Well, Mag.  You asked for it! Here is part of my Manifesto about
disability and spirituality.  Yet, I've really changed a lot in the 1.5
years since I wrote it.

The Qur'an and ACIM have both helped me heal.  I'm actually a very
eclectic spiritual hermit. And no, I'm not an Orthodox Muslim anymore.
Yuck!

Please don't get me going about Christianity, either.  I don't recommend
that at all...for everybody's sake!

I can send the whole Manifesto if desired.  You guys let me know, ok?

Matt
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As a teenager, I was abused by a born-again Black Christian man who was
the aide for us male disabled students in my high school.  In a nutshell,
he took advantage of me because I was so emotionally vulnerable at the
time.  What would happen is that he would preach to me and poke me while
he would help me use the bathroom or eat lunch at school.  He would
brainwash me about the impending Rapture and Apocalypse from Revelation
from the Bible and tell me that I was a sinner and going to Hell...even
after I got "saved"!  There was nothing I could do and it went on for five
years.  He really got into my head and would say that he could read my
mind!  Yet, I badly "needed" that Spiritual anesthetizing because I had
so many other problems at the time.  Of course, he was convinced that he
had been called by God Almighty to minister to those in need.  It is
interesting to note that he had a morbid obsession with NOT being
homosexual.  As a result of this trauma, and my hypersensitivity, I have
major problems with relationships because I feel like I am always being
attacked when I am corrected and I have to fight back when I am
criticized.  Although I have gotten psychotherapy for this abuse, I am far
from being whole or healed because I was affected on the deepest level of
my being.