#religious-trauma — Public Fediverse posts

(Yes, I've been watching Heilung reaction videos again.)

#AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #deconstruction #decolonization #DeathCult

Christianity teaches that pain is external and unnatural, something we must strive to avoid at all costs.

Worse, true relief from pain only comes as a reward for obedience in enduring mortal pain. Ongoing punishment for sin is the godly default, and only a righteous death will release you from it.

This often generates a veneration of suffering and motivates people to pursue it in themselves and others. These inherent contradictions only lead to additional trauma and confusion.

This is why I call it an abuse culture. It is THE root of abuse culture in the West. Secular culture is infected with these core values that run much deeper than rote doctrines, and we have only just begun to unpack it.

An alternate view is that pain is one of many aspects of nature. It's uncomfortable, and we instinctively do try to avoid it, but sometimes it can never be avoided and there is less suffering and even healing in accepting this fact. There is even balance and beauty in pain, as it warns us of damage, protects us from death, and is a necessary aspect of creation and newborn life.

Our ancestors knew this. It is one of the values we were colonized out of.

White unculture sucks at helping us cope with unavoidable pain.

#AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma #deconstruction #decolonization #DeathCult

The Christian idea of a martyr is when your god demands a human sacrifice, but wants it it to be his own follower instead of an outsider.

That's what makes it ok.

#AbuseCulture #deconstruction #ReligiousTrauma #DeathCult

If you've been wanting to read or listen to my book Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control, but are struggling with money, Audible just gave me some promo codes for free copies of the audiobook.

DM me if you'd like one!

#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #cults #atheism #deconstruction #exvie #exvangelical

You’ve probably heard the term “religious trauma”? Well, meet one of its poster boys. I’m not going to define the term, I’m just going to show it to you so you can (I hope!) understand and empathize.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/getting-religious-homophobia-off-my-chest-conversations-with-a-nun-3f967822b724?sk=ea7ff14c758b7f21ce83c622e174f725

#LGBTQ #Religion #ReligiousTrauma #Christianity

Yes! Academic research is finally catching up!

"Can post-cult recovery help survivors of narcissistic abuse?

"Researchers examine parallels between narcissistic abuse and cult indoctrination and consider how post-cult recovery approaches could inform treatment for survivors."

My abuse culture model basically says both types of abuse use the same mechanisms, and so does oppression in our society.

#AbuseCulture #cults #ReligiousTrauma #Survivor

https://icsatoday.substack.com/p/can-post-cult-recovery-help-survivors

I saw the Ken Jennings (Jeopardy host) clip of him defending trans people.

Good for him. I used to follow him on Twitter. He's one of the good ones. (Mormons. Good Mormons.)

#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #LDS #Mormon

Reckless Ben is listed under Provo Canyon School Wikipedia page under "Notable Alumni."

I recently saw it claimed something like heroes are only needed when the system has surpassed stability.

But these abusive schools and programs have existed throughout all western history for at least 1,000 years, designed to reform or totally destroy children who sufficiently fail to comply to authoritarian society.

Including genocidal indigenous residential schools, mental institutions, Irish-Catholic laundries, desert camps, and even boarding schools for the rich.

Reckless Ben is only one such hero in a long chain of whistleblowers against these programs. Most of whom have not been believed.

Including Sinéad O'Connor tearing up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s. (Yes, this is what she was protesting!)

The testimonies of all these victims wasn't enough. It took CAMERA evidence recorded by TWO 30+ year old men for the system to take action.

But there's a giant network of these connected to the Mormon and evangelical world in the US. Like other programs shut down in the past, this one will just start up again someplace else, unless we stay on it.

It's not just about the money. It's about the cruelty. About the powertrip of getting away with initialized torture of minors in a supposedly free country.

