As Familiar as Family

By Pappas

Nicki Pappas experienced abuse as love from a young age. In As Familiar as Family, she explores and examin

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicki Pappas
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986513614

Book preview

afaf-ecover.jpg

As Familiar as Family

Leaving the Toxic Religion I Was Groomed For

Nicki Pappas

As Familiar as Family: Leaving the Toxic Religion I Was Groomed For

Copyright © 2022 by Nicki Pappas

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission of the author.

Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9865136-0-7

eBook ISBN 979-8-9865136-1-4

Editing: Kimberly Marsh of The Open Book Company

Author Photograph: Stephen Pappas

Cover and ebook: Benjamin Kelley, Kelley Creative

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912025

To the little girl in me.

Relax. You’re safe now.

100% of the proceeds from this book will go to people who are healing from the systems I perpetuated and benefitted from (and still benefit from), with a particular focus on BIPOC folx.

The Loveland Foundation and Into Account are

two organizations I will be supporting.

Contents

Author’s Note

Intro

Section 1 – I

Chapter 1 – 7

Section 2 – lived for

Chapter 8 – 12

Interlude 1

Section 3 – the approval of

Chapter 13 – 17

Section 4 – someone else

Chapter 18 – 24

Interlude 2

Section 5 – and lost

Chapter 25 – 29

Section 6 – myself.

Chapter 30 – 33

Outro

Acknowledgements

Notes

Author’s Note

If you’re a family member or someone from my previous

church context, I want to clearly state that nothing I’ve written is intended to hurt you. If you aren’t ready to read about the trauma I endured, put this book down. It’s fine. Really. If you don’t want to deal with your own trauma, that’s fine, too. Your willingness to read my trauma or explore your own isn’t my barometer for whether or not I will share my story.

I’m also not interested in punishing anyone or damaging the reputation of any person or organization. (Side note: naming abuse doesn’t ruin a reputation. The abuse and lack of accountability did that.) Nothing here is meant to shame. I have no use for shame. In the always wise words of the late bell hooks, Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. I want the healing and wholeness of each person who has harmed me, but that will not come at the expense of my own healing and wholeness. I will speak the truth, and the truth will set people free — will set me free.

When I changed the title of my memoir from Restored Dignity to As Familiar as Family based on feedback from beta readers, I remembered how hard it is to spell familiar. Then I realized it’s family without the y and the last four letters spell liar. Just a little foreshadowing, I suppose. When I told my younger brother I was writing a memoir, his response was, Only narcissists write a book about themselves. From the onset, I want to own my narcissistic tendencies and say these are traits we all possess. There are situations in this memoir where I do present myself in an unflattering light, which was hard for my ego. We can acknowledge that none of us is at our best at all times and seek to repair harm when it’s brought to our attention.

This memoir contains events from my life that I have told to the best of my recollection. I’ve detailed what my own decades-long grooming looked like, though people are groomed in and by our society every day. While the grooming may have varied overtones, the undertones remain very much the same. Heather Heath, author of Lovingly Abused, was a beta reader for one of the earliest drafts of this book. She grew up in the fundamentalist Institute in Basic Life Principles and was surprised by how much she identified with me, an exCalvinist. Turns out, the power dynamics and control were similar, maybe even as familiar as family. (I had to. It was right there.) If I’m honest, there’s some hesitancy on my part to tell the story of the religious trauma I carry because I know there are more traumatic experiences than my own. But I’m telling my story first for myself knowing there will be secondary beneficiaries as I name the harm I experienced.

The retelling of stories herein is not strictly chronological, so stay sharp. When necessary, names and identifying characteristics of individuals and places have been changed to maintain anonymity. Dialogue has been reconstructed to the best of my recollection. As a person committed to my own evolution, I give myself permission to share things about myself I may no longer agree with. These stories provide both a snapshot of who I was at that time and who I am right now. I realize there are things about myself and my beliefs that may change further in the future. Also, suicidal ideation, references to racism, homophobia, and transphobia, language that may be offensive to some readers, and abuse in various forms, including spiritual, sexual, physical, and psychological, are present in the experiences included in these pages. Thank you for holding space for me. I’m sending so much love to you.

