At age sixteen I began what would be a four year struggle with bulimia. When the symptoms started, I turned in desperation to adults who knew more than I did about how to stop shameful behavior—my Bible study leader and a visiting youth minister. “If you ask anything in faith, believing,” they said. “It will be done.” I knew they were quoting the Word of God. We prayed together, and I went home confident that God had heard my prayers.
But my horrible compulsions didn’t go away. By the fall of my sophomore year in college, I was desperate and depressed enough that I made a suicide attempt. The problem wasn’t just the bulimia. I was convinced by then that I was a complete spiritual failure. My college counseling department had offered to get me real help (which they later did). But to my mind, at that point, such help couldn’t fix the core problem: I was a failure in the eyes of God. It would be years before I understood that my inability to heal bulimia through the mechanisms offered by biblical Christianity was not a function of my own spiritual deficiency but deficiencies in Evangelical religion itself.
Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. She is also the daughter of Pentecostal missionaries. This combination has given her work an unusual focus. For the past twenty years she has counseled men and women in recovery from various forms of fundamentalist religion including the Assemblies of God denomination in which she was raised. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion, written during her years of private practice in psychology. Over the years, Winell has provided assistance to clients whose religious experiences were even more damaging than mine. Some of them are people whose psychological symptoms weren’t just exacerbated by their religion, but actually caused by it.
Two years ago, Winell made waves by formally labeling what she calls “Religious Trauma Syndrome” (RTS) and beginning to write and speak on the subject for professional audiences. When the British Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychologists published a series of articles on the topic, members of a Christian counseling association protested what they called excessive attention to a “relatively niche topic.” One commenter said, “A religion, faith or book cannot be abuse but the people interpreting can make anything abusive.”
Is toxic religion simply misinterpretation? What is religious trauma? Why does Winell believe religious trauma merits its own diagnostic label? I asked her.
Let’s start this interview with the basics. What exactly is religious trauma syndrome?
Winell: Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics that tend to go together and which are related to harmful experiences with religion. They are the result of two things: immersion in a controlling religion and the secondary impact of leaving a religious group. The RTS label provides a name and description that affected people often recognize immediately. Many other people are surprised by the idea of RTS, because in our culture it is generally assumed that religion is benign or good for you. Just like telling kids about Santa Claus and letting them work out their beliefs later, people see no harm in teaching religion to children.
But in reality, religious teachings and practices sometimes cause serious mental health damage. The public is somewhat familiar with sexual and physical abuse in a religious context. As Journalist Janet Heimlich has documented in, Breaking Their Will, Bible-based religious groups that emphasize patriarchal authority in family structure and use harsh parenting methods can be destructive.
But the problem isn’t just physical and sexual abuse. Emotional and mental treatment in authoritarian religious groups also can be damaging because of 1) toxic teachings like eternal damnation or original sin 2) religious practices or mindset, such as punishment, black and white thinking, or sexual guilt, and 3) neglect that prevents a person from having the information or opportunities to develop normally.
Can you give me an example of RTS from your consulting practice?
Winell: I can give you many. One of the symptom clusters is around fear and anxiety. People indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christianity as small children sometimes have memories of being terrified by images of hell and apocalypse before their brains could begin to make sense of such ideas. Some survivors, who I prefer to call “reclaimers,” have flashbacks, panic attacks, or nightmares in adulthood even when they intellectually no longer believe the theology. One client of mine, who during the day functioned well as a professional, struggled with intense fear many nights. She said,
I was afraid I was going to hell. I was afraid I was doing something really wrong. I was completely out of control. I sometimes would wake up in the night and start screaming, thrashing my arms, trying to rid myself of what I was feeling. I’d walk around the house trying to think and calm myself down, in the middle of the night, trying to do some self-talk, but I felt like it was just something that – the fear and anxiety was taking over my life.
Or consider this comment, which refers to a film used by Evangelicals to warn about the horrors of the “end times” for nonbelievers.
I was taken to see the film “A Thief In The Night”. WOW. I am in shock to learn that many other people suffered the same traumas I lived with because of this film. A few days or weeks after the film viewing, I came into the house and mom wasn’t there. I stood there screaming in terror. When I stopped screaming, I began making my plan: Who my Christian neighbors were, who’s house to break into to get money and food. I was 12 yrs old and was preparing for Armageddon alone.
In addition to anxiety, RTS can include depression, cognitive difficulties, and problems with social functioning. In fundamentalist Christianity, the individual is considered depraved and in need of salvation. A core message is “You are bad and wrong and deserve to die.” (The wages of sin is death.) This gets taught to millions of children through organizations like Child Evangelism Fellowship, and there is a group organized to oppose their incursion into public schools. I’ve had clients who remember being distraught when given a vivid bloody image of Jesus paying the ultimate price for their sins. Decades later they sit telling me that they can’t manage to find any self-worth.
After twenty-seven years of trying to live a perfect life, I failed. . . I was ashamed of myself all day long. My mind battling with itself with no relief. . . I always believed everything that I was taught but I thought that I was not approved by God. I thought that basically I, too, would die at Armageddon.
I’ve spent literally years injuring myself, cutting and burning my arms, taking overdoses and starving myself, to punish myself so that God doesn’t have to punish me. It’s taken me years to feel deserving of anything good.
