5 Ways Religious Trauma Could Be Affecting Your Mental Health

5 Ways Religious Trauma Could Be Affecting Your Mental Health

Recent survey results show that Americans are becoming less religious. In 2023, 30% of respondents claimed no religious affiliation. This number has been increasingly rising over the last decade, particularly with the younger generations. This shift in religiosity shows up in many of our clients who have navigated changing religious beliefs or who have experienced adverse religious experiences. This collection of adverse experiences has been termed Religious Trauma. The term is frequently applied to the most severe cases of those who leave an insular, fundamentalist religious community and struggle with adjusting to the secular world; however, anyone who has spent time in religious environments can experience Religious Trauma, even if they still consider themselves religious now. While religion and spirituality can have many positive benefits for mental health, there can also be negative impacts depending on the environment and how it is discussed.  Let’s take a look at 5 ways Religious Trauma can negatively affect mental health.

Low Self Worth
Many religions are characterized by rigid moral or behavioral laws that define some thoughts, actions and feelings as good and some as bad. When you are born into a religious culture you grow up believing that there is a strict binary between the right way of being and the wrong way of being. The problem arises that these laws are universalized, take no account of nuance and circumstance, and often categorize perfectly normal human experiences as “bad”. This is particularly true in modern Christianity which preaches a doctrine of “original sin”, meaning that all humans are born with an innate immoral nature and can only be redeemed through their faith and adherence to Christian teachings. It is easy to see how growing up in such an environment does not foster a healthy, positive relationship with self. When it is taught that getting angry, questioning authority or exploring your sexuality is evidence of your evil nature, you receive the message that there is something wrong with you or that you don’t belong.

Difficulty Setting Boundaries

Religious environments are often structurally authoritarian where  tremendous amounts of influence and power are concentrated amongst leaders and elders. Religious leaders often preach about living a life in service to others and putting others needs before your own. This can create a culture of poor boundary setting with many people pushing themselves to the point of burnout and not taking the time they need to nourish themselves. There is also the issue of authority figures wielding tremendous influence when they claim to be speaking for God. If a religious leader asks you to do something, it can feel like you cannot say no; because, in essence, you would be saying no to God. In Christian tradition, there is also the ritual of confession where it is demanded that you confess your darkest thoughts or moral failings to a priest or pastor. This is also a common feature of cults, such as Scientology. Instilling the principle that you are required to meet religious demands regardless of their effect on you or to volunteer private internal experiences makes it difficult to learn the skill of setting appropriate boundaries in everyday life.

Obsessive Thoughts/Perfectionism

Many religions, the abrahamic religions in particular, place a heavy emphasis on the study of sacred texts or scriptures. These scriptures often lay out religious philosophy and/or laws regarding behavior and way of being in the world. When taken to extremes, as is the case in many ultra-orthodox or fundamentalist religious sects, believers are tasked with interpreting these texts literally and following their instructions to the letter. This creates a culture of high-intellectualization of religious belief, which develops patterns of perfectionism, fixation on getting the exact right interpretation of texts or obsessively trying to reconcile contradictory passages. The hyper-intellectualization is often praised as being highly devout or committed to faith but it can have the effect of losing connection to the emotional self and struggling to process or respond to ambiguous situations.

Existential Anxiety

Religious texts and doctrines are often highly attentive to existential fears. The question of what happens after death has intrigued humans throughout our history and religious texts often provide an answer. Whether it is an experience of oneness, reincarnation or a continuation of existence in a harmonious afterlife, existential questions are presented to religious communities early and often. It can be overwhelming for children who may not have even experienced the loss of a loved one yet, to be introduced to questions of mortality. This is amplified by beliefs that they will be judged after death with eternal consequences. This fear of judgment is often still felt by those whose beliefs have shifted away from believing in an afterlife at all. The fear that is felt in your body as a child can linger into adulthood if not properly processed.

Social Anxiety/Difficulty in Relationships

Because of the strict adherence to particular scriptures and practices, religious communities can often become quite insular. If you grow-up in a high-control religious environment you are often discouraged from interacting with “outsiders.” Even in more moderate religious traditions there can be an implied wariness of being “influenced” by those of differing beliefs. This can show up in those who have left their religious community of origin and are having difficulty relating with peers or live with a sense that they are fundamentally different from those around them. This can occur for many reasons but one reason is that having spent so much time in an environment that values and enforces sameness of thought and behavior, it can be particularly hard to process the experience of difference, disagreement or conflict with others. Other relational issues such has black and white thinking can also make maintaining intimate relationships challenging, where empathy and compromise are so crucial.

The working definition of trauma can be summed up by the word “too”; too much, too little, too soon, too often, etc. It is defined by the state of overwhelm in your nervous system that follows an experience. In the case of Religious Trauma this can look like too much criticism and judgment; too little unconditional support; too soon to handle existential dilemmas; too often hearing messages that state your innate immorality as a fact. These experiences of overwhelm from an early age shape the relationship we have with ourselves and others on a core level and can often manifest in symptoms of CPTSD. Regardless of where you currently fall on matters of faith, these traumatic experiences can harm mental health in ways that were not named before discussion of the term Religious Trauma. If you have been struggling with any of these issues, working with a trauma-informed therapist can help to get to the root of these core wounds and learn to see them in a new way from a new place of calm and insight.

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