Poll For Childhood Trauma Sufferers: Did Religion Play A Role In Your Trauma?

[violetclouds]

Religion ( misinterpretation of scripture) played a huge role in my traumas - not in any way that I could 'check' off in the poll but in ways that were a form of emotional abuse by my mother. She is a 'hard-core' Christian - who believes that her job in life is to call out 'sins' and try to basically bully people into accepting her 'version' of what God and faith is all about - which basically discounts his love and grace which he offers us freely and in abundance = I am so thankful that I married a man who was able to show me what the truth of God and Christian faith is about - it of great comfort to me now. I believe it is not the religion that contributes to our traumas but the misuse of it.

 

[Loveneverfails]

Religion ( misinterpretation of scripture) ... I believe it is not the religion that contributes to our traumas but the misuse of it.

I have to say I agree whole heartedly in your description of the misinterpretation of scripture. That is a source of so much conflict for people today. And I admire you for being able to differentiate between your abusers mistakes and the truth of the gospel. I feel very similar. I am continually working toward redefining how I feel about God as I recover, but there is comfort to be found in God and religion...but I've also found those things aren't always best found inside a chapel.

 

[Lolly]

Not really sure on how to answer the poll. When my Dad abused my sister and I, he was still "pretending" to be a Jehovah's Witness. He would go to the services (we call them meetings) but he didn't follow along or even believe in it. He would actually take me out during the meeting to the disabled bathroom and beat me. If people there knew, they would have phoned the police and acted immediately. But because I was used to it at home, I didn't tell anyone. I just thought it was normal.

My Mum and I are still JWs, but my youngest sister does not want to be one anymore, which after all the terrible things she's been through is completely understandable.. Our congregation have been incredibly supportive to her, though, even though she doesn't believe anymore. I find solace in my religion however. I know that my Dad didn't love God and follow his loving guidelines (ex. to love and care for your wife and children). Being a witness gives me a reason to wake up every morning and a hope for the future. It is one of the only things that keeps me going :)

 

[Fadeaway]

Religion played a huge role in more of the emotional aspect of abuse as a child. It kept me from leaving an abusive relationship for a long time.

There is a line from a song called "Cry for the Moon" by Epica that I think is very fitting "Indoctrinated minds often contain sick thoughts and commit most of the evil they preach against."

 

[Changing4Best]

No, religion played no part in my childhood traumas. In fact, in the case of my adult rapes, it helped me to recover. I was not involved in Christianity until I was 49, and just recently before that I had been the victim of date rapes by my boy"friend" of several years. The rapes did not occur until a couple of years after we were together. A church helped me to hide from him and get away from him, both with monetary help and relocation help. I am eternally grateful for this!

Anyway, as a child my parents brought me up Unitarian and I was not involved in any formal kind of religious training. No one at that church tried anything untoward with me in any way. In fact, adults there treated me with the utmost of respect. However, in my crisis above, there was not enough help, nor successful help, so I eventually turned to a Christian church and they eventually helped me get free of the fiend, once I requested them to do so.

 

[Deleted member 28403]

I was an am still being bullyed and due to that I lost all and any faith in God, now being a complete atheist caring only about scientific views.

 

[Kintsugi]

The religious community in which I was raised enabled my early childhood abusers in a sense, and I believe that in a way my religion helped cover up the abuse, because I remember telling my mother about the abuse occurring (she says this never happened; she's wrong) as a very small child, and I think if we weren't so deep in that religious community and so under a microscope, she would have handled that information very differently.

The religion (Judaism) also played a role in the sense that the culture, influenced by recent generational emigration and history, is very staunch about putting family first and keeping the family unit together.

 

[Ronin]

Yes in many complicated and convoluted ways not listed in the poll. I had to get a lot more understanding about group dynamics, psychology beyond the street level and heck, religion itself to get through the worst. Still not there, I've got complicated set of fairly deep triggers. Though at least I'm aware of the what's and why's.

 

[Karen12]

Not exactly. My abuser professed a particular religion (he obviously wasn't following it) so that turned me off of that religion for many years although I'm past that now. I read a wonderful book about women and religion and it helped me see that religion is between me and God and no one else gets to redefine that for me. My relationship with God is between me and Him. The abuse and the abuser no longer enter into it.

 

[Lionheart]

I could not find an appropriate option to vote on as one of the perps was a self-professed Satanist, who delighted in forcing me to deny God and who also physically and sexually abused me.

Still my religion didn't cover up the abuse nor did a person in a position of religious authority abuse me. However my religious beliefs were used to harm me and that is what was so hurtful to me.

There were time when my relationship with God was a huge comfort to me and then there were times that it was a very very difficult for me. It is hard to believe in a loving God when everyone in your life is abusive and seemingly evil. I lost my faith.

Still, I have managed to re-establish a good relationship with God and I am now a Christian Universalist.

 

[Jester]

I was raised Southern Baptist. I gave up on denominations in 2003, but it wasn't until this year that I realized my "complex PTSD" took place at church. For one, I was sexually abused in one of the nursery rooms (I still can't go in there without my stomach getting upset). Additionally, I was ridiculed, criticized, taunted, and hated by my peers from 1991 to 2003, when I was able to leave the church. I was also criticized and emotionally abused by several men in the church. When I pierced my ears, I had men approach me with some kind of tool (a pair of pliers, a knife, even a drill) and offer to "remove those things in [my] ears." Yes, they were joking, but given the abuse I also suffered at school, I was made hyper-alert and "flinchy" around men. To this day, I get along better with (and more easily trust) women.

This year, I've started to realize how hateful and bitter the Southern Baptist Convention really is. Today, my Dad (a hardcore Southern Baptist) said he was praying that Obama and Congress would "have a miserable time this Christmas" because the troops aren't home. I really, really don't like Obama, and I really, really don't like Congress, and I really, really would like to see our troops back home, but I'm not going to pray for someone's misery so I can take pleasure in it. Asking for a god to hurt someone is for your own satisfaction, not some righteous agenda.

I can't go back to a church. I can't be around any kind of church leadership. I can't even read the Bible when I'm in the mood. Crosses, church music--anything that evokes facets of the church I grew up in--sends me into a tail spin of blasphemous, hateful emotions and hypersexuality. I have a belief system, but it goes deeper than religion, and I choose never to trust 99.9% of church members--especially a Southern Baptist--ever again. Manipulation, guilt, and condemnation are their primary weapons, painted pretty with a facade of love and acceptance and concern.