Religious Trauma Quotes

“Oh father Abraham, what kind of people are these Christians? Their own meanness teaches them to suspect other people!”
― William Shakespeare , The Merchant of Venice

“In the South, Christianity was as ubiquitous as sweet tea and country music. Questioning my religion meant questioning how the entire world worked and my very identity.”
― Natalie M. Esparza, Spectacle: Discover a Vibrant Life through the Lens of Curiosity

“Choosing to avoid talking about money, sex, religion or mental health doesn’t make them go away. Each of these taboo subject are part of the human experience and to exclude them from “normal life” is silly, in fact impossible.”
― Natalie M. Esparza, Spectacle: Discover a Vibrant Life through the Lens of Curiosity

“A marker of healing from religious trauma is not simply the process of deconstructing one’s worldview and identity and rebuilding a new one; it is also the willingness to remain open to shifting and changing over the course of one’s life.”
― Laura E. Anderson, When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion

“I began to hate myself and pray that God would make me straight. I carried the fear that authenticity would be met with condemnation and shame for years. No one felt safe to share with anymore, so I hid it all deep within me.”
― Natalie M. Esparza, Spectacle: Discover a Vibrant Life through the Lens of Curiosity

“why was I raised to follow the precepts of a religion that exalts sorrow and suffering? Yet my nose is as innocent as any snout. If I had been an animal I would have been very successful. But a man?”
― René Crevel, My Body and I

“If the world out-loves the church, then we have implicitly nudged our children away from the loving arms of Christ.”
― Preston Sprinkle, People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue

“I was frightened even by God. I could not believe in His love, only in His punishment. Faith. That, I felt was the act of facing the tribunal of justice with one's head bowed to receive the scourge of God. I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me believe in the existence of heaven.”
― Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

“It's so deeply entrenched in me, the Fear of God, so much more strongly than the belief.”
― Celine Saintclare, Sugar, Baby

“Maybe if I just kept acting like a Christian, I’d eventually feel like one again.”
― Natalie M. Esparza, Spectacle: Discover a Vibrant Life through the Lens of Curiosity

“You might think Cult Girls would have a rather limited readership (ex-Jehovah's Witnesses) but I, who never bothered to learn anything about those strange people who rang my doorbell with "good news" loved it. Jehovah's Witnesses aside, this beautifully illustrated graphic novel pertains to any cult. Nicely and clearly written, it's a good harrowing story.”
― Trina Robbins, Women And The Comics

“...Mary Lambert is singing "Love is patient, love is kind" from 1 Corinthians 13 over and over, repeating "Not crying on Sundays," and I am gone, head fully turned and staring out the car window, trying to hide the tears that are streaming down my face.”
― Jeanna Kadlec, Heretic: A Memoir

“My newest novel, Tiny House of God is now available as an audiobook through Audible! It was so much fun (and work) to record.”
― Sara Zavacki-Moore

“A woman is praying beside me. I would really like to be able to believe like that, I would like to be able to feel something when I pray but I don't. Maybe looking for God is just looking for something to be in awe of, something to tremble before, a standard to uphold. Perhaps religion is a way of punishing oneself, a manifestation of the shame built into the human experience.”
― Celine Saintclare, Sugar, Baby

“These researchers found that trauma is a subjective, perceptive, and physiological response to a person, place, or thing that overwhelms the nervous system's natural capacity to cope. Practically, this means that trauma is in the eye of the beholder. What is traumatic for one person may not be traumatic for another, and thr body may experience trauma as a result of either a real threat or a perceived one.”
― Laura E. Anderson, When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion

“Religious trauma resides in our bodies and nervous systems in the same way that trauma from war, developmental trauma, or sexualized trauma live inside us. Though the triggers and environment of the original trauma may differ, how religious trauma lives in our bodies, on a physiological level, is the same.”
― Laura E. Anderson, When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion

“How could they receive grace if all we give them is strife?”
― Kailey Bright, Unity