Category Archives: Spiritual Abuse

My New eBook – Spiritual Abuse: A Victim’s Guide to Recovery

Written exclusively for my blog readers, Spiritual Abuse: A Victim’s Guide to Recovery is now available for your Kindle and your Nook.

About the eBook:

Spiritual abuse is happening in increasing numbers around the world. As Christian fundamentalism grows, so do the numbers of psychological and “spiritual” abuse victims. Spiritual abuse is becoming a common term for those harmed in churches and cults. Lisa Kerr is an ex-cult member and former reverend with the Assemblies of God who worked with a group called Master’s Commission for nearly a decade. Today, she advocates for ex-cult members and those who’ve experienced spiritual and psychological abuse in the hands of clergy.

If you enjoy the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or visit my author page for upcoming events.

Spiritual Abuse is Abuse

I went on a job interview a few weeks ago and my blog ended up in the conversation. When asked what I wrote about I said “Spiritual Abuse” which is the sort of standard term we use for what cult survivors and general survivors of abuse from pastors.

The man interviewing me asked what that meant and in an attempt to explain it, I listed some of what has happened to myself and others I know. He said, “Oh, real abuse.”

Lesson learned: rape, physical maltreatment, being hit, verbal abuse–these are all ABUSE. Maybe we shouldn’t use the term spiritual in front of them. It seems that some people (even ourselves) don’t take it seriously.

The Cycle of Abuse: Discipleship Programs

This blog deals nearly entirely with Master’s Commission abuse and recovery, but since December or so I’ve maintained a friendship with some of the Recovering Alumni from Teen Mania who’s stories are so similar to mine.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that Teen Mania and Master’s Commission are both abusive discipleship programs. After all, they both take students away to be discipled away from their family and friends, and focus on militaristic rules, rituals and leadership, and force prayer and Bible study on their students.

When I first entered Master’s Commission, I’d heard of Teen Mania but didn’t know anyone who attended nor did I have access to seeing them or meeting them. Later, in my first year in Master’s Commission my roommate Tiffany kept trying to set me up with her friend who was in Teen Mania. She told me stories about all the missions trips he’d gone on and I have to admit, I was a little bit jealous–missions was my thing at the time.

Today I read Keith’s story on the Recovering Alumni site, and was (again) surprised how similar Keith’s story was to mine in ways. We had an unrelenting loyalty and obedience to our leadership. If they told us to jump, we’d say how high? Keith was obedient like I was. Keith always tried to be moral and do the right thing, and I was a lot like that when I entered Master’s Commission. My mom taught me to be respectful to people, and I interpreted that as obeying my teachers and elders.

Part of Keith’s story really hit me:

Other than these two minor things, the trip was going great and I was making good friends. Then one day, out of nowhere, while we were in the town square preparing to share the Gospel, my team leader came up to me and told me I was no longer allowed to speak with my closest male friend on the trip, Shane. I couldn’t even respond to my team leader because I was so taken aback. Shane seemed like a good guy and I thought we had a positive influence on each other. My team leader asked me if I understood what he was asking me to do and I said yes. He never told me why I shouldn’t talk to Shane but I just figured he would tell me later. For the rest of the day, I kept my distance from Shane as I was told.

Keith describes this incident and how he reacted in a way that I consider accurate to how I reacted every time I was told what to do in Master’s Commission. If I was told to do something that didn’t make sense, I was sometimes too shocked or scared to ask WHY and I assumed that (like a normal person) my leader would tell me later.

That talk, reason or excuse never came later.

Because we’d get rebuked or punished if we questioned our leaders, many of us were too scared to question our leadership. Like Teen Mania, Master’s Commission had a set of rules that were to be followed and if not, the ultimate punishment was being told to leave the program. However harsh our leadership was, we never thought that it would be a good thing to be kicked out. Such shame and disgust was surrounded with getting kicked out and we were taught that we’d be completely out of the grace of God (and walking with Satan) if we got kicked out.

And this is how the cycle of abuse held it’s power over us as new students. Eventually, we came into a position of leadership and the same tactics were used to make us behave in a way that was sometimes threatening to the students. We were threatened if we didn’t rebuke the students harsh enough.

Please read Keith’s Story and if you are a Master’s Commission Alumni please consider checking out Recovering Alumni. The site is a great resource for recovery.

The Closet is Safer than Church

I’m what is called an advocate for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people. What does that mean, exactly?

