religious trauma | David M Masters

Religious Trauma the Invisible Disease

Religious trauma is an invisible debilitating disease which left to its own devices will reduce its victims to insanely obsessed hate-driven workaholic atheists on one end of the spectrum to barely functioning depressives with suicidal tendencies on the other.

The mental and emotional price which is paid by victims of religious trauma is just too much to fathom. So hard to comprehend, in fact, that society has little or no tolerance for it, unless it refers specifically to child sexual abuse, otherwise, any concerns one may have regarding religious trauma is seen as insignificant.

As far as society is concerned, just stop engaging with the religious organization which has upset you, find another one, or stop going altogether and take up a hobby to replace the void left by your vacating the religion. No big deal.

They have no idea the price which is paid for the total collapse of an entire belief system. It’s the kind of thing you could never be able to conceive of unless you’ve experienced it or seen it over and over again in your daily practice.

If you’ve been struck by religious trauma from the neck up, you’re confused, because your whole world’s been turned upside down. It’s hard to make sense of anything in the real world) if there were such a thing). I mean how can you know what’s right, what’s wrong, what should you do next? Especially in world that not long ago, any wrong decision or move, could end in sudden death, or even something far worse, like eternal damnation.

Your emotions are all over the map and you do your best to appear to be “normal” when you’re angry, hurt, unable to find joy in the simple things in life, lack or purpose, and suffering from unspoken grief of separation from community and “God,” for God’s sake.

You suffer the loss of friends and find it hard to trust anyone after you’ve suffered religious trauma, and you feel like a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by a million people whom you may have thought were “evil,” and trying to rectify the idea you’re now one of “them.”

And if you’ve been in the grip of an authoritative religion for a while (since childhood) God forbid! You’re lucky to have made it this far!

You are a super-mess. You have no idea how to function in the real world.

You have no concept of how to act “normal” and for those to try to fit in too soon, they often find themselves over-reacting, as if, since they no longer have any chance of being with God, then they should just engage in everything they’ve been told not to do, finding themselves suffering the consequences of really poor decision-making.

And if you’ve suffered mental, physical, and sexual abuse, in the name of God, you feel as if there is no hope for you, ever.

Those affected by religious trauma often find themselves diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and clinical depression. Along with a long list of mental disorders, including bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, anxiety, borderline personality, eating, social and anti-social, marital and sexual dysfunction, alcohol and drug abuse, suicidal ideation, trouble with the law, and criminal tendencies.

We read about the most extreme cases in the news, hear about it in the media, and online, after some poor victim has found themselves so far outside the idea of having any hope, their names are found anywhere from the front page to the obituaries, and the truth of their struggle with religious trauma may never be fully understood.

But there is hope.

Though help may not be easily found among the secular services which are commonly available via “the social system,” for there can be little empathy or understanding from those who have no idea what it might have been to suffer, as you have.

The bulk of this necessary work of recovery, healing, and charting a new path for you is primarily a solo journey, but there are many who do know what you’re going through, because they, too, have suffered in similar ways (likely not the same but similar). They know, and they pray for you.

They pray? They believe?

Yes, they have found their way to the other side of the trauma and abuse and have been able to realize that their suffering was at the hands of misled, possibly “evil” human beings falsely claiming authority of God, NOT by any deity.

They have not only survived, but they now thrive. So, yes, there is life, wonderfully abundant, joyful and loving life on the other side of religious trauma.

You can live a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place.

See you at the Recovery from Religious Trauma Event in Olympia, September 21st

Religious Trauma Spiritual Abuse

Religious trauma is far more complicated a gnarly beast than you might think on the surface. Of course, the headlines are full of shocking reports of improprieties against the youngsters in devoutly religious families. These young people keep these deep, dark religious secrets until mid-life, after years of struggling with covering up and hiding the truth of the sins of those who they trusted to be God’s representatives.

There is no doubt that this would warp the minds, twist the consciousness, and cause psychological and physical manifestations which are extremely difficult to manage when attempting to integrate with other individuals in the adult world.

The bottling, pushing down, and hiding of it, cause it to rear its ugly head as dysfunction, mental illness, suicidal tendencies, or physical diseases, even cancer.

But there is a far more common type of spiritual abuse which takes place every day, in many (if not most) religious families the world over.

These types of spiritual abuse, or religious abuse, are not dissimilar to other types of abuse, except that they are propagated by religious leaders, their followers, fathers, mothers, and children of religious organizations all “in the name of God.”

Mental abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse committed by spiritual sex predators, all acts of God.