Born-again Christianity and devout Catholicism tell people they are weak and dependent, calling on phrases like “lean not unto your own understanding” or “trust and obey.” People who internalize these messages can suffer from learned helplessness. I’ll give you an example from a client who had little decision-making ability after living his entire life devoted to following the “will of God.” The words here don’t convey the depth of his despair.
I have an awful time making decisions in general. Like I can’t, you know, wake up in the morning, “What am I going to do today? Like I don’t even know where to start. You know all the things I thought I might be doing are gone and I’m not sure I should even try to have a career; essentially I babysit my four-year-old all day.
Authoritarian religious groups are subcultures where conformity is required in order to belong. Thus if you dare to leave the religion, you risk losing your entire support system as well.
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.
Leaving a religion, after total immersion, can cause a complete upheaval of a person’s construction of reality, including the self, other people, life, and the future. People unfamiliar with this situation, including therapists, have trouble appreciating the sheer terror it can create.
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.
Even for a person who was not so entrenched, leaving one’s religion can be a stressful and significant transition.
Many people seem to walk away from their religion easily, without really looking back. What is different about the clientele you work with?
Winell: Religious groups that are highly controlling, teach fear about the world, and keep members sheltered and ill-equipped to function in society are harder to leave easily. The difficulty seems to be greater if the person was born and raised in the religion rather than joining as an adult convert. This is because they have no frame of reference – no other “self” or way of “being in the world.” A common personality type is a person who is deeply emotional and thoughtful and who tends to throw themselves wholeheartedly into their endeavors. “True believers” who then lose their faith feel more anger and depression and grief than those who simply went to church on Sunday.
Aren’t these just people who would be depressed, anxious, or obsessive anyways?
Winell: Not at all. If my observation is correct, these are people who are intense and involved and caring. They hang on to the religion longer than those who simply “walk away” because they try to make it work even when they have doubts. Sometime this is out of fear, but often it is out of devotion. These are people for whom ethics, integrity and compassion matter a great deal. I find that when they get better and rebuild their lives, they are wonderfully creative and energetic about new things.
In your mind, how is RTS different from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Winell: RTS is a specific set of symptoms and characteristics that are connected with harmful religious experience, not just any trauma. This is crucial to understanding the condition and any kind of self-help or treatment. (More details about this can be found on my Journey Free website and discussed in my talk at the Texas Freethought Convention.)
Another difference is the social context, which is extremely different from other traumas or forms of abuse. When someone is recovering from domestic abuse, for example, other people understand and support the need to leave and recover. They don’t question it as a matter of interpretation, and they don’t send the person back for more. But this is exactly what happens to many former believers who seek counseling. If a provider doesn’t understand the source of the symptoms, he or she may send a client for pastoral counseling, or to AA, or even to another church. One reclaimer expressed her frustration this way:
Include physically-abusive parents who quote “Spare the rod and spoil the child” as literally as you can imagine and you have one fucked-up soul: an unloved, rejected, traumatized toddler in the body of an adult. I’m simply a broken spirit in an empty shell. But wait…That’s not enough!? There’s also the expectation by everyone in society that we victims should celebrate this with our perpetrators every Christmas and Easter!!
Just like disorders such as autism or bulimia, giving RTS a real name has important advantages. People who are suffering find that having a label for their experience helps them feel less alone and guilty. Some have written to me to express their relief:
There’s actually a name for it! I was brainwashed from birth and wasted 25 years of my life serving Him! I’ve since been out of my religion for several years now, but i cannot shake the haunting fear of hell and feel absolutely doomed. I’m now socially inept, unemployable, and the only way i can have sex is to pay for it.
Labeling RTS encourages professionals to study it more carefully, develop treatments, and offer training. Hopefully, we can even work on prevention.
What do you see as the difference between religion that causes trauma and religion that doesn’t?
Winell: Religion causes trauma when it is highly controlling and prevents people from thinking for themselves and trusting their own feelings. Groups that demand obedience and conformity produce fear, not love and growth. With constant judgment of self and others, people become alienated from themselves, each other, and the world. Religion in its worst forms causes separation.
Conversely, groups that connect people and promote self-knowledge and personal growth can be said to be healthy. The book, Healthy Religion, describes these traits. Such groups put high value on respecting differences, and members feel empowered as individuals. They provide social support, a place for events and rites of passage, exchange of ideas, inspiration, opportunities for service, and connection to social causes. They encourage spiritual practices that promote health like meditation or principles for living like the golden rule. More and more, nontheists are asking how they can create similar spiritual communities without the supernaturalism. An atheist congregation in London launched this year and has received over 200 inquiries from people wanting to replicate their model.
Some people say that terms like “recovery from religion” and “religious trauma syndrome” are just atheist attempts to pathologize religious belief.
Winell: Mental health professionals have enough to do without going out looking for new pathology. I never set out looking for a “niche topic,” and certainly not religious trauma syndrome. I originally wrote a paper for a conference of the American Psychological Association and thought that would be the end of it. Since then, I have tried to move on to other things several times, but this work has simply grown.