Intro

Privately, I’d rehearsed this meeting ad nauseum using the eleven pages of notes I now clutched close. It never went like this when I played it out in my head.

"No, you aren’t going to pigeonhole me, put me in a box, and label me a sexist. I’m not answering your questions."

Jake’s dark brown eyes were narrowed on me. These were the same eyes that wrinkled with laughter in my presence a decade ago. His outstretched pointer finger drove home the harsh accusation he hurled at me. 

The walls seemed to be closing in. Stunned, I stuttered, "But you know me. Why would you think that?"

"And you know me," he retorted, refusing to provide an answer.

Well, I thought I did. After faithfully investing all my adulthood at Entrench Church, I couldn’t believe what my pastor was saying. He was the same pastor who had done my premarital counseling, performed my wedding ceremony, and showed up for me after a fire at my apartment. For nine years and seven months, I had tried to be a joy to lead, which he had preached was one of the many responsibilities of a church member. Assuming we’d formed a mutual friendship, I had expected Jake to engage with me as an equal. Instead, our interaction was humiliating. My cheeks burned; my thoughts scrambled. To make matters worse, I was on the verge of hyperventilating. How could he treat me this way?

Not yet then understanding the reality of spiritual abuse, I felt unsafe and immediately felt the need to leave. This would later become another situation where I rued my snubbing of the nudges from within to get out. However, I continued sitting in Jake’s office for a few more hours with my husband Stephen that night. There was too much at stake to leave the room, much less consider leaving Entrench. My entire existence was wrapped up in the congregation there, the people who had become family to me. They had offered me acceptance, but I was beginning to understand exactly how fragile that acceptance was.

It would be months before I realized it, but I’d neglected the pursuit of my own dreams to function as an add-on to Jake’s dream of building his church. It would be even longer before I realized that neglecting myself was a pattern born out of codependency and a desire to belong. Never underestimate the power of belonging. Belonging often brings safety. Safety ensures survival. With one foot shuffling in front of the other, I began the work of reconnecting with the pieces of who I was before I exchanged my budding sense of self for dignity-robbing theology. Stay or leave? That was the question that vexed me for months following this experience with spiritual abuse. Could I trust myself enough to walk away from toxic relationships and religion? Was it worth it? Was I worth it?

Section 1

I

Chapter 1

The first time I met Jake and his wife Caroline in November 2008, I was an outsider during a weekend retreat for a collegiate ministry. I was a student at the University of South Carolina-Lancaster (USC-L). The retreat was organized for Winthrop University’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM), so I only knew two people, my roommate Jasmine and the ministry leader Stephen. Stephen knew Jake and Caroline well and introduced me to them. Jake and Caroline invited me to sit with them during mealtimes. In doing so, they provided a place of belonging when I felt out of place. 

While zip-lining on The Flying Squirrel on the retreat, I screamed so much I ended up crying. Jake thought this was hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing. I felt gratified, in the way you do when you’re around new people and want to make a lasting impression: I’m different. I’m fun. You’ll want to continue to be around me. His conspiratorial laughter made me feel seen. In some ways, it was our origin story that we would reference after he started Entrench Church.

Following the retreat, Stephen and I began dating. To support Jake’s church, Stephen invited me to attend a pre-launch service in December. He told me it would be a good way to meet more people in the area as I’d recently moved to the town where Entrench would be located. Wearing my brown suede cowboy boots, I came heel to toe clunking up the sidewalk toward the entrance with Stephen. I was laughing, mouth wide open and head tipped back, at something Stephen said. (I laughed a lot back then.) As we approached the door, a kid in high school looked at me and deadpan said, There’s no laughing at this church. This just made me laugh even harder. 

