatsoever.

Many employees never made it past a year or two.

But those who remained longer learned the system and followed it.

Let him crush you, then let him reward you.

Your reward was his approval.

There was safety and reprieve in his approval.

I learned how to be precisely what he wanted me to be.

I altered my entire personality.

I took on unbelievable workloads. The equivalent of 4 full-time jobs. I took on a slew of additional projects to stay in ‘safe’ standing. I never said ‘no.’

Anyone could be rebuked publicly or privately for anything. I lived in dread of my next screw up. What would it be? It was impossible to tell. I held my hands wrong while worshipping. Rebuked. I didn’t pray with enough people at the altar. Rebuked. My husband and I went to the grocery store together. Rebuked. My husband I held hands on the way to the office. Rebuked.

I corrected everything he deemed must be corrected, down to the finest details.

Shame and humiliation were some of his favorite tools.

I could fill a book with the twisted tactics he employed. This post doesn’t even scratch the surface.

At one point, we tried to leave, but ultimately returned, partially because it had been ingrained in our minds that people who left this school were either backsliders or out of the will of God. I lived in absolute terror that God would strike us dead because we weren’t “under” this man.

But Mark did not have years of this man’s system under his belt.

Mark still had his head on his shoulders.

Mark was the new employee that must be broken—must be taught the system.

When we returned, I knew what was required. We must prove we were dedicated.

Every fiber of my being knew this is what was necessary—that was the goal.

But things quickly took an unexpected and decidedly dark turn.

Shortly after we returned, we found out we were expecting our oldest and I developed a blood clot in my brain.

I became an invalid overnight.

After a week in the hospital, Mark brought me home, and for 4 months, Mark had to take care of me like I was an elderly woman in a nursing home. I couldn’t take care of my most basic needs. I couldn’t even turn myself in bed. There was a small handful of (relatively) decent days, here and there, where I was able, with tremendous effort, to do a load of laundry, or wash the dishes, or do some small thing, but by and large, this season was a living nightmare. Sound triggered seizures. Mark had to whisper the entire time. If I opened my eyes and saw even a blank wall, it triggered violent vomiting that wouldn’t stop. It was as if the slightest information was more than my brain could manage. My brain was under so much pressure from blood not draining out of it that I could not exert the slightest mental effort. I remember Mark asking if I knew where the keys were, and the simple, involuntary reflex of the mind to start solving spun me into unparalleled head pain, convulsions and vomiting.

This health crisis was immediately viewed as resistance and the leader was determined to break it down.

He started by demanding Mark to “push” me.

The implication? This isn’t real. This is fake. Force her to work.

Mark would have no part in this. I was too oblivious, at the time, to know what was going on around me, but Mark shielded me from the leader during this time.

The next step?

Increase pressure.

Force Mark to provide a doctor’s excuse for me.

Mark reasoned through this. Wives were not paid employees. Wives were completely volunteer. Why does a volunteer need a doctor’s excuse? It wasn’t necessary. This was clearly a power play, and Mark wouldn’t play the game. Instead of playing along and obtaining a doctor’s excuse, Mark, simply made sure all responsibilities were taken care of. On top of taking care of me around the clock, and doing all of his own responsibilities, he took on all of my school-related responsibilities.

All work was still getting done, so logically, there should not have been an issue.

That wasn’t the real issue at stake though. The real issue was this perceived resistance.

Mark wasn’t bowing down to him and nothing was more maddening to this man than perceived resistance.

Pressure was increased. The leader had recently hired a woman who was a registered nurse, so he created a “school nurse” position for her to fill. It was open knowledge among the faculty that this new position was a convenient way that allowed him to de-legitimize student claims of sickness. If they claimed they were ill, this new nurse could negate their claim and force them to go to class.

A few weeks into my health crisis, the leader decided that now EMPLOYEES must also be screened by her, to determine if their absence was justified.

Mark knew exactly what the leader was doing and that it was absolutely uncalled for. He determined that this nurse would not be permitted in our home.

The “resistance” was getting stronger, so the leader then FORBADE Mark from taking me to see any doctors or going to the hospital without being “screened” by this nurse in advance.

Mark wasn’t going to do this either, but I knew these rules. I understood them.

It didn’t matter if they violated boundaries, or failed to make sense. It didn’t matter if they came out of nowhere or if they were invented on the spot.

It wasn’t about that.

It was about power and submission.

I had lived by these rules for over a decade.

I knew the drill.

I knew the pressure would never end, unless we followed them.

And in my mind, as long as this leader was unhappy with us, God was unhappy with us.

That was terrifying.

Looking back, I am beyond grateful for Mark and his firm resolve not to bend to these ludicrous demands. My mental framework was so twisted up at the time, however, that in the moment it absolutely devastated me that Mark refused to bend to the rules.

I begged him, “Just submit! It will all stop if you just submit to him!”

