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I’m really struggling and am desperate never to go back to the religion I was raised in, but I no longer want to live in fear or depression. It seems that I am walking through the jungle alone with my machete; no one to share my crazy and sometimes scary thoughts with.
I’m really struggling and am desperate never to go back to the religion I was raised in, but I no longer want to live in fear or depression. It seems that I am walking through the jungle alone with my machete; no one to share my crazy and sometimes scary thoughts with.
After years of depression, anxiety, anger,
and finally a week in a psychiatric hospital a year ago, I am now
trying to pick up the pieces and put them together into something that
makes sense. I’m confused. My whole identity is a shredded, tangled
mess. I am in utter turmoil.
These comments are not unusual for people
suffering with Religious Trauma Syndrome, or RTS. Religious trauma?
Isn’t religion supposed to be helpful, or at least benign? In the case
of fundamentalist beliefs, people expect that choosing to leave a
childhood faith is like giving up Santa Claus – a little sad but
basically a matter of growing up.
But religious indoctrination can be hugely
damaging, and making the break from an authoritarian kind of religion
can definitely be traumatic. It involves a complete upheaval of a
person’s construction of reality, including the self, other people,
life, the future, everything. People unfamiliar with it, including
therapists, have trouble appreciating the sheer terror it can create and
the recovery needed.
My own awareness of this problem took some
time. It began with writing about my own recovery from a fundamentalist
Christian background, and very quickly, I found out I was not alone.
Many other people were eager to discuss this hidden suffering. Since
then, I have worked with clients in the area of “recovery from religion”
for about twenty years and wrote a self-help book called Leaving the Fold on the subject.
In my view, it is time for society to
recognize the real trauma that religion can cause. Just like clearly
naming problems like anorexia, PTSD, or bipolar disorder made it
possible to stop self-blame and move ahead with learning methods of
recovery, we need to address Religious Trauma Syndrome. The internet is
starting to overflow with stories of RTS and cries for help. On forums
for former believers (such as exchristian.net), one can see the
widespread pain and desperation. In response to my presentation about RTS on YouTube, a viewer commented:
Thank you so much. This is exciting
because millions of people suffer from this. I have never heard of Dr.
Marlene but more people are coming out to talk? about this issue.
Millions–who are quietly suffering and being treated for other issues
when the fundamental issue is religious abuse.
Barriers to Getting Help for RTS
At present, raising questions about toxic
beliefs and abusive practices in religion seems to be violating a taboo,
even with helping professionals. In society, we treasure our freedom
of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Our laws and
mores reflect the general principle that if we are not harming others,
we can do as we like. Forcing children to go to church hardly seems
like a crime. Real damage is assumed to be done by extreme fringe
groups we call “cults” and people have heard of ritual abuse.
Moreover, religious institutions have a vested interest in promoting an
uncritical view.
But mind-control and emotional abuse is
actually the norm for many large, authoritarian, mainline religious
groups. The sanitization of religion makes it all the more insidious.
When the communities are so large and the practices normalized, victims
are silenced.
Therapists have no real appropriate diagnosis
in their manual. Even in the commonly used list of psychological
stresses, amidst all the change and loss and disruption, there is no
mention of losing one’s religion. Yet it can be the biggest crisis ever
faced. This is important for therapists to be aware of because people
are leaving the ranks of traditional religious groups in record numbers and they are reporting real suffering.
Another obstacle in getting help is that most
people with RTS have been taught to fear psychology as something
worldly and therefore evil. It is very likely that only a fraction of
people with RTS are even seeking help. Within many dogmatic,
self-contained religions, mental health problems such as depression or
anxiety are considered sins. They are seen as evidence of not
being right with God. A religious counselor or pastor advises more
confession and greater obedience as the cure, and warns that secular
help from a mental health professional would be dangerous.
God is called the “great physician” and a
person should not need any help from anyone else. Doubt is considered
wrong, not honest inquiry. Moreover, therapy is a selfish indulgence.
Focusing on one’s own needs is always sinful in this religious view, so
RTS victims are often not even clear how to get help. The clients I
have worked with have had to overcome ignorance, guilt, and fear to make
initial contact.
What is RTS?
I suffer with guilt and depression and
struggle to let go of religion. I am also battling with an existential
crisis of epic proportions and intense heartache. . . I feel like I am
the only person in the world that this has happened to. Some days are
okay, but others are terrible. I do not know if I will make it through
this.
Religious Trauma Syndrome is the condition
experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian,
dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination. They
may be going through the shattering of a personally meaningful faith
and/or breaking away from a controlling community and lifestyle. The
symptoms compare most easily with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which
results from experiencing or being confronted with death or serious
injury which causes feelings of terror, helplessness, or horror. This
can be a single event or chronic abuse of some kind. With RTS, there is
chronic abuse, especially of children, plus the major trauma of leaving
the fold. Like PTSD, the impact of RTS is long-lasting, with intrusive
thoughts, negative emotional states, impaired social functioning, and
other problems.
