What happens to your spirituality, if you were aware of it, after abuse and trauma, after becoming aware of narcissistic abuse?

Many survivors are questioning their beliefs. 
What is true anymore?
If it was all a lie, what then is true?
Can I trust anything, even religion and spirituality?

Does it leave you or grow? That question can only be answered from a very personal point of view as I believe we are all on an individual path of  growth. We can't expect everyone to think or believe the same things we do. Yet when we are fervently within the grips of a religion we have just found, often we are just that, zealous. 

I am sure you have your own story of spirituality I certainly have mine and that is all I can tell you about. My own path and where I am now. So that you can see that even if you lose your spirituality all is not lost. It is just changing and transforming as everything will and must.

My spiritual story in brief 

The reason for telling my story, though briefly here, was that I see spirituality comes up for survivors of abuse. On their healing journey many like me turn to look for a deeper meaning in their lives. Some leave their religion only to be shunned again. Some find solace in their religion and their spirituality deepens. Many are lost not knowing who or what to turn to. 

Because when you are questioning your life after abuse even religion and spirituality must also be looked at. It does not mean you have to leave it but it must be questioned. After all if you were fooled by a narcissist then what else were you fooled by. Choosing a spiritual path is a minefield because there are so many narcissists within religion. Abuse is rife in them all including even a spiritual path which is free of religion.

For four years I went through horrendous flashbacks to my childhood. I was not in therapy nor had ever been in therapy at the time, it came out of the blue and it totally wrecked my life. Nothing was ever the same again. I tried to put it back together again but I couldn't, so I had to begin again. 

I left my long term relationship at the same time I confronted my abusive family and so ended up very alone. I found a therapist and she was the only person I knew in my life at that time. During those flashbacks I knew that I was having a spiritual experience, a growth, dark night of the soul. So I trusted my own mind even though I felt I was going mad. I let my mind tell me what it wanted. I confronted things I had hidden away. In doing so I lost a lot of people. My childhood had been bad but now I was remembering much worse things.

I later read about 'spiritual emergence and spiritual emergency' and it all made sense to me. Now here was confirmation that others had been through similar experiences. Over time things slowed down and I was able to manage the flashbacks and they became rarer. At this point I started to look for a spiritual path. I tried many new age things and ended up just sitting with a candle on a small shrine singing or listening to native American music. One day I just knew I had to find a teacher if I was to go any further and so I prayed for one. There in my tiny room alone I asked for help. And it came.

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." The 14th Dalai Lama

It came in the form of a Tibetan Buddhist teacher with whom I spent the next 20 years of my life. As soon as I heard the teachings I knew that I had met this all before. It was like nectar to my ears. Those first few years were the honeymoon period and after that the hard work came. Including years of retreats, study and practice. Culminating in a 3 year closed mountain retreat. 

That retreat was the hardest of my life and one in which I had to confront my depression and suicidal thoughts, of which I had, but was still in denial about. When I returned from the retreat once again my life fell apart because I contacted my family of origin, who had originally shunned me for disclosing child abuse, and for a short time it appeared great, but very soon the scapegoating and abuse started. So I took the decision to leave everything and everyone I knew and start again. Once again I had to try and get my life back together.

"If you want to go to the other shore you need to have a boat. But once you reach the other shore if you are still standing on the boat, you haven't reached it yet." -- DKR

It was a huge decision. But this time not only my life fell apart but also my spirituality did too. I had gone to my spiritual brothers and sisters for help only to find none. It was as if there was no space for me there. I had helped others but there was none for me. So slowly I drifted away from them while still practising every day but even that went. I realised one day that I had lost my spiritual path. Amongst everything this was the worse. I was bereft. I had no idea what to do.

I stopped trying to get back to where I was and instead let it all go and in doing so it came back in another more loose way. I saw how hard I had been on myself. Practising four or more hours per day including many retreats. It was too much, too serious. Yet in those years I had learned so much. 

My teacher said at the end of the retreat that he had given me all that his own teachers had given him, there was no more, it was up to me now. Then a few years later I discovered online that my teacher had been accused of sexual abuse and violence. To top it all he died shortly after. Both things affected me more than I could ever know. Yet another trauma to overcome, another loss. After this happened I was once again bereft and lost.

Then within a few months my ex died. The losses were piling up. Every time I got myself together it seemed that the rug was pulled out from under me. So I had to give up the idea of trying to keep getting it together and saw that things coming together were as transient as things working out.

Now at this moment in time all the teachings I ever had and all the years of meditation come back to me. I would not consider organised religion again. I am free of it. I am calmer than I have been in the whole of my life. I try to integrate my mediatation into my every day life. While walking, eating, talking.

Am I spiritual? yes I am. But I could not describe what that is other than constantly having the rug pulled from under me. Of losing everything as soon as I get attached. Of having to constanty give up all my fixed ideas again and again. And in the end finding humour in the stupidity of thinking I can control and fix anything at all. On days when my mind is not calm I remember my teachers words and of the other great teachers I met and I know that all will be well. All is as it should be.

Everything you are looking for is inside of you. It just needs to be awakened by someone who has already seen it, like one candle to another. The trick is finding someone authentic to lead you and after overcoming abuse of any kind, at that point you are vulnerable. So choose well because it is an investment like any relationship that wrongly chosen can damage forever. If you are on a lone path you have to be aware of the tricks that ego can play on you. Because when you are on a spiritual path ego will also come along with you.

Where are you at? Did you give up your spirituality after abuse or did you become even more spiritual?

If you want to read more of my story you can find it on Amazon worldwide. 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Contact-Survivor-Escaping-lifetime/dp/1540500020