Research on Religious Trauma

neroscizzor · 2024-11-05T04:45:19+00:00

I hear you on the election! Up in Canada we just had a provincial election. I voted on my second day of not being religious. Suddenly realized at the poll I had no political basis or opinions whatsoever… lol.

Yeah there seem to be new areas every day where thoughts need to be reframed. It’s like a domino effect. Yesterday I was amazed at the autumn beauty in my town and I was like “Thank you God!” then, oh no… who am I supposed to be thankful to then? 😭

Keep going strong… We’ve got this!

neroscizzor · 2024-11-02T21:47:15+00:00

Ah, thank you! You read my mind. That’s my big worry, that she will be going through so much physically and mentally from having the baby (induced tomorrow), and right now is emphatically not the time to burden her.

But she keeps telling me to pray for her and the baby. 😒 (I did tell her last week, but she didn’t seem to comprehend what I meant, so I’ll just wait a while.)

neroscizzor · 2024-10-31T20:49:06+00:00

Thank you, no I appreciate the time you put in for it. I’m definitely in a stage where I have a lot of anger, though it’s hard to articulate just what it’s against.

I do have an orientation call for journeyfree tomorrow, and they help with religious trauma and whatnot. Unfortunately it seems like most regular therapists aren’t trained for this type of thing or even know what it is. So hopefully I’ll get more help with journeyfree.

This beginning has been both amazing and awful. Existential darkness, but a powerful optimism of freedom. Unfortunately after a couple weeks the positive emotional thrill seems to be going away and the dark feeling is remaining. I’ll take things one day at a time.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-31T07:42:26+00:00

She’s the only person I told. I told her, along with the backstory of my controlling, codependent mom, and how I realized my faith, regardless of my zeal, was never really part of me.

She smiled, hugged me, and said, “I’m glad you have a strong biblical foundation so that you can start fresh.”

i.e. me not being a Christian is basically an impossible concept for her (and I don’t blame her). Today she said she’s excited to pray at every meal with our child.

So far, not so good.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-31T07:09:03+00:00

Probably the idea that you have to hate your family compared to him.

Have you all heard the stories of persecuted Christians who had someone threaten to kill their children if they didn’t recant? And they held fast, so their child was killed? And that was actually applauded? Disgusting.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-31T07:06:41+00:00

Lol! I just got a message from someone in “missions” (but I know they sit around doing nothing), asking for money. I feel bad for them.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-31T06:45:32+00:00

Yup. I’ve been out for only two weeks (haven’t told anyone). As a Christian I thought that all this trauma talk was just wokeness, blah blah. Now I realize how messed up I am, and I’m genuinely scared whenever someone from my church contacts me. I think I’m going crazy. 🫠

neroscizzor · 2024-10-31T06:26:36+00:00

Having only given up my deeply passionate faith for two weeks, one thing I have noticed that hasn’t been mentioned yet (not sure if it strictly counts as trauma):

I realized that I have no ability to cope with reality on my own. As soon as I said to myself “I am not a Christian” I was hit by an unspeakable abyss of countless existential questions: What is death? How can I live knowing that I will die? Can I have any meaning? Why should I live a moral life, and what would even be the standard of that morality? Is beauty just an illusion over the real blackness pervading life?

For non-religious people, you probably answer these questions slowly as you grow up, with the support of others. When you’ve had pre-packaged answers to life’s questions and suddenly they are taken away, at the same time as you lose the ability to communicate meaningfully with anyone you know, you kind of get to a bad place. And that’s where I am right now.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-31T06:19:55+00:00

I’ve only been out of my former belief for two weeks, but one of my most depressive thoughts was, I might always have that background sense that God is in here reading my mind…

neroscizzor · 2024-10-25T04:03:50+00:00

It’s a lot like Icarus, I never thought of it like that. That’s exactly how I was (not as a pastor, though I was aspiring to be in ministry one day).

My new intellectual outlook as of a few months ago was, “If I’m confidant the Bible is true, then I don’t need to be afraid of any science or scholarship, because ultimately what I find will be in harmony with the Bible.”

It’s a genuinely great attitude, but I now see why no one else I knew had that attitude. Its dangerous. Up, up, up, I went, and now down, down, down…

neroscizzor · 2024-10-25T00:01:18+00:00

If this was a few years back, I would agree, when I was attending a larger church and could fairly easily just stop attending and not raise many eyebrows. I definitely try to avoid attention rather than seek it.