Stephen introduced me to Craig, the 17-year-old greeter. Craig was from the youth group at the church where Jake had previously been the youth pastor. As a new convert full of zealous energy, Craig was the perfect person to station at the door as the charismatic face newcomers encountered. Once Stephen and I found some seats inside, Craig’s edgy humor wasn’t the only thing that appealed to me. Entrench also had a hipster worship team of talented and attractive people. It was easy to raise my hands and sway to the music they were producing.

At the end of the night, I thought the church was too good to be true when Jake announced that we would be praying for another local church. We’re not in competition with other churches, he explained. This was a huge selling point for me as someone interested in ecumenical cooperation. The cherry on top was when we learned about what was called an unreached people group. Jake told us about a website we could visit that tracked groups of people worldwide who hadn’t been exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Missions for the sake of spreading what was referred to as the good news mattered to me. From what I witnessed that night, Entrench didn’t just care about reaching the city. Entrench cared about reaching the world. This church was different from anything I’d experienced. I wanted to be a part of whatever God was going to do through Entrench.

Before the official launch, I was hooked. I never missed a Sunday or the weekly small group meeting between Sundays. Stephen joined the Entrench staff. With his role came game nights and parties with Jake and Caroline. What I didn’t know then was that threads of Caroline and Jake would soon begin to weave tighter and tighter into my narrative. This happened in such a smooth and seamless manner that it wouldn’t be until years later when I’d actually realize how bound up together we’d become. So how did I go from belonging to a close-knit community to thinking about leaving a church I loved?

Well, before moving forward, let’s go back, almost to the very beginning.

* * * * *

The year was 1998. Writing in my new Lisa Frank diary, I answered the questionnaire about my favorites: color, food, song. On the last line, beside My Goal Is To… I penned the words, win a gold medal. At the ripe age of eight years old, I was already a goal-oriented entertainer putting action behind my dreams. When I was famous one day, I would make sure to remember who I was and where I came from, just like Grandma told me.

Every Sunday at Beaver Creek, the little Southern Baptist church I attended growing up, you could find me lying down on the pew beside Grandma. Grandma sat beside her husband, who I now refuse to call anything else. When the announcement was made for Children’s Church, I bolted up to the front bench on the right side of the sanctuary. The lessons were fine, I’m sure, but I was there for the candy at the end and to sing in the children’s choir while Grandma played the piano. Grandma is my dad’s mother, and she cultivated my love of music. (Shout out to grandmas everywhere who see our potential, fold our smooth hands in their weathered ones, and walk with us into possibility.) Though I didn’t really have a choice, nothing compared to the joy of belting This Little Light of Mine with every eye on me. In addition to my dream of winning a gold medal, I just knew I was made to perform for a crowd. 

Church attendance and participation were mandatory, but there was plenty of fun. One Sunday sticks out when my younger brother and I had the church giggles — the ones when no matter how many daggers the adults stare at you, nothing can keep you quiet. We were on the front pew. Preacher Silas told a story about his cat Peeper. Every single time he said Peeper, my brother and I started laughing. We’d look at each other and the other one would join in all over again. Peeper was the name we knew for penis. Isn’t that funny?

The food was another reason I enjoyed church. Though I was embarrassed about Easter dresses homemade by Grandma and despised waking up for a sunrise service, the disappointments disappeared when I beheld the breakfast spread. Biscuits. Hashbrowns. Grandma’s cinnamon rolls. Gimme all the carbs. Easter was just once a year, but communion came more often. Offering to help clean up communion was really just my way of gaining access to the leftovers. Gobbling up the bread chunks and throwing back sips of grape juice was a highlight of my childhood. This continued until we began ordering the prepackaged plastic cups with a cardboard tasting wafer on top that you peeled to free it from the wrapping. I don’t know if you could guess, but I wasn’t a fan.

Then there was Vacation Bible School (VBS) each summer, special events, and performances — the stuff I lived for. When Christmas rolled around, I always wanted the starring part. Not of Jesus, but of Mary. Duh. Role envy was real in these pageants. Ever-evident was the disappointment I wore on my face in the Decembers when I had to be an angel. If it was distracting to be the brat sulking on stage as just another winged messenger among the many, I didn’t care. Cast me as Mary and then you’ll get a sunny disposition.

