The Many Exorcisms of Me

“Get ready, it’s almost time to go. We don’t want to be late,” My stepmom hollered as I was getting ready in my room. My stepmom was hauling us to another prayer circle at the Assembly of God church she made us attend.

I, of course, didn’t want to go. Every time the church doors opened, she was hauling me to attend. Regular church, revivals, Sunday school, bible quizzes, and prayer meetings- we lived and ate at church, it seemed.

I wanted nothing more than to go live with my mother, but my mother had sent me to live with my dad. Mom said it was for my good that I went and lived with him, but if she’d known that my stepmom used the church as a form of punishment for me just for being alive, she never would have sent me, I am sure. My real mom had too many kids to look after, what with her three and my stepdad’s five.

So here I was, living with my father and his newest wife at the time, forced to attend church. Now, don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed church usually, especially when I could get away from my stepmom for a moment. I didn’t mind reading my bible or studying with a group. It’s what happened during these meetings that my stepmom dragged me to.

My little stepsister considered an angel by her mother, was supposed to be too young to participate in church, so she always got to go to children’s church. She was a good kid, I’ll give her that, and I loved her to death and was glad to have a younger sister, and I still consider her my sister. She was in no way responsible for what I had to go through and had no bearing on this story other than the fact that she was there. As a five-year-old child, she just wanted someone to love her and play dolls with.

Anyway, I digress. Let me get back to my story.

We were attending yet another prayer meeting at yet another deacon’s house. We arrived as expected. Everyone said hi, and then the session began.

I don’t remember much about what chapter and verse the reading was at that night's meeting. I remember all those adults turning towards me and immediately laying hands on me, the youth director anointing me with oil and praying over me- to cast the demons out of me.

That’s when I realized my stepmom had the whole church believing that twelve-year-old me was full of demons, that I was evil. This exorcism was how she felt about me and my childhood abuse. Instead of getting a good therapist to help me work through my issues, anger, feelings of not being good enough, and my wanting to be invisible.

With my father's knowledge, she dragged me to church for the next two years. My father mindlessly couldn’t see the emotional abuse this woman was piling on me.

This treatment added to the distress I felt being an abused child. If I thought I was no good before these exorcisms started, I knew I was no good after they began.

I noticed the church members didn’t invite me to parties or sleepovers. Why would they? I was the demon-possessed child, after all. No way could they allow me to corrupt their children.

I became quiet and withdrawn. I wouldn’t even go to the mall. I caught my dad paying someone to hang out with me. If I weren’t in my room, on my bed reading, I would be hiding in the woods, sitting in a tree, reading.

My stepmom continued forcing me to go to church, only to be prayed over by a group of elders, each casting the demons from my soul in the blessed name of Jesus. I continued to feel degraded each time. I started feeling incompetent, unworthy, and dirty.

Even at that young age, I knew they misunderstood any cries for help I may have made and were just making things worse.

By the time I was fourteen, I knew I had to get away from her and that church. I told my dad I was moving back to my mother’s, but he couldn’t stop me, and he knew it. My mother had full custody, and I knew what it meant.

I’ve since gotten help for my issues of abuse. I’ve learned none was my fault. But as to the emotional abuse from my stepmom and the exorcisms I was forced to endure, I now have difficulty attending church.