I’m as concerned for the LGBT group’s rights and respect as I am my own rights. I don’t think it’s gross that men kiss men. I don’t care if men or women marry someone of the opposite sex–in fact, I want them to be married. Preventing them from marrying denies them a lot of things that other couples have, and I disagree with putting a stop to it.

As a Christian minister, I don’t remember having a lot of friends who were LGBT. Maybe there were some people who were gay, but I didn’t know it at the time. I never had a particular prejudice against anyone in that group. I didn’t really think about it. I grew up in a very small town, and went right into church work. I was pretty sheltered.

Coming out of ministry in 2005, I started going to a state university. I met so many people and became friends with quite an interesting array of people. Everyone of my friends was different, and I loved them all. Amongst my friends were hippies, people whose parents grew up in Mexico, African Americans, sorority girls, frat guys, Honors Program nerds, tutors, etc.

Ooooh and I forgot to mention….GAYS!

I auditioned for a friend of mine’s play and as it turned out he was gay. Of course, not all men in theater are gay, but some of them were. And the gays were the most fun for me! We would call each other “girl” and give each other the bitchiest attitudes over minimal things.

There was a serious side to my gays, though, and a major reason we were so close. We were both excluded from church and looked down upon from Christians. I was excluded because of my new beliefs and because I couldn’t look at a pastor anymore without cringing with disrespect. They were excluded for a simple reason: they were gay.

I won’t get into too much detail over my friends’ pasts and the abuse they faced, but I can tell you this: if anyone with any heart had the friends I had, they would look at them as people, not as someone to despise or disrespect. If anyone with any heart saw the amount of anger, violence and “faggot” calling that was projected onto them, you’d stand by them and never let them go.

But, onto the real meat of this post…

Since leaving Master’s Commission/the ministry/Our Savior’s Church (yeah, I get around), I’ve had some people contact me who are gay. Some people are still closeted. Some aren’t.

Those who’ve stepped out of the closet and told their friends and families often have similar stories. If their families are Christian or religious, they’re often shunned, cussed out or called FAGGOT or worse. One of my friends was called a cock-sucking bitch by his mother. Another friend of mine was called a faggot by his dad. Many of their religious friends have shunned them. Some of them have religious friends who are only moderately religious or not religious at all and they’ve embraced them.

Sad.

It’s sad to me that “Christians” don’t embrace gays.

Maybe they don’t understand their sexuality, but there’s a lot more to a person besides their sexuality. In fact, just because a person is gay doesn’t mean their not a human.

Wow. What a concept.

I know, sometimes I’m sooo obvious.

I really don’t like that my friends have to stay in the closet because a lot of really rude people don’t understand their own Bible and instead weigh in on a subject that every Christian aligned politician or speaker or preacher has touched on with limited historical knowledge.

If you want a reference point on the subject, watch For the Bible Tells Me So. It’s a documentary. It’s such a powerful documentary that I challenge any of my readers to watch it and still be anti-gay. Seriously. I’ll give you a dollar if you watched it and can quote to me the entire scholarly context that they give about Leviticus 18:22 and STILL are anti-gay.

That’s dumb. I know. Just because you can quote something doesn’t mean you understand it–like the Bible. :p

I’m taking it upon myself to see to it within my lifetime that discipleship programs and churches stop doing “anti-gay” programs. I’ll explain.

I met “Sam” awhile ago, and found out that he attended Master’s Commission. He was accountable to his discipleship mentors about his feelings for his ex-boyfriend and they made him attend an anti-gay program. The program was made up of classes that taught him that his thoughts and feelings for his boyfriend were from the devil and he was demon possessed. He’d walked with Satan, so to speak, and didn’t give his life fully to God, which is why he had submitted to these temptations.

I want to punch those m*ther f*ckers in the nose!

Demon possessed??

I know THESE PEOPLE who are teaching him he’s demon possessed. I feel so disgusted that I was in leadership in such a group that allowed this type of oppression and emotionally violent teaching to go on.

For those of you who don’t support gays, lesbians or transgendered people (the latter is a group I think many people have a hard time understanding, especially those in the Christian community), think about this: If you’re a Christian, shouldn’t you fully support the downtrodden? Shouldn’t you stand up for those who are socially in a weaker situation? (by weaker, I mean those who are more prone to violent things happening to them if they’re public about their lifestyle–not weaker in any other manner)

Mary Daly is one of my favorite feminist (lesbian) philosophers. She says that the “classifications of heterosexuality and homosexuality are patriarchal.” I agree. Let me explain her quote.

