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Emotional: Depression, anxiety, anger, grief, loneliness, difficulty with pleasure, loss of meaning Mental: Confusion, poor critical thinking ability, negative beliefs about self-ability & self-worth, black & white thinking, perfectionism, difficulty with decision-making However, she says there are ways to stop the abuse and recover. Marlene Winnel posits that Religious Trauma Syndrome has a very recognizable set of symptoms, definitive causes, and a debilitating cycle of abuse. He said the coach did “surgery” on my trauma but could not administer “chemotherapy.”ĭr. Over a decade later, my well-trained and highly empathic psychologist, wisely mused after hearing my story.
#RELIGIOUS TRAUMA SYNDROME TV#
The slightest thing would transform me from a smiling, kind person into a scowling angry human. I behaved as if everything and everyone was out to get me: The idiot that refused to move his car out of my way when I had no time to spare, the TV that refused to work, the endless sirens in our neighborhood, and all the people who weren’t doing their jobs as well as I thought they should.Īnd unfortunately, the life coach that I was seeing from my church (who thought he was a therapist) only worsened matters. Instead, their story would go something like this: I had become scary. This was not the story my family would tell. I believed I was alleviating the stress and finding balance in my life. And because it was exercise, I thought I had found a way to cope with the distress. Running marathons had become an addiction. Yet, I wasn’t depressed I still enjoyed leading worship, my family and friends, good food and drink, and much more. I felt physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. That’s what I had been doing for years, or maybe decades. I was fragmented and found myself crying unexpectedly at the slightest thing.
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The standard in the ministry is to ignore discomfort and distress of all kinds-physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual-and to carry on. I didn’t realize I was so traumatized that words like “it’s no big deal” would hammer the coffin closed forever.
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And the unwillingness to deal with my growing questions about religion. I was frustrated with the lack of leadership and motivation from the senior pastor. I did know I was unhappy, unhealthy, and exhausted. But suddenly, I knew I could no longer go on. The words leading up to that final nail were about looking forward to the great work we would do together. The co-worker at breakfast that day had been well-intentioned and supportive. I did not know that I was going through something a growing number of Evangelicals were experiencing: Religious Trauma. In the aftermath of that fateful breakfast, I didn’t realize that a broken person is also allowed to see their life and the world differently. When a person breaks, they become a jumble of seemingly incompatible thoughts, emotions, and actions. The reality I had lived in for twenty-nine years had shattered. Nothing was out of the ordinary for an average working breakfast, yet for me, everything had just changed. The sounds of the plates and other people talking seemed magnified. The executive pastor then said something typical in our Evangelical world, something that Southern Baptists universally accepted. My annual performance evaluation was off the charts, and leadership lauded our team for exemplary work.ĭuring the breakfast, I gave progress reports about pending tasks and received responses of pleasure and gratitude. It was a good day in a great month and terrific year as the Creative Arts Pastor of one of the world’s most prestigious megachurches.
#RELIGIOUS TRAUMA SYNDROME CRACKER#
I was at Cracker Barrel for breakfast with our executive pastor, a shipping company’s former CEO, and my immediate supervisor. At that time, I was a hurting fellow, and our conversation quickly became raw and honest. But when it happened to me, it wasn’t like that at all. Marlene Winnel compares it to a combination of PTSD and Complex PTSD (C-PTSD).įor me, I had erroneously thought that when the final “nail was driven in the coffin,” the end would be obvious. People like me who have left an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and are still coping with the damage of childhood indoctrination often end up with a condition called Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS). RTS is a function of both the chronic abuses of harmful religion and the impact of severing one’s connection with one’s faith.