Neurodivergence & Religious Trauma

Thoughts about autistic brains and impacts from high-control, illogical religion

All right! I’m excited for this post, and I know many of you out there are excited too. Last week I wrote a post about the intersection of childhood trauma and religious trauma and why one can exacerbate the other. Now we’re going to cover neurodiversity, specifically autism or autism-like features, and religious trauma! I might have to make a whole series of these intersections because the researcher in me is FASCINATED.

What I’ll share here arises from my own knowledge, experience, and observations of others. No quantitative studies done, but trying to be a curious listener and respectful of others’ experiences! As usual, I would LOVE to hear from you in the comments, especially if you have an autistic or otherwise neurodivergent brain!

First, let’s cover some common traits of autistic thinkers. I’m going to partially referencing Dr. Megan Neff’s “How Do I Know If I’m Autistic in Adulthood?” article, which highlights the differences between “sterotypical” and “non-stereotypical” presentations of autism. Link in the bottom for your reading pleasure and edification!

Sourced from https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/autism-in-adulthood. Dr. Neff makes AMAZINGLY helpful graphics!

• Bottom-up processing style: focuses on details and forms conclusions from the bottom up, rather than assuming (or having an instinct for) the big picture and making the details fall into place

• Might be either concrete and pragmatic, or very existential (…or both!)

• Prefers routine, stability, sameness in expectations

• “Special interest”-based attention: can focus on their special interests extensively and navigate social situations this way; struggles outside their special interests

• Dislikes small talk; doesn’t like group situations with hard-to-predict social expectations

• Non-stereotypical presentation: often high-masking and learned what to do to blend in socially, but at the cost of having high anxiety and uncertain sense of self

The way I see it, an autistic brain might go in different, but still predictable, ways in response to high-control religion and religious trauma. And you might cycle through different styles in your faith and deconstruction journey!

The All-In Believer with a Fawn Response

If the autistic brain is naturally drawn to ways of making sense of the world (a world that often feels sensorily overwhelming and socially confusing), religion like Christianity offers a handy way of totally explaining everything (…supposedly). Let’s say an autist is given a set of rules and told “here, rules for life! All you need to do to be a good person, go to heaven, and fit in with *our* set of people is to follow these rules.” The rules provide structure, predictability, and a way of making sense of things. All these rules may elicit the fawn response from people who want to stay in the good graces of those trusted adults. “Okay, to make my caregivers or leaders like me or even love me, these are the things I need to follow. Here’s my survival strategy.”

We know social settings, especially groups, make a lot of autistic people uncomfortable. The “All-In Believer” may have figured out the “rules” of the social game called church, and finally found a way to be socially comfortable. It’s totally normal, or at least respected, to be obsessed with Jesus and religion as a Christian — instead of people looking at you oddly, they might see you as “on fire for God.” Meanwhile, there’s a set, predictable structure to the routine of going to church, and a sense of security in your eternal destiny, which can be comforting for many people—including autistic folks!

The Systems-Thinking Skeptic

The autistic brain often needs to make logical sense of things. Emotional explanations that are irrational do not satisfy. Perhaps it’s a side effect of literal thinking, but when people say they believe something, we assume they actually believe it. When they act in ways opposed to their beliefs, we don’t just let it slide. And when we add up a belief system and it doesn’t make coherent internal or external sense…this bothers us.

This style of thinker is willing to confront questions even when the answers might not be what they wanted, because integrity in belief is important. They don’t believe things to just feel good — they believe things because they’re correct or because it is sensible. They pursue where the rabbit trail goes, and let the chips fall where they may.

Responses to High-Control, Anti-Intellectual Religion

So let’s say that the two types I describe above are pretty common ways of engaging with religion (and like I said, one type is not exclusive of the other). I think there are patterns we might see in the leaving of religion, also. The “All-In Believer with a Fawn Response” might keep in the religion for a long time, desperately trying to make it work. (DL Mayfield has written many words about this response!). You share a special interest (Jesus / Christianity) with other people who generally accept you as you are (as long as you remain a fellow believer.) You take the teachings seriously. It’s shaped your life in many ways and provided comfort and security. It’s been fueled by your interest in living a moral / ethical life, something many autistic people take very seriously!

The “Systems-Thinking Skeptic,” I posit, is more often an early leaver of religion. Less motivated by comfort and relationships and more by having a logical framework, they will more quickly spot logical inconsistencies. They may be faced with questions they cannot avoid even if they don’t want to answer them. For those who were really committed to religion, this can be a very painful and reluctant process, yet they can’t disengage. For others, they may have seen logical fallacies early on or never really bought into the emotionality and reason behind religion: it never really made sense so they never really bought into it.

My story

My own story involves never fitting in with my youth group peers in middle and high school, so I never really felt I had a church “family” in that sense. I continued to be me in college (imagine that!) and still didn’t feel like I fit in with my campus ministry groups there, either. I couldn’t master the social skills needed, maybe, to be a cool church kid. I took things too seriously, but wasn’t emotionally connected enough with Jesus, who apparently wanted to live in my heart, not my head. I was too shy to evangelize. I never figured out how to “perform” Christianity properly.

I actually identify more as a Systems-Thinking Skeptic type, which was partially influenced by a significant [autistic!] relationship during my young adult years, but also my own proclivities. I was asking questions and noticing things that none of my peers were asking. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t bothered by the things I was. And I tried and tried but I couldn’t square the circle of fundamentalist / literalism / evangelicalism / eventually, Christianity.

Because of my intellectual orientation and lack of felt faith community, it wasn’t as much of a drastic change to deconstruct my beliefs. Liberal theology and biblical studies became my special interest for awhile as I earnestly, nerdily pursued what “truth” I could discover. I needed the system to make sense. And in many ways, deconstruction did let things make more sense than they ever had before, since I’d been believing in an essentially unbelievable system.

The thing about deconstructing a faith system and leaving what you’ve known behind is that often, neurodivergent people are all too familiar with the feeling of being somewhat alone in the world (an “alien,” I would often say). Of feeling that others don’t really understand them, and vice versa. Faith deconstruction can further confirm that feeling — but wow how rewarding is it when we all find each other on the other side!

---

I’ve been having so much fun with these last two “intersection” posts that I want to chase down a third one: how does the extent of religio-political involvement (i.e. radical Religious Right, conspiracy theories, fundamentalist “us vs them” viewpoints) impact religious trauma? These are the areas I still get triggered by — and how can you not when it’s showing up ALL the time in this current political culture — and to me it feels like it really impacts how religious trauma shows up for me. What say you? More on this next time?

As always, would love to hear your experiences in the comments! Do you identify with one type more than the other? Have other “types” to add, or other paths you’ve taken with a neurodivergent brain and religious trauma? Tell me, because I want to know your story!