Patriarchy is the main thing about Christianity that I despise. It’s ran by men, and women are secondary citizens. God is a man, therefore man is a god. In my experience as a reverend, women were respected only secondarily to men. Our voices weren’t heard if a man’s rose above ours.

For more reasons than that, I can’t consider myself Christian. The entire idea of modern day Christianity serves no purpose socially except to oppress women.

So, this patriarchy has set up and mastered it’s structure to oppress women and recently gays. Why? The Patriarchal Standard Male Christian is this: strong, ambitious, straight, a leader, etc.

Gays, lesbians, transgendered…straight women who are vocal and opinionated (ahem….ME!), straight men who are softer spoken, gentle, and not aggressive, etc are all the outsiders in that equation. We don’t follow the Christian normative behavior pattern.

I for one, don’t follow the normative behavior pattern for a Christian, which is why I’m largely an “outsider” even to Christian friends from the past. I’m outspoken. I’m bold. I’m bossy. I’m not afraid. I have some masculine qualities of leadership and ambition. I’m like Tina Fey in Baby Mama, when they’re eating the Philly cheesesteak sandwiches and Tina says she’s kind of bossy and Greg Kinnear says, “If you were a man, they’d just call you a prick.” (or something along those lines).

Anyway, I’m beside myself with this post. It’s nothing but rambling and opinion. I better log off before the Patriarchy Police come shut down my IP address.

For those of you who DO think being gay is not a sin, and anti-gay counseling is unacceptable, pay attention to this recent article in Huffington Post on gay counseling in Malaysia.

If you’re LGBT and in a discipleship group, or church, and need help out, please email me at mycultlife AT gmail DOT com. I would be more than happy to provide a ride and a SAFE place to stay to you. There are wonderful people outside cults who think being gay is a wonderful thing. I hope you find some of those people here or where you are. Anyone who thinks it’s disgusting, an abomination, sinful, etc. is someone you should avoid.

Disclaimer for Haters: If you don’t like my opinion about this or anything else, take a hike. I won’t post comments about how much you hate gays. It’s unacceptable here. I like gays. I like lesbians. You know the drill. I think sex is a healthy thing–whether it’s before or after you’re married.

Have you joined My Cult Life Talk? We’re a community of people focused on recovering from cults and educating others about them.

Cult Connections: Acquire the Fire & Master’s Commission Conferences

Pre-teens and teenagers are most susceptible to groups like Master’s Commission which claim to be “Discipleship Programs.”

Master’s Commission, in particular infiltrates youth groups. They provide the youth workers, the human videos, dances, skits and sometimes the preaching to youth groups at their home churches and at churches worldwide. It’s no wonder that youth kids aspire to be “as cool as” the Master’s Commission kids.

What’s scary about that is that what you see on the stage when Master’s Commission is nothing like what you live through in an actual program.

Even worse, is that there are programs like this all over the U.S.

Take my friend, RA at www.recoveringalumni.com, for example. She writes about Teen Mania. She recently posted about Acquire the Fire. Boy, was I grateful! Here’s why. I recently found out my dad was driving his church bus to an Acquire the Fire conference. I couldn’t believe my own dad was partaking in something so closely related to Teen Mania (it’s hosted by Teen Mania, and Ron Luce is well aware of the abuse going on in the Honor Academy, which RA has exposed and written about for quite some time).

What’s so threatening about Acquire the Fire? After all, the Newsboys perform there, among other well-known singers and preachers. A reader responded to RA’s post on Acquire the Fire and pointed out in her blog, that ATF is sort of a “gateway drug” into the Honor Academy’s system of abuse, legalism and manipulative isolation from the world.

Honor Academy shows signs of being an abusive, destructive group; therefore, I would not support Teen Mania nor Acquire the Fire.

What is with these destructive groups targeting our youth groups and sucking in our pastors to believe that they should send their kids there?

I don’t fault pastors ignorant of this knowledge.

They look at the conference itinerary and see some of the most well-known and well sought after speakers and music artists in the Christian community. Of course, Acquire the Fire and Master’s Commission International Network’s yearly conference appeals to them. These conferences are marketed to everyone within that demographic as the “place to go” for youth.

Couple that with light and sound systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, up to millions; fog systems; musicians; and gimmicks galore, and you have everything that appeals to a young audience.

It’s no wonder people like me and RA get recruited so easily into horrific destructive groups.

