SALLY: UNNAMED OA CHURCH

I left a One Association Church. Here's my story. 

[Relevant Trigger Warnings: Miscarriage, Suicide Mentions, Emotional & Spiritual Abuse, SA Mentions] 
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Hi, friends! 
After several years of lurking around here, I’ve decided to post my testimony. I’m not going to share my name, but the details are very easily identifiable and I’ve accepted that pretty much anyone from OneA who reads this will likely figure out who I am.
I joined a OneA church at the age of 18, when I was freshly out of foster care. I was brought in by a friend of mine who was connected to the church via members of her immediate family, and they invited me to stay at one of the discipleship homes for a few days. During that time, I was completely immersed in the church culture, and I fell in love with it. The sense of community, the kindness and compassion that were shown to me by the people there, and the feeling of finally having a purpose and a sense of direction were exactly what I felt I was lacking in my life.
I was targeted by this church while I was at my most vulnerable: nearly homeless, recovering from a very recent miscarriage, and lacking a social support structure to fall back on. At the time, they were my heroes, as far as I was concerned. For the first time in my life, I had a stable, secure, clean place to live, easy access to food, and most of all, what felt like a family. 
To understand the full magnitude of what this church did to me, you’d have to understand who I was before I joined. I was a creative; I’d written nearly 800 poems and several novels. I was preparing to enroll in a pre-med program and become the first in my biological family to attend college. My goal in life was to rise above the harrowing statistics that former foster kids face: homelessness, abusive relationships, jail, human trafficking, staggeringly low college graduation rates, and mental illness, just to name a few. 
I lived in a house with up to 12 other people, with 2-4 single women sharing a room. It was not entirely unlike the foster homes I grew up in. In a way, it was familiar and comforting to be surrounded by other people. It wasn’t until I had been there for two-three months that the subtle signs of their control began to imbue themselves into my life.
The first red flag I remember was when I confided in them about my struggles with mental illness. With 80% of former foster kids experiencing mental health issues, it was no surprise to me that I did too. Shortly before joining OneA, I had attempted suicide and was placed in an adolescent psychiatric hospital. I was also put on medication to help regulate some of the symptoms I was having. I had stopped these medications when I became pregnant, as they weren’t safe to take. When I joined, I was told that I wasn’t allowed to begin taking them again, and that I should trust in God to heal me of these issues. 
One night, I explained to them the symptoms of one of the mental health concerns I was struggling with, and was told that what I was experiencing was not the result of a chemical imbalance in my brain, but rather, a result of demonic influence. They anointed me with olive oil and prayed over me for several hours until I stated that I had been healed of these issues.
After this, I was told that I wasn’t allowed to speak privately with any of the other single girls, and that the only people I could talk to behind a closed door were members of leadership. This was a direct result of me confiding in one of the other single women about my mental health issues, and she was harshly corrected for not telling leadership immediately about what I had told her.
Over the next few months, their control over my life became more and more evident. I was instructed to sell my books and delete the hundreds of poems and novels I had written, as having hobbies that weren’t centered around God and the church was considered to be a form of idolatry. I wasn’t allowed to go to college, because that would take away my attention from my “true calling” in the church. I wasn’t allowed to talk to non-members except for the purpose of trying to bring them into the church. 
Perhaps the most heartbreaking thing that occurred during this time was the way I was treated during my grieving process after my miscarriage. I was required to attend a baby shower for one of the church members who had become pregnant at nearly the same time I had, and living with her was a near-constant reminder of what I had lost. I was also required to clean the tub and prepare a bath for her after she had the baby [a week before what my due date would have been with my daughter].
I was forced to throw away the few reminders I had of my daughter. My positive pregnancy test, the blanket I bought her when I found out I was pregnant, and a necklace I bought to commemorate her after I miscarried were all wrapped in a grocery bag and tucked neatly into the trash can, mementos I can never get back. 
They went through my wardrobe and threw away all the clothes they deemed “too immature” for a future wife. When I was late on rent one month, they went through my entire bank statement and told me which purchases were deemed “unnecessary,” and required me to give them my bank account login information so they could access it at any time. Over the 2.5 years I spent there, I gave the church nearly $4000, not including the monthly rent payments. 
