Having lived in a Christian children's home for 3 years, I can attest that religious trauma syndrome explains perfectly how I feel about organized religion and probably always will.
As a possible answer to the question you posed in the last paragraph about why it took you so long to connect your upbringing to symptoms of shame, depression, substance abuse, etc, it could be that you were told (like me) those symptoms were caused by barriers that you yourself placed between you and Christ and were a result of your sin. Of course, the people who told you that also told you (repeatedly) "For ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God", however, it was somehow implied that they either had no sin or that yours was much, much worse.
Thanks so much for this, Tim. It helps to know there are other fellow sinners out there 🙂
Not only that, and I say this lovingly, you're also men. Fundamentalist churches enforce the patriarchal notion we women are "less than," which to me was always a clue those churches were all about control, and not religion. Mom made the mistake of visiting one when I was 11, and the Sunday School teacher taught God was the hammer, Man the anvil, and women? Whatever was underneath the anvil. I told her I was never going back and we never did.
I wasn’t familiar with the phrase “religious trauma syndrome,” but the definitions you’ve given here, along with observation of so many people, make it as familiar as if it has always been known. Having been your friend for many years, I will offer my unqualified (in both senses of the word) agreement with your self-diagnosis. ✅
What good might you be able to make out of more formally recognizing and greeting this thing you always knew?
Good question. I'm just digging into the phrase, so I can't answer that fully. My initial response, I think, has to do with a sense of validation and understanding myself a bit behavior. Hopefully I'll know more about what that means soon.
The vast chasm of our upbringing and who we actually are (or were meant to be) separate from the religious trauma of the upbringing is in some ways a mystery and in others makes perfect sense. Knowing something just wasn't right, but feeling too terrified to look into it further as a young person because of that coercive control and conditioning of fear that might damn you to hell. It really is a robbing of personhood and sanity in so many ways. It robs the soul, though they try to convince you its saving your soul, it robs normalcy, it robs decency because you are in a battle against simply being kind or loving or even, well in many ways decent, and instead you stand in judgement against others and yourself. It is a twisted thing to unravel. Even typing these words there are messages (old tapes) running through my mind. Thank you friend for continuing this writing and work as we begin to make some sort of reckoning with it all
Robbing the soul in the guise of saving it -- yes. It is indeed a twisted thing to unravel; honestly, I wish I could have just unraveled it once and been done with it, but the unraveling continues.
At the end of the second paragraph, I would add "sufficiently" to "accurately", but then academics en masse in most any given field have long been slower to embrace concepts they didn't first come up with themselves...
This was spot on. We swim in the waters of our culture, and we don't know
water's name any more than a fish knows the concept, "water." The fish has never known anything different. I feel fortunate my mother confirmed my suspicion all along during that very short time I was enrolled at Trinity: Bible stories are just stories; the "talking snake" is pretend. The "snake" at Trinity, sadly, was all too real. #JediEpiscopalianOfJewishDescent
I don't know the most clever way to do this, but I wanted to connect your story here to a story posted today by Jess Piper. I restacked her story with a note and a link back here!
Having lived in a Christian children's home for 3 years, I can attest that religious trauma syndrome explains perfectly how I feel about organized religion and probably always will.
Where was it, Mary? I don't think I knew about this. If you'd evert like to talk about it, I'd be honored to listen.
It was in MS, no, I've not mentioned it before, I don't really like to talk about it. But religious trauma so fit what I went through.
As a possible answer to the question you posed in the last paragraph about why it took you so long to connect your upbringing to symptoms of shame, depression, substance abuse, etc, it could be that you were told (like me) those symptoms were caused by barriers that you yourself placed between you and Christ and were a result of your sin. Of course, the people who told you that also told you (repeatedly) "For ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God", however, it was somehow implied that they either had no sin or that yours was much, much worse.
Thanks so much for this, Tim. It helps to know there are other fellow sinners out there 🙂
I think you're spot-on there, my friend, and I'm grateful for the solidarity!
Not only that, and I say this lovingly, you're also men. Fundamentalist churches enforce the patriarchal notion we women are "less than," which to me was always a clue those churches were all about control, and not religion. Mom made the mistake of visiting one when I was 11, and the Sunday School teacher taught God was the hammer, Man the anvil, and women? Whatever was underneath the anvil. I told her I was never going back and we never did.
(Women might have suspected sooner, is what I mean.)
So many thoughts. I leave you with a simple Thank You for seeing me. 💙🫶🏼
It is about being seen, I think. The nomenclature helps us do that, I think. Naming it is seeing it in a different way.
Hi Tim,
I wasn’t familiar with the phrase “religious trauma syndrome,” but the definitions you’ve given here, along with observation of so many people, make it as familiar as if it has always been known. Having been your friend for many years, I will offer my unqualified (in both senses of the word) agreement with your self-diagnosis. ✅
What good might you be able to make out of more formally recognizing and greeting this thing you always knew?
Good question. I'm just digging into the phrase, so I can't answer that fully. My initial response, I think, has to do with a sense of validation and understanding myself a bit behavior. Hopefully I'll know more about what that means soon.
🙌🏼💙🫶🏼
The vast chasm of our upbringing and who we actually are (or were meant to be) separate from the religious trauma of the upbringing is in some ways a mystery and in others makes perfect sense. Knowing something just wasn't right, but feeling too terrified to look into it further as a young person because of that coercive control and conditioning of fear that might damn you to hell. It really is a robbing of personhood and sanity in so many ways. It robs the soul, though they try to convince you its saving your soul, it robs normalcy, it robs decency because you are in a battle against simply being kind or loving or even, well in many ways decent, and instead you stand in judgement against others and yourself. It is a twisted thing to unravel. Even typing these words there are messages (old tapes) running through my mind. Thank you friend for continuing this writing and work as we begin to make some sort of reckoning with it all
Robbing the soul in the guise of saving it -- yes. It is indeed a twisted thing to unravel; honestly, I wish I could have just unraveled it once and been done with it, but the unraveling continues.
Self discovery has no age limit. I’m confident that you have assisted in someone’s healing by sharing your journey.
Thank you, Kathryn!
At the end of the second paragraph, I would add "sufficiently" to "accurately", but then academics en masse in most any given field have long been slower to embrace concepts they didn't first come up with themselves...
I think "sufficiently" certainly makes good sense there too. Totally agreed.
This was spot on. We swim in the waters of our culture, and we don't know
water's name any more than a fish knows the concept, "water." The fish has never known anything different. I feel fortunate my mother confirmed my suspicion all along during that very short time I was enrolled at Trinity: Bible stories are just stories; the "talking snake" is pretend. The "snake" at Trinity, sadly, was all too real. #JediEpiscopalianOfJewishDescent
I don't know the most clever way to do this, but I wanted to connect your story here to a story posted today by Jess Piper. I restacked her story with a note and a link back here!
https://open.substack.com/pub/jesspiper/p/southern-baptist-body-shaming?r=23gpml&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=58984988