Recently, I got very sick.

Not the kind of sick where you stay home from work and want your mom to bring you chicken soup. I mean really sick. The kind of sick where your body stops negotiating and simply announces, “We are shutting this operation down temporarily.”

For days, I could barely function. I needed a wheelchair to get to and from urgent care, where I received IV saline infusions every day because my body was struggling to stay hydrated. It was the sickest I had been since 1984, when I was hospitalized with bronchial pneumonia.

At one point, languishing in urgent care feeling weak, shaky, and miserable, something surprising happened:

I wanted to pray. Not just once; many times.

Welcome to Easter, the annual holiday with the most confusing branding. Is it about resurrection, chocolate, or a rabbit running an egg distribution scheme? Somehow, “He is risen” and “check behind the couch for jellybeans” coexist without anyone questioning the plot. It’s a holiday that offers very little logical consistency yet demands a great deal of emotional participation. For those with religious trauma, it can feel less like a celebration and more...

Grief does not require belief in the supernatural. The recent tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, BC, has shaken many of us. I have loved ones impacted by this loss, and like so many of you, I have felt that familiar drop in the stomach that comes when something unthinkable happens. In the days that followed, I recorded a reel with a simple message: Atheists mourn. We mourn deeply, fully, and fiercely. Grief is not owned by religion. It is owned by love. Yet when...

When Belief Feels Like Safety. As a clinical counsellor specializing in Religious Trauma Syndrome, I have worked for years with individuals recovering from high-control belief systems. Many describe the same emotional arc: immersion that feels safe, followed by relational disconnection, and later a painful realization marked by grief, shame, and loss of trust in one’s own judgment. Seeing similar patterns show up in AI-based beliefs has felt clinically...

For many people recovering from religious trauma or authoritarian upbringings, anger does not arrive on time. It shows up late. Sometimes decades late. This can be confusing, frightening, or even shame-inducing, especially for those who were taught that anger was dangerous, sinful, or morally suspect. But late-arriving anger is not a failure of healing. On the contrary, it is often a sign that healing has begun. Late-arriving anger often reflects increased...

Before talking about religion and fairness, it helps to clarify an important distinction. Equality means treating everyone the same, regardless of circumstances or starting point. Equity, by contrast, recognizes that people begin with different levels of power, access, and protection, and that fairness often requires responding differently to different needs. Equality asks whether the rules are identical. Equity asks whether the outcomes are just...

We discuss what led Luna to divorce Mormonism, as well as some of the specific manipulation tactics used by the Mormon church.

In this interview, David Teachout shares what it was like to lose his faith while attending Bible college.

Signs and symptoms of religious trauma syndrome. How to recognize religious trauma.

Let's talk about how religious trauma syndrome affects sexuality.

Many people think religious trauma syndrome is not real. Why?

Why the Death of Mahsa Amini Matters in the West.

The steps to take towards healing and recovery from religious trauma syndrome.

Those who don’t receive adequate sex ed may fall prey to some of the bizarre and hilarious bad sex advice I’ve either received or read.

Learn the different factors that make religion traumatizing for so many people.

As a Christian woman, I considered myself 100% “PRO-LIFE.” I went so far as to protest abortions being offered at the local hospital where I worked and felt proud to be standing on the side of righteousness with my young teen daughter and other members of her youth group, condemning the “slaughter of the innocents.” Coming from a privileged position as a married Caucasian Christian woman, I rejected...

Trauma bonding is most likely to happen in situations with a cycle of abuse followed by positive reinforcement, where the abuser...

As I prepare for the next Divorcing Religion Workshop, CORT (Conference on Religious Trauma)...

I spent about 40 years of my life as a Christian fundamentalist. I believed the Bible to be absolutely true, literal, and historical...

It's the most wonderful time of the year... unless you are expected to participate in meals & attend services with still-religious loved ones...