#TroubledTeenIndustry #cults #Exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma

I wrote a short thing about religious trauma and hymns.

https://courtcan.com/2026/09/11/worm-child-wretched/

#ReligiousTrauma
#hymns
#ChurchOfChrist
#exvangelical

Freud called the US "pious America" in 1927. A century later, a new annotated edition asks what his illusion framework still explains about us.

https://onlys.ky/the-past-and-future-of-an-illusion/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fresh

#Psychology #ReligiousTrauma #Deconstruction #Psychoanalysis #Secularism

Perfectionism as a lifestyle didn't just come from nothing. Americans 200 years ago wrote about and prompted these as ideals.

I'm sure these attitudes share a common ancestor.

I hope someone with credentials somewhere is connecting the dots.

🧵

#AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma

Maybe you can see why I'm having this insight wrt AI and other cultural trends right now (looksmaxxing, tradwifery, a bunch of other things).

Those who think AI output is wonderful, they're perfectionists (as a worldview) who confuse appearances for quality. The output FEELS GOOD so it IS good. The music SOUNDS FLAWLESS so it is ART. Your jawline LOOKS GOOD so it is DESIRABLE.

This is the environment I was raised in, without (necessarily) the religious overtones.

🧵

#AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma

Now, what happens in this situation is that a lot of people figure out that appearances will get you ahead just as well as actual accomplishment. They may still internally feel the effects of inadequacy, but everyone around them will think they're perfect.

Certain personalities thrive better in this circumstance. Those who easily equate appearances to reality feel no discomfort (dissonance) at everyone thinking they're perfect. That IS the reality. Narcissistic personality types can thrive in this, especially if male. They'll quickly rise to the top.

But those who value integrity for whatever reason (most autists, for example, and whoever else) will never feel ok replacing appearances for reality. Even though the culture is driving you to it.

The situation is ripe for abusers, because those with the most leanings towards integrity are always going to be wrapped up in this inner conflict, battling guilt and shame, and sitting uncomfortably with any pretending they have to do.

While abusers, well appearances of perfection IS perfection! Which makes them more godly than anyone! They make being perfect look easy! So they're justified in taking advantage of the most honest in the group.

🧵

#AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma

There's a concept in cult research normally called Demand for Perfection, but I renamed it Perpetual Inadequacy, after the effect not the cause.

A standard of perfection for life is established. Cult members are expected to reach it. But the goalposts are always moving out of reach. The cult member is constantly reaching for it and never meeting the standard. It causes the member to blame themselves, not the standard, for failure. It makes them feel perpetually inadequate.

Nobody does this better than Mormonism, where the whole goal is to become as perfect as God.

#AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma

🧵

Study shows similarities between cult and trafficking survivors.

"While high-control groups and sex trafficking are usually treated as distinct social and legal problems, this comparative framework establishes that their underlying mechanisms of coercive control are functionally equivalent. Identifying these deep structural similarities addresses a historical gap in academic literature, providing a foundation for cross-disciplinary intervention models, updated legal definitions of psychological captivity, and unified trauma treatment strategies for survivors of both settings."

Via the ICSA.

#AbuseCulture #CoerciveControl #ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #exvie #exvangelical #ICSA

https://icsatoday.substack.com/p/study-shows-psychological-similarities

#ReligiousTrauma #CalvaryChapel https://open.substack.com/pub/friendlyatheist/p/maine-supreme-court-says-dad-can

[people don't like it when i drink alcohol because that's the only time I have the courage to verbalize my pain or call out how I've been harmed,]

[and so any display of backbone or "self respect" is treated as "drunkenness" EVERYONE IS TELLING ME I just need to have "more self confidence" and I wouldn't get - abused so much??] Sure.

But PLEASE YES let's continue to blame ME as a failure for manifesting generational neuroses because I chose to shave my head and INTENTIONALLY NOT have children.

I am the oldest child AND the oldest daughter. I am fucked.

Watching The Pastor's Wife on Netflix, and a friend of the victim says:

"[Mica] was like, 'This is a man of God. Is he wrong or am I wrong?' That was her struggle for most of her marriage — was she being a good servant to Christ? And being an obedient wife, or not?"

