The Kids Are Not All Right: What is Religious Trauma?
I’m a preacher’s kid… and I have a theory that being a preacher’s kid can mess kids up.
I have been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder since I was sixteen. At 27, I am currently exploring with my psychiatrist and therapist if Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be added to that list.
I also have a Master’s in Social Work from Columbia University, so I know a little bit about mental health outside of personal experience. What’s insane is at the time of my diagnosis for MDD, I thought it was my fault. That there was something wrong with me. I sincerely tried praying that I would get better. Part of my pursuing a social work education was to learn more about myself and why my brain functions the way it does.
I’ve written about my mental health diagnoses before. But I’ve only contemplated the root causes in private. So why am I hashing this out now? I need to vocalize, name it, and perhaps I’m also seeking a little bit of external validation. I’m not entirely sure what I’m searching for. I still consider myself a believer, but I cannot deny that my faith has had an adverse effect on my mental health. That in combination with many things in my life equating the story of my adoption to the story of Salvation has had a huge effect on me as well. Being transracially adopted also did not help for a Chinese girl in a White majority church in Texas.
I didn't know what religious trauma was initially. I don’t think it's in the DSM-V which has its own issues that I won’t go into right now. But one of my social work friends once told me that “trauma was in the eye of the beholder”. And I’m here to say, yes, I had traumatic church experiences.
That’s not to say that all of my church experiences were traumatic. I’m still trying to learn how to separate everything in my memory and current relationship with Faith. But I am done making excuses for a faith that has harmed me. I don’t believe that the whole thing can be painted with a bad brush, but Spiritual Abuse IS a thing that does in fact exist. I think that my father being a pastor definitely had a lot to do with my trauma.
There were a lot of things that I did not allow myself to do, mostly pertaining to purity culture, racial bias, and discrimination. So much, in fact, that I feel those particular experiences stunted me socially. I didn’t go on my first real date until I was well out of college, my first boyfriend for that matter too. I got comments about my prom date who was not white. I was used to being singled out in church and watched like a hawk because I stuck out racially.
A large part of my trauma also pertains to my friends in the LGBTQIA+ community. People I consider to be my closest confidants and support systems who have clearly been scapegoated and abused by various people within Christian Culture. In fact, debates still rage on in churches about whether or not these people deserve to exist.
Seeing people I love go through that is bad enough without me internalizing the hidden messages — “conform or be damned”. Forgiveness existed with strings attached in my mind. I still recall asking a question about a passage in Revelation in bible study one night and being shut down so harshly for questioning that I believed I was the problem.
I internalized that questioning was ok as long as you still came to the same conclusion as everyone else. Apologetics scared the crap out of me. Any form of debate terrified me. Especially when it came in the form of group discussion. So I quietly believed what I believed and felt so much like a black sheep at church.
The constant terror I felt attending Bible studies after that night soon spilled into experiences within worship service, attending main services, anything that had to do with the church. I began breaking out in hives. All over my body. I would have panic attacks and go and cry in my car Sundays after church so no one would see.
It's one thing to question privately, but it's another thing to be called out and ridiculed in front of a group for your thoughts. It was not with kindness that the leader of the Bible study addressed my questions, but with harsh rebuke.
So what was I supposed to do with other questions I had? I buried them deep within myself. I learned to associate discussions about the relationship of the American Church and White Supremacy with my non-believing friends. Friends I was told were going to Hell if they were not saved. So much sorrow resonated within me over so many discussions.
And what about me? I surely was a horrifying sinning piece of trash for my sinful thoughts and my thoughtful sins. I was terrified to speak up about my sins or my questions due to the experience of being ridiculed in front of an audience and so on. I didn’t want to embarrass my pastor father with my questions, so I sat by smiling and quietly questioning things. And the longer I felt small, insignificant, and invalidated, the more depressed I became. I felt like I couldn’t be my authentic self at church. I still don’t. Not with my socialist liberal leftist ideals that obviously do not suit American Christianity.
So where does that leave me? I’ve found an online community where I’m free to question, discuss, feel supported. I’ve found other believers of color for another matter. I’ve found other adoptees who have been adopted into religious communities and other PKs I relate to.
I would like to proudly say that I am healing from religious trauma and still discovering what I believe one step at a time.
Are you a PK too?
So that’s me. But I’m curious about others like me, and others not like me. I want to know more PKs and MKs (missionary kids or as they are now referred to 3rd culture kids). I want to hear from any and all perspectives. PKs and MKs deserve their own support group if you ask me, so why don’t we create a community ourselves? If you want to connect, contact me on Instagram @endlesswanderer , here on Medium, or email endlesswandererhannah@gmail.com
