Religious Trauma Recovery for Autistic, ADHD, and Gifted Individuals: Healing Enmeshment and People-Pleasing
SELF-TRUST, HEALING, HIGH-CONTROL RELIGION, CODEPENDENCY, NEURODIVERSITY
Key Points:
Neurodivergent individuals face unique challenges in high-control religious environments where logical thinking is labeled as rebellion and natural spiritual instincts are suppressed
The combination of being unable to trust your own logic while being pressured into prescribed religious roles creates profound self-doubt
Recovery involves reclaiming your need for coherent answers, trusting your critical thinking abilities, and honoring your authentic spiritual instincts
The shift from communities insisting "I know what's best for you" to relationships that trust "You know what's best for you" is central to reclaiming your autonomy
For neurodivergent individuals raised in obedience-driven religions, the loss of self-trust runs particularly deep. Not only were we taught that our instincts were sinful and our judgment couldn't be trusted, but our very way of thinking—our need for logical consistency, our inability to accept "just have faith" as an answer, our demand for things to make sense—was pathologized as spiritual pride or rebellion.
When you're autistic, ADHD, or gifted and you process information through logic and critical analysis, authoritarian religious environments don't see intellectual rigor—they see dangerous questioning that threatens authority. The result is a devastating bind: you must suppress your natural cognitive processes and adopt beliefs that contradict your logic to be acceptable.
The Neurodivergent Experience in High-Control Religion
The Logical Mind in an Illogical System
Many neurodivergent people, particularly those who are autistic or gifted, are literal thinkers who need coherent, logical explanations. When religious teachings contain contradictions, when doctrine doesn't align with observable reality, or when "because God said so" is offered as the only justification, it creates profound cognitive dissonance.
You might have asked questions like:
"If God is love, why does He send people to hell for honest doubt?"
"How is it loving to punish people eternally for finite sins?"
"Why does this biblical passage contradict that one?"
"If we're supposed to love everyone, why do we exclude these people?"
"How can I know this interpretation is right when there are thousands of denominations with different interpretations?"
These aren't rebellious questions—they're the natural result of a mind that seeks coherence and truth. But in high-control religions, these questions are treated as evidence of spiritual deficiency, lack of faith, or satanic influence.
The neurodivergent need for logical consistency becomes reframed as intellectual pride. Your critical thinking skills—which may be a genuine strength—are treated as a weakness that needs to be "crucified." You're told to "lean not on your own understanding" and to "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."
The devastating message: Your mind, your natural way of processing information, your need for things to make sense—these cannot be trusted. You must override your logic and adopt beliefs through sheer force of will and faith.
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) and Religious Compliance
For neurodivergent individuals with a PDA profile, the authoritarian structure of high-control religion creates particular torture. PDA involves an anxiety-based need for autonomy and a nervous system response to perceived demands that feels overwhelming and often impossible to comply with.
Religious environments are built on demands:
You must believe specific doctrines
You must attend services regularly
You must pray and read scripture daily
You must evangelize
You must submit to authority without question
You must conform to dress codes, behavior standards, relationship rules
You must suppress doubts and maintain certainty
For someone with PDA, these demands don't just feel burdensome—they can trigger a nervous system crisis. The more pressure to comply, the more internal resistance builds. But in religious contexts, this resistance is interpreted as spiritual rebellion, leading to shame, increased pressure, and even more resistance.
You might have experienced:
Extreme anxiety before church or religious events
Inability to pray or read scripture despite genuine desire to connect spiritually
Shutdown or meltdown responses to religious demands
Feeling controlled and trapped by expectations
Being labeled as rebellious, stubborn, or spiritually immature
Deep shame about your "failure" to do what others seemed to do effortlessly
The PDA nervous system was responding appropriately to a controlling environment, but this response was misinterpreted as sin.
