(‘Jane’ is not her real name, and to preserve her anonymity a few details of her life have been changed. But it’s a true story).

Jane, one of my clients, came for a ‘This is Your Life’ retreat – a kind of spiritual check-up we offer, based on journaling through 19 questions. (We’ve just been to church, and I confessed to her that the sermon – ‘Prophets vs. Pharisees’ – was really meant for her rather than the charismatic congregation we visited. I can’t ever remember preaching to encourage just one person: usually that’s unethical).

Jane is a highly intelligent, forty-ish widow, mother of three teenagers. Her story: I grew up in a Methodist Church in rural Queensland. The youngest of six children, I was an ‘accident’: conceived through my father’s rape of my mother. Dad was extremely violent, beating mum and us kids most days. When I was small I was often violently shaken by him to keep me quiet. Mum was regularly beaten – and I would sometimes lie down on the ground next to her. I still carry my mother’s pain: as a child I spent so much time trying to protect her: sometimes throwing myself between my fighting parents.

Dad had guns, and would line us up threatening to shoot us – or kill us with a knife. Sometimes he locked us in the pantry, or out of the house. He sexually abused me during my first eight years particularly when mum was hospitalized. I coped by dissociating – sending myself away, so I wouldn’t ‘be there’ when bad stuff happened. I had no concept of ‘love’, and lived in a fantasy world. I developed a good coping facade, but all my life I’ve felt there’s a small fragile child buried deep inside me.

Mum tried to help: ‘Your father doesn’t mean these bad things: he really loves you.’ I found out he was born out of wedlock into a dysfunctional family. He often brought his parents home from the pub in a drunken stupor. Sometimes he hid in a tree for up to three nights to escape his father’s rages.

So he himself became a ‘rageaholic’. He would sometimes retreat to his bedroom and cry after an outburst, but it would be on again in an hour. My most common emotion was terror. But I couldn’t show any emotion: ‘Don’t cry, your mother will get sick and die.’ (My mother did seem to be sick all the time anyway, and I thought it was my fault for crying often). And loneliness: I vowed not to ever let love touch me. There was a text on mum’s dressing-table which haunted me: ‘Love suffers long and is kind.’ It’s still there, even though she died 20 years ago. I hated God so much I would punish him by going to hell and he could never have me. I would never let a man get close or control me – I decided that as a young child.

We attended church regularly, and pretended everything was alright. The church didn’t help: it was all a big terrible secret. My father, although an intense man (people sometimes backed away from him) could look like a saint: he prayed aloud in church meetings and published a Text for Today in the local paper.

Once when eleven I was sexually abused by a neighbor but never told anyone. Some worse things happened, but they’ve been blanked out of my memory.

My teenage years were desperately unhappy – low self-esteem, blaming myself for anything unhappy or that went wrong with other people. Mum told me she planned to kill herself one day, and I would find her in the local park. The physical abuse against us kids diminished but verbal/emotional abuse continued – and my father continued to rape and abuse my mother almost to the day she died. When I got my first periods didn’t tell anyone for two years – not even the two older sisters I shared a bedroom with. I felt so ashamed and dirty. I had several boyfriends, and some sexual encounters. Because I felt responsible for everybody I became a nurse.

The father of my first baby, a girl, was conceived when I was 19, and was adopted out. (He wanted me to join his sect but I wouldn’t. He denied it was his child.) This was the worst grief I’ve ever been through but I got no help. Church-people told me I was a loose woman. Then I met my future husband at a church function, after being pulled apart from another relationship by church leaders (they told my fiancé I was not good enough).

We went together for only four months, with a lot of guilt about our sexual life. We were two dysfunctional people (my husband had been sexually abused by his elder brother). Then we had a sad, stressful marriage.

Looking for love and support and answers we joined a ‘Christian Fellowship’ – really a cult group – in rural N.S.W. They found the devil everywhere. Every problem was caused by demons or because I was in rebellion or unsubmissive or didn’t want to be free. The exorcisms were terrible, embarrassing and sometimes life-threatening – extremely physically and emotionally abusive. Some overt sexual things happened there – including one of the elders saying ‘God showed me you’ve had sex with the devil – better to have sex with me; it’s safer.’ Several times the exorcisms were in the form of delivering a baby: they put my legs in the air – men and women were there. I expected my newborn babies to have red eyes – like those in Rosemary’s Baby.

Their methods: intimidation, manipulation and control. We had to renounce all our previous beliefs, destroy our wedding tape, throw away my grandmother’s wedding ring which my mother gave me when she was dying, smash our beautiful crockery, burn 90% of our books. The children’s toys were confiscated. I had to burn my mother’s beautiful embroidery. My childhood artwork, which had won several prizes, had to be destroyed – also my nursing awards. Any good things in your life they made you get rid of.

