"Stop Calling Trauma Bitterness: Why Survivors of Spiritual Abuse Are Told to Repent for Surviving" by David Ruybalid: a Repost
“Many of the behaviors that are labeled as bitterness are actually signs of survival. Refusing to return to an unsafe church. Naming manipulation publicly. Declining reconciliation without repentance. Setting limits with former leaders. These are not signs of a hardened heart. They are signs of survival and emerging clarity.”
I had started writing a post on bitterness, but then I came across this excellent article by David Ruybalid, one of my favorite writers on this platform. I don’t need to write my own post. This one is great. People who speak up about church dysfunction or spiritual abuse, those who leave the church and point out its flaws, or those who try to stay and use their voices, are often labeled as “bitter”.
It is gaslighting, really, turning the criticism back on the speaker. Whether or not the tone or words are perfect, we need to pay attention when people bring up concerns. Criticizing the messenger before listening to the message is arrogant and stiff-necked. We have much to learn. The global church is not doing so hot these days. It may be wise to be curious before calling someone “bitter”.
You can read the article here, or you can read it below. Give David a follow. He has a way with words!
David’s article:
One of the most common and damaging refrains I hear in church spaces is this:
“You need to repent of the spirit of bitterness.”
It is often directed at survivors of spiritual abuse. Survivors who are grieving. Survivors who are angry. Survivors who are telling the truth.
And it is profoundly confusing.
When I Thought I Was the Problem
I know because I thought I was bitter too. As a teenager, I had experienced abuse and was navigating multiple adverse experiences at once. My nervous system was in survival mode, even though I didn’t have language for what I was feeling. I felt overwhelmed, guarded, and angry, and I believed all of that was a spiritual problem.
At a church camp, during an emotional altar call, I walked forward, desperate for relief and for freedom. My counselor listened to me and told me the problem was bitterness in my heart. I needed to repent. I cried. I confessed. I begged God to remove the bitterness. I left believing my trauma responses were sin and that my struggle to trust was rebellion. No one seemed to focus on what had happened to me. No one asked about the harm. They asked whether I had unforgiveness in my heart. That moment did not heal me. It deepened the shame.
Accountability flows toward the powerful, not the wounded. But in spiritually abusive systems, that flow is often reversed.
Trauma Is Not Sin
Trauma is not sin. Anger at injustice is not sin. Grief is not sin. Emotional responses to abuse are not moral failures. When churches tell survivors to repent of bitterness, they often commit a serious theological and pastoral mistake. They confuse a nervous system response with a heart problem. This generates another wound. It does not bring about healing!
Scripture consistently directs rebuke toward those who misuse power, not those who are crushed by it. In Ezekiel 34, God confronts the shepherds who harm the flock. In Matthew 18, Jesus warns those who cause harm to little ones. Accountability flows toward the powerful, not the wounded. But in spiritually abusive systems, that flow is often reversed. The survivor becomes the problem. The one naming harm is labeled divisive. The one setting boundaries is labeled bitter. The one asking for justice is labeled unforgiving.
Boundaries Mistaken for Bitterness
Many of the behaviors that are labeled as bitterness are actually signs of survival. Refusing to return to an unsafe church. Naming manipulation publicly. Declining reconciliation without repentance. Setting limits with former leaders. These are not signs of a hardened heart. They are signs of survival and emerging clarity.
In environments where compliance is spiritualized, boundaries feel threatening. So they get reframed as sin. Language like “spirit of bitterness” can function as spiritual bypassing. It sounds biblical and serious, but it can subtly shift attention away from institutional accountability and onto the survivor’s internal life. Instead of asking what harm occurred, the question becomes why you are still upset. Instead of asking who needs to repent, the question becomes why you cannot forgive.
Trauma Responses Are Not Character Flaws
When someone has experienced spiritual abuse, their body keeps score. The distrust, the anger, the grief, and the anxiety they carry are adaptive responses to threat. They are not proof of a rebellious spirit or a hardened heart. Before calling a survivor to repent, the church should ask harder questions. Was there coercion? Was there manipulation? Was there control disguised as discipleship? Has there been confession, repair, or structural change? If the answer is no, the call to repent may not be a call to holiness but a mechanism to restore comfort for those who do not want to confront harm.
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
I wish someone had looked at teenage me at that altar and said you are not bitter. You are overwhelmed. You are not rebellious. You are trying to survive. You do not need to repent for being hurt. Healing did not begin when I tried harder to forgive. It began when I told the truth about what had happened to me, almost ten years after that alter call. It began when I realized that my trauma responses were not spiritual defects. They were evidence that something real had occurred.
David describes so much of my church existence of 30 years.
“I left believing my trauma responses were sin and that my struggle to trust was rebellion. No one seemed to focus on what had happened to me. No one asked about the harm. They asked whether I had unforgiveness in my heart. That moment did not heal me. It deepened the shame.”
This is the scene that played on repeat for me for three decades, eventually culminating in a mental health crisis. Then I learned mental health crises are not treated nearly as compassionately as physical ones in the church. The treatment I received over the next few years hindered my recovery, and I had to leave. I lost everyone I had felt close to in that congregation, because it’s easier to label me bitter than to be supportive and acknowledge that my pain is valid, or advocate for any meaningful change or growth in the system.
“Accountability flows toward the powerful, not the wounded. But in spiritually abusive systems, that flow is often reversed.”
…yes, and when the wounded finally leave, it’s because they were “bitter,” not because they were exhausted from swimming against the tide for so long.
"Naming manipulation publicly" is what I've been doing and I had a leader (recently) call it "being on a crusade". I see, I am trying to make sense of my nervous system being on high alert for thirty years and the egregious ways I was coerced and because I'm talking about it in public, I'm the problem. Got it.