The Social Navigation Challenge
For many neurodivergent individuals, social interactions that neurotypical people find intuitive feel like trying to follow unwritten rules in a language you're still learning. You might have experienced:
Not knowing how to act in social situations: You could engage in structured activities (card games, shared projects) or talk about topics that interested you, but making small talk "out of thin air" felt impossible. As one person describes: "I know how to do activities of interest to me with another person (like play a card game), or talk about things that interest me, but I don't know how to make small talk out of thin air." Elementary school's activity-based interactions worked fine, but middle school's emphasis on social circles and unstructured socializing felt overwhelming and confusing.
One-on-one being easier than groups: Talking to more than one person at a time was intimidating because you couldn't read multiple people simultaneously or understand the "game" of group social interaction. "It can be very intimidating for me to talk to more than one person at the same time. I don't know how to read more than one person to know how to act and react. I don't understand the 'game' of social interaction." When you tried to insert comments into group conversations, they often fell flat, leaving you confused and isolated.
Learning by copying: You watched how others interacted and modeled your behavior after theirs—perhaps asking questions to show care, like a parent did, or adopting phrases and mannerisms that seemed to work. "I watched how my mom was caring towards others and I modeled my interactions after hers, which meant asking people questions about themselves to show interest and care. That strategy worked well with one person, but less so with a group. It also led to emotional caretaking rather than friendship. Now that type of interaction feels more like a benign interrogation to me rather than pleasant conversation."
Taking on roles instead of being yourself: To navigate the uncertainty, you adopted prescribed roles—the welcomer of new kids, the mediator of conflicts, the good Samaritan helping anyone in need, the Christian witness ready to share testimony. "I learned how to be a good Samaritan and help anyone I saw in need. I learned how to be a mediator and help quarreling friends work things out (but I was never vulnerable with them myself). I learned how to be a Christian witness." These roles gave you scripts to follow but kept you emotionally isolated. You were performing service and care rather than being vulnerable and authentic.
In religious contexts, this was complicated by teachings like "be in the world but not of it," which provided a framework for understanding why you felt different but also bred isolation and a sense of superiority that led to shame cycles. "The admonition to be in the world but not of it kept me emotionally isolated and gave me a way to make sense of how different I felt, even from other Christians. It bred a superior attitude that I was not like everyone else who had their minds on earthly things. That led to an awful cycle of realizing I was prideful and trying to rid myself of that 'besetting sin.'"
(Read more about this journey in Masking and People-Pleasing as a Neurodivergent Christian.)
In religious environments, you're expected to:
Submit to pastoral authority because of their position
Obey parents because "honor thy father and mother"
Accept denominational doctrine because of tradition
Trust religious leaders' interpretations because of their credentials
Comply with rules because God ordained the hierarchy
But your neurodivergent brain asks: "Why? What makes their interpretation correct? What if they're wrong? What if the logic doesn't hold? What if their authority is being abused?"
These questions aren't disrespectful—they're protective. Your brain is doing exactly what it should: evaluating whether something deserves trust based on evidence and consistency rather than accepting authority blindly. But in high-control systems, this is treated as a character flaw.
You learn that your natural skepticism of unfounded authority is dangerous. You're taught to override your excellent instinct to evaluate claims critically. You begin to distrust the very cognitive processes that could protect you from manipulation.
The Suppression of Natural Spiritual Instincts
Many neurodivergent people have rich inner worlds and natural spiritual instincts—a sense of connection to something larger, wonder at the mysteries of existence, deep appreciation for nature, or intuitive knowing that transcends logic. These authentic spiritual experiences often exist outside the narrow confines of prescribed religious belief.
But in authoritarian religion, your natural spiritual instincts are dangerous unless they conform perfectly to doctrine. You might have experienced:
Curiosity labeled as doubt: Your genuine wonder and desire to explore spiritual questions was treated as lack of faith rather than spiritual depth.
Intuition dismissed as deception: Your inner knowing or spiritual experiences that didn't fit the prescribed template were attributed to Satan or your "deceitful heart."
