What is Religious Trauma?

Curious about the term religious trauma? Wondering if it applies to your experiences? Read on to learn what religious trauma is and how it impacts the lives of those who have experienced religious trauma.

Religious trauma can be defined as the psychological and emotional harm caused by controlling, abusive, or harmful religious environments. During traumatic religious experiences, religion often becomes a tool used for coercive control. Religious trauma most often occurs in high-control or authoritarian religious environments. It also occurs when religious leaders engage in abusive behaviors. Dogma, fear, and shame are used in these environments in order to control behavior. Fear and shame may be used against people assigned female at birth in order to shape them to be submissive and obedient to men. LGBTQ+ people may grow up hearing that their identity is wrong or sinful (or worse).

Religion has long been used by people to find meaning and purpose in life, and to help explain things that feel beyond comprehension. Spirituality and religion can bring great comfort, community, and fulfillment to many people. Religious trauma is about how spirituality and religion become weaponized in order to control people.

What causes religious trauma?

Some of the factors that contribute to the development of religious trauma include:

Fear-based messaging around divine punishment, the afterlife, and acceptance from others
Shame-based messaging for normal human experiences, such as sexuality, bodies changing during puberty, having needs, asking questions, and the desire for autonomy
Guilt trips for making mistakes or having needs
Being expected to put the needs of others before your own, at the expense of your own needs
Purity culture can contribute to shame about normal expressions of human sexuality
Control over behavior, clothing choices, or who a person is allowed to talk to
Discouragement from asking questions or being told your viewpoints are incorrect (which can make it difficult to trust your intuition)
Being told that you are responsible for harm caused by others (aka victim blaming)
Lack of health education, such as lack of sexual health education
Religious leaders engaging in abusive behaviors
Rejection or shunning for leaving the religious community

Why does religious trauma feel so complicated?

Religious trauma can feel complicated because these experiences contain so many contradictory messages. They may be told to trust in their religion or turn to their religion during hard times, only to then be harmed by the religious group or leaders. They may be told to love others but then receive hateful messaging about their LGBTQ+ identity. They may be told that being a “good” person means acting in a way that feels incongruent to the person, such as being told to be a subservient woman when they would like to feel agency and empowerment. It can also be incredibly confusing when religious leaders engage in abusive behaviors. Survivors often grew up watching religious leaders be treated with great reverence and being told they can trust their religious leaders, only to then be harmed and abused by their religious leader.

In many religious communities, religion is a fundamental part of life. It shapes your daily and weekly schedule, your social support circle, how your family operates, your relationships, what activities are deemed acceptable, and sometimes even what options are available for your education and occupation.

It’s common to feel both grief and anger when processing religious trauma experiences. You may feel anger about your experiences while also grieving the parts that you appreciated or the people you are losing. It can feel really complicated when anger and grief co-exist.

Symptoms Associated with Religious Trauma

Religious trauma can impact your emotional experiences, how you relate with others, and how your nervous system perceives safety (or lack of safety).

Emotional:

Chronic shame, guilt, or worthlessness
Difficulties recognizing or trusting your intuition
Internalized messages of low self-worth

Relational:

Difficulty trusting others
Feelings of loneliness and isolation
Immense guilt after any perceived misstep
Challenges identifying your needs or expressing them to others
People-pleasing

Physical:

Panic and hypervigilance
Sleep challenges
Chronic tension
Freezing or dissociating during sex

Impacts of Religious Trauma

Religious trauma can have impact on many aspects of life. Below are a few examples of the impact of religious trauma:

High-control, authoritarian, and harmful religious environments often try to control how people view their identity and understand themselves. Survivors of religious trauma may struggle to connect with their sense of self and feel like they don’t know who they are. They may struggle to identify their needs or values.
LGBTQ+ people may have been told that their identity is wrong or sinful and struggle to feel acceptance and pride in their identity.
Experiences of religious trauma can bring on self-doubt and difficulties trusting one’s self. People who have experienced religious trauma may have been told their perceptions of things are wrong or that their thoughts are harmful. This can make it challenging to trust their intuition.

Religious trauma can also make it difficult to trust others. People may struggle to trust their intentions of others. They may struggle with vulnerability, a protective response to avoid having their feelings and thoughts be used against them.
Experiences of religious trauma can contribute to several challenges in relationships:
- Fear of rejection: people may be afraid of being rejected or abandoned if they express their true sense of self or assert their needs
- Guilt about establishing boundaries
- Hypervigilance - people may become hyperaware of their partner’s words, actions, body language, and tone
- People-pleasing: people may feel guilty for saying “no” or feel they need to put everyone else first, at the expense of their own needs
- Long-term relationships may struggle to adapt to new dynamics as partners learn to express their needs and shift old patterns of people-pleasing
Challenges with arousal, reaching orgasm, or pain during sex are common experiences for people who have experienced religious trauma. This is often the result of anxiety and fear about sex. People may also go numb or dissociate during sex. This may be due to feeling disconnected from their sense of self, a sense of shame about their body, or a learned response to help cope with past experiences.
Religion can be a significant source of community, and in some cases, the only source of community. Survivors of religious trauma may be accustomed to their community being not only their social circle, but also their support system and even their entire world. Leaving the community can bring isolation and rejection from others. Peoples families may shun or judge their decision to leave the community.

Who gets to determine where a religious experience was traumatic?

You, as the person who experience the religious environment gets to determine whether it was traumatic. Many survivors of religious trauma are told by religious community members that their experience was not traumatic. They may encounter people who think religious experiences cannot be traumatic. They may get told that they just need to pray harder or perform a spiritual ritual. All of these response can be not only invalidating, but can also be confusing for someone who is still learning to trust their intuition. People who have experienced religious trauma should be trusted and believed when they describe their experiences as traumatic.

What should I look for in a religious trauma therapist?

When searching for a therapist to support your journey of recovering trauma religious trauma, you should consider the following:

Therapists should trust your experience when you describe your experience as traumatic
Therapists should be understanding of high-control religions and how these experiences shape feelings of guilt, fear, and shame
A therapist should not have an agenda about whether you should stay or leave religious communities
Someone who is affirming of your identity, such as if you are LGBTQ+, non-monogamous/polyamorous, or continue to hold religion or spirituality as part of your identity
Someone who understands that religious trauma can bring up complicated feelings - you can both be angry about your experiences and feel grief for what you are losing

Recovering from Religious Trauma

Recovering from religious trauma is a journey of processing your experiences, deconstructing the messages and beliefs you were taught, building your sense of identity and self, claiming a sense of agency, learning to express your needs, finding a supportive social circle, and helping your body feel safe. If you’re looking for support in this journey, Andy Price LMFT provides LGBTQ+ affirming support to survivors of religious trauma. Visit this page to get in touch or schedule your consultation.