Poll How Has Your Belief In A Higher Power Changed After Your Trauma?

[Snowblower]

Well my personal experience has swayed my belief system drastically. I once believed there was an all loving god but since then i consider myself an agnostic now. Tied to no understanding of a higher power. It's really a complex issue for me because I would love to have some sort of faith in my life. I think back as well to my Grandfather who was toured the Pacific in WWII, and came home with the very same circumstances.

 

[Springer80]

Religious experience/belief and ptsd has been the subject of a fair few professional articles...just type the phrase into any search engine. There are some who believe faith has a direct link to functioning of the nervous system.

 

[intothelight]

I didn't respond, because I find that mine varies. Sometimes I feel a strong connection and other times I feel that I have lost that spiritual connection.

 

[Lucycat]

It was refreshing for me to 'lose' my faith. It was holding me back and I was afraid. Now I don't worry about such things and live in the present rather than worrying about whether there is a heaven and/or hell.

Before, I was concerned that if my abuser asked his God for forgiveness then he would be in Heaven for all eternity. Along with any other repenters, but also with us innocent victims. The idea of being together forever absolutely horrified me. I was a believer, went to church of my own accord and even became a Sunday School teacher as a teenager. But with hindsight I think I was reaching out to find a meaning in my abused life.

Now I believe that when we die, that is it. I feel much more content with that option.

Additionally, I have read a lot of scientific work that dispel religions of all types as myths. I am a logical sort of person that likes to have proof in all aspects rather than simply needing to believe. I have a factual brain and atheism sits well with me.

 

[Snowblower]

I a logical sort of person that likes to have proof in all aspects rather than simply needing to believe. I have a factual brain and atheism sits well with me.

See I would consider myself in the same boat but that's why I say agnostic. I look at string theory and infinite probably. With the absence of proof does not mean it cannot be true. While I do not consider a god I do consider a higher power, idk how I could explain further. But ya that's my understanding

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I never had a faith, my parents kind of let me free to believe whatever I want. Which was weird at times because all the other kids had a religion and were baptized, but among the things my parents did do right, I feel this is one of them.

As a teen I digged in different religions -christianity, buddhism and hinduism. I adopted most beliefs from the latter. I started believing in a higher power (I still call it God) every day more, actually. And I still do, now. I believe God is in us, and outside us. I believe this power inside us has a lot to tell us if we listen to it. It's more of a feeling, than a belief.

Most of my friends of the same generation think I'm nuts for believing this, and I respect them for being atheists. But I think religion as such, is not neccesarily the same as faith or as spirituality. Religion is open to interpretation by people, and differing versions of religions are different interpretations.

 

[Lionheart]

I lost my faith for awhile, but healing has renewed my faith in a higher power, that I call God.

I have faith in a loving God, but I don't believe that means that bad things will not happen to me from time to time. I think it is the human condition that bad things happen to good people occasionally. I think that is due to people having free will; the choice to do good or to do evil, and not because God is punishing me. So perhaps in that sense God is not all powerful, but I believe he hurts when I hurt and therefore is all-loving.

Just as a parent, I cannot protect my daughter from all of the things that may befall her, it doesn't mean that I do not love her unconditionally. I think it is the same with God.

 

[Philippa]

I mostly resonate with Radise's post, but nearly everyone who has posted here I have nodded when I read their post. I had a strong connection prior to experiencing the major traumas, but felt as though I lost that connection and faith in it in the thick of it.

I think it is always there, but trauma prevented me from accessing it as easily. I shut down, my empathy shut down and the anger and rage kind of became a full time pre-occupation, so I almost felt like I was damned and that I was naive for ever thinking the way I did...but I know that isn't true. My experiences have been profound and my spiritual development is not something I made up.

I think when humans develop, whether they experience serious trauma or not, they progress and then maybe go backwards, and find themselves at a level they thought they had surpassed, and things seem bleak and you question everything you thought was real.

I'm experiencing more connection these days with All, happily.

 

[ExanimisRex]

This is an interesting question for me and one that I can not answer in that poll, I'll try to explain why. I do not consider myself religious, I believe in God and I believe in Jesus as the son of God and the savior of man, because of this most people would consider me religious but I do not believe because of any group or church. I have faith because I chose to, I believe because I choose to. I believe that having faith gives me a purpose and a direction, a goal to becoming a better person. Faith gives me a set of rules to live by and I strive to be a better person because I believe. The reason that I can not answer the poll is that I never had a time before the onset of my PTSD. By my 17th birthday I had been cut several times, stabbed twice, burned once, shot once and beaten and raped more times than I can count, I grew up in a constant state of wondering if I would survive the day, how can I answer a question that depends on me remembering a time that never existed?

 

[Philippa]

I'm so sorry all those terrible things happened to you ExanimisRex. I still find it so inconceivable that people do these things to other people...and that they survive these things happening on a daily basis. It's incredible.

 

[ExanimisRex]

Thanks but I'm not here for pity, no offense intended. What I really want to know is do people with PTSD remember what their life was like before the event? Can you look back and say to yourself "I want to be like that again?" Is getting back to the way things used to be really a goal?

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Depends, I think. On the one hand, I don't believe that you even can go back to the way things used to be. The things that happen to us, traumatic or not, change our personalities and our environment. On the other hand, I do think people have certain innate qualities that you could "re-discover" or maybe reconstruct.

For example when I was a kid I used to have a huge trust. Which has been demolished. I used to have the uncanny ability to love (even those whom I should've regarded as my enemies). But I don't think these qualities are lost to me entirely, I think they're just lost under the pile of rubble.

For me trauma started early and I have no good recollection of happy memories 'before it started'. Even if things had been better I don't think going back would be a good approach. It may sound paradoxical, as trauma is very destructive, but I believe there is also a constructive side to it in the long run, when you start recovering.