Connection to nature seen as paganism: Your profound sense of the divine in the natural world was treated with suspicion rather than celebrated.
Mystical experiences pathologized: Any spiritual encounter that didn't match the expected format was questioned or invalidated.
Authenticity replaced with performance: Your genuine spirituality had to be hidden and replaced with the approved expressions—raising hands during worship, using specific prayer language, testifying in particular ways.
You learned to suppress your authentic spiritual instincts and replace them with prescribed performances. The cost was profound: disconnection from your genuine spiritual self and loss of trust in your own inner wisdom.
The Anxiety Economy: Rapture, Hell, and Thought Policing
For literal-thinking neurodivergent individuals, the doctrines of hell, the rapture, and eternal damnation can create debilitating anxiety rather than motivation toward holiness.
When you're told:
Jesus could return at any moment and you'll be left behind if you're not ready
One unconfessed sin at the moment of death sends you to hell
Doubting thoughts are sin that could cost you salvation
Your unsaved loved ones will suffer eternal torment
You must maintain constant spiritual vigilance or risk everything
Your literal, pattern-recognizing brain doesn't hear motivation—it hears threat. And because you can't "just have faith" and turn off the logical part of your brain that sees the inconsistencies and problems with these doctrines, you live in chronic anxiety.
You might have experienced:
Panic attacks about the rapture or sudden death
Obsessive thought patterns trying to maintain "right belief"
Compulsive confession and re-confession of sins
Hypervigilance about your spiritual state
Terror about losing salvation
Inability to enjoy life because of constant fear
Scrupulosity (religious OCD) symptoms
Your neurodivergent brain, processing these threats literally and unable to dismiss the logical problems, became a torture device. And when you tried to talk about your anxiety, you were told to "have more faith" or "trust God more"—further evidence that your brain couldn't be trusted.
Understanding Enmeshment in Neurodivergent Religious Families
Enmeshment—when boundaries between individuals become so blurred that one person's emotional wellbeing becomes dependent on another's—is particularly common in high-control religious families with neurodivergent children.
Parents in these systems often view controlling their children's thoughts, beliefs, and choices as a form of spiritual protection. For neurodivergent children who think differently and ask difficult questions, this "protection" intensifies into surveillance and thought policing.
High-control religions actively cultivate enmeshment because these systems eradicate autonomy and personal agency. Without autonomy, it's impossible to develop healthy boundaries. For neurodivergent individuals, this is compounded by:
Being told your logical questions are spiritually dangerous to yourself and others
Having your doubts treated as a threat to the family's spiritual standing
Learning that your authentic thoughts must be hidden to maintain family peace
Being trained to override your need for coherence in favor of family/community unity
Having your theological conclusions dismissed as immature or deceived if they differ from family beliefs
When your entire identity is wrapped up in meeting others' spiritual expectations, when your "ok-ness" is fundamentally tied to maintaining the "right" beliefs, you lose access to your own internal compass. You learn to suppress your questions and perform certainty, constantly scanning for what theological positions are acceptable rather than honestly exploring what makes sense to you.
The Masks You Were Required to Wear
High-control religion didn't just ask you to believe certain things—it demanded you perform specific roles with precision. These masks became survival strategies, but at the cost of your authentic self.
The Good Girl / Good Boy
This mask required:
Unquestioning obedience to parents and church authority
Suppression of any desires that conflicted with expectations
Modeling "godly" behavior for younger children
Never expressing anger, doubt, or frustration
Accepting correction without defending yourself
Putting others' needs before your own consistently
For neurodivergent individuals who couldn't intuitively read unspoken expectations, maintaining this mask required exhausting hypervigilance. You had to consciously track and comply with rules that seemed arbitrary, predict what would be acceptable in each situation, and suppress your natural responses.
