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Pascale Chancey's avatar

Thanks for opening up a space to think and discuss the intersection of neurodivergence and religious trauma. I think the most revelatory explanation for my experience in high demand religion and the subsequent religious trauma I’m struggling to heal has been the acknowledgment of the ways in which I have fawned to belong within the religious communities I was raised in and those I self-selected to be in. Fawning, or merging my own desires and interest with those in authority, and being a committed believer who became a missionary before studying ministry leadership in my late twenties was all a self-preservation act. I knew how to be and what to say in Christian spaces because it was oh so predictable. And I didn’t stand out as awkward around people I presumed were my peers. Even my special interest in history (narrowed down to church history when needed) wasn’t seen as an obsession because it could be wielded to educate or reassure those in the church of their supremacy and self-importance. At the same time, as a systems thinker, I couldn’t do anything but challenge the moral and intellectual status quo of said communities. While my commitment to truth was greater than my loyalty to egos, I was still afraid of being ostracized. In evolutionary terms, that is a certain death. So I poked and prodded where I could without truly rocking the boat. That is, until my frustration with participating in a harmful system and feeling alone within a religious community where no one seemed to mirror the intensity of my concerns led to my exit/exile. After leaving, I told a person with whom I worked at this mega church and whom I trusted that I no longer wanted to operate within the framework and with the tools I had been taught and trained to operate with and under. She got offended and explicitly told me that I was being prideful for thinking I was better than the institution. And her rejection cut deeper than all the others because I had thought we were cut from the same cloth. In my experience, that neurodivergent trait of living life in extremes and desiring radical stuff butting against the neurotypical drive for mediums and compromises complexifies religious trauma. Because this difference and the shame we pick up for being too much or not enough is something we already experience and normalize in childhood, it’s even harder to notice how toxic it is when we experience it as adults in a religious institution.

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Laura's avatar

I'm experiencing a long, painful progression from a fawn profile, led by fear, trust in those "greater" than me, and a strong desire to somehow fit in, to a skeptical, logic-driven life, filled with the need to make it good and logical. I have always tried desperately to make it all make sense plus help people see how to live out their beliefs. I assumed that where it didn't make sense I just didn't get it yet. I am coming to believe that maybe the fault isn't mine, but the belief itself. Such a big shift!

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