When Faith Hurts: Understanding and Healing Religious Trauma
Religious Trauma is Real—And You Deserve Support
Many people have been hurt by the very communities that were supposed to offer love and safety. By leaders who were meant to guide and protect. By teachings that were presented as truth but caused lasting pain.
If you've experienced shame, control, or abuse in a religious setting, your pain is valid.
This isn't about attacking faith or religion. Many faith communities are beautiful, supportive places. But some use fear, shame, and control in ways that cause real harm. And when that happens, the damage can be deep and confusing.
You might still love parts of your faith while also recognizing the harm that was done. Both of those things can be true at the same time.
In this post, we'll talk about what religious trauma is, why it's so hard to heal from, and how therapy can help. Most importantly, we want you to know this: healing from religious trauma doesn't mean you're betraying your faith. It means you're taking care of yourself.
What Is Religious Trauma?
Religious trauma happens when spiritual teachings or faith communities cause lasting emotional harm—often through shame, control, or fear. It can leave you anxious, confused about your identity, and unsure whether you can trust yourself or others.
Let me be more specific about what this looks like.
Spiritual Abuse
This is when leaders or community members use religion to control, manipulate, or harm you. It might look like a pastor who threatens you with hell for questioning. A parent who uses scripture to justify abusive behavior. A community that shuns you for not conforming.
Spiritual abuse is about power and control disguised as faith.
Shame-Based Teachings
Some religious environments teach that you're fundamentally broken, sinful, or unworthy. They emphasize what's wrong with you rather than celebrating who you are. This kind of teaching creates deep shame that's hard to shake.
You might have internalized messages like:
"You're never good enough"
"Your body is shameful"
"Your thoughts are sinful"
"You deserve punishment"
Harmful Messages About Identity
Religious trauma often involves being told that core parts of who you are are wrong. Your sexuality. Your gender identity. Your questions or doubts. Your need for boundaries.
These messages can make you feel like you have to choose between being yourself and being loved.
Control and Exclusion
Some faith communities use isolation as a weapon. If you don't follow all the rules, you're pushed out. If you question teachings, you lose your support system. This creates an environment where people are afraid to be honest about their struggles or doubts.
The fear of losing community keeps people trapped in harmful situations.
Why Is Religious Trauma So Confusing to Heal From?
Religious trauma is uniquely difficult to heal from because the good and the harmful were intertwined. You may still love your faith but hate what was done in its name. Leaving can mean losing community, family, or your entire identity.
This is what makes religious trauma different from other kinds of trauma.
The Good and Bad Were Mixed Together
Your faith community probably wasn't all bad. There were likely people who genuinely cared about you. Traditions that brought comfort. Moments of real connection and meaning.
That's what makes this so hard. You can't just reject everything without losing the good parts too. And you can't fully embrace it without accepting the harm.
You May Still Love Your Faith
Here's something people don't always understand. You can be hurt by your religious community and still believe in God or your higher power. You can need to heal from spiritual abuse and still value your faith.
These aren't contradictions. They're the complicated reality of religious trauma.
Leaving Often Means Losing Everything
For many people, their faith community is their entire social network. Their family. Their sense of belonging. Leaving or even questioning can mean losing all of that.
The grief of religious trauma isn't just about what happened. It's also about what you lost when you tried to protect yourself.
You Might Feel Guilty for Even Calling It Trauma
One of the cruelest parts of religious trauma is how it makes you doubt yourself. You might think:
"Maybe I'm being too sensitive"
"Other people handled it fine"
"I should just forgive and move on"
"It's disrespectful to call it abuse"
But your pain is real. And you don't need permission to acknowledge it.
What Are the Signs of Religious Trauma?
Religious trauma shows up a little bit differently for everyone, because your experience is unique. However, there are certainly some common themes that we’ve seen. You might experience anxiety around religious topics or settings. Deep shame that won't go away. Fear of punishment or not being "good enough." Difficulty trusting yourself or others. Or anger and grief about lost time.
Here are the most common signs:
Anxiety Around Religion
Even thinking about faith or religious settings makes you anxious. You might avoid driving past your old church. Or feel panicked when someone mentions God. Your body remembers the fear even when your mind tries to move on.
This anxiety can show up physically. Racing heart. Sweating. Feeling like you need to escape. Some people can't read religious texts anymore without feeling overwhelmed. Others can't be around people who remind them of their former community.
The anxiety isn't irrational. Your nervous system learned that religious spaces weren't safe. It's protecting you the only way it knows how.
Persistent Shame
There's a voice in your head constantly telling you you're not good enough. That you're dirty, sinful, or fundamentally flawed. This shame shows up in how you treat yourself and what you believe you deserve.
You might struggle with perfectionism. Or sabotage good things in your life because you don't believe you deserve them. The shame can make it hard to accept compliments or believe that people genuinely like you.
This shame often gets triggered by normal human experiences. Making a mistake. Having sexual thoughts. Feeling angry. Things that wouldn't bother other people send you into a spiral of self-hatred.
Fear of Punishment
You're afraid something bad will happen if you don't follow the rules. Even rules you no longer believe in. There's a lingering fear of hell, divine punishment, or cosmic consequences.
This fear can be paralyzing. You might still pray out of fear, not love. Or avoid certain behaviors just in case the teachings were right. Some people experience intrusive thoughts about eternal punishment that won't go away.
The fear doesn't always make logical sense. But fear rarely does. It's a learned response from years of being taught that one wrong move could cost you everything.
Difficulty Trusting Yourself
You second-guess your own thoughts and feelings. You don't trust your instincts. This often comes from being told repeatedly that your inner voice is sinful or wrong.