In my opinion, we are simply, as a culture, becoming aware of religious trauma. More and more people are leaving religion, as seen by polls showing that the “religiously unaffiliated” have increased in the last five years from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. It’s no wonder the internet is exploding with websites for former believers from all religions, providing forums for people to support each other. The huge population of people “leaving the fold” includes a subset at risk for RTS, and more people are talking about it and seeking help. For example, there are thousands of former Mormons, and I was asked to speak about RTS at an Exmormon Foundation conference. I facilitate an international support group online called Release and Reclaim which has monthly conference calls. An organization called Recovery from Religion, helps people start self-help meet-up groups
Saying that someone is trying to pathologize authoritarian religion is like saying someone pathologized eating disorders by naming them. Before that, they were healthy? No, before that we weren’t noticing. People were suffering, thought they were alone, and blamed themselves. Professionals had no awareness or training. This is the situation of RTS today. Authoritarian religion is already pathological, and leaving a high-control group can be traumatic. People are already suffering. They need to be recognized and helped.
—- Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area and the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion. More information about Marlene Winell and resources for getting help with RTS may be found at Journey Free. Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Her articles can be found at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.
Related:
Recovering from Religion? Give Yourself Time
Psychological Harms of Bible-Believing Christianity
From AwayPoint on Youtube: How Beliefs Change
The Fragile Boundary Between Religion and Child Abuse
Don’t Want Pro-Genocide Bible Lessons in Your Public School? Fight Back! Here’s How.
The Protestant Clergy Sex Abuse Pattern
AwayPoint 
What you have to understand is that these pastors use what I understand as force persuasion one must look not at the indoctrination but the people themselves.Call them out on the carpet many charismatic pentecostals are using doctrine as a way to remain in abuse not free themselves of the abuse. One must look at the indoctrination anyone can use doctrine to control those who are following and twist the reasoning. For many live with their mind molded to these practices like branding a cow with a hot iron so the mental pain of removing themselves of their old religious identity becomes very painful.For me It was throwing away my bibles I had to literally take what I had used to keep me connected to the old religion to rid myself of crutches that supported the indoctrination not what supported me. It was a big step toward mental majority I hope those who choose to leave such churches find fulfillment everyday.Sometimes you may have toss your bible to begin a journey toward a better future.After all why argue for logic that isn’t for you anyway ? One example:I was shopping in a grocery store about a year later and suddenly an amazing feeling came over me;I thought it feels good to be just a nobody or just like anyone else I felt like I was me for the first time in my life.Leaving behind not just a church but way a of thinking.Brainwash is the result of forced persuasion what keeps people in this group is how a pastor forces a choice upon them by this it becomes branded onto their mind.How this works is through his position of authority albeit false assumption:a pastor uses Jesus as the ultimate authority to support his view of authority and if you don’t pay attention before they realize the people becomes hooked on this false authority like a drug.Just like a drug user and abuser everyone is getting hooked they becomes doctrine junkies.And become ever bit as aggressive as they need their fix just like those that use drugs.Just trying to help for me I still have my urges to go back to and get my fill of authority:Pastoral approval at one time I thought I couldn’t live without.Now I occasional critize those who lived like I did but I can relate the heartache of such a lifestyle.True there is freedom from such indoctrination, freedom to be who I want to be Everyday.
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Reblogged this on Mass Delusions a.k.a. Magical & Religious Woo-Bullshit Thinking and commented:
The existence of a Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) is often denied by true believers and others who support religious beliefs and think that religious faith is good for humanity.
But the RTS is, indeed, for real. Many tears have been shed because of that sort of traumas.
So, please, read Valerie Tarico’s take on this important topic very carefully.
Also read Marlene Winell’s take (in three parts) on that same subject on the Ex-Christian blog:
Part 1 = http://new.exchristian.net/2011/06/religious-trauma-syndrome-its-time-to.html .
Part 2 = http://new.exchristian.net/2011/07/understanding-religious-trauma-syndrome.html .
Part 3 = http://new.exchristian.net/2011/11/trauma-from-leaving-religion.html
It’s not going to extremes calling religion a poisonous method that obstructs and complicates people’s endeavours to find a high quality of life. It also hinders you from becoming a really “free” thinker, one who is allowed to study any books s/he likes.
Many philosophers, politicians and scientists have expressed their gloomy ideas of religion and its future.
For example, Karl Marx said: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people”.
Frederick II once said: “Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand”.
Napoleon Bonaparte said: “Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich”.
Friedrich Nietzsche said. “In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point”.
He also said: “The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad”.
Albert Einstein (who didn’t believe in any personal God of the Abrahamic kind) said. Science without religion is lame, [but] religion without science is [also] blind.
At the same time he also said: “The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity”.
If Albert Einstein had been alive today, I think he would have stated: Things about religion seemingly have to become worse before they at last can be transformed to a non-poisonous life philosophy. There is still a very long way to go for today’s religions all around the world.
BTW, talking of promoting science and reason, have a look at this blog post: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/about-thinking/201510/what-can-we-learn-ben-carsons-brain .
From that blog post we learn that, unfortunately,neither intelligence nor (high) education is able to promote ‘good thinking’.
And finally, my own take on this:
Religious cults are nowadays mostly confined to having to rely on ‘God of the Gaps’ arguments. The primary goal for today’s cult leaders has become to try to convince their ignorant and incredulous followers that science is, always, wrong, meaning that it’s, also always, better to believe in what holy scriptures like the Bible and Koran say is the truth. That strategy is also known as intellectual dishonesty.
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I am still a believer of Christ, but not in the way my mom taught me when I was a child. She would tell me that one day, all humans would be micro-chipped in their hand and/or forehead…This would be the only way to buy, sell, or trade. Okay, Revelations…But It was the potential things that she would describe to me that traumatized me my whole life. Watching my children and husband begging me to save them or be decapitated by the government if I admitted I was a Christian. Having to choose between my family or admitting my faith in God….And I better not have chosen to lie! Or, as she would say, I would suffer in Hell “…Where the worm shall dieth naught…”
I suffered many years from her visuals about how Revelations would play out and how it would affect my loved ones and me.