The Perfect Christian
This mask demanded:
Certainty in beliefs you actually had questions about
Enthusiasm for religious activities that might feel overwhelming or meaningless
Testimony of dramatic conversion or spiritual experiences you may not have had
Consistent "victory" over sin and doubt
Visible fruits of the Spirit (that you had to manufacture when you didn't feel them)
Never admitting spiritual struggles or theological confusion
Your neurodivergent need for authenticity and honesty made this mask particularly torturous. You were lying—about your doubts, your questions, your actual spiritual state—but you were told this performance was holiness.
The Christian Witness
This role required:
Representing Christ to the watching world at all times
Never doing anything that might cause others to stumble
Being ready to defend your faith and evangelize at any moment
Maintaining a testimony that would attract others to Christianity
Living as if your behavior could determine others' eternal destiny
For neurodivergent individuals who might already struggle with social performance, this added layer of pressure to represent not just yourself but God Himself created paralyzing anxiety. Every social interaction became a spiritual test. Every mistake wasn't just personal—it was potentially damning someone else to hell.
The Godly/Obedient Child
This mask involved:
Cheerful submission to parental authority
Accepting parents' interpretation of God's will for your life
Choosing the college, career, spouse, lifestyle your parents approved
Never asserting independence or adult autonomy
Treating normal developmental separation as rebellion
Believing that honoring parents meant never disagreeing with them
For neurodivergent young adults who might need more time to develop independence skills, this mask kept you in extended adolescence, unable to trust your own decision-making or develop adult autonomy.
The Consent/Closeness Matrix: Understanding Your Journey
The Consent/Closeness Matrix maps four relational stances based on two axes: consent (low to high) and closeness (high distance to high warmth).
The Four Stances:
Paternalism (Low Consent, High Closeness): "I know what's best for you"
Characterized by helicopter parenting, patronizing correction, and "loving" control
Approach to pain: "Let me fix it for you" (aka "let me fix you")
Where most obedience-driven religious parenting operates, especially with neurodivergent children whose different thinking is seen as needing correction
Authoritarianism (Low Consent, High Distance): "I know what's best for you"
Characterized by domination, demands for loyalty, and punishment for questions
Approach to pain: Law and order, shame and consequences
Where neurodivergent children who couldn't maintain compliance often ended up
Radical Acceptance (High Consent, High Closeness): "You know what's best for you"
Characterized by interdependence and valuing everyone's wellbeing
Approach to pain: Compassion, curiosity, and restorative justice
The goal for healthy relationships that honor your need for logical coherence and authentic spiritual exploration
Radical Autonomy (High Consent, High Distance): "You know what's best for you"
Characterized by healthy boundaries, self-agency, and self-determination
Approach to pain: Authenticity, curiosity, and natural consequences
An important stage for recovering your ability to think independently and trust your own logic
Most neurodivergent individuals were raised in families that operated primarily in Paternalism, with moves into Authoritarianism when questions persisted or compliance failed. You were never trusted to know what was best for yourself—not theologically, not logically, not spiritually.
The Five Movements of Self-Trust: A Cyclical Path
Recovery from religious control and the suppression of your neurodivergent thinking isn't linear. It's cyclical and rhythmic, a labyrinthine path—spiraling inward and outward, returning to themes at deeper levels, each time with greater wisdom.
1. Reflect: Understanding What Led to Distrust
Begin by examining how distrust of your own thinking was cultivated. Pay particular attention to how your cognitive processes were pathologized.
What messages did you receive about your neurodivergent way of thinking?
Were your questions labeled as pride or rebellion?
Was your need for logical consistency treated as lack of faith?
Were you told to suppress doubts rather than explore them honestly?
Was your critical thinking framed as dangerous?
Were you pressured to accept contradictions without examination?
Was your inability to "just believe" treated as spiritual immaturity?
Identify the masks you were required to wear and how they conflicted with your authentic self. Which roles felt most dishonest? Where did you have to perform certainty you didn't feel?
This reflection brings conscious awareness to patterns that have been operating unconsciously. You cannot heal what you cannot see.
