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Religious Trauma Syndrome:What is religious trauma?

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    Religious Trauma Syndrome:What is religious trauma?

    I had read some things about therapy to overcome religious guilt and other things. there are groups for recovering Catholics,recovering Mormons,and other groups.

    This site seems to give a name to this "Indoctrination" or what ever one might label it.

    http://valerietarico.com/2013/03/26/...me-is-it-real/

    From my personal experience and people I have known that seemed to have these problems,it seems to be something that does happen.

    So,what do you think..If it needs to be in debates,the Mods can move it.

    From some posts on here,I think we might have seen people dealing with this very subject.

    So,your feelings on the matter...

    Just a quote from the site.

    Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics that tend to go together and which are related to harmful experiences with religion. They are the result of two things: immersion in a controlling religion and the secondary impact of leaving a religious group. The RTS label provides a name and description that affected people often recognize immediately. Many other people are surprised by the idea of RTS, because in our culture it is generally assumed that religion is benign or good for you. Just like telling kids about Santa Claus and letting them work out their beliefs later, people see no harm in teaching religion to children.
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    #2
    Re: Religious Trauma Syndrome:What is religious trauma?

    Well I did experience this over a long period of time, and to a huge degree, whilst I was leaning on the edge of leaving Christianity, but I think the article itself is too ideologically driven, with significant mention of the opinions of the author on non-religious topics as well, and blows things out of proportion to a very large degree, and also shifts blame around where it is not properly warranted.

    Are there people who take religion to far with their children? Yes.
    Is this issue big enough to warrant a title in the medical record? Not in my opinion.

    Still, an interesting article nonetheless. =)

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      #3
      Re: Religious Trauma Syndrome:What is religious trauma?

      Definitely exists. Growing up I knew of a Mennonite girl who became sexually active (Completely normal for any 17-19 year old kid.) and then became extremely depressed and shamed when the news got out to her community. It's like, something that a normal kid would get a slap on the wrist for or a talking to, turns into a matter of "If you don't do right you'll burn forever in a fiery pit of hell and your family and community will hate you."

      That's a lot of pressure.
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        #4
        Re: Religious Trauma Syndrome:What is religious trauma?

        I remember that somewhere when I first joined KO, I used thinking of the 42 purifications as rules. Which really didn't help me and my condition. Until one person in KO explained me that these 42 purifications are rather guidelines than actual rules. When it comes to monotheistic religions, it's hard for me to not to feel bad vibes from them sometimes. Each has its own reason. That's why I'm comfortable in the world of polytheism. Sometimes I think "what if I'm doing everything wrong?", out of this thought of only one supernatural being.
        "Fair means that everybody gets what they need. And the only way to get that is to make it happen yourself."



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          #5
          Re: Religious Trauma Syndrome:What is religious trauma?

          Wow, very mixed feelings on that. I've lived a lot of the emotions that her quotes from clients expressed, but I distrust her motives. It way way too easy for someone with that sort of strong charismatic bent to develop their own following while trying to fix the origional ill.
          Great Grandmother's Kitchen

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            #6
            Re: Religious Trauma Syndrome:What is religious trauma?

            I think she's onto something. A friend of mine was raised in a church that was very controlling. She's now 22 and she's still a Christian, but she's having to deal with control issues of her own and how to operate in a community that doesn't conform to a set standard that she can predict. She's also had a lot to deal with regarding her expectations in marriage. As for myself, I don't think I had this experience because I wasn't raised a Christian, I converted in my mid-teens. However, I definitely did feel too scared to leave at 28 because my entire support network would be gone and I lacked the ability to make friends outside of church. So maybe the level of trauma is related to the person's ingrained coping skills.

            She really does have a point when she says that therapists may not understand what their client is going through when they are trying to leave a church. A culture like that permeates every aspect of your life. It's like having a complete do-over without the social skills to rebuild. You have to find a totally new way of interpreting the world around you and find activities to fill in the time that used to be dedicated to church stuff. I think it's easy for people who haven't been in this position to oversimplify. I really liked this paragraph: I didn't really like it that the focus was on AoG and Catholicism. I can't speak for Catholicism, but not every AOG church is like this, and I do think it's a little mean to tar all AOG churches with the same brush. I agree that AoG on basis of it's leadership and recruitment style may be more at risk of creating a controlling environment, but I think whether a church is like this or not comes down to the leadership, not necessarily denomination.

            Do I think RTS is real? For sure. I think it would be really helpful for someone who is looking to leave their religion to have a framework to do so. It does sound like this lady is helping people move to an agnostic/atheistic way of life, but it might be nice to have a pathway for people who would like to leave their church but not necessarily their spirituality.

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              #7
              Re: Religious Trauma Syndrome:What is religious trauma?

              Anytime a person places their personal worth in a group it becomes crippling if they want to leave, It doesn't matter whether it is a church, a bowling team or a relationship. They have "become" what the group requires them to be. Without the group they see their personal value drop to nothing. I would think that any trained counselor would understand the cause and effect of such a move and be able to help the person construct a "bridge" from their old life to a present life while training them not to "become" what they do. I am trained as a faith counselor and I would recognize the challenges presented. I can't see a licensed counselor being unaware of the construct.
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