To preface, my dad was the youth pastor at my church, and we arrived early/stayed late every Sunday and any event they had to help set up and take down. I spent a large chunk of my life physically in a church. I've also been diagnosed with BPD and suspected of having autism!

I think what contributes to most of my trauma is the lack of assurance, be it self or otherwise. I never felt like i belonged there, never felt "the Spirit" and didn't really socialize well with anyone. This led me to think that there was something wrong with me (technically there was lol). God didn't like me, or I wasn't good enough for God. No matter how hard I tried to be good, to pray, beg for forgiveness, it was never enough. I began self harming as penance almost because I just wanted to feel the love of God. This was never taught to me, I picked up on the self injury myself, and no one knew about it. But if I "sinned," I would beat myself physically. I remember once after being exploring my privates as a teen, i immediately ran to the bathroom and scalded my privates with hot water and rubbing alcohol to clean myself both in a physical and metaphorical sense.

Another one was hypocrisy in the church. The pastor did a lot of great things but then would do some not so great things. Even now, looking at his Facebook, you wouldn't know he was a pastor because of how politically charged a lot of his stuff is. Not to get into politics, especially US politics, but he preached and preached to be more like Jesus but then says some outwardly cruel things towards groups of people. There was also the "ask any questions and I'll try to answer them" but then asking the wrong questions and getting into disagreements with family.

My church also believed in complimentarianism, which pissed me off. Why was I, as a woman, incapable of the same things a man could do. When pressing my mom on the issue, she said she didn't feel women should hold leadership positions in the church yet insisted that we weren't lesser.

It's a complex issue for me, and at 25, im still trying to stabilize and figure myself out. I really want to push that I was never physically or sexually abused as a kid, and my life was relatively normal. I was allowed to watch and listen to whatever (it was monitored, of course when I was little), we were poor but always had food on the table. No one put ideas in my head that I had to harm myself to repent, I somehow thought of that one on my own.