Dare to Doubt discussion

Confession: I have a hard time saying "Religious Trauma Syndrome" with a straight face. It's gotten easier, and with the #exbeliever crowd, I have no problem. But in general, I am aware of a reflex to apologize for using the term 'religious trauma,' to roll my eyes in effort to self-mock what I assume others perceive as a pseudo-diagnosis for a niche market of people looking for victim sympathy. This urge to minimize or defend the term 'religious trauma' feels hot in my chest. I fight it. I usually win. It strengthens me every time I find the courage to own that, yes, I was traumatized by my faith. And so were many others. Why is owning our trauma so hard?

I feel Jamie did such a spot-on job of explaining why religious trauma is such a hard thing to claim. Others' lack of understanding; the common belief that religion and spirituality are good for you, or at least benign; the difficulty explaining the inner, psychological damage to others when it's hard to explain - or even admit - to ourselves. Does anyone else relate to these? Does anyone else relate to my own chicken fear of sounding like a whiny, self-pitying attention-seeker? (Or is that just a projection of my own judgment, lol...)

Do you have a hard time using the term 'religious trauma'? Why or why not?

I experienced major spiritual & generational trauma because of the cult I left! My name is Natalie Grand I just created and released a feminist, educational, romantic comedy, based on a true story titled CULT GIRLS. It was a passion project to raised awareness for children in cults and also to give the young adult crowd the courage to jump off the fence in their cult.

People don't know but the Jehovah's Witness cult is one of the largest cults in the world and they are FORBIDING children to get higher education and do not allow them to have extra curricular activities, they are to work traffic for the company. The policies include shunning children, sexually interrogating them, accusing them of "willing participants" in child involved sexual crimes and they sacrifice them to the religion in the rejection of blood transfusions. It really is a destructive cult, destroying lives and families. It is an indy graphic novel and it was so difficult to even find a paid author to touch this subject, because they were afraid of retaliation of this extremely rich organization. Any reviews you leave are deeply appreciated because I am trying to get this in libraries and lowered the cost of this full color book, because I only just want it in the public hands. It was featured in Cult News 101. If you want to talk more I am very active and accept messaging on twitter. My handle is Natalie Grand @CultGirlsAuthor I am not always checking my good reads account. There is sample pages people uploaded int he reviews of Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Girls-Nat...