I spoke with a woman who was born and raised in Milton, Ohio. She currently works in a warehouse and is self-employed. In her free time, she likes to do gardening, bake, hike and read. She’s a victim and was able to escape a household and family of generations of abuse and trauma caused by heavy religious beliefs which resulted in mental illnesses.



Her story:



My name is Levi and I’m a biracial woman from a small town in Ohio. My family has a long history of being heavily ’religious’ Christians and Catholics. It all started with my great-great grandma Lily.



She would tell my great grandma how much she didn’t like her. She would call her a “gross bean pole” as a way of body shaming her, and she even held these beliefs at her death bed.



They grew up very poor having to eat racoons and make clothes from potato bags and they were never able to afford toys. My great grandma also told me that her husband’s mom was a very old-fashioned religious woman.



She would shame my great grandma for allegedly not having enough children. She had six. She believed her only purpose in life was to be a stay-at-home mom and keep bearing children.



My great grandma Babs was a terrible alcoholic when my grandma was growing up. She would be drunk by the morning and scream at the kids telling them to kill her. She also wouldn’t cook, so my grandma had to do all the work growing up.



Aunt Jay got married at a young age, so she was able to get away, while my aunt Bee got shamed for not being able to bare children. Great grandma Babs wound up becoming very religious.



However, great grandma Babs also put me through religious abuse as well. She would force certain outdated rules on me like pushing me to save myself for marriage and to get married in general. She believed I needed four or more kids, yet desire of the flesh was wrong.



She would say “a good believer needs to worship every day,” but absolutely no one is as good of a believer as she is allegedly. If anyone ever tried to say they were, it was an automatic lie.



She would force me to eat, then put me down for my weight. She would rant about how celebrities were sexy because they worked out for 8+ hours a day. She believed for me to get those ‘beautiful bodies’, I needed a stressful hard workout routine.



She constantly oversexualized me and told me I needed a big butt, perfect boobs, and a skinny waist. She said I wasn’t good enough for not having that body. She would also beat me with a book for not knowing how to pronounce words and beat me again for not picking it up off the ground.



She died when I was 12 so I was a literal prepubescent child when she was doing this. Now, my mother’s mom was controlling of every aspect of my life; where I went, how long I could stay, and I she believed I needed to spend 99.9% of my time at work.

If I didn’t work, she would punish me and I was only allowed to leave once or twice a week, but this lessened overtime. My mom dealt with the same as I did growing up.



Grandma was very controlling and didn’t allow her to do much; she would basically watch and police her every move. My grandpa was also very mean and strict.



Instead of doing my mother’s hair it was ‘easier’ to just cut it short like a masculine haircut. Grandpas’ dad was also physically abusive towards him, but I don’t know much of him because he died when I was only a few months old.



Around the age of 3 or 4 my mother would pick me up and throw me at the couch, over coffee tables, and at the wall. When I was five my grandma kicked us out of her rental, so we had to move in with my mom’s abusive boyfriend.



She would coerce him into abusing us. We were forced to call him father and consider him our dad, and if we didn’t, we got beat. Meanwhile, he would tell us to go f-ck ourselves and go to hell, and mom would call us wh-res and ungrateful little -itches.



We weren’t allowed to dye our hair because he saw it as ‘unladylike’ and we weren’t allowed to wear bikinis outside of our property because he thought it was too sexual for a kid.



We were also pulled out of public school because my mom’s boyfriend believed that they couldn’t teach us anything and that HE could teach us better. He wound up not even teaching us, our mom ended up being our teacher.



I have learning disabilities, so I have a hard time learning and comprehending. My mom would scream, yell, throw things, and hit me if I was having trouble and needed help with schooling.



We were also only allowed to do private Christian studying. My mom always made sure to let us know religion was the most important thing. I remember something being a big thing within my childhood that I assume was also a part of my mom’s childhood as well.



We were forced to eat soap anytime we did something ‘bad.’ We were also forced to get ‘Birthday spankings.’ My family has a history of beating children with objects, so these would leave us in so much pain.



My sister and I would get beaten with metal ladles and the family would boast about my cousin Milly beating her son DJ. She also beat him with a ladle and when it broke, she beat him harder.



I even grew up being my sisters physical, mental, and emotional punching bag. She would call me a fagg-t and a fat-ss. She ALWAYS made fun of me for my weight, so I developed a bad eating disorder and disliked my body because of it. I suffer from anorexia to this day because of it.



My sister has always been my mom’s favorite child and she never failed to make sure I was aware that I’m the accident. My mother struggles with BPD, bipolar disorder, and anxiety, and my sister struggles with depression and anxiety.



My aunts and uncles also struggle with bipolar disorder, and I was diagnosed with C-PTSD at 13. Almost all of us struggle with some form of mental illnesses, but most of them deny the existence of mental health, so they refuse treatment.



Mental illnesses run in our family, and we’ve been facing childhood abuse for generations. I have contact with none of them, but they don’t really care. It’s hard being estranged from the family, but I constantly remind myself it’s better this way.



It’s sad to see I’m the only one breaking the cycles, but nonetheless, it needs to be done. I feel so much happier and healthier now that they’re being broken, and I know my kids will get an amazing life because of it.

SOURCE: https://africavoiceshq.com/2022/04/19/generations-of-mental-illnesses-conformed-religion-dehumanized-my-family-by-chantel-jackson/

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