Or, at least, this is how it is represented, or received and/or understood by the victims of said religious or spiritual abuse.

These victims either succumb to the abuse as a necessary rite of passage into spirituality increasing their connection to God as they sacrifice their humanity as a benevolent offering or the abuse haunts and terrorizes them, until they break free from the organization, horrified that God would allow or condone such behavior.

There is no greater crime against humanity than using the highest power to manipulate, torture, or abuse another being, yet these criminals hide behind a protective barrier, which we call, “Freedom of religion.”

These victims, long after their abuse in a “do or die” last-ditch-effort to find a way to survive a life of religious trauma, are speaking out, holding their spiritual abusers accountable, and we read about their courage to do so in the headlines.

The most important thing to remember in all of this is that your victimizer was not God. No matter what he or she claims, God had nothing to do with these crimes against you. I know it feels like God is responsible, but there is no God involvement here, no matter what anyone says.

God is only love; that’s all. Anything that is not love is not God, and the perpetrators of these crimes against you were not representing God at the times when these atrocities were taking place.

And the next thought which occurs to you is, “Where was God?” Or, “How could God let this happen to me?” If your thoughts are left to themselves, following a brief pause, you may conclude, “There is no God.”

No one would blame you. And there are those who would be quick to agree with you.

Know this: God is love. God loves you more than anything, and you are God’s precious creation.

Religion is man’s attempt to reach out to, rationalize, and find God, but God is here, inside of you, all around you. There is not a God out there, hiding, waiting to be found. God is here.

Even when you feel like God is not here, God is here.

Now, it’s up to you, to find a safe place and protect yourself from further abuse, and seek your healing from vicious wounds and scars, both seen and unseen.

If you allow the crimes of this person, or these persons, to separate you from God, then they have exerted their prowess over you, and those who have victimized you, committed atrocities against you, they are the psychotic victors. They’ve won; because there is nothing they would like more than to have enough power over you to separate you from God. And in doing so, they endow themselves with god-like power.

A predatory religious psychopath is excited and finds extreme pleasure in the destruction of others. There is nothing that would please them more than you’re being depressed, miserable, in pain, constant struggle, and abandonment of any idea that there may be a creator or higher energy source that loves you, no matter what.

But, if you can find God on your own, in whatever way makes sense to you, to grow and expand faith and love in any way you can on your own terms, that person, or those persons, who sought to destroy you are rendered powerless, and YOU emerge victorious.

Becoming your highest and best version of yourself, living a better life, your best life, and making the world a better place in spite of all the horrors you have endured exemplifies that God is there, and those who sought to destroy you, failed miserably.

The road to recovery is not without its challenges, and you cannot do it wrong, but you can do this. This is your destiny, your calling. If you can survive this, there are others out there who desperately need to know there is hope for them, and you can help give them hope enough to make it one more day. And that one day can make all the difference.

You are priceless treasure.

Shine.

See you at the Recovery from Religious Trauma Event in Olympia, September 21st

Societal and Religious Programming

The biggest conspiracy of all time is the battle for the control of your mind. Everyone’s fighting for control of your mind, it’s a miracle if any of us can have a really original thought at all. Nonetheless, there is a growing number of people who are breaking free from societal and religious programming.

You can understand how truly miraculous any free thought could be, if you’re able to see how the cards are stacked against you from the moment you take your first breath.

The powers that be, those who desperately fight for control of you, will stop at nothing to make you believe what they want you to believe. The people (all humanity) is so much easier to manage en masse. So, societal engineers go about creating a wide variety of belief systems to herd the people into manageable groups. All this mysterious mental programming goes on behind the scenes so stealthily, that none of us (very few of us) are aware of it going on at all.

The system provides us with ample choices to select from which gives us the illusion of having freedom, and indeed, in this respect, we do have freedom of choice. To choose between this and that. To obey the laws or live a life of crime. To choose between to work for the State or private industry. To go to school to increase your ability to earn a living, or to find another way to support yourself.

To join a worthy non-profit service, fraternal organization, political party, or not. To work for the man or start your own business. To adopt a religious belief system (there are many to choose from) in a theistic manner, or not as an atheist, or anywhere in between.

So effective is this programming, that the system fully supports it in every way. Laws are created to enforce it and noncompliance is either a verifiable illegal act, or a mental disease or disorder which can be treated wither by restraint, drugs, therapy, or death by natural causes.

This is all done with the “best intentions,” to manipulate, control, and profit from all human inhabitants, but there are those who seek to exploit the individual members of these groups. These wolves in sheep’s clothing infiltrate all types of organizations under false pretenses to exploit its members.