My dramatic flair extended to school as well; it had to. Here’s the thing; in first grade, a girl named Hannah told everyone not to play with me because I was covered in warts. I did, in fact, have several warts on my hands. There were days at recess when, at Hannah’s prompting, my classmates would scatter, screaming as I approached them. Hannah and I went to Beaver Creek together. She played with me on Sundays and Wednesday nights at church. At school, that wasn’t always the case. To make up for the alienation of my early years, I’d end up doing anything for a fleeting hint of belonging in later, wart-free years.

In fourth grade, I was known to put on sideshows for some of my classmates, sideshows that would’ve made Grandma bustle about to grab the nearest bar of soap. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t sure if these kids were actually my friends. The popular posse strained to lean in while we were ‘criss-cross applesauce’ on the polished gym floor waiting for our parents to pick us up in the car rider line. They didn’t want to miss it when I whispered another cuss word.

Other times, behind the playground equipment, they’d watch me kiss my boyfriend, Teddy. One day a substitute teacher caught us and laughed as she told my mom that afternoon. My body stiffened because I thought I was going to get in trouble. I didn’t relax until I saw that my mom was laughing, too. I wanted to keep my school life separate from my home life, but the cat was out of the bag (the metaphorical cat, not Peeper). With my mom’s knowledge of my little relationship with Teddy came involvement from her, incessant questions, and a bit of teasing. Teddy gave me roses before the start of summer. We promised to write to each other. As far as I remember, we never exchanged a single letter. Kissing Teddy was another one of my personal extracurricular activities that would’ve made Grandma proud. JK, JK. Though I feared being exposed to not embody the good girl persona I’d created at church, that fear didn’t outweigh the fear of being rejected at school. 

To be accepted at school, I also had to hide the violence I experienced outside of school hours.

* * * * *

As a kid, I often wondered what could be more important to my dad than me and if he even enjoyed being around me. I mean, there was that day trip we took to the beach with my brothers, a couple of family vacations, and some camping trips in the woods behind the trailer where I grew up. There was one camping trip where I destroyed my retainer for the first time because I accidentally threw it into the fire. I think this was the same trip where I fell from a log that we were all walking on to cross over a creek. When I grabbed a dead branch, it snapped. I plummeted. My mom was screaming, Get her! My dad and brothers just laughed. If there were other trips with my dad, I don’t remember them, but I always wanted to make the most of any time I got with him.

There were countless nights that I spent waiting for my dad to come home, watching my mom pace the floor as worry wracked her. On those nights, he never arrived before my mom put me and my little brother to bed. I would lay awake, listening for the sound of the door bursting open, just to hear my dad come stumbling in the trailer. This was after he indulged in an evening of alcohol at the bar that was on his way home from work. Most nights when he was drunk, he sounded happy, unlike the nights when he came straight home from work. I sometimes dreaded those nights more.

It wasn’t unusual for him to be angry after working, throwing around expletive-laden complaints about something that happened during his day. And if things had not been done around the house according to his standard, someone had to pay the price. My mom warned us not to speak about our dad’s temper because we could be taken away. As frightened as I was of my dad, I was even more terrified of being snatched away from my mom and put into another situation where I had no control. The one day the Department of Social Services (DSS) arrived, I don’t remember the questions they asked or the responses I gave, but I got to stay with my parents.

Some nights, my mom would read to my brother if our dad wasn’t home yet. She’d raise her voice so I could hear from the next room over. When she came to tuck me in, I could see the concern etched in the lines around her eyes. In my accent as thick as the molasses we poured to drench Grandma’s biscuits, I’d drawl, When’s Diddy gonna be home? My mom would respond with a kiss goodnight and walk the five steps from my bed to the door. If I dozed off, I’d be rattled awake by the trailer door slamming.

