Read on Twitter
I'm a student of spiritual trauma, but my own trauma is opposite to most people's.
As a child I felt God's presence, but my atheist family, traumatized by asshole science-denying Kansas Christians, was teaching me that belief in God was a very evil thing to have.
As a child I felt God's presence, but my atheist family, traumatized by asshole science-denying Kansas Christians, was teaching me that belief in God was a very evil thing to have.
I've only met three other atheist-raised people who became Christian converts. Their parents were neutral/skeptical about God, not hostile and antagonistic.
The hostility my atheist father feels towards a God he doesn't believe in, is very similar to the righteous anger of ex-evangelicals who were blatantly spiritually abused by their churches. Though different in belief, they were harmed by the same corrupt groups.
I've become a student of spiritual trauma in an attempt to understand the home I was born into, but sometimes it's hard to sit with resentments I don't share.
For example, people will say I THOUGHT MY CHURCH PEOPLE WERE MY FRIENDS BUT THEY NEVER CHECKED ON ME AFTER I LEFT CHURCH. The assholes! The phonies! I must have heard that as a wound, dozens of times in spiritual trauma online support groups
But I've never heard anyone say, "I'm so mad my knitting group never checked in on me after I was over knitting." Or swing dance. Or D&D. Or whatever. People don't get mad: they understand it's actually genuinely hard to keep up when you no longer share an interest.
I must simply be failing to understand an experience that's not my own, because the grief and anguish is so real, and for me people failing to keep in touch when I don't hang out with them is like, "Oh, that's normal."
What am I missing here? What am I not getting? @laurchastain22, you're such an eloquent and beautiful voice on the topic of spiritual trauma. Are you able to explain why people feel differently about losing a church, than they feel about losing other types of interest groups?