The Isolation of Pentecostal Youth
Another thread here inspired me to write about the pain and isolation of Pentecostal young people. As many here know, I was in Pentecostalism from 7 years old until my late 20’s. In those crucial teenager years, we learn things about ourselves in the transition from child to adult. We learn how to make adult friendships, we bond with our peers for lifelong friendships, we begin dating – making mistakes and learning for when the real adult commitments’ time has come. However, in my case, I was isolated and alone. There was no youth group to speak of. There was no serious way to learn the ropes of dating and friendship unless I traveled far from where I lived. The problem was not that I was from a small town either. The problem was that the local church was small, isolated, and seriously ignorant. Thus the things that teenagers learn, I did not. In the adult world, I find that my social interactions were slightly “off,” if you know what I mean. My gestures were respectful – a combined Southern and Cajun mannerism – but something there was just not right. I had not spent any considerable time with people, and thus, the gestures that come natural to people were lost on me. I could not pick up normal signals from people and had no “clue” in certain social situations.
I really think that being Pentecostal during these teenage years is one of the worst things to happen to people. It sets them up for serious social failure in the future. Many of us have had to work very hard to overcome this deficit. As an adult, we have to learn things the hard way that we should have learned socially as a teenager. So, we are socially a bit behind the rest of the world, and we are possibly 5-10 years behind the curve on the ability to interact with adults. Those lost years of learning the social ropes are very destructive.
derkrash-at-earthlink-dot-net
JP Istre
3 comments:
I was in the SDA cult/religion for awhile and it did the same thing to me. Maybe not as intense but me and others that grew up in it felt like our social development with other people outside the church felt foreign and akward. I left the SDA and went the opposite way. Now Im more balanced of a person but any extremist cultish religion damages so many youth its sad. I still struggle with feeling like an outsider. I was taught that associating with anyone other than SDA was asking for sin to come in my life. Its all very weird. Glad you got out of it and are doing better.
I remember feeling the same way as a youth. Rock music was sinful, dancing was sinful, normal desires were sinful, etc. That can make a person crazy.
I can finally relate its like walking among people from another country. It is often hard to read the underline statements people make sometimes. I was raised in a Pentecostal church that broke off from the UPC the pastor believed it was from GOD that was giving us a new revelation: isolation. So finding a girlfriend is difficult due to the isolation. One girl broke it off because I failed to recognize a social cue. We had a good time for a few days. She and I had fun and then I made the mistake of talking to her dad in which she broke up with me. It is hard for others to understand but being raised for 24yrs in this type of culture makes it hard to learn what I should have learned years ago. Indeed it is a painful process. I have to relearn everything. I can work on a job and I do alright but when the coworkers talk about their lives outside work I have no experience that relates to them. Some say it was comparable to a cult and I can agree. Hopefully some day I can get far enough along that I don't think about my life in the church.
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