If I heard another man, it was usually my cousin Charlie. Whenever Charlie came home drunk with my dad, he cooked breakfast the next morning. I’d fall back asleep with my mouth watering as I thought about scarfing down sausage and eggs, the special way Charlie prepared them. One time, I got to help him and saw his process. He would brown the sausage in the cast iron skillet first. Then, he would add diced onions and peppers, cooking them in the sausage grease until they were tender and the onions translucent. The eggs would go in after this. He’d scramble them to perfection before topping off his masterpiece with cheese. The only thing that made it better was when my mom bought orange juice, the kind without the pulp. 

* * * * *

My scariest memory from childhood was when my younger brother and I accidentally set the backyard on fire. The fear had nothing to do with the actual fire. Our mom wasn’t home. Our dad was in the front yard talking to one of his only friends, a friend I was later told brought marijuana whenever he visited. I can neither confirm nor deny the allegation. Bored on our own, my brother and I started a contained fire. We were unsatisfied with the size, so my brother hurried off to get the small gas can from the shed. Then, he let a stream flow. As soon as the flames flared, he dropped the can. The blaze spread. Dashing into the house through the back door, I buried myself in my closet. Though my dad had never beaten me before, something told me this time would be different. His anger was unpredictable but not unprecedented, just like his father before him.

I’m not sure how long I hid there, pleading with God for immediate salvation, but I eventually heard the screen door bounce shut. My dad stomped inside, cussing as the metal buckle on his belt clinked. The swoosh of the leather through the loops on his jeans sliced the air. He swung open my closet door and snatched my arm, his blue eyes popping out their sockets. To fortify myself for the impact of the leather belt, I stiffened as my dad brandished his instrument of discipline with all his might. The most excruciating physical pain I’d experienced in my little life occurred in the beating I received that afternoon, the only beating I can remember. Don’t get me wrong, like many country kids, I was accustomed to picking out a switch for Grandma. But for some reason, I was spared from the belt except for that time I set the backyard on fire. The image still haunts me, crouching in a dark closet, begging to be rescued. No one ever came. 

Unfortunately, physical abuse wasn’t the only form of abuse my little body endured.

Chapter 2

Abuse was normalized and experienced as love in my childhood. My dad’s dad was a hero to everyone, including his country, as a veteran in a war that took a limb, and a hero to me, until he took my innocence. He made a wooden replacement for his leg and was known around town as Peg. When my dad was a child, he was determined for his friends to believe the claim he’d made about his father’s fake appendage. One day while Peg was sleeping, my dad picked up a hammer and swung while his friends watched. Unfortunately, Peg awoke when my dad struck bone. Turns out, my dad had misremembered which one was the prosthetic leg. With Peg in hot pursuit, my dad bolted out the house. He wasn’t quite swift enough to evade capture, and Peg severely whooped him. Laughter filled the room each time my dad retold what I assume was a horrific experience. Trauma laughter, anyone?

Peg is the first person I can remember sexually abusing me. As a little girl in elementary school, I wanted to bond with my grandfather. Eager for one-on-one time, I made a mental list of potential activities we could do while I had the undivided attention of this man I loved. Maybe we’d go shopping. Or out to eat. Or to get milkshakes. But the first time we were alone together, we didn’t do any of that. We just watched TV. And when it was time for a nap, we snuggled up on the couch. Believing he really did love me and I was safe with him, I had no reason not to trust this authority figure my parents left me with that day. I’d never felt unsafe with him before on all our trips to a local diner or at my grandparents’ house for Sunday dinner. But those times were public, and this was the first time I would be alone with him while Grandma was at work. In contentment, I drifted off with the man who’d given me a puppy and money whenever I wanted, including a $100 bill. He told me he’d get me a car when I was old enough to drive. I was the luckiest girl. 

Until I wasn’t.