Everything they said to me about me was negative. We had to shift house to their area, never go to another church – all other churches were evil. They only were especially anointed of God, with special revelations. Doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists were all evil. They were really ‘superspiritual’, and knew the Bible very well. They were benign-looking farmers on the outside, and their area was a place of great natural beauty. They sometimes had odd visions about things, never shared communion, and rarely used the name Jesus. I was rebaptized by them – but when I tried to get out of water, a terrible force tried to push me back under. Several people had to pull me out.

During this period I took several drug overdoses, taking handfuls of tablets, then none for a while, then handfuls again.

But I worked hard to protect our children, and they’re OK, thank the Lord. My overwhelming sense of responsibility to them has kept me going: or I would have succeeded with one of my many suicide attempts.

Then my husband developed cancer. I was told I caused it because I was a ‘witch of death’. The marriage had been ‘joined in witchcraft’ because there were masons in my husband’s family. My mother was supposed to be a witch.

So this cult experience did as much if not more damage than all my childhood experiences.

We left there after 12 years and joined a Pentecostal church. It was OK, but useless in counseling or debriefing. They didn’t empathize or understand. We were so screwed up. They believed in ‘quick fixes’ that would solve everything. They were only interested in ‘revival’ or ‘church growth’. Your value was measured by what you did in the church.

Then we went to a strict Pentecostal church – very authoritarian, controlling. There were awful deliverance episodes: they more or less said that if I don’t stay spiritual my husband would die, or he would lose his salvation. A public prophecy said ‘the health of the family depends on you, stop crucifying yourself, and praise the Lord.’ I was baptized again and a lot of ‘ministry’ – but I wasn’t allowed to question anything. If I fell in a heap or ever say no I was ‘in rebellion’. I was in a fragile, desperate state, scared to say anything to anybody in the church. They were convinced my husband wouldn’t die. On his death bed they anointed him with oil, pressing hard on his stomach. They made us repeat our wedding vows, to make it all right: we were blamed for this sickness.

When he died I was told I had a ‘spirit of grief’, and I shouldn’t cry after two days. If I was sad in church, they rebuked the spirit of ‘division’. I upset the song-leader, who was not able to concentrate on his praise-leading because of my sad expressions. When the superannuation money came they got excited. I foolishly asked them how I should tithe it, and talked about giving them a large interest-free loan. When I asked what to do with the money they said it was none of my business so I couldn’t use it against them. Several times the pastor said he could throw us out any time. He said ‘After all we’ve done for you we should have had at least some of the money.’

The day my daughter was baptized, I was sad because my husband not there, and when they made some accusatory comments I snapped. I said some home-truths to one of the pastors, and even slapped his face. The church leaders told us not to come back.

We went to another Pentecostal group – they were kinder, good people. Took a long while, but I went to the pastor with some of my anger, and he seemed to understand. (He’d been criticized in the other church as being full of demons). We left that church when the pastor left.

Since then we haven’t been associated with any church at all. I can’t get close to anybody. My panic attacks continue. I’m still afraid of the dark. And I still suffer from severe dissociative disorders (some call it MPD – or severe and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder). I’m a sort of Jekyl and Hyde, but worse. I’ve mapped over 60 dissociative states. It’s really a coping strategy, because I’ve lived all my life in war zones.

Only persons I’ve opened up to were a psychiatrist and Jewish counselor – both non-Christians. But the psychiatrist committed suicide two hours after one of our sessions. The police enquiry commented that counseling people who’d been ritually or sexually abused may have contributed to his death, so of course I felt responsible.

When I talk about the past, it’s as if a shell is talking, not the real me. I have several intelligences – several thinking patterns at once: it’s like a bunch of grapes. The cultists said it’s either attention-seeking and different demons. They really threw a demonic/spiritual grenade into the middle of the system and blew it apart: my system of coping became dysfunctional. It remains a dysfunctional dissociative disorder.

The worst stuff I’ve blotted out: it’s too painful.

Somewhere inside me there’s a little frightened girl, less than two years old. She’s in a large darkened cold dim room, hunched up in a corner in a white night dress. But she’s a long way away, with lots of doors between us – but she’s also hauntingly close. I don’t feel she’s me, whoever ‘me’ is. So when I talk about my problems it’s ‘Jane two’ talking, but there’s a little Jane who’s real, there somewhere. I live in constant anxiety, and fear, feeling something bad is going to happen at any time. I’m panicky, tense, jump at any noise, and am still afraid of the dark. I’ve attempted suicide several times because I can’t cope with what’s going on in my head. But I just want to stop the feelings, not necessarily die. I often mutilate myself. Always I’ve had bad dreams – there’s a black figure after me to kill me: it’s really awful, with evil eyes just like my father’s.

There’s a thick, tight ball of pain in my gut that won’t go away…