You are braver than me I haven’t been able to re-read any old journals yet!!! I was also such a tortured evangelical soul. It kinda speaks to how well the indoctrination systems work on vulnerable (autistic) people . . .
I mean tbh it's also a little bit compulsive once I find them 🙈 But yes, I was thinking about all the things you've written about how neurodivergent / autistic people are SO vulnerable to the system! I / we took it all very earnestly and seriously!
A very insightful set of remarks. I relate to pretty much all of what you wrote, but found two of your insights and/or phrasings particularly helpful for my own clarity and therefore my healing.
You wrote that you perceived your non-evangelical friend to be mistaken about the nature of God when she speculated God's nature to be primarily loving and forgiving. Exactly! For her to fail to see just how important God's *punitive* side is would have, to your young evangelical self's mind, seemed such an error, a very dangerous error. If your friend isn't running scared, dreading God's punishment, how can she get truly "saved"?
You also wrote about the fear of God revealing to you and/or your current beau that it was God's will for you to break up, due to how you got a message that God cares about your holiness, not your happiness. Wow. I have never heard that concept phrased so succinctly and pointedly. Very helpful! That matches very well the implications of the doctrines I had crammed down my throat, such as that suffering is redemptive. So destructive to mental health.
I want you to know I feel so much compassion for your young evangelical self, including her penchant for moralizing and her holding of the assumption she knew the answers that her non-evangelical friends needed. That was me all the way at that age, also.
And in fact, I have noticed the most powerful of my IFS protectors, now, today, is, yikes, my moralizer part. I felt very embarrassed about this truth when I first realized that, despite the fact that I, now, today, am an atheist, my most important IFS part is, ugh, a Christian. She sometimes even preaches at me about how I am going against God's will, being immoral, and will be punished, accordingly. This makes sense, though. Like you, I was all-in, 110%, with an autistic person's 110% sincere authentic embrace of the absolutist doctrines I'd had crammed down my throat.
May we extend compassion to every center of consciousness both internal to, and external to, ourselves, and lead lives we unapologetically make our own. Much love to you, Christine.
Wow, you've given me an insight about my own moralizing protector IFS part! (my therapist and I were talking about something related -- my protector's need to not be wrong -- I think it emerged from multiple places but in the religious trauma sense, being wrong would have meant eternal damnation!)
Also, I'm surprised you haven't heard of the "holiness not happiness" phrase because I definitely didn't make it up! I never thought of marriage of something that was supposed to be easy or even fun, as long as it was glorifying to god. (which helps explain why I stayed in a relationship that wasn't good for me for a long time).
Sigh. Our younger selves are deserving of much compassion, and it behooves me to remember that self is in everyone else, too. (easy for me to remember for my clients; hard to remember for others who grate me the wrong way!). And that IFS protector part that's trying so very hard to save you from the thing she's afraid is still an actual threat. Much love to you (and all your parts!), too!
"I kinda just wanna give young me a hug. Such a tortured soul." I also felt a lot of compassion for young you, Christine. As for myself, my mental gyrations were different, being male and a married adult, but I still had many of them. I can't believe I was that naive, nor that I bought all that crap without analysis, but I'm grateful now to have done the analysis and found my way out of religion. Life is better with self-guided spirituality that is deeply personally meaningful.
I was thinking earlier this week that it's wild that people buy into this belief system even with all of its unlikelihoods... and many are poor tortured souls because of it! YES for self-guided spirituality that *actually* brings meaning!!
I'm a Latter-day Saint and though we have our own silly, similar phenomena, one thing that stands out to me in reading your essay is the way in which our leadership has led us in this direction in the nearly 40 years since I joined the LDS Church as a college student - they're so anxious to become accepted by other Christian leaders, and to partner in political hot topics like the suppression of abortion rights and LGBTQIA+ rights, that they've entered into a devil's pact with the American evangelical right. They get LDS votes and support, we get - what, exactly? Public rhetoric against Mormons has toned down but private teaching remains the same, and our internal dialogues become more and more "evangelical Protestant" in tone and feel. It's not good for anyone.
Steve, thanks for sharing your perspective! I had a lot of LDS friends in high school (Denver suburb). We evangelicals had such a superior / skeptical attitude toward LDS's, even though had so many of them as my friends. The LDS leadership's deal with the devil really doesn't benefit you all - what a shame the deal was made!