When I awoke, the only action I knew to take was to innocently ask, What are you doing? I erroneously assumed if he knew I was awake, he would stop. He didn’t. I was confused. Looking back, I realize that the puppy and money were meant to buy my silence as he groomed me for the abuse. Peg built a relationship of trust with me just to manipulate and exploit me once he’d earned my loyalty. Even as a child, I knew I wouldn’t be believed. Peg made sure that I would look like an ungrateful liar if I dared to speak against him. I also knew that everyone worshiped the ground he walked on. There was nowhere I could turn without hearing someone brag about his ability to fix anything that was wrong with a car. At church, Preacher Silas told humorous anecdotes from the pulpit about him, like the time he used firecrackers in the water while fishing to make the task easier. My aunts and uncles beamed when they recounted his heroic deeds in service of his family, country, and god. And there was no escape from Grandma’s incessant insistence that I had him wrapped around my finger.

Though I couldn’t articulate it, I thought I was autonomous. I thought I had some level of agency. I mean, I could pick out my own clothes, and I made plenty of other simple decisions for myself:

- I’ll take peanut butter and jelly, mixed together before spreading it on the bread.

- I want the sparkly pink yo-yo that lights up.

- Let’s go on the swings instead of the slide.

But that afternoon, my body was violated. 

Boundaries were crossed. My agency was completely ignored as Peg just took for himself. He held all the power, and I had to simply yield to him. 

The lesson I learned that day was that it’s better not to cause a fuss. This is when the (mis)belief burden first took root in me that I am not autonomous like those with authority, particularly the men, in my life. In that moment as a child, I believed it was better to acquiesce so Peg could do what he wanted; it would be over soon enough. Then I’d be able to watch TV like a normal kid. Except nothing would ever be normal again. 

Sadly, this wasn’t an isolated event. I hated when Grandma had to work when my younger brother and I spent the night because Peg would lock my brother out of the house so he could sexually abuse me. My oldest friend Wendy recently told me a story I had repressed. She said we were in bed with my grandparents while staying there for a sleepover. When she mentioned that she wanted to sleep beside Grandma, I aggressively insisted I wanted to sleep beside Grandma. Wendy remembers falling asleep beside Peg but waking up with us switched around.

Even as a child, I wondered if Peg had hurt other people. Once a woman who worked at the bank came to talk to my class when I was in elementary school. When she realized who I was, she told me about how much she loved Peg, the man who had given her a – wait for it – puppy. There was a situation when she was young when he was the only person who could coax her out of her hiding spot. Hopefully he wasn’t able to act on the grooming he began with her, but I’ll never know.

You don’t need to know the details of what Peg did to me to understand that this was a violation of my body that continues to traumatize me today. I still wonder, Why me? This explains why my desire to go home pales in comparison to the warm feelings of nostalgia that arise in my cousins who weren’t violated by Peg. I envy these cousins greatly for their untainted memories. Though I can’t say with absolute certainty no one sexually abused me before Peg did, he wasn’t the last. In fact, very few of my murky childhood memories are untainted. 

* * * * *

Growing up, my younger brother was my built-in best friend. As an adult, perhaps I’m over-romanticizing our connection. From what I remember, it was effortless between us. Though there were plenty of times when we irritated each other, I simply enjoyed being with someone who accepted me. We liked playing together, most of the time. We relished the opportunity to be outside, especially when the fragrance of honeysuckle filled the air. When the landscape was dotted with the yellow flowers, we couldn’t wait to pull the end off the bloom to lick the sticky, sweet nectar from the stem inside. And when we entertained ourselves, I pretended to be Topanga from Boy Meets World. Our play was often perilous, but we, like Simba from The Lion King, laughed in the face of danger.

We made capes from towels to jump off the cars when a storm was brewing and the wind was bending the trees. Sometimes we climbed onto the roof of the trailer using the porch rails and screen door for leverage. Traipsing through the woods always brought an adventure. On one occasion, our cousin Charlie joined us in our exploration. While walking, Charlie spotted a rattlesnake that we steered clear of and a fawn with white spots hidden behind some bushes. Then, there was the time we saw a deer in our backyard that was so close we inched nearer to feel the tan fur. We wanted to catch it and try to ride it,