I was at the park with my dog and was getting her some water. Two LDS were there and it starts the way it always does: asking me questions about my dog, compliments, then the inevitable did I want to hear scripture? “No religious hocus pocus gentlemen, not interested”. Love the look on their faces as we walk away.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience to illustrate the harm of Christian nationalism. I grew up with similar fear-based messages, but thankfully my mom and dad did not agree with that approach to spirituality. My grandparents and some friends and their families did. My mom taught me how to question these things when I was in middle school when I came home telling her some troubling stuff. She did it in a way that helped me come to understanding in my own time. She had a real gift, like a Socratic method style of conversation that was compassionate while also being direct. It seems the conditioning you describe has happened politically with those who claim “the liberals already ruined it” as I heard an ICE agent say when bystanders objected to the warrantless arrest of a person in the street. (Video at meidas touch network). It seems there is an indoctrination that our country is going to hell or is ruined so it is ok to break the law and disregard due process. I don’t know if it is directly linked to Christian nationalism, but I think your writing on Project 2025 would support that it is. We saw it on J6 when people trespassed, destroyed property, and injured over 100 police officers doing their jobs but outnumbered by Americans who were rioting or engaged in an insurrection or both. Our nation is divided because of this brain washing of negativity.
You were very fortunate that your parents taught you how to see this conditioning. My parents were 100% all-in on conditioning me to accept that environment, which of course, helped the indoctrination stick. During my time in WCN, I had peers like you with parents like yours. Often, they went to different churches and sent their kids to my church's school because it was the only option besides public school (which they didn't want for their kids because racism.) Most of those classmates weren't as indoctrinated because their parents went to church elsewhere and didn't drink the WCN kool-aid my church offered.
When I was in it, we also had a spectrum of radicalization. Some people came to that church and sent their kids to that school, but one parent was all-in and the other wasn't. So some of my classmates got that perspective. Sometimes, neither parent was all-in but they had friends in the church and liked getting the private school discount, so they went through the motions and taught their kids to question at home.
I saw that video. Stewartson writes about MAGA and QAnon indoctrination as well in the linked newsletters. It all uses the same basic tools and results in people who have no idea they're indoctrinated but are incapable of thinking beyond that indoctrination.
It has become clear for some time now that our schools need to prioritize teaching critical thinking skills - beginning at the lowest level possible, then every year until graduation (which should not occur until a student demonstrates total capability). Kids are supposed to be learning how to listen, analyze, and "figure out" anyway. That has to be taken to the next level, big time. (I know that for years there have been teachers who lead classes in critiquing tv commercials in order to determine reality. It can be done!)
I have several German friends or part-German who were reared in German schools. They introduced mandatory ethics classes (religion is part of this study) after WWII. It isn’t a throwaway class. One must pass to graduate, as well as pass those introduced earlier to advance. I had language school last year with a German guy who almost didn’t graduate because of that class. And I wanted to say, “Why would you admit that?” But he thought being American, I wouldn’t understand. Whenever we move beyond this, we will need something related to try to reprogram broken brains.
I can say from my own experience with indoctrination...it feels like one's brain is broken. These monsters break people's brains over and over and over again and reassemble them to be controlled.
(and next, it should be illegal to call any tv, radio, etc. program like "Faux" "news". Even they admitted in a court of law that they were an "entertainment" offering only...)
The theocratic model is “get them while they are young”. Before they are developed enough to smell BS or have the courage to ask questions of parents, clergy or any authority figure. And later on questioners get shunned in various ways or get the “God works in mysterious way which we may never understand and we need to just follow, to stay in His grace.”
Yes, this is 100% what Project 2025 proposed. Get them while they're young, and give them no outlet to escape it as they age. I repeatedly warned Americans that forced religious indoctrination would go from cradle to grave.
Another aspect for the hard core kool aid drinking parents is to keep the kids isolated from other possible ideas. Christian schools, home schooling, Christian summer camps, sports leagues, etc. The simple proof is found in the fact that the overwhelming majority of people end up with the religion of their parents, community and/or country. And the various religions of different cultures are often in basic disagreement with each other. Logically they cannot be all true from the one God, more likely they are all wrong, created by MEN to control society and have dominance over women and children. One of the major damages this does to the children and ultimately to society is that it teaches them a very backward epistemology where they often put ideas without evidence above rational thought and evidence. Lack of acceptance of the fact of evolution, that gay people are deviant and unnatural, despite the fact that a small percentage of people are born gay, etc. this allows them when they grow up to listen to their priest, preacher, rabbi, or muslim leader, or lying oligarch and vote for Trump and his MAGA followers. Of all modern countries we are second from the bottom as far as accepting evolution as true. Turkey is the only one below USA. Theocratic hate for scientific method is slowly taking us down as a leader in science and technology in the world economy. Why, because science destroys their made up control mythology. Evolution destroys the Genesis Adam and Eve mythology that is the starting point for all Abrahamic religions’ patriarchy and misogyny and sin. Eve from his rib to be a helper and baby maker. How convenient of God to give such standing to MEN only! It doesn’t take an Einstein or any one not indoctrinated, to figure out it was written by MEN for MEN!!!!