You might struggle to make decisions without asking others for input. Or constantly seek reassurance that you're doing the right thing. You've learned to dismiss your own needs and feelings as invalid or dangerous.
This self-doubt extends to everything. Career choices. Relationships. Even small decisions feel overwhelming because you don't trust yourself to choose correctly.
Trust Issues With Others
It's hard to let people in. You're always waiting for judgment or betrayal. This makes sense when your faith community—the people who were supposed to be safe—hurt you.
You might test people to see if they'll abandon you when they see the "real" you. Or keep everyone at arm's length to avoid getting hurt again. Vulnerability feels terrifying because the last time you were vulnerable, you got hurt.
This can make relationships feel lonely even when people care about you. It's not that you don't want connection. It's that connection feels dangerous.
Anger or Rage
Sometimes religious trauma shows up as anger. At the institution. At leaders. At yourself for staying as long as you did. This anger is valid and often part of healing.
The anger might surprise you with its intensity. You might find yourself raging at things that didn't bother you before. Or feeling bitter when you see people still happily participating in faith communities that hurt you.
Some people feel guilty about this anger. But anger is a healthy response to harm. It's your psyche recognizing that what happened wasn't okay. Don't apologize for it.
Grief and Loss
You grieve what was taken from you. Lost time. Lost relationships. The innocence of believing without questioning. This grief is real and deserves space.
You might grieve the version of yourself that believed so completely. Or the relationships that ended when you started questioning. Some people grieve the entire worldview they had to leave behind.
This grief can come in waves. You might feel okay for months and then suddenly feel devastated all over again. That's normal. Grief doesn't follow a timeline.
How Does Therapy Help With Religious Trauma?
Therapy helps with religious trauma by using evidence-based approaches like EMDR, IFS, and CPT to reprocess traumatic memories. You'll learn to separate harmful teachings from your core values and reclaim your voice and sense of self. Healing from harm isn't betraying your faith.
Let me explain how this actually works.
EMDR Helps Your Brain Process What Happened
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is one of the most effective treatments for trauma. It helps your brain reprocess painful memories so they're less triggering.
With religious trauma, EMDR can help reduce the emotional intensity of memories like being shamed in front of your congregation. Or a leader telling you you're going to hell. Or the moment you realized the harm that was happening.
These memories don't disappear. But they lose their power over you.
IFS Helps You Understand Your Internal Conflict
Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy recognizes that you have different parts of yourself that may be in conflict. One part might still want to believe. Another part is angry about what happened. Another part feels guilty for questioning.
IFS helps these parts work together instead of fighting. It creates space for all of your feelings without requiring you to choose sides.
ACT Helps Your Live by Your Values, Not Your Fear
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is really helpfull for religious trauam because it focuses on clarifying and honoring what truly matters to you-not what you were told should matter.
ACT teaches you to notice shame-based thoughts without being controlled by them. That critical voice might still show up, but you learn to recognize it as just a thought, not truth. This is called cognitive defusion.
With religious trauma, ACT helps you:
Identify your personal, authentic values separate from religious rules
Make choices based on what you care most about, not fear
Accept that pain from the past happened while still moving forward
Take committed action toward the life you want to live
Instead of fighting against thoughts of being “sinful” or “wrong,” ACT helps you acknowledge those thoughts exist while being able to choose how you want to move forward in life to be who you truly want to be.
You'll Learn to Separate Harm From Core Values
Not everything you were taught was harmful. Some values—like compassion, community, or service—may still resonate with you. Therapy helps you sort through what to keep and what to release.
You get to decide what feels true for you. Not what someone else said you should believe.
You'll Reclaim Your Voice
Religious trauma often silences you. Therapy helps you learn to trust yourself again. To know what you think and feel. To set boundaries. To make choices based on your values, not fear.
This is powerful work. And it's not betraying your faith. It's taking care of yourself.
You're Not Betraying Your Faith by Healing From Harm
This is so important I want to say it clearly. Healing from religious trauma is not the same as rejecting God, your higher power, or your faith tradition. You can heal from abuse while still holding onto what's meaningful to you.
Let me be direct about this.
If a leader hurt you in the name of religion, that's on them. Not on God. Not on your faith. Not on you.
If teachings caused you shame, that doesn't mean all of your faith is wrong. It means those specific teachings were harmful.
You deserve to heal. You deserve support. And you deserve to find peace—whether that means staying connected to your faith in a new way, stepping away completely, or finding something in between.
At Aspire Counseling, we have therapists who specialize in treating religious trauma. We understand how complicated this is. We won't push you toward or away from your faith. We work with clients every day who value the role their faith plays in their life. We'll help you heal and find clarity on your own terms. Then, your faith can feel like a strength, rather than a ball & chain.
Finding Support for Religious Trauma in Missouri
If you're struggling with religious trauma, you don't have to face it alone. Therapy can help you process what happened, reduce anxiety and shame, and rebuild trust in yourself.
Maybe you're questioning your faith and wondering if that's okay. Or you want to understand what to expect in therapy when your faith matters to you. We've written about those topics too.
At Aspire Counseling, we're here to support you wherever you are in your journey. We have offices in Lee's Summit and Columbia, Missouri. We also offer online therapy throughout the state.
Ready to take the first step? Call us at 573-328-2288 or contact us through our website. We offer free consultations to help you find the right therapist.
You deserve healing. And we're here to help you find it.
About the Author
Jessica Oliver, LCSW (formerly Tappana) is the founder and clinical director of Aspire Counseling. She believes deeply in honoring all faiths and has worked with clients from a wide variety of religious and spiritual backgrounds throughout her career. Jessica provides guidance, leadership, and consultation to the entire team of therapists at Aspire Counseling and maintains a limited clinical caseload in both the Lee's Summit and Columbia, Missouri offices.
