When the exorcism needed is your religion itself
I stood transfixed, unable to process what was happening. I watched as a nurse slowly and quietly turned off monitors and machines and, in doing so, severed the energetic cord between my little brother and his life here on earth. Just a month shy of his 11th birthday, Neuroblastoma was having its final say and I was desperately willing for a last, second miracle.
John Andrew was the baby of the family and the last to carry on our paternal name as he was the only boy, just like my father was in his family before him. The weight of ancestry and faith itself now seemed to hang in the balance while my 20-year-old soul attempted to tip the scales of fate that somehow seemed tied to his breath.
Moments ago, my family had circled his hospital bed. Our pastor led us in prayer, probably for comfort but I sure as hell wasn’t feeling any, and my grandmother, a devout woman, sang one of her favorites – the Doxology.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
Don’t get me wrong; this felt like a deeply sacred moment but also profane in its fleshly torment. My lungs screamed for relief as my chest wracked with sobs. Why was I the only one [outwardly] losing her shit??
And the guilt… oh the fucking guilt! It had become my specter over the past five years or so, with furtive tendrils intertwining with my sincere religious fervor. Like a judge, it condemned me with my own thoughts and feelings:
Guilty for fasting and praying only to the point of passing out and not longer.
Guilty for not spending more time at the hospital.
Guilty for hanging out with friends when I could have been home with him.
Guilty for going to Japan to find myself and being frustrated when I was called home early.
Guilty for not staying vigilant through prayer services that lasted for hours.
Guilty because my sins must’ve somehow outweighed my faith and not “tipped the scales in heaven” when I laid hands on him anytime we were alone and he was asleep, trying to “heal” him the way revivalists in Brownsville and Toronto were doing for others.
Guilty for being jealous of him and all the attention he received from everyone, and especially my parents.
Guilty for being ready for him to die and guilty for begging him to live longer even though that would mean condemning him to a life of partial blindness, impotence, and who knows what else?
Guilty because it was him and not me.
I was guilty and the sentence was being carried out – his death.
The nurse, now crying herself but trying to hide it, slowly wrapped his swollen body in a blanket and placed him on my mother’s lap. I waited for him to breathe. I stared at his bald head, looking at his little lips I’d pressed my cheeks to so many times in the past.
“PLEASE GOD! LET HIM BREATHE! HE’S DYING!” my mind screamed.
He didn’t.
He left and I collapsed.
What had begun as a slight tearing in the fabric of my worldview over that last year or so was widening. Unbeknownst to my conscious awareness, an inner revolution gathered momentum – a re-knowing of everything I didn’t even realize I had forgotten. A re-knowing that would lead me to a paradox of complete unknowns.
They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
I say heaven hath no blessing like a woman reborn.
Anna Diorio
Why this essay:
As one raised Evangelical, I now work extensively with religious trauma from all walks of life. Regardless of religion or denomination, one of the most common threads running through each story is GUILT. It’s pervasive and it haunts long after one has left the toxic setting itself.
Guilt is a useless emotion in that it never spurns us on long-term to positive internalized change. While many may try and argue that it makes people behave in a way consistent with societal or cultural norms etc., the truth of the matter is that it has a devastating effect on the mind and body if allowed to linger longer than the initial inquiry of, “Could I have handled that better?” If anything, guilt is an evolutionary byproduct of humans’ ability to be aware of their own thinking (aka metacognition) and need to be prosocial in order to survive and build communities.
And yet, what tends to instead be common phenomena is a negative reinforcement loop where someone feels guilty for something and then needs to find a way to make themselves feel better (not always in a healthy manner and usually a temporary fix) and then the guilt starts to creep back in and the cycle starts all over again. You see this pattern in everything from yo-yo dieting to domestic violence and more.
Bottom line - just like spanking or any other authoritarian behavior aimed at controlling another, guilt may appear temporarily effective on the surface, however it is impotent in the long run and instead, deeply damaging. A self-actualized person yes, takes responsibility for their behaviors however, they do not allow shame to be the driving factor but rather a focus on what brings peace and fulfillment.