2. Release: Letting Go of What No Longer Serves You
Once you've identified the beliefs and patterns that undermine self-trust, begin the process of release:
Release the belief that your logical mind is dangerous or prideful
Let go of the need to have perfect certainty before your beliefs are valid
Release relationships that punish honest questions and theological exploration
Let go of the shame around doubting or changing your beliefs
Release the masks you wore to appear as the "good Christian"
Let go of the pressure to believe things that don't make logical sense
Release the idea that your natural spiritual instincts are deceptive
Let go of the anxiety-producing doctrines that kept you in fear
Release is ongoing—noticing what you're carrying that was never yours to carry.
3. Reconnect: Returning to Your Inner Wisdom
Beneath the conditioning lies your inner compass—your capacity for logic, critical thinking, and authentic spiritual connection.
Reconnecting involves:
Reclaiming your logical processes: Your need for coherent answers isn't a flaw. Your inability to accept contradictions is intellectual integrity, not rebellion. Your questions are evidence of a mind that values truth over comfort.
Honoring your critical thinking: Your capacity to analyze, question, and evaluate claims is a gift. It protects you from manipulation and leads you toward genuine truth. Trusting your logic is not pride—it's wisdom.
Validating your experiences: If something didn't make sense, that's valuable information. If a doctrine created unbearable anxiety, that matters. If your spiritual experiences didn't match the prescribed template, they're still real and meaningful.
Reconnecting with authentic spirituality: Your natural spiritual instincts—wonder, connection, intuition, mystical experiences—can be trusted. They don't need to fit a prescribed mold to be valid.
Creating space to think freely: Give yourself permission to explore questions without predetermined answers, to change your mind, to sit with uncertainty, and to follow your curiosity wherever it leads.
4. Reclaim: Taking Back What You Need to Trust Yourself
Reclaiming is active work of taking back authority over your own thinking and believing:
Reclaim your right to ask questions without shame
Reclaim theological exploration as a legitimate spiritual practice
Reclaim your need for beliefs that align with your logic and values
Reclaim your authentic spiritual experiences and expressions
Reclaim your pace of belief development—you don't owe anyone certainty on a timeline
Reclaim your right to disagree with authority figures
Reclaim your protection against manipulation by trusting your critical thinking
Reclaim your authentic self beneath all the masks
You are gathering back the parts of yourself that were suppressed or pathologized as dangerous.
5. Re-emerge: Becoming Whole, Grounded, and Trusting
As you move through this process in ever-deepening spirals, you begin to re-emerge as yourself, more fully realized. Whole, grounded, and trusting in your own mind.
This doesn't mean you never doubt or question. It means you trust that your thinking processes are sound, that your questions are valuable, that your need for coherence is valid. You trust the process of your own becoming.
The Cyclical Nature
These five movements aren't steps to complete once. They're a rhythm you return to as new questions arise, as old anxiety patterns resurface, as you encounter new layers of conditioning. Each time you cycle through, you do so with more confidence in your own thinking.
Learning to Know Yourself: Beyond the Masks
Knowing yourself means developing a clear sense of who you are apart from the roles you performed.
Identifying Your Authentic Beliefs
What do you actually believe, underneath the beliefs you were told to have?
You might discover:
You're uncertain about many things, and that's intellectually honest
Your theology is still developing, and that's healthy
You have questions without answers, and that's okay
Your spiritual experiences don't fit conventional categories
You're drawn to ideas that were labeled "dangerous"
Your values differ from what you were taught
Give yourself permission to explore without reaching predetermined conclusions. Your neurodivergent need for logical consistency doesn't require you to have everything figured out—it requires you to be honest about what actually makes sense to you.
Understanding Your Thinking Style
How does your neurodivergent brain actually work, when not forced into religious molds?
Notice:
Do you think in systems and patterns?
Do you need to understand the "why" before the "what"?
