Poll Did Your Trauma Effect Your Religious Views?

[karissa]

I was brought up very religious. My mom used to make us sit in front of the television to watch the catholic channel. I always used pray for bad things to stop. I was obsessive with believing God controlled everything. Then in my twenties, when my mom was dying, I was praying for her to live, every day in church to Saint Anthony. She miraculously lived, but later I had wished for her to die. I know this sounds awful but she was my abuser. So I started to resent God. I still believe in him but now I am mad at him and I can't step into a church without being triggered. I get sick to my stomach and it reminds me of my childhood (strict catholic) and my mother's almost death. It was at this time in my life when I was diagnosed with PTSD. I went from being numb and dissociating my whole life to having a total breakdown and was overwhelmed with symptoms. It was awful.

 

[Kintsugi]

I became incredibly religious right after I began to show symptoms, but my religion was not really about God. I always had a very druid-like sense of faith. I believed as a child that nature would talk to me if I was quiet enough (I was a very quiet kid and often told my friends that we should play a game where the first person to stop being silent lost--hah!). When I say I became "incredibly religious," I was praying to gods that didn't exist, gods that I had built up in my head as an image of faith and divinity. I believed WHOLLY in destiny, which was mostly my first BF's doing. Then he became very very abusive in all forms, and I lost all of my faith entirely.

Now I ask people who are very religious to try and convert me. I ask people to convince me into faith. I tell people to make me believe in God and religion. I am very jealous of those with faith, because when there is something bigger than I at work, I feel less insecure about my life. But faith doesn't just magically appear. I can't make myself believe in something when I don't. I believe in the divinity of numbers like pi, in 'perfect' chemicals, in the design of DNA strands. These are just divine patterns in the Universe. Math and science just bring me closer to appreciating Life.

 

[Kb3]

I was a lapsed catholic until my trauma. I was raised with it, but it was never more than a mindless obligation, and when I became an adult and no one was forcing me to go, I just stopped.

I had a spiritual awakening during my trauma in which I believe God spoke to me and set me free. It was the most extraordinary privilege that I have ever known, and it has shaped every decision that I have made since that moment.

I go to church frequently, and find ways everyday to thank Him for the love and compassion that He showed me that day, as well as for His continued presence in my life. His love, and my gratitude for it, is boundless.

 

[aditi]

That is very interesting, Aditi,to see depersonalization etc. as a form of transendence. And why not? PTSD does make your mind larger. A lot of research with that new therapy shows that there are clusters of neurons. God only know what that might do to our thoughts!!

I have had some very odd experiences since, and who knows if it is brain, spirit, soul? I am sure I don't know but it's interesting to try to find out!

Hi OKRADLAK, I used spirituality as a way of helping when I was very deep in the pain and I had some amazing experiences, really felt I'd left the ego behind for great long chunks of time, felt at one with everything, had what you would call enlightenment experiences, but they went. I've since read that that's normal and it takes time to get to true enlightenment, but then I worried that I was using it as a tool to keep on hiding from the emotions, when I've only just had a big enough trauma to get to the bottom of the initial trauma of childhood instead of burying it, like I've always tried to do. The man I'm reading says that a lot of these gurus are simply 'overlifting' from their pain, putting it away instead of healing it and integrating it into their personalities. I can see what he means.

I'm not very well today so won't explain it well I don't think, but I believe that if we're not healed enough in the first place we shouldn't be trying to transcend everything, because it needs working through, integrating INTO our personality and THEN we can start to think about what this thing called ego really is, and how useful it is to us. After all, our personalities are simply our past and the beliefs we hold. Once we have better beliefs about ourselves and our past is worked on, then we can become our best selves, for want of a better way of putting it.