With RTS, the trauma is two-fold. First, the
actual teachings and practices of a restrictive religion can be toxic
and create life-long mental damage. In many cases, the emotional and
mental abuse is compounded by physical and sexual abuse due to the
patriarchal, repressive nature of the environment.
Second, departing a religious fold adds
enormous stress as an individual struggles with leaving what amounts to
one world for another. This usually involves significant and sudden loss
of social support while facing the task of reconstructing one’s life.
People leaving are often ill-prepared to deal with this, both because
they have been sheltered and taught to fear the secular world and
because their personal skills for self-reliance and independent thinking
are underdeveloped.
Individuals can experience RTS in different ways depending on a variety of factors. Some key symptoms of RTS are:
• Confusion, difficulty making decisions, trouble thinking for self, lack of meaning or direction, undeveloped sense of self
• Anxiety being in “the world,” panic
attacks, fear of damnation, depression, thoughts of suicide, anger,
bitterness, betrayal, guilt, grief and loss, difficulty with expressing
emotion
• Sleep and eating disorders, substance
abuse, nightmares, perfectionism, discomfort with sexuality, negative
body image, impulse control problems, difficulty enjoying pleasure or
being present here and now
• Rupture of family and social network, loneliness, problems relating to society, personal relationship issues
These comments from people going through it may be the best way to convey the intensity of RTS:
I get depressed and upset. Jesus no longer
saves me. God no longer created me. What purpose is there? What am I
left with? What do ex-Christians fill the hole with? So we are here
for no reason, no divine plan. From nothing—into nothing;
reality is harsh. Plus I’m pissed that I was so brainwashed for so long –
smashing CDs, burning books, rebuking Satan. . . it’s like having your
entire world turned upside down, no, destroyed.
There is a lot of guilt and I react to
most religion with panic attacks and distress, even photos, statues or
TV. . . I guess although I was willing it was like brainwashing. It’s
very hard to shake. . . It’s been a nightmare.
I felt despair and hopelessness that I would ever be normal, that I would ever be able to undo the forty years of brainwashing.
My form of religion was very strongly
entrenched and anchored deeply in my heart. It is hard to describe how
fully my religion informed, infused, and influenced my entire
worldview. My first steps out of fundamentalism were profoundly
frightening and I had frequent thoughts of suicide. Now I’m way past
that but I still haven’t quite found “my place in the universe.”
I feel angry, powerless, hopeless, and hurt—scars from the madness Christianity once had me suffering in.
It took years of overcoming terrific fear
as well as self-loathing to emancipate myself from my cult-like
upbringing years ago. Still, the aftermath of growing up like that has
continued to affect me negatively as a professional (nightmares,
paranoia, etc.).
The world was a strange and frightening
place to me. I feared that all the bad, nasty things that I had been
brought up to believe would happen to anyone who left the cult would in
fact happen to me!
Even now I still lack the ability to trust
very easily and becoming very close to people is something I still find
very alien and hard to achieve.
After 21 years of marriage my husband feels he cannot accept me since I have left the “church” and is divorcing me.
My parents have stopped calling me. My dad told me I’m going to hell (he’s done this my whole life!).
I had to move away from my home because I
just could not be in the environment any more. My entire family is
Christian and I struggle to explain to them what I am going through. I
feel extremely isolated and sometimes I wonder if I am going insane. I
am extremely lonely and I suffer from intense depression at times.
I lost all my friends. I lost my close
ties to family. Now I’m losing my country. I’ve lost so much because of
this malignant religion and I am angry and sad to my very core. . . I
have tried hard to make new friends, but I have failed miserably. . . I
am very lonely.
Many of us feel that we cannot relate to
the ‘outside’ world as the teachings we were brought up on are all we
know and our only frame of reference.
My new secular friends wouldn’t understand. My Christian friends either have abandoned me or keep praying for me.
My attempts to think outside the Christian
box are like the attempts of a convict to escape Alcatraz prison–
tunnel through hundreds of feet of stone and concrete, outsmart
gun-carrying guards, only to maybe make it to the choppy freezing cold
water and a deadly swim to safety. This may be a little dramatic, but
true to my heart. I now continue to try to rebuild my soul from the
abuse it’s endured.
RTS can range in severity, depending on
specific teachings and practices of particular churches, pastors, or
parents. Persons most at risk of RTS are those who were:
• raised in their religion,
• sheltered from the rest of the world,
• very sincerely and personally involved, and/or
• from a very controlling form of religion.
The important thing to realize is that
Religious Trauma Syndrome is real. While it may be easier to
understand the damage done by sexual abuse or a natural disaster,
religious practices can be just as harmful. More and more people need
help and the taboos about criticizing religion need to be questioned.
See more on leaving religion, it's causes and affects at www.marlenewinell.net