But these 2 groups aren’t the only ones who destroy young people. Read Deb Paul’s story: College Days: Catch the Spirit or Control the Spirit? Deb attended Pensacola Christian College, PCC. Deb’s story starts sounding a lot like mine and probably many others who attend these fundamental Christian “colleges” or college-like programs.

Deb talks about the rule book she received:

I received the packet for Pensacola Christian College prior to leaving my home and I read the rule book. And the “things you need to know” book you received did not really include ALL the things you need to know before attending this college.

Like Master’s Commission, although you receive a rule book you don’t really know what you’re truly getting yourself into until you arrive. Even then, they usually take a few days to truly enforce the rules as strictly as possible.

Deb would get demerits for:

…wet hair, sleeping in my unmade bed at 7 in the morning on a Saturday, demerits for not scrubbing out my sink “good enough”, demerits for wearing socks instead nylons the wrong time of day. Demerits and a lot of them for sleeping through a class by accident. We were made to do everything, even be to bed on time every night at eleven o’clock.

Although I never got demerits in Master’s Commission, we got “rebuked” which is where we were called into a meeting with either the director of our program, Nathan Davies, or another staff member and a support staff member. From there, our rebuking ensued. We’d get scolded, preached at and threatened to have a worse punishment or to get kicked out if we didn’t change. We were told scriptures in the Bible that told us to be clean, to obey, and not to be rebellious or independent.

Let me ask you this: If Jesus were around today, do you think he’d approve of such abuse and destructive behavior from pastors?

How else do you think groups like Teen Mania and Master’s Commission successfully infiltrate our youth groups? What can we (concerned citizens, Christians, non-Christians, parents, siblings) do to prevent this type of abuse and the abuse that Deb faced at PCC?

The Word “Offended”

I’ve been told I’m “hurt and offended” so many times since I started this blog.

I can’t even explain to you how “over” those words I am.

First of all, there’s nothing wrong with being hurt. Remember the first time your son or daughter came home from school and said to you, “Bobby pushed me down on the playground,” or “Susie made fun of the ribbon you made me?” You were offended, right? And your little daughter or son was hurt after falling on the playground. Maybe even bleeding.

Spiritual abuse causes wounds. They might be bruises, cuts, or deep oozing gashes. But, they’re still wounds. And wounds hurt.

Second of all, there’s this thing–this sickness—that’s only in the Christian community that takes a line like, “You’re hurt and offended. You need to get over it and move on. Stop dwelling on the past,” and makes it a curse; a condescending line to tell you they’re sick and tired of listening to you (or in fact, that they dismissed you after just a few seconds of listening), and that you’re a bad person.

In reality, the bad person isn’t YOU.

If you’re hurt, most likely, someone caused you deep pain, lied to you, and betrayed your trust. The human-to-human bond is broken, bruised or injured.

If you’re offended, it’s most likely that someone was out of line in the way they treated you. Perhaps they belittled you, bullied you, etc.

In most cases, the pastor or someone in direct authority has used their power to throw their weight around, figuratively slapping around a few people. They don’t give a damn who they hurt or how badly they hurt them. They won’t care unless that person starts detracting from their power and money (perhaps by detracting their followers).

I was sixteen years old when I was taught to look down upon those who were offended in church. My pastor taught me that. I believe he was wrong.

I also think grief comes and goes in waves. It may wreck your life for years, or altogether. Pain is sometimes so unbearable for people that they’re not able to move on from it. For someone in power to purposefully cause you pain and maliciously belittle you is wrong.

Questions:

Have you ever been dismissed by someone by being called “offended?”

Do you think being hurt and offended can be constructive for someone?

Updated: Are Pastors Our Advocates?

It’s come up dozens of times while I’ve been blogging: Lisa, why didn’t you just tell your pastor that you were hurt?

Well, I did.

Over and over. I called and got no answers. I wrote letters and ensured they got them. I got no responses.

I’ve come across this issue time and time again with so many readers out there who want to do the “Christian thing” or the “right thing” as they see it–if someone has offended them, they feel (and I felt) that it makes sense to go talk to your pastor.

What happens when that pastor does nothing, or just gives you lip service? What happens when that pastor just accuses you of being immature, unforgiving or offended?

Sometimes, we’re perfectly reasonable, mature, and able to forgive when we approach someone we think might be an intermediary between ourselves and another party. I was. Yet, my pain was denied and worse yet, the things that the pastor did to me were denied too.

