The Trauma of Leaving
“The phobia indoctrination makes it difficult to avoid the stabbing thought, even many years after leaving, that one has made a terrible mistake, thinking ‘what if they’re right?’ — Marlene Winell, Ph.D.
As a young adult in the early stages of unlearning or deconstructing, (read more here) I struggled with depression. I went from knowing my place in the world and trusting in community to a place of isolation and loneliness. The intellectual transition happened so quickly, that I did not know how to fill the emotional void. I believed it was all or nothing, and if I couldn’t believe in the God/structure that I once knew, then I couldn’t believe in anything at all. I didn’t have any examples of others going through what I was going through, and it was around this time that I experienced my first panic attack. I was alone and crying and realized that just months prior, I would have had a belief system that taught me release my emotions to a higher power and to believe that this was enough.
“For most people, the religious environment was a one-stop-shop for meeting all their major needs — social support, a coherent worldview, meaning and direction in life, structured activities, and emotional/spiritual satisfaction. Leaving the fold means multiple losses, including the loss of friends and family support at a crucial time of personal transition. — Marlene Winell, Ph.D.
Recommended Reading: The Trauma of Leaving Religion by Marlene Winell, Ph.D.
So, I found myself in a place where I did not know how to sit with grief or loss or anger. And I have since learned that this is a common theme among those who leave a fundamentalist religious relationship, whether Christian, Shia Muslim, Amish, among many others, one’s brain has been wired to continue to live in that space even after one chooses to physically remove themselves from the tradition.
I had always been taught that those who chose to leave the fold do so out of hurt, anger or resentment. But this wasn’t the case for me. I was genuinely sad to be separating myself from those that I loved the most in this world. It was a divorce, a heartbreak, and the complete loss of identity for me.
My Journal Entry from July 2006
I’m afraid of disappointing people. Especially my family. I’m so scared of what they will think of me. If they knew the real me, and how I think, I wonder how they would react. I hate the feeling of being different and going against the grain. It hurts…the constant pain in my gut will not go away. My mind never sleeps. Why is it so hard to just be me? Why do the things I’m feeling seem to go against everything I believe? I rarely smile anymore. Those that love me seem to be the ones I have trouble being around. Disappointment is a word that comes to mind a lot…I never let my guard down these days. I think that’s probably causing the aches in my stomach. Why is it so hard?
One of the things I have discovered through the process of deconstruction is that for most of my life, I never truly loved myself. The impact of growing up in a culture that taught me to second guess my own instincts has extremely damaging consequences as it forces fear and distrust in one’s own intuition, desires, and values. At the age of 36, even after years of education and learning to use critical thinking skills and verified research tools to make educated decisions, I am still unable to trust my own decision making process. This impact likely varies depending on when an individual entered into the fundamentalist structure. However, for someone like me who was born into the tradition, this distrust was a vital part of my early childhood development.
You are good
You have always been good
Right from the beginning
I’m sorry that anyone told you otherwise— Hillary McBride, You are good- A meditation
Years later, I am only just working through how to not constantly think negatively of myself for having desires and wanting to experience pleasure. The theology of inherent evil is so devastatingly traumatic to one’s psyche that if learned during the early years of childhood development, it can stick with you for a lifetime. Again, at 36 years old, I am only just learning the extent to which the mental conditioning of fundamentalist Christianity continues to impact my life.
