The Hammer Drops: Dr. Kenneth Copley Exposed - Exposing the Hypocrite

Begin reading the series here.  Or, go back to Pushed to Suicide.

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Of course my parents found the note and woke me instantly.  Instead of taking me to the hospital and admitting I had a serious problem, they decided to handle it themselves.  That night they poured an entire bottle of Ipecac syrup down my throat and sent me off to work with my dad the next day.  Even his coworkers were concerned as they could hear me continuously vomiting all day long and my dad refused to send me home because I was sick.  I called my Youth Pastor’s wife from work and told her the story.   She told her husband and he called my dad that evening with the request to bring me in for counseling.  My dad refused and forced me to admit to my Youth Pastor that I “hadn’t tried to commit suicide.  I was only trying to get attention. Nothing is wrong with me.”  Afterwards, my dad informed me I was being sent away to Northland Baptist Bible College (NBBC) in two weeks.  I was 16.

I enrolled at NBBC one month shy of my 17th birthday.  Once my roommate walked in and found me counting pills and laying them out so I could swallow them.  I eventually told a couple of students in whispers that I believe I had been molested and told them about my dad.  This was the first time I found the courage to say, “Something bad happened to me.” 

By this age, I knew something of sexual sins.  I was aware of the term rape, but I was bit uncertain about molestation and abuse.  To me, abuse was when you had black eyes and your parents weren’t Christians.  I thought beating meant you had marks everywhere on your body when of course, under Biblical spanking, you should only mark the butt.  I believed molestation to be an act of violence ending in rape.  It took me several years to accept the fact I was molested and not every child molester leaves marks or rapes their victims.  I didn’t understand that pedophiles and their victims can actually have a “good” relationship.  It took me several more years to recognize the fact my parents didn’t “spank”, they beat me brutally and just because you strike a child on the butt instead of the face or arms doesn’t mean there isn’t abuse taking place.

College money ran out and I returned home to live as an adult in my parent’s home.  My mom and I had an unspoken agreement to simply stay out of each others’ way and it worked.  We became…very civil and polite, like strangers.  My dad and I were still close.  However, hearing his porn through my door each night (I lived in the basement now) and seeing his girlfriend (whom I knew as one of his counselee’s from ICBCI days) riding in the car each night my dad came and picked me up from work was too stressful.  So after a year at age 19, I moved out.  The affair was discovered several months later and Ken Copley resigned from ICBCI.

Read the Final Part, Part Nine - Unfinished Justice.

The Story of Liz Franklin, Installment 7 - Nearing the End

We left off in Installment 6 where Liz grabbed a knife on the way to her dorm at school.  She had just given what she called, "the performance of my life" where the girls of her college dorm ate up every joke and every laugh she had to give.  But, like many funny people, she was dying inside. Now, it was her turn to literally try to end it all and die for good.  Let's follow her to her room.

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So- anti climatic, this.  I scratched myself with it. Didn't even produce blood.  But the fact that I had actually moved closer to hell scared me to death.  I told a girl I trusted, who told the dorm mother, who called the college president, who called the conference president... My name was making the rounds.  In the middle of the night, they came to the dorm to yell at me, and pray with me, and generally discuss the sorry state of my soul.  I did pray, and I guess I got some relief, because for awhile, I was ok.  Or not as not-ok as I had been earlier.

This was right before Christmas break, and somehow I went home and acted as normally as I could.  Went back after break, and actually made some friends (whose friendships I value to this day), and had a semblance of a life outside the spiritual.  I knew I was being watched for signs of depression. You know, demonic possession, so I managed to stuff things down even further.  Emotionally, I was numb.  My soul felt dead, and I knew I was just never going to be good enough for god.  But some how, I hid all this from people.

When the second school year started, I got a new bff, and then, eventually, my first boyfriend!!  I so did not know how to relate to people.  I had never in my life been loved.  I was an oozing hole of need, which severely strained my relationship with my bff.  My boyfriend...I was on autopilot with him.  We weren't allowed to ever be alone, so conversations did not go deep.  I thought he might be my salvation. After all, girls were expected to marry, bear kids, and let the husband make all the choices.  So I wrapped myself up in these plans.  That summer, it hit me undeniably that I did not love him.  I needed to be married, though, to be loved, so I drowned out that inner little voice.

During my second year, the pastor's wife of the church I attended while in school (still part of the Allegheny Conference,those were the rules) took note of my behavior.  The constant praying, the suicide "attempt", the cloying neediness, the way I was just about the only girl who didn't go home on weekends or shorter breaks...  I only lived 45 minutes away.  I was scolded soundly for this, too, by no less than the president of the college.  My mom had cancer; I should be going to help her.  I'd feel guilty when she died.  (she did, I didn't, how bad a person does that make me?)  Any way, the pastor's wife got together with my bff, and decided I was an incest victim.  (I'd told no one).  This was actually pretty forward-thinking of her.  She got a book on it, and my bff and I went through it in an attempt to heal me.  That, I think, was so sweet, and even sincere, but she was in no kind of way equipped to do that.  The church didn't believe in mental health professionals at all.  They were satanic! They opened the door! So that was how they tried to help me.

Instead, they sent me into a tail-spin.  What I had managed to keep wrapped in a box now overwhelmed me.  I had no idea how to cope with this. None. Zero.  It became a monster, bigger than me, and chasing me, chasing me always.  Although I continued to seek god, it was really all I could do to get dressed in the morning.  god became, out of necessity for my survival, second, or even further down in my mind.

Then, in '89, mom died.  I was at school, and dad called, saying she was in the hospital, but was good, real good.  The thing was, he always acted the opposite of what was going on with her.  If she stubbed her toe, he called 911.  When he said things were good, we needed to call 911. So, I knew I needed to get there, fast.  She hung on through surgery, and we left (my bff and I) back to school after a couple days. We had just gotten back when my brother called to tell me she had died.

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The final installment will follow Liz to the "getting out" of her spiritual misery.  She still has room to fall lower - and she will - but the end is good and still is writing itself to be a true victory.