About Sharing Your Story Anonymously

This page overviews the process we use re: the possibility of publishing your story here on SSB anonymously (or with a pseudonym).

When spiritual abuse survivors contact us with their stories, our prime directive is to believe them! That said, when someone entrusts us with their accounts of what happened, what they learned, how they are moving forward, etc., we want to act responsibly with what you’ve shared. We’re glad we’ve earned your trust to be able to share your story to help all our readers, and we need to maintain their trust as well.

So, part of our responsibility to you and to them is to discern whether this is an appropriate time to share your story publicly. We’ve found there are times when the story being shared with us was mostly meant to benefit the person who shared it to get it out of their system and be believed. There are times when taking that public isn’t in the person’s best interests. We don’t have a formula for this, but we are prayerful and discerning to determine if the person is still spiritually fragile and doesn’t need the pressure of public exposure of their story.

Also, sometimes we need to wait while we verify details that might be confidential or otherwise expose people who are not public figures and who haven’t authorized disclosure. We might need to edit details that are inappropriate for public consumption. We might need to correspond with you a while to clarify information and make sure we understand what you’ve shared.

All that to say, no one’s story gets used automatically, or just cut-and-pasted into a post and then published. But that gives an idea of the relational and discernment processes we typically go through with you, to work it out together. That’s part of our process to keep Spiritual Sounding Board a safe place for spiritual abuse survivors and others to read and reflect, find a constructive community, and be transformed.

Please contact Julie Anne (spiritualsb@gmail.com) if you have questions or are interested in possibly sharing your story with Spiritual Sounding Board readers. Thank you!

8 thoughts on “About Sharing Your Story Anonymously”

  1. Hi SSB, yours is one of the deepest, most profound articles I’ve read on the matter. I hate church now. It’s a pathetic institution in this country (USA) and represents a social support mechanism for insecure marrieds, most feeling the loss of control over their children. In response to the hostile environment our society poses to our precious little ones, churches have become obsessed with their own youth, idolizing them.

    The reason singles are marginalized stems theologically from the church trading the Biological Family for the Family of God. To be married is to be Christian. To be Christian is to be married.

    I am slowly developing alternate relationships, activities and hobbies to occupy the all-consuming role that Christianity and the church once held in my (meaningless) life.

    Thanks for your great article! We are born from dust alone and become as we started. No one dies with a group. We go out alone and for those of us who once were enthusiastic Christians, we prayed to a single Jewish carpenter turned itinerant rabbi.

    Jon

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  2. I too am a single woman.I love Jesus, I’ve been praying, my eyes got wide open learning the real truth about the World ( I was in panic mode for a couple of months) However I too do not like how the Church treats single women. I thought that I was the only one that felt that. I never married, never had kids( grew up severely abused both emotionally & physically) But the Church treats me worse than a lamp post! I have severe trust issues with the Church now. I want to be warmly embraced, welcomed, cared about.

    What I don’t want is to be alienated which I feel that has been the case.
    Christians will you knock off the alienating treatment of us single adult women.
    And please pay attention to US! And not just to the youth. You all in the Church act like we’re dead! 😦

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  3. I am also a single Christian woman in the church for many years. They treated me horribly-like a total outcast because I didn’t have a husband. I am divorced with 2 girls. One church I attended had a pastor that actually said from the pulpit that married women should not be friends with single women. And that single women were “jealous of you” because that’s where they really want to be. ??? I think it’s the other way around. Lol. These insecure women acted as if I was some harlot, there to steal their husbands. I do not even dress provocative or flirt with anyone. I think statistics would say that if anyone was going to sleep with their husbands, it would be their married friends. It’s like if you don’t have a husband, you have no ministry opportunities, friends, etc. The only women that were nice to me were the elderly women. My main objective to be in church is to worship God, not be in a social club. It would just be nice to feel accepted in church and not like a leper. I’m glad I’m already saved.

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  7. I had left that abusive mess quite a few years ago but maybe just a year or so ago, I got a phone call from the ex-worship leader wanting to talk. (I had been in the choir.) He and his family had been out for quite some time as well, but it was apparently taking him a very long time to come to terms with it all. He was pretty focused through the whole call, trying to get the timeline straight- who did what when. I felt for him and his family- they were very deeply involved, much more than I was, and it has been taking much more time for him to figure it all out. I think maybe he thought everyone assumed they were “inner circle” rubber-stamp people, an assumption he seemed to be trying to dispel. Everyone deals with it differently, and you’re right, at first you just want to talk it out and want someone to listen and understand. And from then on, everything is affected by the experience. Glad I found your site; I’ll be checking out your links. Marion

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  8. “Life is hard, there’s going to be a lot of pain along the way and you will experience malevolence from people whom you trust. But act out your revenge and make things infinitely worst for yourself.” Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

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Thanks for participating in the SSB community. Please be sure to leave a name/pseudonym (not "Anonymous"). Thx :)