Do you process through analysis and logic?
Do you need time to think before forming opinions?
Do you change your mind when presented with better evidence?
Do you struggle with ambiguity and need clear categories?
Do you see contradictions others miss?
These aren't flaws—they're features of your cognitive style. Understanding how you think helps you trust your thinking.
Recognizing Your Authentic Spirituality
What does genuine spiritual connection feel like for you, separate from prescribed religious performance?
You might find:
Connection through nature rather than church services
Spiritual insight through questions rather than answers
The divine in beauty, art, or science
Meaning through service and justice rather than evangelism
Peace in uncertainty rather than forced certainty
Spirituality that honors your logic rather than contradicting it
Learning to Express Yourself: Using Your Voice
Expressing yourself means using your voice to communicate your truth, even when it disappoints or challenges others.
Starting Small
Begin with low-stakes expression:
Admitting "I don't know" when you don't have certainty
Asking clarifying questions without apologizing
Expressing doubt or confusion honestly
Stating what doesn't make sense to you
Sharing that you're reconsidering a belief
Building to Bigger Truth-Telling
Gradually work toward:
Disagreeing with theological claims you find illogical
Expressing your actual beliefs, even if they differ from family/community
Setting boundaries around religious discussions
Declining participation in religious activities that feel inauthentic
Exploring spiritual practices that resonate with you
Breaking Free from Performance
The masks—Good Girl/Boy, Perfect Christian, Christian Witness—were survival strategies. Removing them feels terrifying because it risks the very thing you tried to avoid: rejection, disappointment, exclusion.
But continuing to wear them costs you yourself. Each time you perform certainty you don't feel, suppress questions that matter to you, or pretend to believe what doesn't make sense, you abandon yourself. You teach your nervous system that you can't be trusted to protect your authentic self.
Steps toward unmasking:
Name the masks you've worn: "I've been performing the Perfect Christian"
Identify what each mask cost you: "This meant suppressing my real questions"
Grieve what you had to hide: "I never got to explore my doubts openly"
Practice small acts of authenticity: "I'm going to admit I don't have this figured out"
Trust that authentic connection is possible: "People who accept the real me are worth finding"
Neurodivergent Strengths: Reframing Your Thinking
Your neurodivergent cognitive style isn't a liability—it's a strength that religious systems tried to suppress because it threatened their control.
Gifts of Your Thinking Style
Logical consistency: You notice contradictions and inconsistencies others miss
Critical thinking: You evaluate claims rather than accepting them blindly
Intellectual honesty: You can't pretend to believe what doesn't make sense
Pattern recognition: You see systems, connections, and structures clearly
Question-asking: You pursue truth even when it's uncomfortable
Resistance to manipulation: Your need for logical justification protects you from blind obedience
Depth of analysis: You think through implications and consequences
Intellectual integrity: You change your mind when evidence warrants it
Clarity perception: You cut through incongruence and social performance to what's actually being communicated
Heightened sensitivity: You notice emotional undercurrents and unspoken dynamics others miss
These traits were pathologized in religious environments because they threatened authority. Your questions challenged inconsistent doctrine. Your logic exposed manipulation. Your refusal to accept "just have faith" as an answer resisted control. Your ability to perceive incongruence revealed the performance and pretense.
But these same traits are what helped you eventually recognize the problems with the system. Your logical mind wouldn't let you ignore the contradictions forever. Your need for coherence eventually outweighed your fear of questioning. Your critical thinking led you out. Your sensitivity alerted you that something was wrong.
As one neurodivergent survivor beautifully expressed: "We can see through the bullshit a lot faster. The amount of denial, incongruence, and general messiness in conversations is painfully obvious. I think this is one of our superpowers—the ability to cut through the mess and incongruence. To be clear and call our society to that as well."
The Gift of PDA
If you have a PDA profile, the trait that was labeled as rebellious and sinful was actually protecting you. Your nervous system's resistance to controlling demands was appropriate. Your inability to comply with arbitrary authority kept some part of you autonomous even under intense pressure.