Are you sure those weren’t my journals?? lol! Especially the spiritual condescension and decrying my loneliness as ‘not depending on god enough’. I have boxes full of sermon notes (burned/trashed a bunch). Yeah they really wanted us emotionally stunted, didn’t they? Big hugs for our younger selves. ❤️
Haha goodness gracious I imagine so many of our journals would be interchangeable, since we were taught we all had to believe the same things! Big hugs for younger us indeed ❤️
Good thing I journaled so religiously (lol) or where would the evidence be -- cringey as they may be, they're also so enlightening for how I was formed and I need to offer myself compassion now!
Oh man - I can so relate! I was all in! Even my husband, I remember when we were dating, he wanted us to pray to make sure we were in God’s will, and I was so scared God would say we should break up. So much fear :( I also seriously regret putting so much stress on relationships with evangelizing non-Christian friends. I truly cared about them (obviously is I didn’t want them to go to hell), but it was a really horrible way to show it. Can’t change the past, but I do have compassion for my past self - she was so emotionally stunted, morally superior and not in a good place.
YES all Christian couples must live in that fear that suddenly "God" will say they should break up! Because God wasn't interested in our happiness, only our holiness, feeling good about the relationship was no indication that it was in accordance with God's will... ugh! Here's to sharing compassion for past selves!
Oh, this hits sooo close to home. My journals were full of repentance for liking boys, repentance for feeling lonely, repentance for depression/anxiety, repentance for happiness (“distraction”). I was still in evangelicalism when I stopped journaling and threw all my old journals out. I remember saying, “I can’t journal because it takes me to a very dark place.” I was waiting for god to redeem it, but it turns out Evangelical introspection is just dismal. Now that I’ve left I have a number of weird little journaling practices that connect me deeply to myself.
Oh goodness, the "repentance for happiness" is SO real. All of what you're saying is spot on! I'm so glad that you've found a way to journal now that is meaningful (and not dark!!)!
You are braver than me I haven’t been able to re-read any old journals yet!!! I was also such a tortured evangelical soul. It kinda speaks to how well the indoctrination systems work on vulnerable (autistic) people . . .
I mean tbh it's also a little bit compulsive once I find them 🙈 But yes, I was thinking about all the things you've written about how neurodivergent / autistic people are SO vulnerable to the system! I / we took it all very earnestly and seriously!
A very insightful set of remarks. I relate to pretty much all of what you wrote, but found two of your insights and/or phrasings particularly helpful for my own clarity and therefore my healing.
You wrote that you perceived your non-evangelical friend to be mistaken about the nature of God when she speculated God's nature to be primarily loving and forgiving. Exactly! For her to fail to see just how important God's *punitive* side is would have, to your young evangelical self's mind, seemed such an error, a very dangerous error. If your friend isn't running scared, dreading God's punishment, how can she get truly "saved"?
You also wrote about the fear of God revealing to you and/or your current beau that it was God's will for you to break up, due to how you got a message that God cares about your holiness, not your happiness. Wow. I have never heard that concept phrased so succinctly and pointedly. Very helpful! That matches very well the implications of the doctrines I had crammed down my throat, such as that suffering is redemptive. So destructive to mental health.
I want you to know I feel so much compassion for your young evangelical self, including her penchant for moralizing and her holding of the assumption she knew the answers that her non-evangelical friends needed. That was me all the way at that age, also.
And in fact, I have noticed the most powerful of my IFS protectors, now, today, is, yikes, my moralizer part. I felt very embarrassed about this truth when I first realized that, despite the fact that I, now, today, am an atheist, my most important IFS part is, ugh, a Christian. She sometimes even preaches at me about how I am going against God's will, being immoral, and will be punished, accordingly. This makes sense, though. Like you, I was all-in, 110%, with an autistic person's 110% sincere authentic embrace of the absolutist doctrines I'd had crammed down my throat.
May we extend compassion to every center of consciousness both internal to, and external to, ourselves, and lead lives we unapologetically make our own. Much love to you, Christine.
