I Grew Up in Church: Healing my religious trauma

Church always felt like I was reaching for something unattainable. They said that was part of the grace. To feel unworthy and show up and surrender anyway. In my experience, it wasn’t presented to me like a beautiful ritual of faith. It was presented to me as a demand for obedience.

My family didn’t talk about feelings. Well, they didn’t seem to want to hear about mine. I threw a wrench into their numb little world, when a family member hurt me, and I asked why I had to apologize to them.

Emotions made them uncomfortable. And I suppose, they used church to try and soothe themselves.

They tried to offer me their faith, but it felt a lot like fear.

This post isn’t hating or condemning Christianity. This is a brief summary of how I found my way to having faith. It just so happens, I found it outside of Church.

Disclaimer: This is a reflection from my personal journey of healing and self-discovery. I am not proselytizing or trying to convince or coerce anyone into believing anything. This is merely a reflection of what my journey has looked like. If you carry that lens, it will probably be an easier read if this topic is a sensitive one for you. Be mindful of your mental wellness and always use your discernment.

I grew up in Church. A small one, in a small Idaho town. Christianity was the life blood of my family. We attended Church every Sunday, every Wednesday, every other day that held any kind of service. My family had roles in our Church, which meant we spent more time together at Church, than we did at home.

Holidays were special of course. We would all dress our best and leave extra early to get to Church first, and make sure things got set up. Family drove in from out of town to share in the ritual of Church, even if it was no longer their home Church. Birthdays were also a Church event. It even came with its own poem.

Many happy returns

on the day of thy birth

may sunshine and gladness be given

and may the dear Father

prepare thee on earth

for a beautiful birthday

in Heaven

My birthday was always close enough to Easter that it was celebrated with flowery dresses (that I hated lol) Easter egg hunts, and the body and blood of Christ.

There was a Church camp for one week, and a couple of weekends, throughout the summer. It was my favorite place to go. I spent more time paying attention to nature than the stories being told, but I planted roots there. Worship music sessions were top tier experiences.

Church introduced me to a love of choral music. I fell hard for harmonies and dissonance. The first time I listened to gospel music was an entire religious experience of its own. I became infatuated with the stage in church. Performing biblical stories was my Jam! Story times and chasing joy with children during VBS. Parades and community dinners that held the beautiful rumble of a room full of love.

There was love in my family. A lot of it. And it was dedicated to Church.

Until me.

Just kidding.

Kinda.

I loved being at church all of the time. The building felt more like home than home did. It seemed like a castle with endless rooms to explore. Which is something I’ve always wanted to experience.

I made friends that shared in this religion that we were told to believe in. We always played games in between stories, and got Saved frequently at concerts.

As someone without a father, the idea of a loving God/father-like figure that controlled everything, intrigued me. “God wants me to see him as my dad? Cool! I could use a stable one of those. The two I have are faulty.”

I have always been a curious person. I love knowing things and understanding what they mean and how they work. Science makes me happy, but the faith I grew up in left little room for that kind of thinking.

“It is not our place to question how or why things are. It is our job to have faith be grateful.”

Healing has made me feel the truth in that statement. It has also painted a clearer picture of the shadows of fear writhing between each letter.

It feels good to understand things. Clarity feels like intelligence and knowing. Ignorance feels like worthlessness. It feels like submission to fear. At least, it does to me.

When I was a kid, I would ask a lot of questions. Why did I have to forgive the person who hurt me that way, but they don’t have to regret what they did? Why must I hurt in order for them to feel better? Why are we right, but everyone else is wrong? That one tended not to go over well with many of the adults.

We would learn, “God is love.” Followed up by, “Submit to him, or else.” My young mind thought, how does that work? How is punishment love if it hurts? Even the many Veggie Tales movies (Which I loved) couldn’t curb my curiosity.

Why is hurting a requirement for knowing love? Who decided pain was the proof of love? The question that pissed off my biological father’s family was, “Why do you follow a faith that was used to bind your ancestors in chains?” (They are Jehovah’s Witness which is a bit different, and I didn’t grow up knowing them, so the influence was short lived… much like our relationship lol)

Christianity taught me about tough love.

You're sick? Here’s some soup, but suck it up. That hurt? Get back up, and also, suck it up. God’s on your side and with him, you can do anything. If you fail, you didn’t have strong enough faith. You don’t like this experience? Don’t worry because God loves you and your suffering is proof that he loves you; so, suck it up.

It went the other way too.

Oh wow, that is a wonderful accomplishment! All glory be to God. Aww that is a beautiful miracle. God deemed you worthy enough to receive it. Holy shit I feel so happy in my life! Won’t he do it?!…

Christianity didn’t hold much space for my emotions. And no one around me could understand why I hurt. They began to offer me their fear, and I would just expand it.

