Dr. Laura Anderson

MY OWN HEALING STORY

About Laura

As an Evangelical camp kid (including living there year round!) turned youth director, I have the inside track on experiencing, participating in, and promoting the lifestyle and teaching of high demand/high control religion.

It also means I understand the various ways people are impacted by such systems and as a trauma therapist of over 10-years, I understand how these impacts can effect every area of life–even if you’ve left or cognitively deconstructed from religion.

In my early 20’s, while working at a church with a spiritually and psychologically abusive pastor/boss, I recognized that something was wrong, but it wasn’t until my late 20’s, after moving across the country that I was able to begin recognizing the harm and adverse religious experiences I endured. 

My process of faith deconstruction began in my early 20’s after resigning my position at a church I worked for after significant spiritual and psychological abuse (though I didn’t know at the time this was what I was experiencing).

I am a curious person by nature and though I had many questions about spirituality, God, and religion, I knew exploring this would lead not lead to answers, rather disconnection, doubt from others about my salvation, and ultimately being seen as a potential danger or threat for not being able to accept the answers I was given.

After moving to Nashville, TN I joined a church that was every bit as fundamentalist as what I had grown up in but boasted an openness to asking questions. This was the stepping stone I needed that allowed the questions I had been keeping beneath the surface to come up and out and when they did, I could not unsee the harm I experienced, caused, and promoted, all under the name of God.

Leaving formal religion provided near-instant relief from the constant anxiety and terror I lived with on a daily basis. Though I was able to begin developing self-compassion and kindness, I began experiencing physiological and psychological symptoms that grew worse each month.

While I know now that this is common in individuals with PTSD or CPTSD (as well as many other mental and physical  health diagnoses), I did not connect my symptoms with my experiences and instead embraced a new fundamentalism: self-improvement.

My days were filled with self-help books, cleanses and detoxes, the latest fad diets and exercise programs, hours of meditation every day, manifestation, alternative medicine practice and mounting shame that no matter how hard I worked, the symptoms I was experiencing were only becoming worse. 

After countless appointments and sessions with doctors, healers, therapists, and alternative medicine practitioners provided no answers or clarity on my rapidly diminishing mental and physical health, I took my healing journey into my own hands.

Though the book had been sitting on my shelf, unread, for years, on a whim one day I grabbed my copy of “In an Unspoken Voice” by Peter Levine. With my mouth agape, I could not deny that what he was describing was exactly what I had been experiencing–and he had a name for it: trauma.

Over the course of the next 30 days I read SEVENTEEN trauma books; I was insatiable. Finally being able to put language and understanding about what was happening inside me felt like a dark cloud that had previously enveloped me, disappeared. I learned about trauma, the nervous system, physiology, embodiment and how long-term, chronic overwhelm–such as that experienced in high demand/high control religion–often resulted in a more complex form of trauma called Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD).

Not shockingly, however, the mere cognitive understanding of trauma, while helpful (and fascinating!) did not reduce the symptoms I was having (in fact, some of them got worse!) At a low point I reached out to a colleague of mine who used Somatic Experiencing–a trauma resolution modality created by Peter Levine–and asked if she was taking clients.

Though I do not discount the work I had done prior to beginning working with this therapist, it was the introduction to my body and nervous system, finding safety within myself, and integrating that safety into my day-to-day so I could deal with the stuff of life, that things began to change.

I am still a work in progress. I believe healing is a life-long process rather than a point you get to where you say “there, I am done, healed.” However, who I am today is quite different and I am proud of who I have become as a result of healing my nervous system, resolving trauma and recovering from high demand/high control religion.