Religious Trauma Is Real Trauma

I’m sorry, what? My therapist's words were ringing in my ears, but they hadn’t registered yet in my mind.

“You have PTSD.” 

I sat there stunned and a bit scared. PTSD? Really? But I’d never been physically abused or gone to war or even been bullied in school, so her diagnosis was shocking. But once I had a chance to process it more, it actually wasn’t shocking at all. 

“I came to realize that I had gone to war after all. I expected a Christian organization to be a safe harbor, but instead, it was traumatic. It was spiritual abuse. ”

I had grown up in conservative evangelicalism and worked for several years at a toxic, patriarchal, fundamentalist Christian organization. I had been labeled a heretic for simply asking honest questions about the Bible, homosexuality, Christian nationalism, white supremacy, and gender roles. Looking back on my tenure, I began realizing just how traumatic my experience had been. I never felt safe, and I was consistently marginalized, discredited, and censored.

My boss, who was a card-carrying Southern Baptist, once said in a staff meeting that all the women in the organization needed to submit to male leadership. He was a cult-like authoritarian who controlled the chain of communication, vilified former employees, and created a general sense of paranoia among the staff. The overall leadership of the organization just so happened to consist of white men who didn’t take too kindly to any form of religious pushback, especially from women. Their deep insecurities played out in hostile confrontations, derogatory conversations, microaggressions, and eventually a smear campaign. Even their financial practices were dubious. The vast pay gap between leadership and rank-and-file employees was beyond unethical. 

When I finally left the organization, it wasn’t without scars. I had nightmares for months. I struggled with acute depression, intense anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Several months after departing, one of my former coworkers told me stories of the lies and deceit spread about me simply because I refused to compromise my “progressive” beliefs. I came to realize that I had gone to war after all. I expected a Christian organization to be a safe harbor, but instead, it was traumatic. It was spiritual abuse. 

So PTSD? Yeah, that sounds about right. 

It’s easy to think, “Gosh, my trauma is only spiritual in nature, so it’s not that bad.” Or “Other people have experienced much worse, so what do I have to complain about?” (That’s called spiritual bypassing, another topic for another day.) But religious trauma is real trauma. It’s not a secondary source of pain, it is an immediate danger for many of us who live, work, or attend church with conservative fundamentalists. So, as ingrained as it might be, stop gaslighting yourself. Stop bypassing your pain just because it was spiritual and not physical. 

Any traumatic experience impacts the brain and can have lasting consequences. When we experience trauma, adrenaline rushes to the body and the incident is imprinted on the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that regulates emotions. Trauma stimulates the amygdala into overdrive, and the brain moves into fight, flight, or freeze mode. Even long after the event in question, if we have been traumatized enough, the brain begins to see all of life from a threatened posture, and extreme emotional responses can be triggered by the simplest of things. For those of us with spiritual PTSD, we tend to view the world through the basic lens of survival. The world becomes hostile. Even the most harmless conversations, relationships, or experiences are perceived as threatening. And if we ever experience anything that reminds us of the original traumatic event, our brains believe we are reliving the experience all over again. 

Want more tips for healing from religious trauma? Check out these tips from therapist Jess Hugenberg in our podcast episode “Recognizing & Healing from Religious Trauma.”

Through EMDR therapy, counseling, and a community of trauma survivors, I’m slowly putting my life back together. Religious trauma and spiritual abuse is real, even if large portions of the Christian community deny its potential for harm. As Dr. Marla Winnell writes, “People who have not survived an authoritarian fundamentalist indoctrination do not realize what a complete mind-rape it really is.” If you experience intense bouts of panic or anxiety, if you struggle to control your rage, or if you are hyper-triggered by ordinary things that never used to set you off, you are probably the victim of trauma. If you are afraid to think for yourself, disagree with a sacrosanct text, or come to your own spiritual conclusions based on your own lived experience, you are a victim of spiritual abuse. Get help, find a trusted (licensed) therapist (and not just a pastor or biblical counselor), and tell a friend who can walk with you on the path toward freedom. 

Evangelical fundamentalism is a threat to your wellbeing, your security, and your core sense of self. Get out. Protect yourself and others, and take the necessary steps toward lasting recovery.