Are You Feeling Lost and Confused After Changing Beliefs or Leaving Religion?
7 Signs* You’ve Experienced Religious Trauma or Spiritual Harm:
You were taught you’re a bad person, you will be damned or are going to hell because you no longer go to church.
You experience crippling anxiety because it feels like everything you were taught was a lie and you don’t know what to believe.
You feel depressed because you don’t know the meaning of life anymore.
Shame is a constant in your life. You frequently are reminded of scripture or messages that told you you’re bad/not good enough.
You don’t feel safe outside of the religious community but also can’t go back and try to fit in anymore.
You were taught that your sexuality or gender is not worthy/inherently wrong.
You feel constant religious guilt.
*This is by no means an all inclusive list of symptoms of religious trauma/harm. Just a starting place.
Religious Trauma is Real
In the United States, religion (and especially subsects of christianity) is ubiquitous. People often don’t realize that there can be trauma arising from a culture of harmful experiences.
Adverse Religious Experiences is defined as any experience of a religious belief, practice, or structure that undermines an individual's sense of safety or autonomy and/or negatively impacts their physical, social, emotional, relational, or psychological well- being. These experiences can result in trauma to that person.
Adverse Religious Experiences can include:
Loss of autonomy: shutting down individual thought, being taught to distrust one’s self, banning critical thinking, deferring decision making to the spiritual authority
Spiritual Abuse: Being required to submit to spiritual authorities, no accountability for clergy, use of holy text to oppress or abuse, threatening consequences for breaking group rules/”sinning”
Isolation: Cutting off people outside of the religious system, information control, devaluing people outside the religious system, oversight of members’ time/money
Sexuality & Gender Defining Adverse Consequences: Defining rigid gender rules, inherent “sinfulness” of specific sexual expressions, belief in one gender being greater, patriarchal values, requirements of “purity”, policing sexual expressions, declaring individuals who are acting different from prescribed gender roles as sinful
And much more.
These adverse religious experiences can result in trauma to the brain, body, and deeper sense of self. This can look like overwhelming self-doubt, confusion, constant fear and shame, fears of people and places outside the religious system, depression, anxiety. It can cause self-medicating with substances, dissociation and disconnection from the body, a freeze response, lack of purpose and a felt sense that life is meaningless, hopelessness, distrust in self, distrust in others, and more.
Religious Trauma Therapy Can Help You Return To Yourself
Imagine that you wake up and feel peaceful. Shame and fear are no longer running your life. Depression and anxiety don’t define you. You are your own person.
Counseling can help this be your reality. In therapy you can receive tools for helping the body process distress and access your own ability to heal. You’ve done the brave hard thing of surviving all this and now you get to have the support you deserve.
I personally know it’s possible to heal because I (Sarah Kate Wilder) have been there. Check out my story: the exposed version for more info. Additionally, over my 10 years of providing therapy, I’ve witnessed many people heal their past and create the life they truly want.
Every person’s experience with religious trauma is different. I will tailor the process to what makes sense for you and your goals. I often use a mix of body-based practices to support healing as well as processing the thoughts/beliefs to repair the distrust and return to yourself.
I believe you have the power to heal from the experiences that led you to believe you are unworthy or unlovable. Even though it doesn’t often feel like it, facing the harm is incredibly brave. You deserve the support of a knowledgeable therapist to help you return to yourself and your inherent worthiness.