When I said to you the other day that parents who want to rear children who can think critically must create those structures now, this is what I meant. (Sorry for such a garbled sentence. I have a migraine today and am not always eloquent with a pounding head. Ha.) If future American parents want to train critical, logical, reasonable thinkers, they're going to have to establish a means to educate their children apart from what's going to be on offer. And that's assuming the regime will allow that. I honestly don't expect them to, because they know they created their own alternate world to indoctrinate generations of Americans and bring us to this point.
You are exactly correct: “One of the major damages this does to the children and ultimately to society is that it teaches them a very backward epistemology where they often put ideas without evidence above rational thought and evidence.” Thank you.
It also teaches people to be authoritarian thinkers. I wrote about this last year. We have millions of Americans who have been indoctrinated into authoritarian thinking, where they don't listen to others, cannot compromise, bully anyone who disagrees, and want to force everyone in society to live by their rules.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Prior to being adopted at the age of 7, I was shuffled around to several foster homes, some abusive, some not. All of them were adherents of evangelical religions. I could recite many bible verses related to behavior and hell. My adoptive parents were members of The Church of Religious Science. At age 7, I was very confused by this, but as I was accustomed to following the teachings of whom ever I was residing with, I began to believe their teachings as well. Luckily, their teachings are more open, but also harmful. They advocate a great deal of magical thinking: “You are sick, upset, have bad things happen to you because you are not thinking positively enough.” I was finally able to mostly, not completely, escape from both the Christian beliefs, and the magical thinking ideas when I went to college and studied sociology, psychology, and philosophy. Still, in my late 60’s, I sometimes struggle. As you explained, thought indoctrination is very difficult to overcome. Thank you again so much for sharing your insights.
Shirley, I'm grateful you escaped and were able to find rational, logical thinking that gives your life meaning. You're not alone in still being triggered. I can't do this work without being triggered, and the triggers usually come from unexpected places. I compared this indoctrination to cancer intentionally. Just as it is often difficult to completely get rid of a malignant tumor, it is difficult to completely eradicate this indoctrination, no matter how hard one works to overcome it.
Last week I looked after an elderly neighbor for several hours.She was watching Joel Osteen, the “prosperity gospel” preacher with one of the largest congregations in America.Every other commercial was an ad,with Mike Huckabee as spokesperson, asking for donations to a Christian/Jewish org to help the victims in Israel who were “starving” and “in need of a bomb shelter”.
Andra, thank you for this substack and sharing all you have been through. You are an example for others that they can escape and get control of their mind and use their brain power as you are doing to make society better for all. 🥇👍💪❤️
But I had to want to. Nobody could force me to do this work; I had to realize it was necessary, and I had to undertake the very arduous task of doing the work.
One of the most insidious things about this indoctrination is that people don't realize they're indoctrinated. They don't realize this is a formalized set of tools that intentionally work to infect people's brains and control them. If I said something like that to anyone I know in that world, they'd be offended, not enlightened.
Right. This is what's hard for me to navigate, too, with the few remaining contacts I have in that world - when the indoctrination works, its victims become its most zealous enforcers and truly believe they're doing God's will by perpetuating the system. It's too painful to conceive that it could be wrong at its core to treat people this way.
I finally let everyone in that world go (and I had very few remaining.) I finally realized that they will never change unless and until they realize they must. It's painful, but it freed up more space for decent, empathetic people who choose me over religious indoctrination.
Thanks for this post Andra. Here are a couple of my personal CN stories. I grew up in the South so I am familiar with Christian indoctrination. Fortunately, my parents were not really religious, although many other people in my family were. I did go to church sometimes though to hang out with my friends. But after high school I could see that many of them really embraced Christianity and decided to stay close to home. I never bought into Christianity like they did but respected those who did. I faced an onslaught of attempted indoctrination not by my parents by my pentacostal Aunt. She was constantly sending me religious publications like James Dobson's Focus on the Family. As you know, he advocates harsh punishments for children and is also is very anti-abortion. This is the point when I started rejecting Christianity and questioning all of religion. I told my Aunt that if she ever wanted to see me again, she would cancel that FoF subscription tout suite. She canceled it. I moved away from the south a couple of decades ago and am now in LA. I have to psychologically prepare myself when I go back to the South because I can't stand how God, church, religion, Jesus, and being a good Christianity is constantly brought up in conversation. My husband (who is not religious either) is from Tennessee. His father is a full-blown CN who believes he is the most wonderful, devoted Christian. On a daily basis, his father would send out political news articles to everyone in the family (@25 people) about all the usual BS Christians love to hate and talk about - abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrants, Israel, civil rights, etc. One day he sent out a random bible verse, clearly anti-abortion, that went something like "and God knitted me together in my mother's womb". I was grossed out, so I wrote a response just to his father along the lines of "that is a repulsive and perverted bible verse". Unbeknownst to me and my husband, his father forwarded my email to everyone in the family but took me and my husband off the distribution list. I only found out because my husband's brother emailed me to say " We loved your email, you stood up to the proverbial bully" . I told my husband and he confronted his father who never mentioned it or apologized to me. The good that came out of this was that he took me off all emails. But recently (almost a year after the knitted womb email), he sent out a message which he actually included me on. It was a quote by Morgan Freeman: “There comes a day when you no longer feel the need to prove anything to anyone. Not because you’ve given up - but because you’ve grown up.” Obnoxious! A couple of people in the family texted me and said I think that was meant for you! I agree. The arrogance this man is breathtaking. That this so-called Christian betrayed and stabbed his own son in the back to make his wife look like an awful, sinful person just leaves me speechless. This is definitely a case of a person who has been so indoctrinated, they have no idea who they even are. Thanks for letting me get this out Andra. Your substack really resonates with me.
