Religious trauma

These two books go in depth about religious trauma, particularly where womens’ bodies are concerned. The second one is specifically about the Evangelical Christian Purity Movement that peaked in the early 2000’s.

I’ve been looking at this really critically since 2018, but treaded pretty lightly in my discussions with others. Not only because it was a lot to process, and I wanted to be respectful of where people were at with it; but I also wanted to leave room to completely wrong (this isn’t just about humility, remaining unbiased is actually the only way to obtain honest answers and to even have a chance at getting anywhere near the truth).

However, it’s been over 5 years and I can confidently say that this ideaology and what is being done to young women is the most Fu**** up thing I’ve ever seen, and that anyone who perpetuates it needs to seriously reevaluate.

As a woman and a trauma therapist, I truly believe it is impossible to overestimate the damage these Christian narratives have caused- for both myself, and what I’m estimating to be thousands of other women.

When actually implemented, this ideaology requires that we split off from our bodies, as we’re told they are wrong and sinful and that their cues and messages can not be trusted.

At a minimum, this leads to disconnecting from our intuition (“gut feelings”); but it is all too often accompanied by PTSD, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and self-harm behavior (cutting, burning, pinching, scratching, and biting).

What has recently come on my radar is the tendency to spiritually bypass trauma- particularly sexual trauma- by women being told to just “give it over to the Lord,” or expecting prayer alone to be enough (insinuating that if they had enough faith they would be healed).

If I thought it was on accident, I would say Christians have missed the mark to the point of embarrassment; but I’m actually not that naive.

Healed women are empowered women. ..so why wouldn’t the church want women to be protected and get the support they need? 🤔

I believe it is intentional in an attempt to keep women quiet, which allows for the rampant sexual misconduct that occurs in religious settings to continue.

If women continue to carry the shame of these encounters (blaming themselves, etc) and are discouraged from seeking healing modalities other than prayer, then the abusers get a free pass and will continue to cause harm.

When I read the sentence “Purity culture is rape culture” on an Instagram post a few years ago, I didn’t fully understand it. However, I now not only understand but completely agree.

The main problems I see being the following:

• Grooming behavior is enabled (excuses are made for people who exhibit poor boundaries).
• Young girls are taught they’re responsible for grown men’s sexual desires by being made to dress modestly so they don’t “cause their Christian brothers to stumble.” This is sexualizing children and normalizing pedophilia.
  
  It is making children adjust to accommodate adults’ sexually inappropriate behavior, as opposed to addressing the actual problem: the sexual offenders themselves.
  
  It also teaches they’re responsible for others’ salvation, which is codependent, enmeshed, and emotionally and mentally abusive.
• Churchgoers are often told that certain healing modalities are “opening themselves up to the devil,” such as plant medicines, kinesiology, and even mental health therapy and interventions such as EMDR. This keeps them fragmented and unable to access “adult self” (arrested development at the age the trauma occurred), and thus much easier to manipulate and control.
  
  It keeps women especially at an emotional maturity level of approx a 14 year old, which once again benefits abusers in multiple ways; one being the mothers are so insecure and disempowered that the children are left unprotected.

I’ve found that people who continue to support these beliefs are either benefitting from the harm they’re causing or have pretty severe unresolved trauma themselves.

I described it earlier today as a disassociative state or “trauma freeze mode,” which in Polyvagal Theory is called Dorsal Vagal shutdown. Basically, the person is checked out, and they’re just running a program like a robot.

When people continually avoid doing their own healing work by blaming every single thing on the devil or just “giving it to God,” then yes, they will be emotionally stunted.

More to come-