I learned, instead, to believe in a kind God who is forgiving, loving, and not desiring his children to suffer for their beliefs. I am 35 now and it took me many, many years to realize that the true God loves us and does not want us to suffer to prove we love him. The real God does not need that type of validation like a social network fledgling. This took me many years to overcome, so I know the struggle is real to change fundamentalist thinking that nothing you do is right and you will be “left behind” to suffer.
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Reblogged this on Lovely Wounded Lady Says ….
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Reblogged this on Dogma-vrij and commented:
Over mensen die lijden aan Religieus Trauma Syndroom:
Aren’t these just people who would be depressed, anxious, or obsessive anyways?
Winell: Not at all. If my observation is correct, these are people who are intense and involved and caring. They hang on to the religion longer than those who simply “walk away” because they try to make it work even when they have doubts. Sometime this is out of fear, but often it is out of devotion. These are people for whom ethics, integrity and compassion matter a great deal. I find that when they get better and rebuild their lives, they are wonderfully creative and energetic about new things.
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I need help with this so bad. Raised as a JW, I have not been able to move past it…. drowning my “failure and sins” in drugs and alcohol …. destroying my family slowly…. constantly meditating on suicide. I cannot seem to function in the real world. Holidays, birthdays, and many things that most people would probably never even think twice about….. do nothing but haunt me with guilt and push me further into this hole I feel stuck in. I feel like I dug the hole though…. which just keeps my downward spiral alive. This self judgement and hopelessness has pervaded every corner of my life and leaves me genuinely walking the earth everyday feeling like I’m on death row.
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You are so not alone. ExChristian.net has hundreds (probably thousands) of testimonials from people like you and me who are climbing back out of the black hole–which is hard as you know, but possible with support and help. Marlene Winell, who is a human development consultant in California, has a skype therapy/support group that meets regularly and that might be a fit for you. RecoveringFromReligion also had a secular therapist referral network that may still be active.
Sometimes the toll is big enough that some kind of medication is really helpful in getting neurotransmitters functioning again so that there’s enough energy and hope to do the work of healing.
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Hi Philip. Please read my comment posted on Jan. 4 2016 on this site. I have only been out of the Watchtower two years. Only in the last month have I started to find relief. Read the book Exiting the JW Cult. Excellent book written by a former witness who is now a psychologist. I hope things improve for you. Share your thoughts here.
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Reblogged this on Life Weavings and commented:
Ideas have consequences, otherwise there’d be no push to convince people that some are more right than others. There is no blanket condemnation of religion when noting that some iterations of it lead to severe harm. There is much work still to be done in removing the sanctity from particular ideas and allowing the space in society for people to find healing from authoritarian fundamentalism. My story coming out is only one among many: http://lifeweavings.org/2015/03/06/my-journey-from-faith-to-freedom/
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Reblogged this on My Blog.
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Reblogged this on esescogitation.
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This is hands down the best, most loving, helpful, rational article of wisdom I have ever read. Thank you. Thank you. Love joy happiness, and I hope life brings you an abundance of love.
Brian
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Reblogged this on ganapatayeblog and commented:
I have never read anything in my life that more perfectly describes my struggle and journey in this fucked up life I lead.
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37 years of this in my life. By faith not works. Wait….is faith a work. How do i faith. Thinking my whole life most people i Love are going to burn eternally. And most the time i am going to burn to. Because i didnt have enough of the faith to lose friendships by telling them. God loves me but he is my enemy i am going to burn because i have evil desires. And may have told a white lie once. Want is evil. Funny its imposible to not want for me. 666 the antichrist satan hell terrified life.
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Dear Dana
Please see my reply to Heidi below.
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Had a scary weird dream that so.ethimg evil came over me or was in me and I couldn’t think normal and felt like not attached to myself like someone else so weird . Now I just am worrying that what if demon take over me and thoughts or something and scary .can that happen . Afraid and feel like maybe something takin over me and I feel lost within self . Just feel weird after I remember I dream and then started to look up info on demons taking over the mind and got worked up .I feel disconnected from self in way and not grounded .
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Dear Heidi
I don’t know whether you read my summary (above) of my own journey. Please believe me when I say that I know EXACTLY what you are experiencing. I would highly recommend that you go see a psychiatrist ASAP, as what you are describing sounds very much like what is referred to as “Religious OCD” coupled with anxiety. Please know that what you are experiencing is NOT YOU. It is symptoms of a disease that is way more common than you think. People are often too ashamed to talk about what they experience when it comes to this type of OCD – abnormal sexual persistent thoughts (when I say abnormal I mean stuff like sex with the devil, Jesus, etc – these thoughts are of course totally unwanted and very frightening), an overwhelming and debilitating fear of going to hell and of being possessed by an evil spirit, remembering every little thing you did wrong since you were five years old etc. I have experienced all of the above and I cannot urge you enough to get medical help. Please also read my previous comment of how I approached my religion during this time.
