Do You Have Religious Trauma?
If you believe you may have religious trauma, and are interested in processing that with a therapist, consider reaching out to us here so that we can connect and see if we could be a good fit to work with you.
A New Understanding of Religious Trauma
In the past, when I thought of religious or spiritual trauma, I imagined extreme situations, like someone being sexually abused by a member of the clergy or being taught radical beliefs in a cult. Those types of religious trauma are extremely valid and worthy of being addressed, but what I never considered, is that I could also be carrying religious trauma. I loved my experience growing up in Christianity, and loved being connected to spirituality (and still do). But like most things in life, the good and bad often run together. It is becoming increasingly clear from research and from people’s lived experiences that religious trauma is much more common than we may have thought.
How Can Religion Cause Trauma?
Trauma includes any experience that is deeply distressing or overwhelming where there is no available escape or resolution.
It’s easy to assume that if someone is experiencing distress because of their church, beliefs, or community that they should be able to just leave, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. When you’re being taught that this is what is true, and that you should trust those in leadership, it’s common to feel like you must be the problem. It can also be terrifying to feel like you could lose your community, sense of belonging, or identity. All of these things keep people stuck in harmful systems and beliefs.
Below are some examples of beliefs that impact how people experience the world and themselves that are often experienced as traumatic. If you are a Christian reading this, it is natural for some defensiveness to come up, but I’d invite you to sit with that discomfort rather than completely dismissing the potential harm of the examples listed here. Many of these beliefs or experiences cause the nervous system to go into an ongoing, heightened state of fear or stress and create a trauma pattern that can be very difficult to find relief from.
Common Beliefs that Can Cause Trauma:
Fear of an eternal Hell where God could send you or those you love to be tormented for eternity
Believing that you are inherently bad or sinful and have nothing good in you apart from God
Being taught not to trust your body, intuition, or emotions
The suppression of normal, healthy sexual development; over-emphasis on purity (purity culture)
The threat of being gossiped about, outcast, etc. if your beliefs/ identity do not line up with expectations
Encouragement of physical punishment
Believing or adhering to “authority” figures over others
Spiritual bypassing (using spirituality to avoid facing emotions or issues) which can include denying the validity of mental health issues like anxiety or depression, escaping uncomfortable feelings with platitudes, insinuating that people should be able to just “let go” of past hurt or abuse and “give it to God”, etc.
Being seen as less capable or worthy to be in leadership because you are a woman
Having your sexual orientation define who you are and being denied inclusion because you identify as LGBTQ+
I think it’s helpful to note that many of the beliefs and experiences that can be experienced as trauma are more likely to be harmful if you experienced them as a young child because of the way that children soak things in deeply as their identify and worldview forms during those early years. Purity culture in particular is more harmful to young teens than it would be for adults.
How Do I Know if I Have Religious Trauma?
Whether experiences are stored as trauma depends on how they were perceived and experienced by the individual. So how do you know if your personal experiences were experienced as trauma? How can you tell if they have contributed to your experience of anxiety or depression? There is no simple list that can tell you for sure, but there are some common symptoms of religious trauma that can help you get started in figuring it out.
Common Symptoms of Religious Trauma:
Growing up with chronic fear or anxiety around Hell, Satan, demons, or salvation
Experiencing deep or chronic shame that leaves you feeling like you are unworthy, unlovable, or bad in some way
Feeling bad or wrong for having sexual thoughts and feelings, OR having physical reactions to sex or sexual thoughts such as crying or feeling disconnected from your body
Denying your sexuality, feeling shame about who you’re attracted to
Having certain triggers that lead to intense anxiety, shutting down, or panic
Feeling that you can’t trust yourself, your body, or your emotions
Feeling that you’ll be rejected by God or your community if you show your true self, or if your beliefs change
Perfectionism or hypervigilance- fear of making mistakes
Extreme dualistic, black-and-white thinking (i.e. Judging every individual thought, action, as completely “good” or “bad”)
Difficulty with experiencing pleasure
Shame that you are not adequately living up to gender expectations, or not living up to expectations in your marriage for what a wife or husband “should” be
For many, it gets to the point where, “For those raised within Evangelical environments, any single moment of perceived failure, any mistake, any step outside the previously established lines can paralyze with life-altering fear, anxiety, shame, and dread because of the trauma of early teaching is essentially playing on a loop within us. Our brains developed in a state of restriction, hesitation, and lack rather than a state of permission, wholeness, and freedom. This is why any misstep threatens identity, threatens worthiness, and threatens belonging.” Because of this, for those leaving Evangelicalism, “They are waking up to their intuitive wisdom telling them to seek safety, and leave authoritarian, abusive, and traumatic institutions.”
–You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity, Jamie Lee Finch, p. 80, 60
How Can I Heal From Religious Trauma?
If you see yourself in these lists, you’re definitely not alone. I’ve talked with so many people who have been able to identify that the form of Christianity they grew up was harmful or traumatic at times (even if there was also a lot of good). Here are some thoughts for where to get started.
Give yourself compassion and grace. This is a hard topic. Faith and spirituality are so important to so many of us, and it can feel confusing and overwhelming to recognize ways it may also be harmful. It’s important to go at your own pace, even if it’s slow.
Process with safe people. Talking with others who have had similar experiences and who are able to recognize the harm you experienced. Validation is healing. A lot of times finding a therapist familiar with these topics can be incredibly helpful, especially with doing deeper trauma work. Another way to find “community” around these topics are to find resources such as books or podcasts which can help the process feel less lonely.
Reconnect with your body, intuition, emotions, sexuality, and worth. Find ways of exploring healthy mind-body connections. Things like yoga, meditation, and journaling can be helpful tools, along with finding people and resources that can validate healthy sexuality and identity.
Figure out what healthy spirituality looks like for you. For some, the healthiest thing to do is to leave their faith community completely. No one should ever pressure you to stay somewhere that does not feel safe. For others, taking a break, finding a new faith community that better aligns with your values, or finding another form of spirituality may be a helpful step forward.
Can Healthy Spirituality Exist?
I wholeheartedly believe that healthy spirituality and religion are possible. Rather than doing a deep-dive into theology, how we got here, or what specific forms of Christianity might be more or less healthy, I’d like to leave you with something I wrote about how I feel now in my own experience of God and spirituality. I invite you to sit with it and see what comes up.
You were fearfully and wonderfully made. We all have shadows, sins, and wounds that sometimes bleed out or onto others. God is not afraid of any part of you and is present with all of who you are. He created your body as good, and you can trust it. Your emotions and intuition are guides that can move you towards healing and wholeness. No matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you, there is always hope in redemption and resurrection. Your sexuality is beautiful and deserves to be expressed and explored. You have nothing to fear beyond death. You are held by the Divine. Stay present, allow yourself to be surprised by wonder, cultivate empathy and connection. Anything can be worship. Everything is sacred.
A Final Note
If you’re interested in learning more about religious trauma, I highly recommend You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity by Jamie Lee Finch. Her book helped me more deeply understand the causes and impacts of religious trauma, and was a resource for this post. If you would like to dive even deeper into your own story and experience and process with a professional, I’d love to connect and discuss what the therapy process could look like for you.