The anxiety and shutdown you experienced around religious demands wasn't spiritual weakness—it was your nervous system saying "This is not safe. This is too controlling. This threatens your autonomy." That response deserves respect, not shame.
Practical Steps for Recovery
1. Recognize the Patterns
Identify how your neurodivergent thinking was pathologized:
Which questions were labeled as sinful?
Where was your logic dismissed?
What masks were you required to wear?
Which anxieties were created by doctrine?
How was your critical thinking suppressed?
2. Set Boundaries Around Belief Policing
Learn to protect your thought life:
"I'm not discussing my theological views right now"
"I need to work through this question at my own pace"
"My beliefs are still developing and that's okay"
"I'm not going to debate this"
Limiting contact with people who can't respect your exploration
3. Practice Self-Compassion
You will feel guilt for questioning. You will worry you're wrong. You will fear hell or divine punishment even as you logically don't believe it.
These are conditioned responses, not evidence you're on the wrong path. Be gentle with yourself. You're rewiring decades of conditioning that taught you not to trust your own mind.
4. Develop Your Authentic Beliefs
Give yourself permission to:
Explore without reaching conclusions
Change your mind repeatedly
Hold paradoxes and uncertainties
Build a belief system that honors your logic
Follow your questions wherever they lead
Reject beliefs that create unbearable anxiety
5. Seek Supportive Community
Find spaces where:
Questions are welcomed, not punished
Logic and critical thinking are valued
Uncertainty is accepted
Theological exploration is supported
Your neurodivergent thinking style is appreciated
Authenticity matters more than performance
Look for therapists trained in religious trauma who understand neurodivergence. Join communities of religious trauma survivors. Connect with others doing deconstruction work.
Moving Toward Radical Acceptance
The goal is relationships characterized by Radical Acceptance:
High consent: "You know what's best for you" (including what to believe)
High closeness: Warm, connected relationships
Compassion for differences: Your questions and conclusions are respected
Restorative approach: Mistakes don't result in shaming
Mutual respect: Your thinking process is valued
This means finding people who:
Accept that you need logical coherence in your beliefs
Respect your theological questions and exploration
Don't punish you for changing your mind
Value your critical thinking as a strength
Support your authentic spiritual expression
Don't require you to wear masks
Questions for Reflection
What questions were you not allowed to ask? What did you genuinely want to understand that was labeled as doubt or rebellion?
Which masks did you wear most consistently? How did they conflict with your authentic self?
How was your logical, critical thinking pathologized? What messages did you receive about your mind?
What anxieties were created by doctrine (hell, rapture, thought sin)? How did your literal thinking amplify these fears?
What are you curious about now that you're free to explore? What questions do you want to pursue?
What does authentic spirituality feel like for you, separate from prescribed performance?
The journey from "I know what's best for you" to "You know what's best for you" is the journey home to your own mind. You deserve to live trusting your logical thinking, honoring your questions, and following your authentic spiritual instincts. Your neurodivergent way of processing—your need for coherence, your critical analysis, your inability to accept contradictions—isn't pride or rebellion. It's intellectual integrity, and it's trustworthy.
Next Steps
Consider working through my self-study course Trust Yourself Again, where you can Reclaim Your Inner Compass after Leaving Evangelical Subculture. Schedule a free consultation to see if I’m the right fit for 1:1 support. And read through my memoir walking through this healing process.
Hi, I’m Catherine. I’m so happy to share this time and space with you.
I’m a counselor and self-trust coach living on the Emerald Coast of Florida, on the unceded land of the Muscogee. I am a creative, mystic, and neurodiverse adventurer. I love writing, creating, and connecting.
I love helping folx Befriend Your Inner Critic and Become Your Own Best Friend. I enjoy hearing from you and walking alongside you on your journey.
With a full heart,
Catherine