As long as we are alive we need personalities, to an extent. So instead of trying to drop the ego, why not make it into the most healthy we can? Kind of align it with our higher selves. PTSD is an attempt to escape, I think. We shouldn't be escaping our life, we should be working out why we are running and make it so we don't need to run any more. Then we can live from our souls (for want of a better word) instead of broken ego selves. That's where I am for now, but I am pretty confused most of the time. ;)

 

[anni]

I do agree with the above, and it's lovely, truly! It's also being a little tough on yourself, you know. This isn't an argumentative thing to say, but you say you're confused most of the time. This isn't necessarily something which one can always do a huge amount about ( said the Queen of kefluffled ). Perhaps we attempt to escape some of what PTSD does to us, but to say PTSD is an attempt to escape is kind of across the board beating oneself up a tad. There's just plain neurological re-routing which has transpired, which is the culprit for some of our various symptoms. I always sound like an idiot trying to explain this stuff, but there are articles here do a nice job directing one through the xyz's on the whole ball of wax ( or neurons, as it were ). We don't operate like we used to, and of course how we wish to. Frustrating, among other things.

I didn't mean to get too far off the spiritual track with this, except that it's ok to not really feel the PTSD is something which is being escaped from. Dealt with, healed through, made peace with individually ( and spiritually ) but it's kind of not going anywhere but that's got to be ok too. Being here in the forum was awfully helpful with this realization, actually.

Again, I'm SO not meaning this in anything but some probably confusing on my own part explanatory vein, so please excuse if it comes across as challenging a belief system. Healing is also about what just plain works for each person, and how we perceive our own paths is prescious- do not wish to trample on anyone else's.

Do take care,

Anni

 

[Tinyflame]

I think ptsd manifests itself for me (the Big, overall picture) in a feeling to escape or an 'obligation' to. Not from myself, because that is obviously impossible, but over-all, so in that way 'not needing to run' would be to me a sign of healing.

 

[aditi]

Hi Anni, and thanks for your comment. You're not challenging a belief system so don't worry. Since I started to heal I've found that my belief system changes almost daily. :) Everyone's path is individual and I would hate to invalidate anyone. I think a large part of why I'm even on this forum is invalidation in the past from the people who caused my trauma.

I find the internet difficult. I even find the phone hard because it's not face to face and body language but at least people can interject if there's misunderstanding. So, if I ever write anything that looks like I know what I'm talking about and others don't, I never mean it that way.

My statement about PTSD was too sweeping. I think I meant that for me ptsd (and I haven't been diagnosed but I'm working on it) means I am constantly running away from anything which doesn't comfort me, make me feel safe, etc. And I am also trying to run away from myself, because I find myself the MOST frightening thing: this stuff that's going on in my head. I was afraid of keeping on running (maybe into spirituality now) instead of facing the thing I'd avoided facing for 40 years. I hope that makes sense.

I have a lot to learn about ptsd. I think for now that acceptance is a major part of being a healthy human. Changing the things we can change, but accepting the things we can't.

Yeah, I'm confuzzled 24/7, and that has to be okay too. :)

 

[Brontie]

No religion here but have developed a healthy interest in Zen Meditation and Buddhism.
It helped me to relax and work at living in the moment and stop worrying and thinking so much about the past.

 

[OKRADLAK]

Confuzzled here, too! Great word!

I think our personalities change a lot through trauma, too, Aditi. I know I a totally different. It is hard when people THINK you are the same but you are not.

That may be why we need to seek out meaningful things is a different way?

 

[Tinyflame]

That may be why we need to seek out meaningful things is a different way?

For me, yes.

 

[aditi]

I think our personalities change a lot through trauma, too, Aditi. I know I a totally different. It is hard when people THINK you are the same but you are not.
That may be why we need to seek out meaningful things is a different way?

Yes, I think you're right OKRADLAK.

I think my whole personality was formed by the abuse, as it happened so young. Now I'm turning into a different person each week as I work through the ways I'm responding to life that were shaped by trauma. So each day I meet a new me. For years I was the same but since being re-traumatised and getting to healing at last I've changed time and time again. Astounding! Confuzzling! ;)

 

[Amy Jo]

yea I was never quite right my whole life, i always felt so empty and numb and on high-alert as to who I should be for each person. As ptsd carries on and i open to new beliefs and faith, I'm not empty anymore. It vanished somehow and it's like a freakin miracle. I'm deciding who I want to become. I sometimes think my "abuser" took away from me who I'll never be able to become, but i think maybe, because of our trauma and the work we put in to getting better, we become better people than we would have been without it.