Citizen and the State

Once upon a time there was a woman who was married to an important and respected man. The woman trusted her husband, and because he could read (and she couldn't), and because he had a number of powerful and respected friends, she always did what he advised her to do.
Despite being illiterate, the woman had many abilities, and she worked jobs such as cleaning and hair cutting, which money she entrusted to her husband for his supervision and management. Her husband did no work at all, but often had important meetings with his friends. What the woman didn’t know, was that the husband would often concoct stories in order to persuade her to part with her hard-earned money. Once he told her that the newspapers were talking of a raft of burglaries in the area, and he said they needed a security system. The one they needed, he said, would cost £5000. The wife, trusting him, gave over the money. The husband then bought a security system worth £250 and pocketed the rest for himself.
Whenever the wife saw something she liked, she asked her husband to get it for her. Sometimes he would, sometimes he wouldn’t. But if he did, he added 20% to the price of the item and kept that for himself. Sometimes she would query certain things, but he reminded her that God had put him in charge of the household, that he was doing many important things for her, and that he had access to information that she didn’t.
One day the husband told his wife that she shouldn’t go out, unless she wore certain clothes. He said this was because there was a dangerous predator in the streets, but certain clothes would protect her from the predator. He also said that this predator might sneak its way into the house, and therefore she mustn't let any friends in. He would tell her when it would be safe for her to invite friends over again.
It was this action of the husband that caused the wife to wonder if he was being totally honest with her. She started to learn to read, and became horrified to find that her husband apparently didn’t love her at all. She started to feel she was a victim of abuse. She began to tell her friends that her husband quite often did not permit her to do the things she wanted. She told them he kept overcharging her for things she wanted to buy for herself and explained that she no longer trusted him like she once did.
Her friends were horrified to hear this. “You misunderstand the situation” they said. “Your husband loves you, if he says it costs X pounds for a product, it surely does. If he says you can’t have friends over, it’s only because he loves you and wants to keep you safe. If he says you need an expensive burglar alarm, its because he doesn’t want you to be ripped off. He wants to keep you safe. And he is wiser than you, remember, and he has powerful friends who know important things. You don’t claim to know more than them, do you?”
But the woman doubted her husband more and more. Often he would go away with his friend Jeffrey, and be gone for many days. When he came home she was sure she could smell perfume on her husband’s clothes.
For many days she denied the idea that he was unfaithful to her, and created outlandish stories to explain to herself that he was not abusing his position and taking advantage of her. Her husband meanwhile, knew that his wife was losing confidence in him, and told her she wasn’t well, she wasn’t thinking right. He said one of his powerful friends had medicine which would keep her well, and mean she could go out again, and invite friends over, like she used to. If only she would take the medicine.
But she didn’t. She started to avoid her husband and tried to hide her money from him. She prayed for someone to deliver her, but none of her friends stood by her. They believed her husband, not her.
The truth was that the wife was experiencing trauma. And all trauma victims go through a similar cycle. First, denial of the situation. Then anger. Then the need to tell people about what has happened. Finally, a form of acceptance.
The woman appealed again to her friends. “He is abusing me,” she told them. But they laughed her to scorn. And they no longer wanted to be with her, because it seemed to them that she could barely speak about anything else. This (the need to explain what she had discovered) is standard behaviour for a trauma victim, but her friends did not understand this, nor did the woman herself. Meanwhile her husband, finding his wife less willing to hand over money to him, and far more truculent in her behaviour, began to recount all he’d done for her. “Look, I bought her a security system. I bought her clothes. I have provided her with free medicine. She believes I am conspiring against her. She is becoming a conspiracy theorist. From now on you should treat her as a conspiracy theorist.”
After that, her friends called her a conspiracy theorist. The woman found it harder to spend time with her old friends, but she made some new ones. Her old friends called them conspiracy theorists too.

Eventually the relationship between the wife and her husband broke down completely. She tried to leave him, so he proceeded to sue her for divorce and damages. Because he had friends in the court, the judge found in his favour. The woman would have to pay him reparations for the rest of her life.
But she found a man who loved her completely. He lived in a far country, but he sent help to her every day, and promised to come for her one day when the time was right. He never asked money of her, gave her wise counsel, and introduced her to his friends (whom he also helped in many ways). He gave her a new name too, - his nickname for her was ‘beloved.’

Do you know what that woman’s old name was?
She used to be called Citizen.
Her husband was called ‘the State’ and his powerful friends were ‘the Banks”, “Media", “Entertainment” and “Big Pharma.”
Her old friends still call her ‘Conspiracy Theorist.’
Her new friends call her ‘Sister in Christ.’
Her new lover is Jesus Christ.
Her new name is Christian.

Christian still speaks of her experience from time to time. She is still working through the trauma of betrayal and abuse. She finds a lot of people don’t understand her, and although the future is unclear to her she knows two things:
1) Jesus Christ can be trusted and he’s coming for her one day, and;
2) she can never go back to loving her first husband, for she can't ever trust him again.

And the devil took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,  and said to him,
“To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me,
and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”
(Luke 4:6-8)

_____________________________________________________________
Hey thanks for reading this far. I greatly appreciate it.

My name was Citizen once.
I am a trauma victim.
But I am also a disciple of Jesus Christ, and a son of the Living God.
I am learning to accept that I will be in an abusive relationship with the State for the rest of my life.
You can call me ‘Conspiracy Theorist’ if you want to.
No problem, I’m happy to talk about other stuff.

Where are you in this story?