Hey beautiful, welcome to my new podcast, Queerly Having Issues. I believe we all have our issues because we all have a story. My name is Jafeth and it's time to tell you about mine. As this is the first episode of my podcast, I'd like to explain to you the intention of this podcast. I think it's important to address things that are difficult, things that are heavy, stuff that's intense. In other words, just issues we don't usually talk about.
And as a queer person, I'll be speaking from a queer perspective, which is also the reason why as the cover of this podcast, I've chosen a picture of myself as a child, as you know, the fact that I grew up in a heteronormative society and in a non-affirmative environment were the ingredients basically for me to grow up and to experience the things that I'm experiencing or the things that I have experienced, these so-called issues.
And of course, I'm aware that it's my responsibility to work through them and, you know, to do the inner work and to create a better life for myself and for the people around me. And with that, I'd also like to share things that have helped me tremendously in this process and on my journey towards becoming my best self. In this first episode, I'd like to talk about religious trauma. For a lot of us queer people, religion is quite an issue or more likely the cause of a lot of our issues.
I think for most of us, religion has been more bruising and damaging than it has been healing and transformative. Because of this reason and because I've experienced firsthand how much damage religion can cause on a person's mental health, I've decided to do a master's degree in peace, trauma, and religion.
And within my studies, I'm mainly focusing on religious trauma and the queer community, but I'm also interested in how to find meaning in life, how to find inner peace, especially in the aftermath of religious trauma. So for me, I would call it a life after faith. That is the stage where I'm in right now. And even though every individual has a different story and you know, you can still be religious and queer.
So I'm from a evangelical Christian background, and I'll probably explain their views on the queer community in another episode. But basically, within my environment, it was not possible to be both queer and evangelical and so you basically had to choose which led to a conflict within myself when it came to my religious identity and my sexual identity.
I also wrote a thesis about conflicting identities for queer people coming from evangelical backgrounds, but I'll probably devote another episode to that because that's a whole other topic.
I did realize that there's still a lot of good things that we can learn from religion and that it's sort of a shame that often we throw everything away because we think that it is not compatible to the life that we live right now or it's not beneficial in any way, or maybe just too traumatizing to even go back there. There's a lot of research that has been done on how religion can transcend trauma, how you can heal and thrive because of religion.
At the same time, it's very interesting to see how little research has been done thus far on how religion can be the cause of trauma. So even if you are queer or an ally without a religious upbringing or a religious experience, I think it's good for you to be aware of the fact that in 67 countries being queer is still criminalized and in 11 countries you can get the death penalty for being queer.
And sadly, they use religious convictions to justify discrimination and violence against queer people. So this shows how important this topic is and that there's a lot of people out there who are living in non-affirmative, suppressed environments where they cannot be themselves.
And I read today in a newspaper that even if they are not being criminalized by law, it doesn't mean that it's easier for them there because the article said that once they are in custody, they are often raped or tortured and pressured into confessing to immorality or prostitution. So this shows how important this topic is because we cannot or at least I cannot imagine what it's like to be living under these circumstances.
At the same time, when I read about these kinds of stories and when I hear those numbers, I feel like, okay, I'm aware of the fact that I'm so privileged to be living in a country where I can be myself and where I can speak my mind, even though my path hasn't been easy, still compared to these numbers and their circumstances, I feel like my situation isn't that bad.
But in order for change to happen, I think we have to speak our minds and I could be silent, but I don't think that is going to help anybody. So hopefully, step by step, we will see change and improvement and there will be more peace for all these people who are living in suppressive environments, really.
When we talk about religious trauma, of course, it does not only apply to queer individuals because there are so many other minority groups that have been suppressed and are suppressed by religion. And there's a lot of interpersonal trauma that's going on within religious settings. But I'm here to talk about the theory of religious trauma and then link it to my own experience. So let's dive in.
In 2011, the term religious trauma syndrome was coerced by a psychologist named Marlene Winell, even though the phenomenon was recognized long before that, as the term had circulated among psychotherapists, former fundamentalists, and others recovering from religious indoctrination. So basically, religious trauma occurs when an individual struggles to leave a religion or a set of beliefs that has led to their indoctrination.
It begins in toxic religious environments, which are centered around two basic narratives. You are not okay, and you are not safe. These ideas are often enforced with theology, such as, if I look at my own Christian background, it was the doctrine of original sin and hell. So you might be able to imagine how this kind of religion requires rigid conformity. They need to conform in order to survive in the group, but also because they otherwise don't have hope for the afterlife.
Such religion has a closed system of logic and a strong social structure to support an authoritarian worldview. In other words, you don't question, you just obey. So this eventually leads to problems with self-worth and fear of terrible punishment once the individual wants to leave. So I remember myself, I've been lying awake at night while I was already deconstructing my beliefs, but still I was crippled by fear that I might go to hell if I didn't wake up the next day.
And that has led to a lot of anxiety. And you have to understand that I wasn't even gone yet. You know, I was just broadening my perspective and reading certain things that would change my convictions about certain topics. And even though at that time I would still call myself a Christian, I already had that fear, which is crazy. Growing up, our truth at home was always very solid, very black and white.
There was not a lot of room to discuss or ask questions because there were always very clear biblical answers. And on top of that, once I started thinking for myself and share my ideas with my family, for example, they would often disagree and question my newfound ideas. And that is also the reason why they speak of a different social context when it comes to religious trauma compared to other trauma recovery situations.