I was encouraged to go on a 10-day-fast during which I only consumed juice and water, as a method of unlearning a tendency towards strong emotions [referred to by them as "emotionalism".] I have an eating disorder history, and was told in the very beginning that this was not a valid reason to abstain from fasting, as that was "letting the devil win."
Single women were treated like children, and were expected to submit their lives fully to their disciplers until they had "earned" the right to get married. Marriage was treated as the ultimate goal, a prize that would be awarded when you proved your loyalty to the church. Marriage and courtship were often withheld or lengthened as punishment for not demonstrating enough "spiritual maturity," and single women were expected to devote hours upon hours of unpaid childcare and other domestic labor to the church.
And then there was the sleep deprivation. There was one point where, between near-daily church services, work, and other expectations, I was averaging 3 hours of sleep per night. I fell asleep while driving several times, and was told that if I had enough faith, God would "restore" the energy that I lacked.
They also strictly controlled my ability to obtain medical care. I’m asthmatic, and when I had COVID [which I contracted at the One Association Conference that was held in the height of the pandemic], I was harshly corrected for missing a single church service because I was in a back room having coughing fits so strong that my lips were turning blue and I could hardly take a breath. I later found out that I had severe bronchitis, was developing walking pneumonia, and had hurt one of my ribs from coughing so hard.
I won’t speak too extensively on what other members experienced, but I will point out a few things that stick out to me as being particularly cruel.
A woman that I lived with was forced to withdraw, cold turkey, from her mental health medications and flush them down the toilet. I won’t name specific medications, but one of them is particularly dangerous to stop taking without tapering off of it.
A woman from one of the other churches was required to stop breastfeeding her newborn, because it would “drain her energy” and “take her focus away from the church.”
A woman from one of the other discipleship homes [also asthmatic] was accused of lying when she said her blood oxygen had dropped to 86% when she had COVID, and was told not to seek medical care. 
I won’t elaborate on this one, but marital r*pe is not just condoned but encouraged in these churches.
When I left, I left in the middle of the night, barefoot in the middle of winter as I carried my boxes to my car to avoid waking anyone up and alerting them to what I was doing. For months, I was paranoid and terrified that God was going to cause harm to me for leaving.
Leaving required completely canceling my bank account and starting a new one, turning off any method they could use to find out my location, taking all recognizable decals off my car, taking time off work, and parking nearly a mile from where I worked in hopes that they wouldn’t attempt to make contact with me. At one point, I found out that when I left, they had sat outside of my workplace waiting for me to walk out so they could confront me about leaving. They also attempted to break into my car to leave me a bag of hand-written, guilt-trip laden letters nearly a month after I left.
I could go on and on about the abuses that this church committed, the various ways they demonstrated their control over my life, but suffice it to say that they fully fulfill the criteria laid out by the BITE Model of Mind Control (see below).
I want to make it abundantly clear that I’m not angry with any of the members of these churches. I feel nothing but compassion and empathy for those involved with this. I’m not speaking out because of hatred; I’m speaking out because I still love the people I left behind, and because I know the power that a testimony can have. I left because a previous member’s testimony helped to open my eyes, and I can only hope mine does the same for someone else. 
If you are a member of one of these churches and you’re reading this, I urge you to think critically about the situation you’re in. Financial, emotional, physical, sexual, medical, and mental control are all aspects of a severely abusive relationship. Leaving is possible, and life is so much better on the other side. 
If you have a relative or friend in one of these churches, this is not a safe environment for your loved one to be in, and the only way to support them is by letting them know you’re a safe person to go to in the event that they decide to leave.
If you’re considering joining one of these churches, RUN. As far and as fast as you can. Don’t let them lure you in with lovebombing and false hope. You will be forced to give up everything you know and love.
If you’ve been affected by a OneA church in any way, and you’d like to talk, my messages are open. If my testimony affects even a single person out there, then everything I went through was worth it.