Whether or not religious abuse is real isn't up for debate, as the recent discovery of mass graves at residential schools for Native American children continues to prove. I've heard some evangelicals use gaslighting language to try to isolate the issue (and to shift blame exclusively on the Catholics, as they are keen to do), …
Continue reading Exvangelical Meditation: Mass Graves and Residential Schools
In 2018 -- 12 years after walking away from the church -- I finally went to therapy and confronted what I came to understand was trauma I still carried from my religious upbringing. The more I realized that I still carried so much trauma within myself, the more I knew that I needed to confront …
Continue reading My Story: A Dream of a Million Feathers – A Tale of A Repentant Abuser
Marlene Winell's book LEAVING THE FOLD, in which she coined the phrase "religious trauma syndrome," was immensely helpful in my own healing -- particularly in recognizing the ways I still carried abuse and trauma from my experience in church. (I left the church in 2006, but did not read the book until 2018.) For example, …
Continue reading Exvangelical Meditation: The Sin of Pride and Religious Trauma
Surviving the Spirit 