The account of a fellow survivor

Not long before I started blogging I was alone, I had no support, even the clergy abuse charity in England turned me away saying that they weren't willing to help me while I was homeless. I was completely alone. I tried so very hard to get help and support, and because of what the church had been able to do to my records and how they had been able to get their point across and silence me, I was scared to even make new friends, indeed when I did inadvertantly make new friends, the church's influence did cause anguish and break ups.

In the past few months I finally seem to have escaped the church somewhat and have built up a support network and made friends with fellow survivors through survivors groups and also through churches that have not been influenced by 'the church', I have also got to know and make friends with other survivors through my blog, including a fellow survivor who's story has a number of things in common with mine: She is disabled, was abused in her family and disbelieved, was vulnerable to clergy abuse and church based abuse and shunning, and spent some time homeless as a result of these things, her story also shows how church and clergy networks do work against abuse victims and vulnerable people and isolate and shame them, just as they did in my story.
This is my friend's story, told in her own words and unedited apart from me paragraphing it and bold highlighting it:

I will share my story, I actually have two regarding abuse by churches, one of a sexual abuse by the 1st church I ever attended & one of theft & being chased out of my home town by another church. I'll start with the former because it happened 1st & will share both for you to blog.
 
To begin to tell you about the first church abuse, I need to give you
a little background info: I was sexually abused by my father from
3years old to about 9 years old & one of my brothers as a young
teenager & I had tried to get help through child protective services
for the abuse by my brother but my family kept lying & were being
believed over me, & I was the one who kept getting in trouble with the
police for running away.

Finally I came to my pastor at my grandparents church. I told him what was going on & how no matter how I tried to get help no one could help. I was about 13 years old at this time.

He started off by having private prayer sessions, all very normal. Then he
started to pick me up & bring me to help him tidy up the church on
saturday before sunday services, which also seemed very normal & I was
happy to be away from my house.

Then he started paying me for my cleaning services, at first with money. then a few weeks later he said he could no longer pay me in cash. He began to pay me in marijuana. I had tried this drug before, most of my family were drug addicts & alcoholics & had always found it amusing to force me to get high or
drunk when I was a child.

 But I willingly smoked with the pastor. for a while thats all that happened, but then slowly he bagan to become more & more affectionate after we would smoke.

 It started with holding my hand, then kissing me on the cheek & hugging me for a long time. Then it progressed to kissing on the lips. I was frightened by it, I didnt like it, but I felt afraid to try & stop him, felt like if I did I
would only experience what I had before with my family but 1,000 times
worse because he was so well respected, so important.

He began trying to forse me to perform oral sex on him. finally I stopped coming to
church, began running away on saturdays before the pastor could come,
or taking medications that cause stomach sickness so that I would be
too sick to come to church or help clean.

Finally my grandmother confronted me about why i wouldnt come to church, & when I told her the truth she beat me with her shoe & called me horrible names & told me I was going to burn in Hell & that I was never to step foot near their church again.

 I later found out another girl had accused the pastor of
the same thing & got death threats & finally moved. the pastor died of
a brain tumor in 2009.
 
the second form of abuse occured at a completely differnt
denomination of church. It was a very rich congregation, everyone wore
expensive clothes & drove fancy cars & bragged all the time. at 1st the
people seemed to be acting kindly to me, giving me thier "old" clothes
from last season to wear & occationally giveing me rides to dr
appointments, the store, the welfare office.

I tried to become close to a girl that was a few years older than me but I grew tired of her not only insulting me constantly but saying horrible things about others, even calling an 80 year old woman a "whore" for wearing bright red
lipstick. I distanced myself from her, & this was the begining of the
end. She ran around telling everyone that I was a prostitute & that I
had stolen money out of her car.

without ever talking to me, most of the congregation began to shun me. there were only a few people who didnt, a woman I'll call H, a woman I'll call E, & a woman I'll call A.

Now these woman new I was for the most part homeless, & would again
occationally give me rides or once & a while let me sleep in their
garages on very cold nights. I was greatful.

One day A invited me to help her clean another church goers home for $60. I desperately needed the money & was thrilled. I was ready to be picked up by her on time, did everything asked of me, & cleaned with the best of my ability & she gave me $70 dollars & bought me lunch. I was thrilled.

 but then the next sunday I found out it had all been a ploy to further smear my name.

She told the woman who's house I had cleaned that she had to keep
checking my pockets because I was stealing things & she told everyone I
had shown up drunk & refused to do hardly any work & had then demanded
an extra $10 dollars & dinner. I was shocked at her cruelty.

Then came the worst of it: H invited me to live with her. She thought I was
already reciving government assisstance for my disabilities, but I
wasnt I had been denied.

She wouldnt even let me take a shower she began driving me to the social security office & welfare. She thought it would be a matter of a week or 2 before I'd be reciving $1,500 a month.

 While I was there I cleaned her house, was extremly conservative
on electricty, food, ect. tried everyway to repay her kindness
including shareing what little food I got from the food bank every
couple weeks.

Once she found out that it would take years to recieve a
determination for the $1,500 & that all I was going to recieve a month
until then was $100 dollars in foodstamps, she waited unti I went out &
when I came back all her doors were locked. I knocked & knocked
thinking it was all acidental until a police car showed up.

He threw me to the ground & talked to her through the door. She told him I was threatening her & that I had destroyed her house looking for money. He
asked if she wanted me arested & after a long pause she told him no,
just escort me off her property. I asked if I could atleast have my
coat & my cell phone, it was below zero out & the middle of winter &
all I had was a sweater on. she refused to even hand it through the
door.

the police officer chased me out of the neighborhood with his car
after calling me a slew of horrible names. I walked to E's house but
she had already spoken on the phone with H & told me she'd called the
pastor & that I was in serious trouble & I needed to get away from her.
I fianlly got into a shelter & somehow the pastor found me & came &
told me that I was not only shunned from the church & could never
return but that I was nolonger a servant of God.

 I had no where else to go & finally my fiance let me move in with him in Columbus where I live
now. because we were not married, we had been avoiding moving in at all
costs. some how the pastor found out where I was, called my fiance &
told him if he didnt throw me out he would also nolonger be able to
serve God. Of couse my fiance is now my husband & refused, but my old
pastor got in contact with his bible teacher, & I am now also shunned
by My husbands church.

H ended up stealing my identity & opening 100's
of credit cards in my name.