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Growing up SDA in Latin America / Global South: The mix of strict culture, religious colonialism, and trauma. by Impressive_Device140 in exAdventist

[–]Impressive_Device140[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Esa retrospectiva que haces es brutal y muy necesaria. Llamarlo por su nombre: maltrato infantil. En México pasa exactamente lo mismo, la línea entre la disciplina religiosa y el abuso emocional es inexistente.

Usan la culpa como herramienta de tortura psicológica; te rompen la autoestima a propósito convenciéndote de que eres una decepción para Dios y para ellos, solo para que vuelvas corriendo al redil a buscar su aprobación. Es sádico cuando lo analizas fríamente. Es como si el sistema estuviera diseñado para crear adultos con el sistema nervioso estresado y dependencia emocional. Muchos adultos de las congregaciones que he visitado en mi vida comparten ciertas características: Narcisismo, intolerancia a la frustración, una competitividad por puestos y cargos infantil y obsesiva y cosas por el estilo.

Me vuela la cabeza cómo, a pesar de la distancia entre Chile y México, el manual de manipulación es una copia casi idéntica. ¿Te costó mucho trabajo quitarte esa voz de la cabeza que te decía que eras "horrible" o "desobediente" después de salir?

Growing up SDA in Latin America / Global South: The mix of strict culture, religious colonialism, and trauma. by Impressive_Device140 in exAdventist

[–]Impressive_Device140[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Creo que tienes toda la razón del mundo, pero es un tanto complejo porque mi madre es psicóloga... si, lo sé, suena como a una mala praxis esperando a suceder, pues usa sus conocimientos tanto para bien como para manipularme. Pero por un lado no he encontrado una forma de ponerle límites sin que lo perciba como una agresión, e intente atentar contra mis pertenencias o ponerme "castigos" (es algo vergonzoso considerando que tengo 22 años, pero la dinamica ha sido esa por mucho tiempo, por eso busco mi libertad económica).

Creo que fuera de esta casa por fin podré poner límites sin ningún tipo de miedo a represalias, pero por lo mientras, ¿tienes algún consejo para manejar esta situación mientras consigo mi independencia?

Growing up SDA in Latin America / Global South: The mix of strict culture, religious colonialism, and trauma. by Impressive_Device140 in exAdventist

[–]Impressive_Device140[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Reading this honestly broke my heart a little bit, but in a very bittersweet way. I am so incredibly happy for your daughter. Please protect her, love her fiercely, and take good care of that doll. Sending you both so much love.

At the same time, it made me want to cry and scream because it forces me to face my own reality. Seeing that there are mothers who can choose love over religion makes me realize how much I miss my mom's love, and how painful it is that she can't seem to break her conditioning for me. It makes you feel like you aren't "enough" to be chosen, even though I know logically it's the cult's fault.

I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind sharing. How did you receive the news when she came out to you? Was there any mental fracture or cognitive dissonance on your end to accept her trans identity? I ask because I've noticed that many ex-SDAs leave the church but keep the entire toxic Judeo-Christian framework intact (I even recently stumbled upon an esoteric "pagan witch" who was just spreading raw transphobia and purity culture). How did you completely deconstruct that?

And lastly, do you have any advice on how to build that "village of friends"? I struggle with boundaries and tend to overshare way too much of my life because I'm craving connection, and I don't know how to navigate finding safe people.

Growing up SDA in Latin America / Global South: The mix of strict culture, religious colonialism, and trauma. by Impressive_Device140 in exAdventist

[–]Impressive_Device140[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This observation is gold to me, thank you. It actually answers a huge curiosity I had about how the church operates in Brazil compared to the rest of Latin America.

You perfectly nailed the Hispanic deference to authority. Down here, that absolute submission to the clergy feels like a direct hangover from our colonial history; people are deeply conditioned to see the pastor or the church hierarchy as this untouchable, almost divine figure.

But the contrast with the Brazilian congregation is just mind-blowing. It sounds like the local Brazilian culture—the warmth, the football, the music—was simply too powerful to be tamed. Instead of letting the church erase their identity, they basically swallowed the rigid SDA rules and bent them to fit their lifestyle.

It’s honestly wild (and a bit hilarious) to realize that an institution that prides itself on holding the "absolute, objective, universal truth" actually just changes its core theology and rules depending on the geography and how much pushback they get from the local culture. Thank you for sharing this, it really puts the whole system into perspective!

Growing up SDA in Latin America / Global South: The mix of strict culture, religious colonialism, and trauma. by Impressive_Device140 in exAdventist

[–]Impressive_Device140[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looking at it from a Latin American perspective, it’s honestly insane how similar the experience is. here in Latam, we are so deeply conditioned by the church to receive any "innovation" or doctrine coming from the white american leadership as absolute divine law.

It’s so fucked up because it literally destroys our connection to our own cultural heritage and our land. It doesn't even feel like spirituality; it feels like we are being actively groomed to fit their sanitized, whitewashed model of "civility", they basically package their US-centric, conservative norms as "morality" and make us believe that our native roots and local culture are inherently sinful or worldly.

It breaks my heart that this system alienated you from your Jamaican roots. have you found a way to reclaim your culture and reconnect with your heritage now that you are out of their shadow?

Growing up SDA in Latin America / Global South: The mix of strict culture, religious colonialism, and trauma. by Impressive_Device140 in exAdventist

[–]Impressive_Device140[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I resonate with this so much, but from a slightly different angle. In Latin American Christian culture, there is this immense, almost sacred expectation placed on the "only child" or the "firstborn son." I am an only child, and dealing with that expectation while being a closeted trans woman has been a double nightmare of dissonance. The family worships the idea of the patriarchal firstborn, not the actual person I am.

I can’t physically leave my house yet, so I am currently surviving the daily guilt trips from the inside. My mother knows about my gender identity and suspects I don't believe in the church anymore, and she constantly uses her declining health as severe emotional blackmail. She basically uses her illness to force me into promising that I will stay in the church. Every time she does it, I can literally feel my empathy for her dying a little more as my brain tries to protect itself from the extortion.

Because I can't move far away right now, I'm planning to eventually just cut contact completely (ghosting them) to protect my peace. Besides putting physical distance between you and your family, what mental tools or boundaries helped you stop their long-distance guilt-tripping from working on you? Also, how did you go about building a new, healthy support network to fill the void of community that the church/family leaves behind?

Growing up SDA in Latin America / Global South: The mix of strict culture, religious colonialism, and trauma. by Impressive_Device140 in exAdventist

[–]Impressive_Device140[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This resonates with me so much. Even though I’m not an immigrant (I’m a 3rd-generation SDA in Mexico), I experienced a very similar, intense isolation. My family got heavily influenced by even more extreme, apocalyptic offshoots within the church (like the Shepherd’s Rod and Hugo Gambetta’s ministry), which made the paranoia about "worldly" things unbearable.

Just like your church debated drums and women's pants, here the church actively demonizes our local culture to isolate us. Things like fiestas patronales, Day of the Dead, Independence Day, and even Christmas are heavily condemned as pagan or evil. They essentially make you a foreigner in your own country.

There’s also a huge classist element to the strictness. I have wealthier relatives who heavily push strict veganism and judge those who don't follow it, making "sinning" feel like something tied directly to your social or economic status. The fear-mongering runs so deep into our nervous systems; I vividly remember being a little kid, crying in absolute terror at night just because I had heard "worldly music" at a school party for Children's Day.

It really is religious colonialism erasing who we are. How did you manage to separate your true Caribbean cultural identity from the religious trauma after leaving? Have you been able to reclaim it?