Any of these organizations have varying degrees of built-in control mechanisms to further manage the details of the lives of those who participate within them. Religious organizations have the greatest degree of control for they “represent” the highest power in the world: God.
“God” and “Country” are the two largest contributors of premature death in the world.

Certain people (the majority of them) will gladly (or reluctantly) sacrifice their lives for either God, their country, or even more powerfully: both.

All this exercising of control is taking place while humans blindly follow and pledge their allegiance to these manipulating factions, while the religious psychopaths, and predators of all types who seek to victimize those who submit themselves to the dogma of the system, exploit the followers.

It’s no surprise the followers mostly from military or religious channels suffer from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and have suicidal tendencies, for they have subjected themselves to drama, trauma, and abuse out of a sincere desire to serve either God or country.

To think that the very same people you have entrusted your life to, have taken advantage of you, tortured, and abused you in all manners, is an unfathomable concept. Yet, the truth of the matter is that it IS true.

As a regular common course of business, these victims visit the offices of coaches, counselors, and therapists every day in search of hope. We see them every day, and their painful stories would shock anyone.

So grateful are those of us who avail ourselves to them, that they have graced our offices with their presence before they either find themselves in penitentiaries or cemeteries.

This is in answer to our prayer.

Though we may not be able to help them all, we do our best in the hope that we might, by all means, save some.

Amen.

See you at the Recovery from Religious Trauma Event in Olympia, September 21st

Suffering from Religious Trauma and Abuse

Victims of religious trauma or spiritual abuse suffer from the invisible disease that can be totally debilitating because everything you believed to be true, your whole world, everything you trusted and believed in has crashed to the ground in burning flames, and you survived. Or did you?

If you’ve been a victim of religious trauma or spiritual abuse, no one can tell, because you have to go on with your life, right? Being victimized by a religious leader or believer can have you trying to get along in life among a spectrum. And this spectrum is all over the map.

On one end of the scale is showing up as an insanely obsessed hate-driven workaholic atheist, on the other end, you’re a barely functioning depressive with suicidal tendencies, and anywhere in between.

Or comes the day that someone takes their own life due to the effects of religious trauma or spiritual abuse, and in most cases, no one really knows why. Oh, sure it’s sad, when someone commits suicide, and (sarcasm intended) certainly no one would do such a thing because they used to go to church or had a particular religious affiliation. Right?

See. That’s the thing. To most people, they have no idea what happens within the walls of the church or behind closed doors in the name of God. Our therapists have no idea, and treat you just like anyone else who comes into their office, and suggest getting over it and going on with your life, like a big boy or girl.

Unless you’ve been through this kind of trauma, you have no idea how deep the invisible wounds are.

These wounds run deep, and those who have exploited and abused you have used the most powerful weapon and control tactic ever conceived: “God says.” And once you’ve bought into the idea that there is an all-powerful God who will punish you, either now, or in the future (even eternally), that gives a religious psychopath all the power in the word to force you to think and act in ways you might not otherwise be inclined.

The headlines are full of stories coming out, these days, about what goes on behind church doors, and what is being revealed is shocking. Most people have no clue that what they’re seeing in the news and media isn’t even a fraction of a percentage of what’s really going on behind the scenes in the name of “God.”

If all these acts are not sanctioned by “the church,” they are certainly covered up, so as not to tarnish the image of the church. And to be fair, this happens in all organizations who house many members or participants. The greater the population base of your membership, the more evil participants you will attract. It is just the nature of the beast.

Where you find a number of potential victims, you will find cunning predators, or wolves in sheep’s clothing, who will exploit whomever they deem will satisfy their evil desires. All manner of corporations, organizations, including political and military are in the same boat of having to manage the evildoers among them, and in a sense, protecting the public from discovering how bad things could be in the inner circle of any organization or nonprofit.

Not all of them are religious psychopaths, some are just exploitative compulsive controllers or narcissists who feel as though they are better than anyone else, so they have certain entitlement, privileges, or power over their “weaker” contemporaries.

And the type of abuse that is administered is also all over the map, depending on how twisted and demented the predators are and what positions they hold in the organization, to include even spiritual sex predators.

But there is hope for you, if you have been the victim of religious exploitation or abuse, and coaches and counselors who are trained in religious trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have the tools and techniques that will help victims eliminate the pain that drains their resources and slowly but silently kills them a little more each day.

If you need help finding someone who resonates with you, drop me a line. I can refer you to the right person who can help get to a safe place. To not only survive, but to thrive and have a powerfully full life, self-empowered in love and joy. (Even if that sounds impossible to you, right now.)