Lessons In Unlearning

I accidentally deconstructed from the purity cult

Photo by Nathan Wright on Unsplash

I didn’t set out to not believe in God anymore. In truth, I just wanted to believe in myself more. My inner voice is quiet when I want it to be louder. Maybe she’s timid after years of neglect and abuse, rightfully so. So now is my time, my charge to show her, my sweet intuition, my conscience, my soul care and compassion. What does that look like?

That quietness of our inner voice, our dimmed knowing, is a trademark of religious indoctrination in women. Submitting to your parents will, then your husband’s, and always to God, necessarily meant you had no will of your own. How did that infamous TLC show make “keeping sweet” look so novel? Oh yeah, lies and money.

Although not yet a diagnosis in the DSM, the term “religious trauma syndrome,” first coined by Psychologist Marlene Winell, PhD, relays that religion can be traumatizing in two separate but equal ways: enduring the trauma/spiritual abuse and then leaving the faith community.

I’ve likened this process to that of peeling an onion, only you don’t know you have an onion to begin with. You grapple with learning that the internal voice inside your head is fundamentally flawed, and you have no idea how many layers of damage you have to go through to find the authentic. The shape and size of the…