Wow, you've given me an insight about my own moralizing protector IFS part! (my therapist and I were talking about something related -- my protector's need to not be wrong -- I think it emerged from multiple places but in the religious trauma sense, being wrong would have meant eternal damnation!)
Also, I'm surprised you haven't heard of the "holiness not happiness" phrase because I definitely didn't make it up! I never thought of marriage of something that was supposed to be easy or even fun, as long as it was glorifying to god. (which helps explain why I stayed in a relationship that wasn't good for me for a long time).
Sigh. Our younger selves are deserving of much compassion, and it behooves me to remember that self is in everyone else, too. (easy for me to remember for my clients; hard to remember for others who grate me the wrong way!). And that IFS protector part that's trying so very hard to save you from the thing she's afraid is still an actual threat. Much love to you (and all your parts!), too!
"I kinda just wanna give young me a hug. Such a tortured soul." I also felt a lot of compassion for young you, Christine. As for myself, my mental gyrations were different, being male and a married adult, but I still had many of them. I can't believe I was that naive, nor that I bought all that crap without analysis, but I'm grateful now to have done the analysis and found my way out of religion. Life is better with self-guided spirituality that is deeply personally meaningful.
I was thinking earlier this week that it's wild that people buy into this belief system even with all of its unlikelihoods... and many are poor tortured souls because of it! YES for self-guided spirituality that *actually* brings meaning!!
I'm a Latter-day Saint and though we have our own silly, similar phenomena, one thing that stands out to me in reading your essay is the way in which our leadership has led us in this direction in the nearly 40 years since I joined the LDS Church as a college student - they're so anxious to become accepted by other Christian leaders, and to partner in political hot topics like the suppression of abortion rights and LGBTQIA+ rights, that they've entered into a devil's pact with the American evangelical right. They get LDS votes and support, we get - what, exactly? Public rhetoric against Mormons has toned down but private teaching remains the same, and our internal dialogues become more and more "evangelical Protestant" in tone and feel. It's not good for anyone.
Steve, thanks for sharing your perspective! I had a lot of LDS friends in high school (Denver suburb). We evangelicals had such a superior / skeptical attitude toward LDS's, even though had so many of them as my friends. The LDS leadership's deal with the devil really doesn't benefit you all - what a shame the deal was made!
Are you sure those weren’t my journals?? lol! Especially the spiritual condescension and decrying my loneliness as ‘not depending on god enough’. I have boxes full of sermon notes (burned/trashed a bunch). Yeah they really wanted us emotionally stunted, didn’t they? Big hugs for our younger selves. ❤️
Haha goodness gracious I imagine so many of our journals would be interchangeable, since we were taught we all had to believe the same things! Big hugs for younger us indeed ❤️
Very relatable! Evangelical journals are such a trip--so much to cringe at and so much to extend self-compassion to!
Good thing I journaled so religiously (lol) or where would the evidence be -- cringey as they may be, they're also so enlightening for how I was formed and I need to offer myself compassion now!
Oh man - I can so relate! I was all in! Even my husband, I remember when we were dating, he wanted us to pray to make sure we were in God’s will, and I was so scared God would say we should break up. So much fear :( I also seriously regret putting so much stress on relationships with evangelizing non-Christian friends. I truly cared about them (obviously is I didn’t want them to go to hell), but it was a really horrible way to show it. Can’t change the past, but I do have compassion for my past self - she was so emotionally stunted, morally superior and not in a good place.
YES all Christian couples must live in that fear that suddenly "God" will say they should break up! Because God wasn't interested in our happiness, only our holiness, feeling good about the relationship was no indication that it was in accordance with God's will... ugh! Here's to sharing compassion for past selves!
Oh, this hits sooo close to home. My journals were full of repentance for liking boys, repentance for feeling lonely, repentance for depression/anxiety, repentance for happiness (“distraction”). I was still in evangelicalism when I stopped journaling and threw all my old journals out. I remember saying, “I can’t journal because it takes me to a very dark place.” I was waiting for god to redeem it, but it turns out Evangelical introspection is just dismal. Now that I’ve left I have a number of weird little journaling practices that connect me deeply to myself.
Oh goodness, the "repentance for happiness" is SO real. All of what you're saying is spot on! I'm so glad that you've found a way to journal now that is meaningful (and not dark!!)!