Religious Trauma means harm caused by religion
Written by: Korrenne Jensen, RP
Artwork by: David Hayward
When I first became a therapist it was not my goal or intention to work with adverse religious experiences. I knew I liked working with grief after my practicum experience, I knew I could work with trauma and had the skillset to hold space for it and I had become more interested in working with neurodiversity through recent years in understanding my own neurodiversity. I did not realize that this combination would open the door to work with so many wonderful individuals that had unfortunately been harmed by different religious structures and fundamentalist belief systems.
I would like to make it clear that this does not mean there is negative or overarching judgement of those who partake in religious activities, many people in my personal and work life have diverse backgrounds when it comes to relgious beliefs and behaviours. Working with religious trauma means that we are acknowledging that this structure can cause harm and can be more detrimental to certain groups such as woman, queer individuals, those with disabilities or neurodiversities and survivors or sexual or physical violence. If you are not someone that has been harmed in a religious structure you can count yourself as privileged to not have to heal from this type of abuse of power. Be grateful to not understand this experience and know that this is most likely not written for you.
In my own personal experience and in my work I have found that no one wants the glass to shatter. It is extremely painful to become disillusioned in foundational faith practices and groups. People would rather shove themselves into the fold that they do not fit in than face the unknown of potentially losing their family, friends, supports, community, purpose etc. The reason I believe there is a connection between grief, neurodiversity, sexuality and those who leave religious structures or identify with religious trauma is that something came into their life that they could not ignore any longer.
I would say that I personally was wholeheartedly invested in a fundamentalist evangelical group PAOC (Pentecostal assembly of Canada) from childhood until the age of 24. I was in it, home education, christian music, christian movies, bible camps, vacation bible school, sunday school, small groups, youth group, christian university, christian retreats and it goes on and on. I read the bible through, I lead relgious activities, I was even a children's pastor for a short stint. I was passionate, outspoken and unwavering in my faith and ultimately naive to the world at large around me being in such a tight knit structure with little outside influences.
What I did not realize at the time is that I was speaking in circles, regurgitating information, looking at people as holy or better than myself that ended up being gross and took advantage of people. There was three critical events that changed how I related to my religion.
One of my best friends lost their partner to a brain tumour
I started dating a non believer
I came to terms with my own sexual orientation
One of my best friends lost their partner to a brain tumour
I won't go into too much detail with this as it is not my story to tell, rather it was what the christians in my life at the time did with this that changed how I related to them. When this individual was sick I was involved in several different groups of christians that were praying continuously for his healing and speaking things as though they would be true about how he was going to heal and this was going to be a miracle from god that they would then be converted and it would be all to his glory. Unfortunately, this was not even close to the case and he passed away very quickly and the circles of people that were praying around me disappeared once the miracle did not occur.
This was so confusing to me at the time, I could not make sense of why a 25 year old passed away and left his partner and their child and how this was somehow a divine plan. I also couldn't understand the radio silence found in the community that I was leaning on. I had gone to many churches and had the same result most of the time, people want to help and are extremely hopeful, but when shit hits the fan they really don't know what to do half the time.
I started dating a non believer
As the elders feared, dating a non believer did impact my faith. Not in the ways that people might think. I remember one Sunday that I was not sitting in church, I was out at breakfast with my partner. We had just finished eating and the waiter asked if we wanted anything else and my partner ordered two more breakfasts. I was confused by this ask as I personally was rather full. They went on to ease my confusion by explaining that they had seen two people sitting outside that they wanted to bring breakfast too. As we went to leave however they were no longer there which lead to us driving around until we found them to deliver breakfast too. This man who was not raised in pews, took quick and effective action to always care for the people around him out of his own morals and belief system, rather than something he was told do. This act of seeing someone live out Jesus like behaviour naturally put me at odds with how I can really think I would have served my time better sitting in church that morning.
I came to terms with my own sexual orientation
The final piece for me was at 30 coming to the full acceptance that I am a queer woman, that I have always been this way and that denying this of myself made myself a messier, more anxious, neurotic version of me. Coming to terms with your bisexuality whild knowing that you come from a "hate the sin, not the sinner" background, was boiled down to either I stop seeing myself as a sinner or continue to hate the part of me that I was born with. Not seeing myself as a sinner allowed years of shame, guilt, worry to melt away and embrace the whole woman that I am.
These are not what many people would consider to be "Big T" religious trauma and that is acceptable to me. Many people harmed in religious structures experience more "Little t" trauma or CPTSD type trauma that is more akin to the death by a thousand cuts pain than one large traumatic incident. During my deconstruction journey I doubted myself endlessly as I was taught not to trust my own understanding, to not trust my own body or by own mind. Trauma comes from the Greek word "Wound" and so if you are unsure if you have religious trauma or if that word feels too intense for your experience, change the word to wound and I believe collectively even people in organized religion today can acknowledge there are wounds that can occur in that structure.
I went through the range of grief cycles: denial,anger, sadness, bargaining and acceptance. My identity was tied to being a believer and then suddenly my identity was then tied to being someone who felt wronged by the church. This started the process of being open to figuring out who I was completely outside of all of it to see who I am, what I like, who I might have become without a heavy influence in my life.
When people ask what type of work I do with religious trauma I would say this is at the core of it. Identity, personality, self compassion, self acceptance and of course some experiential therapies to process stuck emotions and break down core beliefs that no longer serve them. This isn't a moral debate or something meant to sway anyone, that is the best part of not being a part of a religion. I am no longer responsible for how others think, behave, or their eternal life does not weigh on my shoulders any longer. The purpose of this is to share my story and let others no that the wound does not need to be critical for it to deserve attention and sometimes the wounds we cannot simply point to are the ones that are hardest to digest alone.
Resources for adverse religious experiences:
admin@afterglowpsychotherapy.com to book a free consultation
Author note: This art was donated by David Hayward who reached out to see about collaboration. If you want to know more about his art and purchase his prints they are available through the links below