For example, if we look at natural disaster experiences, childhood sexual abuse or family violence, which are all horrible. These are mostly understandable to friends and professionals who are likely to be sympathetic and supportive. But in the case of religious abuse, these individuals are often pressured by family and church members to return. And they are reminded in many ways that if they do not return to their community or their sets of beliefs, they will be condemned otherwise.
So in essence, that means that they are pressured to return to the perpetrator of their abuse. And according to Weinal, this social rejection is an added layer of serious injury that is absent from other varieties of trauma. So as you can imagine, it hasn't been an easy path for me. Coming from an environment where conformity was key, it's been very hard for me to come to terms with my own truth and speak it.
But that's a part of religious trauma as well, because of the indoctrination, you constantly feel like you're doing something wrong. Like I said before, these narratives are implanted in your mind. Like once you leave, you are not okay, you are not safe. And I guess for me, that is also a reason to start this podcast to address these kinds of issues, to voice my authentic truth.
Even though I've grown tremendously, now and then this fear can get to me when I'm tired or if I'm awake at night, you know, which is crazy. But basically, as I see it, my body has been used to fight and flight mode all these years. As I was growing up, I was trying to protect myself in order to survive, especially once I started developing my own ideas.
And when I started coming out to people, I constantly had to deal with people's opinions about it and I had to protect myself and I had to, you know, really fight to survive. And even though in my mind, I know I'm safe now and I'm a good person, after all these years, sometimes it's like my body still thinks that I'm not safe or it feels like you have to fight, you have to fight to survive, which for me results in anxiety or panic.
And this is also the reason why the development of religious trauma is compared to the development of complex PTSD, which is defined as a psychological disorder that can develop in response to prolonged, repeated experience of interpersonal trauma in a context in which the individual has little or no chance of escape.
And in the wake of such trauma, religious trauma survivors will likely experience post-traumatic symptoms which might include anxiety, depression, numbing, dissociation and intrusive memories and it might even lead to contemplating suicide. So like I said, I dealt with anxiety and panic, but also depression. And I've also been to that point where I was contemplating suicide. That was about 10 years ago. And luckily I immediately sought help and I found a affirming therapist.
I think that was the beginning of that healing journey. When I look at my own situation, I'm very lucky that I have a brother that has always been supportive and we've been supportive of one another. But there was a time where I thought that if he wouldn't have been in my life, I'm not sure if I would be, if I would still be here. I mean, it's that important that you have support in your life in these kinds of situations. And luckily he was there while a lot of other people weren't.
But just that one person that can already make such a difference. Sadly, there's a lot of stories about queer people who experience conflict in their family and rejection inside of their families, even to the point where they are being disowned, where the parents no longer recognize or want to recognize their child, their own child. And that is one of the reasons why the rate of individuals who contemplate suicide are that high within our community.
Because I have experienced that myself, I wrote a song called Broken Hearted, which I basically created for the queer community in order to find encouragement. I wanted all of us to know that we are worthy and we are enough and that we shouldn't run away from who we really are. And I will leave a link to the song in the description.
So members of the queer community are at particular risk of religious trauma because a lot of these people who are inside of repressive religious environments, they over an extended period of time, try to alter their sexual orientation and gender identity in order to fit the expectations of authoritarian religious communities.
So that results in them chronically living in fear of eternal damnation and lifelong separation from loved ones and religious communities, which can induce long term symptoms of religious trauma. The study shows that the majority of queer individuals face adverse religious experiences manifested in different ways.
So for example, you have this term called microaggression, which is a statement, action or incident regarded as an incident of indirect, subtle or unintentional discrimination against members of marginalized groups. And especially the word unintentional is something that I can really relate to when I look back at my past, but it still happens now and then. For example, I've always known my family members that they never chose to intentionally hurt my feelings.
Often they had good intentions without knowing the pain it caused. And they would say things to me because they loved me, because they wanted to save me because they didn't want to see me burn in hell and they didn't want me to live a life without God. And with that, they're also pressuring you without really seeing it. They're pressuring you to go back to your old ways, which obviously didn't work for you because otherwise you would have stayed there.
One important thing to know is that religious trauma is not an actual diagnosis and it is not yet included in the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, this does not mean that it is non-existent or that it does not impact millions of individuals every year. Sadly I know too many people, queer but also non-queer, whose life has been impacted in a negative way because of religion and who are dealing with shame and a loss of identity.
Because it's such a huge thing actually if you think about it because often we've built our entire identity upon these ideas and these indoctrination and once you step away slowly, everything starts crumbling, that's the thing with these toxic religious environments is that you give your whole life and once you step away or once you start deconstructing it's like the whole foundation of your life because we were taught, I was taught that
my identity was in God, in Christ, you know, and once you step away from that, then who are you? I realized that this topic is very big and that I'm probably going to return to this topic and dive more into my own personal story without the theory behind it. I hope you got a sense of what religious trauma is and how it is caused and if you've experienced religious trauma or if you are going through a tough time at the moment, know that you are not alone, we are in this together.
And if you have any questions that you would like me to answer in another episode, please do let me know. You can send me a DM on Instagram at queerlyhavingissues. And if you enjoyed this episode, please click the follow button and I hope to have you here with me again on my next episode. Take care.