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omg. i don’t know other people suffer the same. but instead of scared of hell, i’m scared to death to religion. could go away from the country/village help?
i don’t say i don’t believe god, i just want to live the life i want. i envy of american and european that live their life to the fullest. now i’m scared to death that i’m thinking to suicide because of that stress. espeacialy the fact that more and more extreem religious people. i’m muslim but having no interest on being very religious, it’s not like i have a choice. and i wanna know how to solve this problem.
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What a horrible situation to be in! You should know that there are many, many people like you carrying their lack of interest or lack of belief in Islam as a heavy secret, afraid of being found out. In Britain and American, there are councils and organizations of former Muslims despite the threats. Please know you are not alone.
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Thank you for posting this! I really had a hard time figuring out how to recover from a traumatic experience I had with an abusive husband telling me everyday that I had to swear by the holy spirit that I wasn’t lying to him …and if I was lying about anything,( because I swore not to lie) I was committing blasphemy against the holy spirit.. and that particular sin didn’t have forgiveness from God. I lived 13 years thinking I was going to hell because I had blasphemy against the holy spirit. There were things about my past I couldn’t tell him ( he could never handle the truth) and that I had to hide… So for that reason I lived many years traumatized. Until I divorced him and started a new life, a new beginning. There are times that I still wonder.. It’s just hard to recover from deep wounds.
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Omg how crazy-making!
I empathize with your experience and wish you blessings on your continued recovery
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My mother is probably one of the most arse-backwards people I’ve ever been cursed to know when it comes to religion. She’s flip-flopped back and forth between being Jewish and Christian. At the “tender” age of 13 she forced me to lie to a priest and tell him that I wanted to be baptized. The old man even knew I didn’t want to and said that it was ok……but nooooo-ho ho….I had to say yes…..because “Mommy Dearest” threatened to drag me to the old nutter Ernest Angley and make him do it. ( She knew that the man terrifies me )
So…here Iam 25, struggling to get a job so I can LEAVE and this woman comes into my bedroom at 1am….saying outta the blue that she’s marrying a Rabbi and if I dont go with them….Im gonna go to hell and be raped. THANKS RELIGION! *flips table*
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My ex . Had been mentally manipulating my kids aginst me for years. Threatening more so my boy.if he didnt do sick things to mum.. wipe poo on walls to be naughty for mum.. (when tried to tel authorities. An d doors closed upon us) it all got soo bad I cracked in the direction of my kids doing something. .I never thought possible to them..then he got me charged. Making out I the perpetrator. . The law didnt know. . We had years of this torcher. . Useing my kids ..ti do this. . My girl told to look crossed eyed at the celing ..to not listen to mum to not eat mums food to spit it out..to wipe pheiseis on the walls.. the kids were brainwashed into doing this to mum. . I tried to protect
them aginst this. . The threats got worse I fellt myself almost going into trauma in dispare.. comments made to the kids. . Telling my son he wil die. . He was going to burn our house . Mum going into dispare.. then mentally cracked.. in the direction of the mist beutiful important people in mums life.. the law.. think mum is mental.. due to years of this (almost the boy to) a very plausable man to the authorities. . Manipulating and smoothtalked all against us.. kids now.. placed with purpritrator. A mum that is stil in dispare. . For no one beliving this years of the case..how can a mum.. get stronger. To assure others this the case.. how can a person cause soo much destruction! !? What advise can a mum give ..so children can protect themselfs against.. any sites?
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That sounds horrible. I don’t think it’s about religion, but I wonder if you might be able to find more sympathetic authorities in your area.
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Thank you for your research and information I was raised around the LDS cult by the she of 11 I knew it was a sectarian control cult.
Latter in life I gained enough information to leave.
I am now considered an Atheist.
thank you
John cunningham
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what kind of therapy is used? i feel as though ive been experiencing this for the last few years, although having grown up in a christian family, nothing was ever really push or forced on me, and even if it was, at the time i would have easily brushed it off, but a few years back, i went through a tramatizing experience of losing a loved one. i wasnt able to make cohirent sentances, and basically lost my mind. i started to do cbt work to heal from the pain, but i feel as though i even too it a few steps further and started to use it for religion as well. i started reading everything and everything i could get my hands on, from buddhism to christianity. well idk what happend, but i started to really feed into it seeing as my whole life i had been fasinated by it, i started to experience things from the bible itself, and i felt like i had gone up into the heavens and was walking with angels and god itself. well the experience only lasted me a few months, and now i feel as though ive been fully indoctrinated. i have trouble making contious decisions. i dont know who i am at all, and i constanly worry im doing everything wrong, all the time. i even feel like im wrong to come here cause by coming here is basically speaking up and out against religion itself, and pining people against one another, against my family who for some reason is still able to function in life without guilt fear or shame, does so just fine, and still believes, but for me, i feel as though im always wrong. i feel like i am unable to do anything at all without feeling guilt. i feel as though im evil incarnent cause the bible would say so. i have this fear of not being able to do anything without god, and that if i do anything, it must be under god. my family believes, goes to church from time to time, but its like i was indoctinated into something else that was masked as christianity. i constantly feel as though i should kill myself cause im talking down on god and religion, and talking down on my family, but they are able to live still believing, and still living a worldly kind of life, while i feel guilty if i do or say anything. i feel like im blasphomis. i feel a deep compassion for everything, and that is why i always put myself below everything else, but i feel like im in hell itself. its like i learned to take everything as literal as it could be taken, and its left me not able to function on my own at all without fear of pursecutuion. ive become affraid to disobey. its this constant feeling that god is going to destroy me if i dont destroy myself first. its a feeling of being unclean and unworthy of happiness and life.
