Some mental health experts are advocating for religious trauma to be considered an official disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Kellen Swift-Godzisz, 35, said he doesn’t go on dates, struggles with erectile dysfunction and is hesitant to trust people. For more than 20 years, he’s experienced intense bouts of anxiety and depression that have had a “major hold on his life.”
“Imagine being told by everyone you trusted that you’re going to hell because you like men,” Swift-Godzisz, a marketing project manager living in Chicago, told NBC News.
At just 11 years old, Swift-Godzisz recalled, he would sit in his bedroom every night praying or writing letters that said, “Please God, remove my affliction of same-sex attraction,” and would then store each letter in an overflowing shoebox in his closet.
Honestly, the worst part is going to a doctor who you can tell is mildly religious and they start asking questions about why you think you feel anxiety and depression.
The trauma response to lie and hide is so strong, it takes SO MUCH effort to just be honest that it was your religious upbringing… and the second you do, they act like you’re personally attacking them. I’ve had doctors/nurses go from being warm and kind to suddenly going cold because I had the audacity to say that their religion is the cause of my trauma. You just have to keep looking for a new doctor until someone gets it.
It’s 2024…time to start telling these religious fucks to go fuck a boulder when they do shit like that. I’m not saying get violent, but fuck these aging ideologies and the people who keep propping them up. Easy to say, harder to do, but gotta start somewhere.