Religious Trauma
Doubting your religious upbringing.
It was everything to you. You were assured you were morally and spiritually correct. All the answers were right there, and everyone around you congratulated you for saying all the right things. You may have been raised this way. You may have converted.
But one day, the questions could no longer be ignored, and the weight on your mind became difficult to navigate.
If the church is so right, how come it’s so small? If the church is moral, why does it cover up historical events?
How come nobody ever told you about various terrible, immoral, or indefensible things your church has done? Why does Google have more information about your church than any book your church has published?
Leaving a religious organization is extremely difficult.
Leaving is so difficult and potentially destructive that many people prefer to continue pretending belief rather than suffer the family trauma, relationship disruption, and community ostracizing associated with leaving a tightly knit religious organization.
Beyond the relationship disruption, an individual like you must divest themselves from years of indoctrination, unpaid labor, moral anxiety, financial giving, and confront all the missed opportunities associated with a life spent in subservience to a religious organization.
The process of leaving an abusive religion often involves grief, anxiety, anger, relationship loss, and tendencies to overindulge in destructive behavior previously forbidden by church/group norms or doctrine.
The transition requires time to process the separation.
As a therapist, my role is to help people like you who are leaving a destructive religious organization process the loss, identity reformation, and behavioral changes resulting from this monumental realization.
Don’t walk through this alone or work with a therapist with no personal experience in the unique religious transitional process you’re going through.
I have detailed knowledge of many closed and destructive religious organizations and practices. My specialty is in helping you navigate your feelings, reactions, behaviors, and urges to keep you stable, healthy, and on the road to physical and mental health.
Don’t make the mistakes so many people make and travel this road alone. The road to healing does not have to be unhealthy, unstable, or torturous. It can be healthy, humorous, and place you on the road to spiritual peace.
An abusive religion is…
A large or small group or organization with a name, unique culture, hierarchy, and an active or passive system of control over membership.
Membership is important and comes with various obligatory service duties to the group or organization for low or no payment. Membership is contingent upon adherence to unique beliefs and practices requiring continual observance and demonstration.
Practices inside the organization promote the collective while minimizing the individual’s value and rights.
Leaving the group comes at the cost of being ostracized from friends, community, and family still in the organization.
An abusive religion is not…
A large or small group or organization with no barriers to entry, transparency of practices, and clear history and observance of protecting adults and children from abuse.
Practices and gatherings are not contingent upon hierarchy or rank, and all people come and go based upon their thoughts and values.
While many religions practice rituals, spoken prayer, or songs based in holy praise, a non-abusive religious organization respects the rights of people to participate at their comfort level.
Leaving a non-abusive religious organization has no personal cost of relationships or harassment.
Leaving an abusive religion can be made easier.
If the religious organization with which you are involved falls into the abusive category and is causing you to separate from that organization, we can work together to make the transition easier.
There is no reason to suffer through this transition alone. Let me help you avoid the negative consequences as you learn to navigate the separation.
Contact me today!