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Hi Chris –
What a nightmare. I think I might start by returning to the therapist who works with you on CBT if that person was a good fit. You might even simply print and share this comment. Alternately, you might call the Recovering from Religion hotline and see if they can suggest anyone in your area.
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I can relate to religious trauma for sure. the forms of Christianity I was raised in were generally traumatic to me, and I and my family experienced multiple abuses commited by these groups. Both spiritual abuse (which in my opinion can be the most damaging, because it’s so non-concrete yet informs the psyche and entire existence including existence in the next life too. And God is so invisible yet all-powerful. If the abuse is perceived as coming from “him” or in “his” name, one can never escape.)
Human distortion of spiritual wisdom is the real problem. Not religion per se.
ANYTHING can be distorted and become a tool of abuse and control. Politics, power, religion, even “science”—as in using science to perpetuate racism, or genocide as with the Nazis.
It’s analogous to using the computers or the internet. The potential for exponential good exists, or exponentially devastation, destruction, and evil.
I’m glad finally the evil uses of religion are being recognized. But for those who relegate a spiritual path to the garbage heap—I think this view is very-shortsighted. Religion has been behind great good and great evil in civilization. The humans wielding it as a weapon, and the conditions that allow this to happen are the problem. It’s not always the religion that’s the problem.
My two cents for the Christians who still believe their religion and want to follow it: research the historical Jesus, the context of those times, and the various forms and versions of the Christian scriptures. The picture that will emerge is not the one that exists 2000 years later. There is a lot of historical human bullshit that has distorted whomever Jesus was and/or was not.
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Very wise words!
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Truth is not a “force” that can be wielded for good or moral evil. Truth is truth. The “force” is not truth and no matter how it is wielded, at root it is false. Truth exists and has always existed and is found in God-breathed scripture; the bible. This is the plum line, the true measure in a world that is becoming increasingly dark and given over to myths & superstition.
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The first part of your sentence is “right on” — Truth exists and has always existed, But unfortunately, you lose credibility with the last part: … and is found in God-breathed scripture; the bible.
Truth is “that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.” The bible contains neither.
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I like what you are saying Nan even if I myself find a great many truths in Scripture, and many things I fear and dislike as well.
But stay in the discourse.
Treat the Bible as literature, a repository of legend and myth; a resource for everyone who enjoys storytelling; everyone who sees the moral and emotional need for stories.
You can’t understand Shakespeare without some knowledge of the Bible.
Listen to Rene Girard on YouTube, asking ‘Is Christianity a myth?’
Check out Karl Barth and find out why his faith enabled him to stand out against Hitler’s Germany.
Read John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua, one of the great confessional works in the English language. .
Try Simone Weil’s Waiting On God, and watch some of the YouTube documentaries on her.
It looks as if religion will play an important role in the 21st Century.
There is bad religion as well as good religion – as Ninian Smart observed.
I hope fundamentalism is in its death agonies, but who can know the wreckage it will leave behind?
We need peacemakers, moderates, sceptics… and stand-up comedians who can take on the religious authoritarians and make them look like the dangerous fools they are.
We need informed critics such as yourself and Valerie.
J Haggerty
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My perents are extreamist in christianity…and I can’t have a normal relationship with them sense I pulled out of Christianity…now they’re always hinting I need to get right with God before it’s to late and I’ll perish for eternity if I don’t get my act together…even when I was going through Christianity. I never felt good enough. And our sad crappy preacher always told me what I wanted to hear. Besides the hell for eternity part. Everything was the same. Everything f was bullshit. I tried so hard to be someone I couldn’t be. I tried so hard to believe. I forced myself when I prayed. Every time I cried I thought it was the Holy Spirit. When it was my mental mind. Ever sense I’ve been paranoid with loud noises and trucks that vibrate the house when they drive by. Thinking armegeddon is happening. Sometimes I even think I hear trumpets go off. Everyday I wake up thinking I might go to hell for eternity. And never see my beautiful wife again. While the people that torture me in my head and that call themselves followers and disciples of Jesus live in Paradise. While they told their son. Their only son they have. Me. I’m going to burn if I don’t get my act straight….I suffer from RTS. And I’m terrified everyday. I try to find ease and comfort when I can’t. I try to stay calm and believe what I want to believe. That after all of this. There has to be something bigger and better and something non of us would of ever thought. Or maybe nothing at all…….75% of my days sense 2015 has been hell everyday for me…I want it to go away.
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I know this is an older article, but if my comment helps anyone, then it is worth putting it here.
I have only been out of the Watchtower for about two years. Until very recently, your articles would anger me. I had been in the Watchtower for 44 years of my life. Being a born in, it was all I knew, and I was an ultra-witness/elder.
For nearly two years, I searched for Bible answers. I even met with a small church that believed similar to the Watchtower. Yet, I could not find happiness and contentment. I just couldn’t figure it out. Then just recently, the problem became apparent. It was this: No matter what I did, it reminded me of the Watchtower, including the reading of the Bible. I was searching for the “certainty” that the Watchtower made you feel. But that “certainty” does not exist. Even when I drew my own conclusions, I knew that I can’t possibly know for certain. So the question was this: Will I live out my life miserably looking for answers that I can’t really find? Will I continually be reminded of the Watchtower until I die? Then the big question hit: Am I so convinced that I am right, that I am willing to die or perhaps be tortured for what I believe? The answer to that, is absolutely not.