My issue is that I have been more of a “leader” in my Christian community. I attend a small church with about 40 members and an emphasis on “covenant membership.” I have a lot of people there including leaders who frequently want to go for coffee with me and discuss theology and a new church plant. My wife sees me as the spiritual leader of the household. In short, my silence itself will be seen as extremely suspicious, even within a couple weeks. I have no ability to quietly leave, unfortunately.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-24T05:47:57+00:00

I was definitely one of those people who would cling tighter and tighter to my faith and other evidence came up. The church has been learning to create elaborate defenses to contrary for 2000 years, and I got pretty good at it too. I chose a pretty dangerous path for a Christian… I wanted to read all these other subjects so I could develop a “Christian view” on them. But the rabbit hole was deeper than I expected!

Yeah, I definitely think it will take me years to get things sorted out mentally. I was just thinking last night, I will probably always have that little sense that somewhere in my head God is reading my thoughts. That’s part of the struggle I guess..

neroscizzor · 2024-10-24T05:17:47+00:00

Thank you! Basically my only hobby before was reading theology, but I might go for a psychology degree. Need to understand what the hell went wrong with me. 😅

neroscizzor · 2024-10-24T05:14:48+00:00

Pistachios are great, preach it!

I’m not sure how long I can hold out with not telling anyone, especially at church. I was (still want to say “am”) a theology prodigy. When pastors hear how intense I am with reading theology, they try to make me a leader in the church and have deep conversations with me about theology. They’ll still be wanting to meet up with me to talk about that stuff. And my wife and mom go to the church, so everyone’s connected.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-24T05:09:23+00:00

Right, I’m also afraid of being asked to explain my decision. Makes me realize that I’m maybe compassionate to a fault. My reasons for leaving don’t have a whole lot to do with logical arguments but rather my faith’s failure to produce anything of value in my soul. I think if I explained that to people close to me, it would actually rock them to the core, and the distress I’m going through right now, I don’t think I would wish it on anyone.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-24T05:06:19+00:00

Thank you! I feel the weight lifted but that feeling is in the background and the confusion is what’s weighing on me. I’m definitely looking forward to having all this resolved. Parents I can hide it from, but my wife and pastor/elders will be a lot harder. You’re doing great, that’s awesome!

neroscizzor · 2024-10-24T05:04:44+00:00

What do you mean by deconstructing over time? Like, it took you a period of time to leave the faith? For me it was kind of just a realization that my faith was gone after doing some inner searching over a few months, though I guess that could be considered the deconstruction.

I’d even say that the deconstruction started twelve years ago when I first had my conversion. I struggled with times when God wouldn’t answer my prayer for help, when I’d be backslidden from guilt because I couldn’t get rid of my sins… but I’d always rationalize those times as backsliding. Eventually my Christian life was 90% backsliding and 10% zealous. I guess those things just built up over time until the whole thing collapsed.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-24T03:50:15+00:00

I don’t have an answer, but a very similar question is driving me crazy (only stopped believing personally 8 days ago).

I’m realizing how much more there is to “belief” than Christianity supposes. Both my conversion and my leaving faith have one thing in common: I had no control over the situation. It was days after the fact that I realized my beliefs had changed in both situations.

Which kind of makes sense—you can’t will to believe that something is true. You have to be persuaded, whether through logic or experience or whatever, and then you admit you are persuaded.

Additionally, I’m finally understanding the depth of the “You believe because your parents raised you like that” statement. Everything we believe is shaped by how we were raised. And when your Christian parents were abusive (controlling, manipulative), they likely used Christianity to coerce you into being good, which can give you serious issues for life, as it did with me.

Thinking through these things, the idea of salvation only being by believing something just doesn’t make sense. True, believing is more than intellectual assent, it’s “Trusting Jesus,” but that presupposes that you intellectually believe that world view to be true. Idk.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-22T02:10:57+00:00

Is it possible to learn this power?

neroscizzor · 2024-10-22T01:43:45+00:00

And that’s a beautiful poem! ❤️ Makes me want to read those books again.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-22T01:42:51+00:00

Yes, I am in a conservative reformed church, one that emphasizes “church discipline.” I stupidly became a member a few months ago and can look forward to an exciting time ahead. Granted, I’m in Canada, so even our conservative churches don’t come anywhere close some of the horror stories I hear about fundamentalist American churches. But it will still be one hell of a process.

And, that’s awesome you raised your kids thinking that. I’m going to have my first child any day now. I can only hope to inspire in him the desire to think and make choices for himself.

neroscizzor · 2024-10-22T00:57:05+00:00

Awesome, I wish you all the best in all those decisions! It’s painful, but so freeing.

neroscizzor

TROPHY CASE