Difference Does Not Equal Danger

Though I don’t know that I ever formally heard the statement difference = danger when I was in religion, it was often taught to me in a more covert way by many of the people of influence in my life. “Be in the world, but not of it”, was a statement often proclaimed. Or being taught that I should be scared of those who did not believe as I did–they would surely try to get me to sin (ya know, sex, drugs, rock n’ roll…) 

On the first day of my college career, I found myself in a World Religions course and nearly had a panic attack. I had been told that this was a coveted class to get into; dozens of people were on the waitlist. As soon as the professor started talking my body became extremely activated. Not having understanding of the impact of a high control religion or how our nervous systems respond, I mistook this activation as the Holy Spirit speaking to me and telling me I needed to give up my spot in the class to someone else. This would be dangerous; I feared that the professor would persecute me for my faith and I wondered if I would start doubting my faith. 

(Now, 20+ years later, I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in the class. Perhaps I would have leaned more into apologetics–that is, defending my faith. Or perhaps my process of deconstructing from my religion of origin would have started nearly a decade earlier!)

I spent many more years experiencing becoming activated anytime someone or something different was around me. So long as I was surrounded by people and experiences that shared the same beliefs, practices, and church, I was ok. My world was insulated, but it was small. It was filled with people who offered me protection for being the same as them.

The few times I tried to step out: to ask questions, to make choices that the leaders did not sanction or give permission for, I was punished. I was threatened with disconnection, removal from leadership positions, and that others would be warned about me. I learned quickly that the safety offered to me in this environment was based only on not being different. Fitting in offered me the illusion of safety. 

Though I never truly fit in, I desperately tried. I silenced and suppressed myself; in the moments where I let my true self show, the harsh punishment got me back in line quickly and I resumed my effort to be the same. Until it didn’t. 

I don’t know what happened exactly. I don’t know what it was that finally broke inside me and gave me permission to stop listening to those in spiritual authority over me. I don’t know what it was in me that gave me an added dose of bravery to stand up and say “no”, to make my own choices and to endure the consequences, no matter how grave they were. And they were. I suffered greatly. I lost everything.

But in it all, I started to find myself. 

The first day of classes in my master’s degree program, the professor made a statement that left me grappling with all I had been taught and believed. It was a simple statement: he talked about how people are unique individuals who can't be put into a box of prescriptions or ideas. It hit the very core of my soul; I realized that if it was true for me, it was true about others. It was a statement I couldn’t un-hear and ultimately was the beginning of my deconstruction process.

When I began graduate school I quit my full time job as a recruiter for a college and accepted 2 part-time positions at a hair salon and Starbucks. I knew I wouldn’t be making a lot of money during school and I recognized getting my hair done and $5 coffees were a luxury that I could no longer afford. So I decided to apply for jobs that would allow me discounts (sometimes even 100% discounts!) 

With these new working environments came an introduction to all sorts of new people…people I had never had experiences with; these were people I had been told to steer clear of because of their propensity to drag me down into sin. The people who had casual sex, who lived with each other before they were married (if they even got married), who partied, drank, and did drugs, who were gay (gasp!), and who didn’t need to request Sundays off so they could participate in church activities.

It was the first time in my life I was befriending people who didn’t believe the same as me. At first I was skeptical and nervous. I told others this was a “ministry opportunity” because I didn’t want people to be concerned that I might be sliding down the slippery slope. But before long, I couldn’t deny that I liked these people. They didn’t care if I made a mistake, if I “fell short of the glory of God”, they didn’t threaten me with disconnection if I didn’t like something they liked or if I chose to live my life differently than they did. And when my gay coworker shared his story with me, how he knew he was gay from a very young age and showed compassion toward me, I had to start questioning. I opened myself up to curiosity, to learning about others and to refrain from judging. When I began seeing these beautiful people as humans who were good and often just had different preferences, they didn’t seem as scary.

***

I left the community and religious system I grew up in after my graduate program and moved to Nashville. I had every intention of “starting new”--the perk of moving to a place where you know very few people meant that I could be whomever I wanted to be. But as humans, we gravitate toward what is familiar; it is unsurprising to look back and see that I gravitated toward the same people and places I had grown up with. 

But I was also changed. 

I couldn’t deny all I had experienced and all that I was experiencing working at a community mental health organization. The more I came in contact with people–people who had formerly been identified as dangerous or to approach with caution–the more I changed. The more I realized my professor had been right: people are unique and individual; they are not prescriptive and able to be put in a box with exclusive and defining features and labeled as good or bad.

I stayed in organized religion for less than 3 years after moving to Nashville. I left due to my own disillusionment over many things. This was back in the day where language like ‘deconstruction’, or ‘religious trauma’ didn’t exist. There weren’t online spaces for support, podcasts to listen and learn from. It was just me and a couple friends who believed it was possible that we were the only ones going through a faith transition.

Professionally, though I was aware of PTSD and even trained in a cognitive-based trauma modality, the research and models were not what they were today. I had no understanding of how trauma lived in the body, how the nervous system functioned…or even that I was traumatized. All I knew is that I was struggling to function. And I knew that difference over anything: belief, preference, actions, minor disagreements…anything, felt so overwhelming and activating that I began to isolate myself. 

And then I began watching the bachelor (as well as reading bachelor recap blogs, since podcasts were not a thing yet!)

It sounds funny to say that the bachelor was pivotal in my trauma resolution process, but if I’m being honest, it was the thing that spurred on my other healing.

I realized that the bachelor was ultimately inconsequential. And yet, I had very strong opinions on what was happening on the show. Turns out, so did many others. Not shockingly, none of these people were fully, or sometimes even partially, agreeing with each other, let alone me! Initially, I found myself becoming upset and quickly activated. I felt endangered that someone would dare hold a different opinion than I did about this silly reality TV show. However, I began to challenge myself to use some of my grounding skills when I started to get flustered at others’ thoughts and opinions. Eventually I began to feel much calmer as I read. Then I began to consider some of their ideas and perspectives. Then I recognized that perhaps neither of us had a right or wrong perspective, it was just perspective; and I realized that sometimes both of our perspectives could be true at the same time. 

Now, as a trauma therapist, I would call this widening the window of tolerance or pendulation (according to Somatic Experiencing). Back then, I just thought it was me moving out of my rigid ways of thinking. And it was, but it was also so much more. It was learning, ultimately, that difference and danger were not synonymous. 

There was still a lot of work that I did after that point. The introduction to language and practices of embodiment, the nervous system, trauma resolution, and neurology aided in significant ways and ultimately helped me expand my capacity for people in my real life to show up as themselves and all of their differences and it wasn’t scary. 

I’ve since come to understand at a greater level of depth how the message of “difference = danger” became neurologically wired into my brain. It was something I was taught from a very young age. The message was so frequent and overwhelming that my body began to believe it too. Then my brain and body worked together to create neural pathways in my brain that partnered with physiological responses which affirmed the messages I was being taught. 

Ultimately it made my world small and scary. There was no room for nuance, complexity, and humanity. 

My process of healing from religious trauma and the impact of high control religion has been rigorous and has included a continuation of confronting these old messages and how my body responds while also giving my body different resources for coping and safety. 

People don’t threaten me anymore. I can cognitively disagree with someone (or their position on something) and still be in relationship with them. I don’t deem people unsafe or disconnect from them simply because they don’t do, think, or feel as I would prefer. They are allowed to be human and so am I. 

“One of the extraordinary benefits of developing a loving relationship with your own body is the natural love and respect you gain towards others’ bodies. It’s a near automatic extension. When I love my body, when I humanize my Self, I love and humanize others” –When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High Control Religion