Yet again, for months, I’ve contacted pastors that are related to matters on this blog. When I let them know that dozens and dozens of people have been hurt by Nathan Davies’ ministry, they simply say, “Give the person my contact info and we’ll talk.”

So, I do.

Later, I usually ask the person how it went and they’re honestly, truly disappointed.

Instead of receiving some advice and an apology for the deeply hurtful events that happened under this pastor’s roof, they’re told they should overlook it, forgive and be more mature.

What bullshit.

What’s so important about the hierarchy of pastorship that a senior pastor can’t be open and honest about hiring and keeping on a cult leader (or, call him an abusive pastor)? Why are pastors so seemingly power driven and money hungry that they can’t admit openly that harmful (or even criminal, at times) events are transpiring under their church’s roof? This particular church I’m referencing, Glad Tidings Assembly of God, also known as Church of Glad Tidings, has had youth leaders sexually molest kids and has housed Davies’ cult-like ministry (or House of Pain, can we say?). Yet, no public disclosure has taken place. No letter was sent to the parents of youth group members, saying, “We’ve had leaders convicted of molestation. Please report any misconduct your child reports to the proper authorities.” I’ve recently been informed that the Church of Glad Tidings did, in fact, prepare letters to the parents and a press release following the sexual molestation case. After that, an Advisory Board was set up to oversee Master’s Commission (since the youth leaders were actually Master’s Commission students). The Advisory Board interviewed staff members independent of Nathan; however, after a few years, this Advisory Board eventually disolved into a financial oversight board.

It also must be noted that Master’s Commission students rarely interacted with the pastors and church staff at great lengths of time. I often wonder how much the church staff knew about our situation as students. I have a feeling they probably didn’t know what we were going through as students at the time.

Is it a liability issue? I’ve wondered this for years. Are churches like this afraid of a lawsuit? Losing all their money? Their reputation?

Is it a pride issue? They don’t want to seem weak and vulnerable?

Do they want to protect their ministers reputations, if they’re under fire? Innocent until proven guilty, perhaps, but when hundreds of kids come forth saying they underwent severe mental trauma, I think that’s cause to look into the guilt factor and take it serious.

How can a person with any conscience really excuse, deny and cover up all this abuse? Worse yet, how can one stand before God with a clear conscience knowing they covered up acts to protect someone on their staff, while damage has been done to hundreds of kids?

Shame on any “man of God” or “woman of God” who can not publicly offer an apology and consolation to a hurting young person. You’ve only made the wound worse.

A note here: After receiving new information on Glad Tidings on the sexual abuse cases, I’ve given this a post a lot of thought. I think Glad Tidings handled that situation responsibly and if informed, would have probably taken action to stop Nathan’s abuses. Unfortunately, it seems they were unaware of the abuse until after the Davies’ left. Upon them leaving, students came forth one-by-one over the years. The pastors have chosen to deal with each person directly, instead of issue a mass statement. When I’ve talked to them, they were very helpful, though out of touch with much of what occurred during my time there. I just simply think they didn’t know.

Where Do I Stand? by Aaron Gates

Where do I stand?

A Guest Post by Aaron Gates

After leaving a church group that I had been “professionally” affiliated with for five years I had a lot of questions to ask myself. I had to ask myself where to go to church; who my real friends were. Everyone I associated with on a regular basis I went to church with. When the dam finally broke I was engaged and about to start pre-marital counseling with the pastor. I was living with a family from the church. Two of the teenagers I worked closely with in the youth group lived in that house. It was a Thursday afternoon when I had finished up my extremely heated conversation with my pastor by telling him I was going to find somewhere else to go to church. When I got home I told the guys that I had a disagreement with Pastor S. and would not be going to church with them any more. When their Grandmother got home a little later I gave her the same vague description of why I was leaving. She said something very interesting to me. She said, and I quote, “You know what really happened is going to come out so you might as well tell me.” She was right and I knew it. So I responded, “You’re probably right but you aren’t going to hear it from me.” I promised myself I would not bad mouth the pastor to any of the church members or anyone affiliated with the church.

To this day I have not.

I have had more opportunities than I can count to tell people how badly I was treated. How violated I felt by people I trusted. I could have told the truth. I did not. Unfortunately I was not afforded the same courtesy.

The people at the church had always talked about our relationship as if we were family. So when I stopped attending that church I did not know what to expect.

Would they continue to treat me like family, or was I only family when I attended church with them?