And can you not see how that is how we got to husband murdering wife?

Like why is it good to be a "servant" to Christ in the first place, but not to a potentially abusive husband? Why is it ok for Christ to demand total subservience but not a pastor? Why did her husband cross the line in making coercive demands, but not God?

This is why medieval attitudes persist in society.

#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #DomesticViolence

The Messiah Chronicles: A Live Journal – Part I

https://joelle.snowebell.cc/2026/09/03/the-messiah-chronicles-a-live-journal-part-i/

Garbage in, garbage out I guess.

'Dustin Harding, an actor-turned-marketer who teaches at Utah Valley University, thinks he can use AI to generate a Book of Mormon film that makes viewers “feel the spirit” of God.' 

'His concept clips, though, “replicate tropes of Indigenous people as violent and filthy,” says Elise Boxer, an associate professor of American Indian studies.'

'And a BYU-Hawaii film scholar said he can't feel enthusiastic about a project produced by “extracting from the work of all kinds of humans — artists, writers, actors and sources from all over the digital world — without any recognition of their labor.”'

(Isn't that the most creepy floating Jesus image you've ever seen?)

Archive version (missing most images):

https://web.archive.org/web/20260830043117/https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2026/08/29/lds-book-mormon-videos-made/

Original:

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2026/08/29/lds-book-mormon-videos-made/

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #AI

Yikes. This is a big deal. Letting just anyone shop on Sunday??

(A much bigger deal than finding out the bishop has been sheltering predators in the ward.)

#exmo #Exmormon #ReligiousTrauma

Remember what I was saying the other day about your niggling feelings? Those things that everyone else seems to never question but you?

It feels like pressure because it is.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2026/08/11/fewer-students-are-marrying-lds/

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma

Everybody's excited to get to the torture scenes in the film version of this wholesome religious story.

(No shade on Mormon Land. They're just reporting, and their podcast is somewhat nuanced.)

#exmo #exmormon #exvie #exvangelical #ReligiousTrauma #DeathCult

The only "missionary position" in Mormonism is gay position (with your companion).

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma

A man walks up to a podium and says, "I know about this topic. That is why I am here." And everyone sits back and listens.

A woman walks up to a podium, and says, "I know about this topic." The audience says, "Prove it." So she lists her credentials, experience, and cites her research. "Ah, you can be here," they say. "You think you're better than everyone else."

That summarizes what's happening when Matt gets to the last 3rd of Britt's video.

It's infuriating.

It summarizes my own career in IT and later as a writer and researcher in religious recovery spaces. Constantly having to prove it.

It summarizes major themes in therapist Natasha Helfer's life that I wrote about it in her memoir, where men given authority at age 12 simply because they were men, grilled her hard-earned knowledge and authority, found it lacking, and so excommunicated her.

It's stuck in my craw.

It's a control technique that cult researchers call a double-bind.

Britt will never be allowed to have enough authority in some people's eyes, no matter how much science she cites, no matter how well she explains her position, no matter how much education or experience she gains. There is no winning move for her against someone like Matt, where reality isn't the measure, but the size of his own (uneducated, as he admitted) ego.

Matt simply had to leave his church and get a microphone and that's why we're supposed to take him seriously. That's always been enough for him to be taken seriously.

It will never be enough for Britt.

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #atheism #philosophy #deconstruction #spirituality

Oh snap, you know what this reminds me of?

"We already have a definition for marriage. Find your own word."

🧵

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #atheism #philosophy #deconstruction #spirituality

I'm probably not going to post his video. You can find it on YouTube.

Even though I don't like the energy it's brought up in me or how obsessed I've become thinking about it, I still think it's possible she'll reach him. (Growing less likely. If he were open at all, I'd think she would have reached him by now, the halfway point.)

