When people hear the phrase religious trauma, their minds often go straight to the most extreme examples: cults with compound living, bizarre rituals, or leaders who end up on Netflix documentaries. The stuff that makes people go, “Oh wow, that’s religious trauma.”
And look, yes—those stories matter. They’re horrifying, and important to name. But, religious trauma has a quieter, sneakier side too. It doesn’t always look like headline-making abuse. Sometimes it looks like Sunday school lessons that left you with a chronic sense of not being good enough. Sometimes it’s subtle shaming dressed up as “gentle encouragement.” Or a lifetime of sitting in a pew, never quite feeling like you belonged, but never quite feeling like you could leave either.
And just because it wasn’t loudly abusive doesn’t mean it wasn’t harmful.
The hierarchy of harm
Let’s start with I love a cult documentary (even before I did this work) and it brings to light some of the most horrific kinds of harm. Those people’s story’s matter. But when that’s the only image of religious trauma we’re given, it creates a hierarchy of harm.
It’s like saying:
- Cult = traumatic.
- Strict, high-control church = probably traumatic.
- Regular, “normal” church down the road = fine.
Except… it’s not that simple.
I can’t tell you how many people sit in my therapy room, whispering some version of: “I feel silly even being here, because my church wasn’t that bad.”
And yet, they’re wrestling with crippling shame. They’ve lost relationships after leaving. They feel disconnected from themselves, their sexuality, their body. Having panic attacks when they hear a worship song in a café or an IG reel.
That’s not nothing. It’s not “mild.” It’s trauma.
My own realisation about shunning
Here’s a confession: even as someone who lives and breathes this work, I have blind spots. For so long, I subconsciously categorised “shunning” as something that only happened in cults. You know – the Amish, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc, the groups with strict policies about cutting people off.
Then, not long ago, days after I’d created a post for IG, it hit me like a tonne of bricks: what I experienced in my own church was categorically shunning.
It wasn’t labelled that, of course. It was framed as “concern,” or silence, or people suddenly being too busy to catch up. But the reality was the same – I was cut off, excluded, and treated as though I no longer existed once I stepped outside the acceptable boundaries.
That realisation is still sitting with me. I’m unpacking it now in my own therapy, because it’s jarring to look back and go: Oh. That was shunning. No wonder it hurt (and still hurts) like hell.
And it reminded me again how easily we minimise what we’ve lived through, because it doesn’t match the stereotype in our heads.
The subtle wounds that linger
Religious trauma doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it hides. And, sometimes it’s so normalised that you don’t even realise it was harmful until you’re years out and wondering why you still flinch when someone says, “I’m praying for you.”
Here are some of the ways so called “mild” church experiences can leave deep scars:
- Perfectionism in disguise: Maybe you weren’t told outright you’d burn in hell if you sinned. But you were always subtly reminded that God “sees everything” and perfection is the standard. That’s enough to wire your nervous system for chronic anxiety.
- The “not enough” narrative: You never ticked all the boxes – you didn’t read your Bible enough, pray enough, evangelise enough. And that “never enough” doesn’t disappear just because you stop going to church. It often shows up in work, relationships, or self-worth.
- Conditional belonging: You were loved and celebrated until you started asking questions. Or until you came out as queer. Or until you stopped serving three nights a week. Suddenly the warmth turned cold, and you were left realising love had strings attached all along.
- Body distrust: Maybe you weren’t explicitly told your body was sinful, but the modesty talks, the “guard your heart” lectures, and the quiet shame around sex taught you to second-guess your own desires and instincts. That stuff lingers.
- Fear of hell (yes, even in “mild” churches): Hell-phobia is real. Even in seemingly “light” Christian traditions, it sneaks in through offhand comments, songs, or stories. You don’t need to have been screamed at about eternal flames to still carry a visceral fear of damnation.
These are the kinds of harms that don’t get their own Netflix doco, but they shape people’s lives all the same.
Why we dismiss it (and why we shouldn’t)
So why do so many people say, “My church wasn’t that bad” – even while describing symptoms that scream trauma?
Because the narrative of “trauma only counts if it’s extreme” is everywhere. If you didn’t escape barbed wire fences or horrific physical/sexual abuse, then you feel like you’re being dramatic for struggling.
It’s the same dynamic people who grew up in “ordinary dysfunctional families” experience. If there wasn’t outright physical abuse, they’re told to be grateful. Never mind the emotional neglect, the gaslighting, the constant walking on eggshells. Harm without bruises still counts.
Religious trauma works the same way. And the dismissal can become another layer of harm because now you’re gaslighting yourself. Maybe I’m just weak. Maybe it’s me and I should just get over it.
Spoiler: it’s not you. It’s the system you were in.
Healing the “quieter” scars
Acknowledging your pain is the first step in healing it. You don’t have to wait until someone else validates that it was “bad enough.”
Healing from subtle religious trauma often looks like:
- Naming what happened: Putting words to the tiny cuts that accumulated over years. They may feel “small,” but together, they shaped how you see yourself and the world.
- Unlearning shame: Realising that you don’t have to justify your existence, earn love, or explain your queerness.
- Reclaiming your autonomy: Choosing what you believe (or don’t believe), how you live, who you love. And refusing to see that as “rebellion.” It’s actually health.
- Building new communities: Finding spaces where questions aren’t punished, love isn’t conditional, and you don’t have to pretend.
- Therapy or support: Sometimes the hardest part is seeing the subtle patterns, because they were your “normal.” A trauma-focused therapist can help you connect the dots and untangle the shame.
None of this means you have to hate your past self, or even every person you met in church. Healing isn’t about painting everything as evil, it’s about acknowledging impact. Because impact is what shapes us.
What I want you to know
Here’s what I want you to hear most:
Your pain counts, your story matters and you don’t need a cult story to deserve healing.
Religious trauma has many faces. Sometimes it looks like a headline-grabbing nightmare. Other times it looks like a quiet ache, a lifetime of subtle shame, or a chronic sense that you’ll never measure up. And sometimes, like me, you realise years later that what you thought was “normal church stuff” was actually shunning or coercive control and it’s only then you feel the full weight of what you carried.
If that’s you – you are not silly, dramatic, or making it up. You are simply human, carrying scars that deserve to be seen. So the next time someone says, “Oh, but your church wasn’t that bad,” you get to smile, sip your coffee, and think: Actually, it was bad enough.
And that’s all the reason you need to begin healing.
If you’re realising your own story deserves to be taken seriously, you’re not alone. This is the heart of the work I do in therapy (contact me here), and it’s why The Religious Trauma Collective exists – to connect you with support and community.