Mark would not bend though, so I attempted, on my own, to prove, with all my might that I would bend—I would submit.

About 5 months into this, I gained the slightest bit of traction, and I began attempting to power through.

With a blood clot in my brain, I gave every ounce I had of myself to prove I was dedicated…

Prove I was acceptable…

Prove I was compliant…

I gave everything I had to do the tiniest bit of work and afterward the pain in my head was so horrific that I crawled in circles, dragging my head across the floor to dissociate from the unthinkable pain.

At times I would crack my eyes open to see if I was in hell, because I couldn’t reconcile that degree of pain even existing on earth.

The reality is, I was having an ongoing stroke for SEVEN MONTHS without substantial medical care or intervention.

Seven months.

On May 4, 2016, I was 32 weeks pregnant and pieces of the blood clot started breaking off and hitting my heart, causing excruciating chest pain. My blood pressure at home was 160/110, and my body was so swollen that my skin started ripping open. I hadn’t felt Zane move in over a week, but I was trying—so hard—to live by the rules.

Mark wanted to take me to the hospital but I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t break the rules.

I was desperate to prove I could live by the rules.

I begged Mark to submit to the protocol and convinced him to stop and see the “school nurse” as demanded/required.

She dismissed our concerns entirely.

I strongly suspect she was instructed in advance to do so.

She deemed it unnecessary to go to the hospital. I was in extreme pain, however, and things were spiraling fast, so Mark defied protocol, put me in the car, and took me to the hospital.

Upon arrival my blood pressure was 210/160. Our baby was unresponsive and completely failed the biophysical profile. His heart rate was barely there and plummeting.

The nurses were rushing to prepare an ambulance to get me to a hospital with a better NICU when Marks phone rang.

I was laying in the hospital bed, tears streaming because there was a very real possibility my son would be stillborn, and I heard the leader through the speaker… rebuking my husband for missing church that evening.

At 12:05 AM, on May 5th, our son, Zane, was delivered by emergency c-section.

I spent 3 weeks in the ICU, and Zane spent 5 weeks in the NICU.

While I was in the ICU, I couldn’t visit Zane. Mark was the only one who could, but Mark was expected to work. My heart shattered in a million pieces, knowing my child was alone in the NICU, and there was nothing we could do about it. Mark would work all day to appease the leader, and when it was safe to leave, he’d travel an hour to the hospital, spend one half hour with Zane and one half hour with me, then drive another hour home. He was rebuked for even this. On his day off, when he should have had freedom to be with us as long as he liked, the leader invented new duties and responsibilities to void his day off. Mark was told that just because Zane and I were in the hospital didn’t mean he needed to be there. That his priority was the school. He made it nearly impossible for Mark to be with his family during a time when we all needed each other the most.

At one point he told Mark to bag up all the school’s finance work and bring it to me to work on in the ICU. I still have a picture of it… the workings of a school deposit, strewn across the bedside table that was shoved off to the side by the cardiac team, who rushed in to save my life while I was desperately trying to take care of it.

Absolute insanity.

That was the end for us.

Mark went to the bank and explained to them that we needed to get out, but that we were trapped—financial dependence was part of the structure. By God’s grace, they approved a loan to help us get out and on our feet.

When I was discharged, during one of the final sermons we sat through at the school, the leader stood behind the pulpit and implied to the congregation that our son was in the NICU because we weren’t dedicated enough. In an attempt to display our desire to leave on good terms, we had already asked him to dedicate our son. He took that opportunity, while holding our tiny baby in the air up, as if to God, to disparage my husband’s leadership in his home and family.

After that, we loaded a U-Haul and drove as far away from there as we possibly could. It was the craziest leap of faith—we left behind medical insurance and all the doctors familiar with my case and hit the road with an active blood clot in my brain, a handful of blood thinners, and a tiny 5lb. baby, nursing every hour.

It seemed reckless and insane back then…

Now I marvel at the hand of God.

My child and I were dying, and that was deemed resistance—something rebellious that needed to be broken into submission.

And my mind was so conditioned by that point that I believed it.

But God, in His absolute mercy, delivered us from spiritual tyranny.

He preserved us.

It still took a few years for the mental framework that was built there to crack.

We got a few bumps and bruises along the way, as we navigated the world and Christianity, and had our brushes with deceptive counterfeits even outside of that bubble.

Eventually, however, the Gospel broke through—and when it did, it shattered the lies.

It cleared the fog.

It brought comfort.

And it brought the kind of healing no earthly system could give.

There is not a day that goes by that I do not rejoice over the mercy and the compassion God extended to us.

We were brought out.

We were placed on the firm foundation of Christ and His Word.

My children will not grow up in the dark shadow of the counterfeit.

To God be the glory for all He has done. He is worthy to receive praise!

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” –Colossians 1:13-14