I’m going to be starting a series here about religious trauma. Of course, everyone’s experience with faith is different, but I want to talk about the ways that my church affected me. I grew up going to church which my family was heavily involved in. I was constantly emotionally and spiritually manipulated by people that I was supposed to trust. I am hoping that this blog series will help me open up about what has happened in my life, and I will be able to help others through who have gone through similar situations. This first post will be discussing prayer and mental health.
I have struggled with Selective Mutism and issues related to anxiety and depression my entire life. The church leaders I grew up listening to said that you just needed to pray and trust God to cope with your worries. God could take care of everything. It was supposed to be a simple formula. Your problem + Trusting God = Problem gone away and no more fear. But praying about my anxieties just made them worse because prayer felt so forced. I thought that I could only deal with my problems through prayer. I didn’t allow myself to deal with my anxiety in any other way or to develop any healthy coping mechanisms. When praying didn’t make my anxiety go away, my anxiety would get worse. I felt like I was doing something wrong and that I wasn’t giving God enough of my trust or my heart. I was also taught that emotions aren’t trustworthy. How we feel isn’t the truth. Sure this can apply to when my depression tells me that I am worthless, and the truth is actually that I am enough and am incredibly valuable. But I do need to listen to what is going on inside of my mind when I get overwhelmed with a sensory overload. Emotions are indicators for us. They let us know there is something that needs to be attended to. We can’t slap a prayer on our problem or worry like a band-aid and expect it to go away. Spiritual bypassing doesn’t allow us to deal with the actual mental and emotional health concerns that need to be met. I eventually was able to accept other ways of dealing with anxiety and began to realize the harm that this pressure to pray had done to me. Everyone needs more than one way of managing their mental health. Now I take time to rest when I can feel my anxiety building. I’m learning to process the emotions and understand why I feel the way I do.
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