Welcome

Well, hello. Welcome to my cozy little corner of the void. Please, pull up a chair and let me fix you some tea. I’m not quite sure how you found yourself here, but I do hope you enjoy your stay.

Who am I, you ask? In all reality, I’m just some random person. I’ve tried keeping a public log of writings of my deeper thoughts and ideas, but over the past few years I’ve found that my particular audience of closer friends, family, and acquaintances would not be too fond of what I have to say anymore.

It’s not that I have anything particularly extreme or uncommon, but coming from a rather religious background, it is pretty well frowned upon to disagree with the larger consensus. After having spent the last few years learning about my own mental health and attending therapy, I’ve come to the conclusion (with the shared opinion of my therapist) that I have CPTSD, or Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - in part due to childhood experiences in my household, but also largely thanks to the particular religious environment that I grew up in.What makes a case of PTSD “Complex” you might ask? Here is a definition from Cleveland Clinic’s website:

What’s the difference between CPTSD and PTSD?

The main differences between PTSD and CPTSD are the length of trauma and the symptoms.

Traditionally, experts thought PTSD generally developed from short-term trauma, such as a vehicle accident or a natural disaster. With research, they realized that people who experience long-term repeated trauma tend to have other symptoms in addition to the symptoms of PTSD.

Both CPTSD and PTSD involve symptoms of psychological and behavioral stress responses, such as flashbacks, hypervigilance and efforts to avoid distressing reminders of the traumatic event(s).

People with CPTSD typically have additional symptoms, including chronic and extensive issues with:

• Emotion regulation.
• Identity and sense of self.
• Relationships.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24881-cptsd-complex-ptsd

In other words, I have a lot of trouble functioning like a normal human being due to my experiences in religion. There are a lot of people out there who share the same feelings and struggles as me, as well as many people who have experienced the things I have but due to the level of emotional and mental manipulation that is used within religious circles, aren’t able to recognize it.

I wasn’t able to fully recognize it myself until I stepped out of it entirely. When it comes to religion, Christianity in particular, there is this hope that one’s personal intention and desire to do good can and should outweigh all of the bad that may come out of the belief system.

“Sure, bad things happen in this religion, but the large majority of people in it have good intentions.”

Because of the heavily enforced belief that “our doctrine is the correct doctrine, all others are false, or worse: evil,” so much just gets swept under the rug in hopes of being forgotten. For the time being I’m going to ignore all of the macro-level and obvious things like genocide of peoples of other faiths, slavery, colonization, and so on. That stuff is obvious, and it’s disheartening how many people want to pretend like it didn’t happen or doesn’t have significance on today. No, what I’m referring to are all of the micro-level issues that may only affect a handful of individuals, which makes them much easier for those unaffected to sweep them under the rug:

• Abuses of power: clergy and those in leadership who care more about being in control than about the wellbeing of those they’re over
• Sexual abuse: when those in leadership use their positions of power to manipulate others into sexual situations, especially with minors or those already in committed relationships
• Emotional manipulation: using the spiritual pressure of “avoiding sin” and “living a godly life” (both of which are subjective and always turn out in the manipulator’s favor) to pressure someone to act or behave a certain way
• Negative views of outsiders: teaching ideas such as the inherent wickedness/worthlessness of “unsaved people” to deem outsiders as lesser than oneself or to justify hate or invasive behaviors towards those people

The list goes on and on, but these are the types of behaviors that Christianity, especially American Christianity continues to perpetuate. Unfortunately, I have not been free of its negative effects.

Anyway, that’s why I’m hiding out here. I’ve had my share of religiously induced trauma and have come to realize how much shit keeps getting swept under the rug. I’m exhausted from dealing with this all of my life and even though I would love to just be vocal and push back against it all, I don’t have the emotional capacity to handle toxic and manipulative behavior from people I know even more.

I am aware that even sharing my thoughts and experiences publicly but anonymously will still invite the trolls to the comments, but I just feel like I have to share what needs to be shared. Besides, if people need to go out of their way to make uneducated and snide remarks to people to feel some sort of bawdy pleasure, then that’s probably the only way they’re going to feel anything anyway. It really just goes to validate everything I’m saying about the toxicity of people like those in religious leadership who just have to be in control.

Enough about me. How is your tea? Not too hot, I hope. I always forget that I even have a cup of tea whenever I have to wait for it to cool down. In the meantime, stick around as long as you like. There’s always room for one more.