But the thumbnail title is, "Did I screw up?" so I hope that's not just clickbait. So I'll keep watching. I'm always really interested in seeing people change their minds. That's the main reason why I watch shows like The Line — not for the ownage, but to see why some people stick to their guns in the face of irrefutable arguments, and why some change.

So that's a hook enough for me.

🧵

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #atheism #philosophy #deconstruction #spirituality

But here's the real crux. If I may indulge in a little armchair psychological analysis...

Matt clearly has baggage about the term "spirituality." It's not the *term's* baggage as he repeatedly states. It's HIS baggage. Some of us have dropped that baggage but you want us to pick it back up. NO.

Because as Britt says repeatedly: no one is asking him to use the term, only to lay off other people who find the word useful. ("Too bad!")

His baggage is made plain by how he argues this. Religion still has its hold on him. He has not let go of the religion's rules, its control over this venue. Spirituality is theirs and he refuses to grab it back or even let anyone else grab it back.

He hasn't unpacked this enough to realize HE HAS POWER TO MAKE THE WORD MEAN ANYTHING HE WANTS. And with his amount of influence, he could tip the balance and the word would be ours to all but fully define.

Some of us have freed ourselves, along with this concept, from Christianity's controlling grasp over our natural human requirements for symbolism, narrative, purpose-seeking, ritual, community, awe, transcendence, fulfillment, moral framework, interpretation, etc. We have come to realize these concepts are more flexible than our religious abusers presented them. That we can create for ourselves our own meaning, even while not taking it too seriously and not buying the whole kool-aid factory. [fixed perfect typo: "kook-aid"! 😂]

He thinks that if you claim any stake in this territory, you have to make objective, supernatural, authoritarian claims about subjective experiences, and that SIMPLY ISN'T TRUE.

He projects these claims onto Britt repeatedly even though she gone out of her way to say that's not how she uses this term.

It's one single hangup. One single point of false assumptions he keeps making as he refutes her points. (tbf to Britt, he also continually assumes she doesn't know what she's talking about in a gross, condescending way.)

Like, that's your shit, man, on both counts. That doesn't have to be the community's shit. Unless, of course, you're taking on outsized authority for a job that needs doing that you're not actually super experienced in... placing your authority above an experienced and educated woman...

...for some reason. 🤔

🧵

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #atheism #philosophy #deconstruction #spirituality

There are also many points where he names some logical fallacy on some minor non-load-bearing side point, just while she's describing something, and it's like he thinks this is just a game and ding-ding! you won some skeptic points in a game Britt is not playing! Good for you! There's some fellow nerdy white guys who saw you do that with great aplomb and completely failed to see your own similarly placed logical fallacies (I saw that argument from analogy my man)!!! You get a star! 🏆

Meanwhile folks like Britt are putting in the work to give post-religionists new tools to fill a gap that no one is filling using words they can relate to and taking back concepts that were colonized away from us so that unsatisfied religious folk have a serious alternative to the woo you so hate.

Work which, two hours into a one hour video, you still continue to make ignorant, invalid, and embarrassingly obtuse assumptions about.

🧵

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #atheism #philosophy #deconstruction #spirituality

There was a moment when I literally gasped and then started yelling. She is talking about how there aren't any better words than "spirituality" to cover the range of topics it covers, and he pauses and literally says:

"Too bad."

Uhm, like dude who made you the father of atheist spaces and are allowed to forbid her?? There's a word for men who act like patronizing fathers of adult women they don't know..... 🤔

He also repeatedly says, "Then come up with a better word." No, sir. SHE doesn't have a problem with this word. Nor do many other atheists, including prominent atheists which she cites. YOU have a problem with the word, so the burden of coming up with a better word is on YOU.

He actually starts to suggest one a couple of times and fails. "Psychology! Ok... I guess psychology and sociology." My man, that is two words and now you're bumping up against the problem that Britt and many others like myself have independently solved to help people proactively recover from religious trauma while you were off uselessly debating creationists.

🧵

#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #atheism #philosophy #deconstruction #spirituality