It is so easy to be a Christian when you are sitting in a comfortable chair in front of a fireplace at home. But it is quite another thing, when ISIS is taking your head off. I simply could not go from the “certainty” of the Watchtower, to sacrificing my life based on “uncertainty”.
But now I get to my real point. When you are a born in, your life only began the day you escape from the Watchtower. I realized that I was only born two years ago. I never made any of life’s most important decisions on my own. So in order to find the real person, you need to let go of it ALL. It is vital that as a born in, you do this. It is the only way to heal.
I NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, thought I would be here today, saying this. But it is the only logical conclusion.
It is a very slow, natural, gradual move I have made. It was not forced. I desperately tried to make the other work, but it just could not happen. It may seem difficult, but when you begin to analyze why you are not happy after leaving the Watchtower, you can make the move. Once I decided to let go of EVERYTHING, I found a tremendous peace of mind along with freedom.
I never thought I would say thanks for your articles, but I now appreciate what you are saying. Thanks again.
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After two years of intensive therapy, transference and countertransference occurred… my therapist took it upon herself to do all in her power to force her religious beliefs on me… she scared me so much… used to trap me in a corner of the therapy room, going on and on and on… I’d shut down completely, because it was more than I could bear. She has totally changed my religious worldview and taken away my trust and belief that was once so precious and natural to me… I believe that I have ever since struggled with “Religious Trauma Syndrome”… only now I have a name for it. As an adult survivor of severe childhood abuses, all my life, I felt as though I didn’t belong… her actions have added to that sense of not belonging… I still go to church occasionally, trying to recapture what is lost… Where did my belief go… have I hidden what was sacred to me deep inside, to protect it… I cannot face the ugliness and destructiveness of the fantastical religions as I have seen them in action anymore… Christians so often kill their own wounded… where is the love… where is the love…
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I started to self-injure… I was suicidal… it took a lot to surface from what she did to me… it took a lot to live on…
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I really liked what u had to say about religious abuse. I was really affected by some evangilicol spiritual warfare churches. I feel like my body has changed. I am not able to see holistic healers without some kind of negative consequence. And my main symptoms are being suffocates at night. Since I went to a Christian healer who stated I know have the Holy Spirit with me because I am borne again I have been suffocated every night for 4 years. I had a lot of miracle physical healings but it came with a cost. I have dissasociative disorder now because I have had such weird reactions with demons and the spititual warfare community. Do you know of anyone who can help me to get my body and mind back to order. I have been brainwashed? Thanks for u r wonderful article and for giving me hopen
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Thank You for your article addressing this misunderstood problem. I was raised by a very demanding, older and very strict fundamentalist mother. I was not allowed to experience a normal life, was not allowed to go anywhere, do anything that other children my age did. I was a very intelligent child but as I got older & realized I was so different than others, my interest in school paled in comparison to my feelings of being someone who everyone looked at as different. I was not allowed to wear shorts, pants, cut my hair, wear makeup, have my own room, go to movies, no TV, music,have dates (without they attended my church), have a Christmas tree….on and on. When I graduated from high school and got a job, I still had to live by those rules. I met a guy at work and after sneaking out to meet him one night, my mom was going to punish me, I ran out of the house and went to live with him. I never intended to marry but for whatever reasons I did. I had no idea what the real world was like & made a decision one day that changed my life forever. I am now what you would consider middle age and there is not one day since then that I have not hated myself for the decision I made in ignorance and being scared. I knew to a certain extent it was wrong but due to my limited exposure to the world, I did not realize the full extent of my actions. No one would understand that hasn’t been through this kind of life so therefore I have never talked to anyone about it. I married a good man and have had a good life however, the teachings I had as a child have impacted my entire life.
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I am SO happy to finally find an official term for my dysfunction.
At the of seven, my parents jumped into Catholithism with their all, and pulled my two sisters and I into the depths along with them.
Now, at the age of 48, I am trying to overcome my damaged self. Still trying to find my self worth and wondering if I’ll ever feel as a whole, normal, and functioning being.
Thank you, for this!!!
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Ihave had a mental illness since I was 15. I had an abusive childhood and my first breakdown was caused by a religious uncle who would scream and yell at me while I visited him then.Everytime since I would associate myself with Christianity since that visit would trigger off a psychotic breakdown.I first made the connection in 1986 that my association with Christianity would cause me to become mentally ill.I found this hard to accept but I knew it was true yet couldn’t understand a thing about it.My last breakdown was in 1993 and I have had none since.Im still terrified by hell and the endtimes stuff yet I still believe there’s a God but I don’t know what to believe about him anymore.Ive learned a lot since I first relised all of this and I’ve always wanted to obey God but at times I’ve found it near impossible.All I know is and for years I thought I was the only one, is that Christianity churches or whatever causes mental illness,over the years and and especially at first I thought I could have been wrong about this but I kept and continue to come to this same conclusion that Christianity causes mental illness well at least in me and I always.wondered if there was anyone else going through this. I’ve always tried to get help with this without any sucess can anyone help me now?
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I’m drowning in tears as I read this article. I’ve never been able to explain what’s wrong with me. Thank You
DISFELLOWSHIPED JW
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I’m very glad you found it!