The entirety of my teenage years, I was so afraid of Hell, that I spent four weeks in a mental hospital. (One week four separate times) I had been told my fear of death was wrong, and so I chased it instead, hoping to show death how unafraid I was. I truly had created the belief that Hell couldn’t feel worse than what life felt like. No one understood why I felt that way.

“Life is a gift and God is love, so you should feel happy and grateful even when it hurts.” It’s hard to feel those things when every negative emotion you experience is brushed off or condemned. Every time I felt something that didn’t mesh well with their comfort, I was told to suck it up or shut it down. They were okay with a little sadness or a mild dose of hurt feelings. But if I said I felt invisible and like I didn’t matter, they would tell me that I was stupid while following up by I’m loved.

Remember, I was a child. I didn’t understand what emotions were and only told that they were wrong. Even my joy! If I got excited about something they deemed silly, I was told to tone it down.

I made it through my teen years and stumbled into my twenties, eager to fuck shit up. Lol

I started to take up space, and not always in the healthiest of ways. It was messy and painful, for more than just me, but I made the decision to chase the things that felt good. Even if they didn’t feel good for long. Even if they ended up hurting more than myself. I did everything I could to find things in life that felt good to me. As I found more of myself, the condemnation got louder, and introduced a new era of suicidal ideation. Only, by this time, it was an old friend.

God became a phantom to me. A monster intent on making me feel worthless. I felt anger towards the very idea of God, any God really. Christianity specifically, became the recipient of my ire. And with one final question, I left.

Why does anything outside of me, get to decide what my life is?

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

That question led me to exploring other religions and I slowly began to realize that I find truth (that I believe as truth myself) in many of them.

I found the love at the roots that connected them all. I found hope woven between words of love and fear. Not just a hope for identity, but for sovereignty.

Christianity gave me a foundation of belief. It taught me that to be kind, is to receive kindness. To be loved, is to give love. It taught me what coming together can do. It showed me that rituals are habits of coming home to yourself. It taught me that I have a choice.

It also taught me that I don’t need anyone to tell me who I am or what to believe. Even though I couldn’t feel that in the thick of it, the message was in there.

Religion led me to quantum physics and neuroscience. Which has expanded every thought I ever thought I knew.

When I began tearing down the house of trauma I had spent much of my life in, the foundational bricks made of Christianity scared me. I avoided them, while trying to figure out if I was allowed to keep the parts that felt good and leave the rest. How do I tell people I’m no longer a Christian, but that I hold a parts of my Christian upbringing sacred?

As I began “healing out loud” and sharing my trauma all over the internet (it was a beautiful time) I saw other people talking about leaving the Christian faith and they were so angry and hurt. I understood that ache too! And it felt wonderful to feel validated. But as I began healing my trauma and releasing things, I struggled to find reflections of my healing in the content I consumed.

My feeds were made up of old beliefs and ideas that supported my pain. So, I decided to delete or log out of every account I had and really figure out who I was.

I left the religious bricks alone lol I began working on the new foundation of healing and self-love I was mixing up for myself. Pouring a new foundation and structuring a new home. It took time, but that doesn’t really feel important now. I took the love I began to remember, that was hiding in the pain of my trauma, and found places in my home where it could settle in.

Deep belly laughs with my family, before pain stole the joy. Campfires at Church Camp, watching grownups seek for peace within themselves. Church, and its people, inspired me in many ways, and healing helped me see that again.

One day, I looked outside my new and expanding home, and realized I had a Garden. It didn’t have much growing in it yet, but there were seed packets waiting to be planted and weeds needing to be pulled. It was in that moment, that I realized exactly where the Church part of my story could go. It could be used to pave the path in my Garden.

That’s what this space is for me. A reflection of my inner Garden. Paved with experiences that forged my beliefs. Not just Christianity, but it deserves its moment of reflection.

The creek I often walked through at camp. Aptly named “Goose Creek”

This poem is dedicated to the healing I have done in regard to my religious trauma. It is not written to condemn or belittle. I sit in gratitude for how Christianity has helped me find more of myself. My road just didn’t stop there. I kept searching, simply because it felt good to do so.

I am not “better” because of the choice I made to seek more personal understanding. I am the same as those who find their freedom in a pew or the forest. My truths/beliefs are not a weapon for me to wield. They are the resonance of my existence, and the reflection of my journey.

The truths that we share, are not bound in a book. They are infinite and boundless. They don’t stop at religion and say, “This truth is only for these people.” They open and expand and say, “I see truth in you too.”

I’m happy for you, if Church still feels like home. But if you are like me, and Church began to feel like it hurt more than it helped, this is for you too.

God, to Me.

God is not a man to me.

To me, God is the essence of love.

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God is not teacher to me.

To me it’s the act of living in personal truth.

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God is not a healer to me.

To me, God is wellness.

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God is not separate from me.

To me, I am God as much as every other creation.

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God is not a savior to me.

To me, God is the reflection of my sovereignty.

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God is not fear to me.

To me, God is safety in my divinity.

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God is not a God to me

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God, to me

is freedom.