So I was hurt when I realized that I was only a family member when I was a church member. I felt like I was mourning the death of myself; like part of who I was died, because part of me did. A huge part of my life was over, and I felt empty. I was stressed out by trying to live up to the expectations and standards that were set for me from the time I was 18. Then I felt broken and lost.

The conflict at the root of everything was that my relationship with God was founded on what I had been taught and told and made to experience. My relationship with God had been corralled in a direction that a pastor wanted me to go. I had a need to find out what I believed and needed to reconcile that with all that I had been taught for the past ten or so years.

I had to decide for myself where I stood.

What do I believe? That is a scary question.

I wanted to know if believing in God was even worth it. It took me a very long time to work everything out.

I wrote that like I have it all worked out. That’s funny. I don’t!

However, there are some things I know. I know that God loves me and He sent His Son to the world for that reason. I know that I chose to live for God before I went to Masters or to the church. I know that my relationship with Him is based on our mutual experience with each other. I believe that He is the way the truth and the life and no one can go to the Father except through Him. I also know that everyone has a different reaction to difficult situations and I don’t expect everyone to believe that. I know that in the church that God wants to see in the world there is room for everyone and room for different opinions and different convictions.

Some will say that there is only one way to be a Christian. I know that God made every person on earth different. Based on that, there are roughly six billion ways to have a relationship with God and it is not my place or anyone else’s to determine what that should look like for anyone. I also know that I lost sight of God because I was more concerned with what a group of people thought about me than what God thought about me. I know that I will never be in ministry in any capacity again, by choice.

But most importantly, I know God.

My name is Aaron Gates I live in Gulfport, MS with my wife Jenny and brand new daughter Rebecca. I have been blogging about my experience as a Christian and a new dad since August 2010. If anyone wants to contact me to talk about your experience in Master’s Commission, ministry, or anything else, I’d love to hear from you: aaron.p.gates@gmail.com.

Check out my blog.

Online Harassment: Or, A Haters Gonna Hate

Why you hating on me??

We’ve all seen it happen before and since I started this blog, I realized that I opened myself up to be targeted by psychopathic, jealous trolls. The Internet brings out the worst in people, and people forget their manners and say things they would have never have said face-to-face. However, here’s my advice and tips on avoiding online harassment. Not to mention, some assurance that I won’t tolerate any type of harassment on this site (directed toward YOU or ME or any writer or contributor here).

I realize that I’m writing on a very personal matter here: religion. Not to mention, I’m openly discussing my experiences with ministry groups and public figures here. I’m the first and only blog that I know of to bring to the public the experiences people have faced in an abusive relationship with these prominent Christian ministries, and name them. Yes, it sounds egotistical, but I’m leading the way. Therefore, as a “whistle blower” of sorts, I take a pretty hard hit. I’ve wanted to give up. I’ve wanted to shut down this site. I haven’t told my readers all the stories, all the emails, all the text messages. And, I won’t.

Although I won’t publicly disclose them here, I keep track of them. Why? When you put yourself in a vulnerable position as a spokesperson for a group of victims, you can’t turn a blind eye to the harassment. They may be harmless threats, or just jealous retributive emails, but I take each one seriously. I record IP addresses, email address and the identities of those I know.

I keep a log of particular “stalkers” and “trolls” so that in the event their harassment turns to violence, there will be a paper trail and a report. I also think it’s important to share this with you, my readers, because I feel a sense of safety here. I feel like you all “have my back.” I’ve also contacted a lawyer regarding several issues related to recent online harassment I’ve received and it’s being dealt with. It may be the Internet, but there are still laws against blackmail and harassment.

See, it’s my first time “around the block” so to speak. My blog is new–about six months old. The amount of attention it’s garnered is something I never imagined it bringing in July when I started it. The evenings after work have been filled with me teaching myself technical aspects of running a website, forum, etc.; learning how to be a professional and reliable journalist; online etiquette and blogger-to-blogger “rules; and overall just running like a gazelle to keep up with the pace at which this entire project is growing.

It’s fun. Don’t get me wrong. I love what I do, and would love to develop this into more of a group “voice” with stories, resources, etc. made available to my readers. Mine is just one story. My voice is just one voice. Writing has brought me so much happiness and liberty in my life. I feel healthy. I feel good. I hope each of you partakes in that same joy and knows that a troll is just a troll. Deep down, they’re just a hater. They’re filled with unhappiness and jealousy so deep that they try to derail my efforts and your efforts of making ourselves better here.

Call me naive, but I’m going to pretend they don’t exist. Because honestly, someone that low in life isn’t even worth a minute of our time.