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I did not see A Thief in the Night but I saw Burning Hell as a young Christian and i was terrified🤤!!! Images of people burning in hell, the various beasts, etc from the Book of Revelations. I too was afraid if I said a curse word, went to the movies, etc I would end up in this hell. And there was no one to talk to about my fears.
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Reblogged this on On the Road Again.
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Pingback: Since being on the forum I have read posts from people sharing their trauma as a…
Please help !! I’m 46 year old male with Parental (mother) Pentecostal Narcissistic attributes,I’m also been affected by this …and it’s been a excruciating experience as I text this…. ranging from tinnitus , severe insomnia, already in poverty, and others…I dont have a profound academic background, just wish to find a much healthier approach to leaving the Religious fundamentalist mindset, especially in island filled with small emotional religisou narcissistic communities…thanks
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I was chatting with my seat mate on a plane to LA a few weeks ago, and the topic of kids came up. I asked if he and his wife had any, and he said, “No; no we don’t.” My immediate response was, “Good for you.” He was stunned that I took that attitude (I have 4 kids myself). “No one has ever said that to me,” he replied. “Everyone always like looks down on us because we’ve decided not to have kids. Like somehow we’re not contributing to society.”
I think this describes a good portion of the pain experienced by people with RTS (and goes to show that RTS isn’t solely a religious problem – its a humanity problem). No one in their life has ever, not even once, validated their existence for who they are. Valued them and their choices, their right to independence and self determination. People in fundamentalist cultures are always told 1.) that they need to change, 2.) why they need to change, and 3.) how they need to change. It’s provided in a rigid, static formula, and deviation from that formula is tantamount to heresy. While I think everyone at their core understands and agrees with #1, secular humanists and atheists alike, it’s the why and the how that traps people. I believe in the Bible, I believe in the message of Jesus, and for some people reading this that immediately discredits me. Thats ok. But if you take the message of the Bible in context and in its entirety, one finds a very different world from the one fundamentalists preach. Sin doesn’t matter for people who trust in Jesus; your person and who you are is both valued and valuable to God, who is like a loving Father, or Mother, or friend, or mentor (he characterizes himself as all of those things). His love for you is not static or dependent upon how much you do for him or how much you change, but is entirely dependent on him. Read your bible, don’t read your bible. Go to church every Sunday, go to church once a year. Pray for three hours every morning, or simply say “God help me,” when you need him most. The faith and trust in him to do what he says, namely, to make us better than we are today, is all we need. Believing that he can do it is the only pre-requisite. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
My son has autism and OCD and fundamentalist religion had been destroying him for the last 10 years. I was part of that once, trying to force him into the mold of what I was being told he was supposed to be. But it hit me one day: this is ruining him – maybe it’s not him? Maybe it’s what we’re being taught, maybe it’s the worldview we’ve bought into. I started asking questions, reading the Bible more and becoming more and more skeptical, until all I ever did was argue with church leaders. In their eyes, my son was a model believer because of his piety and penitence; but I saw the havoc it wreaked on his being, on his self worth. I have to constantly now, even though we’ve been out of that environment for 2 years, remind him that he is valuable just as he is, that trusting in God means letting go of all of this striving and trying hard to do good and to be a good person, that we can just be who we are, loving and caring people who “love their neighbors the way they love themselves”. We can relax and enjoy all life has to offer, free of guilt, because Jesus took care of any deficiency we had when he died. And when we do something stupid, or say something mean, or act selfishly, we acknowledge it and do our best to make it right, but we don’t need to stress about it. There is (supposed to be) immense freedom in the Christian life, freedom from religion, freedom from sin or wrongdoing, freedom from guilt, and freedom to do right by ourselves and others.
The Bible describes Christians as having a “peace that passes all understanding”, peace when it doesn’t even make sense to have peace, because it doesn’t come from other people, from circumstance, or even from ourselves. It comes from knowing that we’re ok because the person who made everything, including us, says we’re ok. He says he’ll make everything right. It might not be right now, it might not be tomorrow, next week, next year, or even in my lifetime. But he’ll make it right. No more need to control people or situations, because he’ll make it right. I still do the best that I can, but I don’t let others dictate what that best looks like. If you’re in a fundamentalist Christian cult and you don’t have this peace, there isn’t something wrong with you, there’s something wrong with the people around you and what they’re teaching you.
My heart breaks over all these stories, and I’m so glad so many people have found relief from leaving oppressive religious groups. Don’t go back or feel guilty for leaving them. You did the absolute right thing. You may be triggered by Christian music, or church services, or certain “Christian” lingo or churchspeak – avoid it, or do your best to detach emotionally from it. Figure out who you are – what kind of person do you want to be? What are your natural likes/dislikes? Are you an introvert? Don’t let extroverts tell you you’re weird! Do you like to read fiction? Watch dystopian sci-fi? Do you hate reading? Don’t let others tell you who you have to be, or that you’re a bad person or less valuable because of the things that make you you. Just keep in mind that, despite what was modeled to you, Jesus really does love you for who you are, where you are.
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I always had doubts, based on my childhood Infinite Regress question that I was ordered to NEVER ask, by my mother.
The Thief in the Night movie inspired my preteen fear and adherence to Christian theology.
My curiosity and desire to ask scientific questions was quelled because of the fear of going to the Christian hell, which my current antitheist self not knows is as plausible as being my consciousness being stuck in a never-ending DMV line, after the inevitable death of my physical body.
I commend this necessary RTS healing!
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