Ugh James Dobson. I shared a fellow Substacker’s newsletter last week wondering where his tell-all documentary is. He was ever-present in my upbringing.
I’m sorry you have been treated this way by family. Indoctrination makes people intolerable. My husband and I both deal with it: WCN MAGA on my side and MAGA on his. I know how much this weighs on a soul and how that dread crushes. I hope you and your husband continue to grow together and sideline it in your lives. It is so, so hard when it’s family. Especially for southern women who are also indoctrinated to behave certain ways and play certain roles.
Sad but FASCINATING article. The amygdala "fear storage" concept may explain my own reactive behavior in certain situations that has never made sense to me. . But my situation (including possible previous background events) is nowhere NEAR that which you describe here, which is unbelievable. IDK how anyone could overcome such wretched, evil childhood experiences. You are one strong, STRONG cookie. Thank you for sharing this, and for all the work you do to expose the realities of the CN cult.
According to my research, the amygdala is part of all fear responses. It is where fight-or-flight response is triggered. It is also where our most damaging reactions are stored.
This is fascinating because as a child, I also had recurring night terrors and I put it down to the trauma of discovering my (birth) father died in a terrible accident but that was also at the same time my JW grandparents were showing me pictures of Satan in their Witness literature and talking heavily about that stuff. One night, my mom said she found me standing on my bed in my sleep, crying out, "Jesus Help Me," "Jesus Help Me".
This imagery is abuse. IT IS ABUSE. How could a child NOT have night terrors after being repeatedly exposed to such imagery and stories? I am so sorry we have this in common.
I'm encouraged to hear EMDR was helpful for you. My spiritual trauma is quite deeply engrained, but I'd gotten the impression that EMDR is focused on specific incidents of abuse rather than an entire climate of constant fear, so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to benefit from it. I will look inot it further.
I'm sorry to hear that you have suffered similar religious abuse. While I can't vouch for how it works for individual people, it worked for me. My therapist did an intake interview where we talked about themes of abuse. From that conversation, she narrowed it down to a couple of tracks she wanted to pursue. The message and the fear were constant, but she was able to get to root issue buried in my amygdala versus treating all the various messages of fear.
If you decide to pursue EMDR, please let me know how it works for you.
As someone who was raised Lutheran, my experience was not as bad as yours, but until the last few years when I became agnostic I still worried about hell. Now I know it was just bullshit to keep the peasants in line and filling the collection plate. Thank you for what you do. This is one of my favorite Substacks.
It burrows in and doesn't want to leave, regardless of how diligently we work or how much we grow.
I was in Iceland in 2021 when the first of many volcanic eruptions happened. I'd just spent time with my friend Kat, who's Danish, and she told me how hell is a frozen wasteland in Norse lore. I stood feet from fresh, hot lava that scalded my face, and I tried to imagine how hell went from "frozen wasteland" to "hot lava," and I realized it caters to what people fear. This suffering, this banishment, this eternal damnation, is the key to their indoctrination's success. It is tailored to a horror its targets can understand and fear viscerally.
I was at the park with my dog and was getting her some water. Two LDS were there and it starts the way it always does: asking me questions about my dog, compliments, then the inevitable did I want to hear scripture? “No religious hocus pocus gentlemen, not interested”. Love the look on their faces as we walk away.
Sigh. I'm glad you made their jaws drop as you walked away.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience to illustrate the harm of Christian nationalism. I grew up with similar fear-based messages, but thankfully my mom and dad did not agree with that approach to spirituality. My grandparents and some friends and their families did. My mom taught me how to question these things when I was in middle school when I came home telling her some troubling stuff. She did it in a way that helped me come to understanding in my own time. She had a real gift, like a Socratic method style of conversation that was compassionate while also being direct. It seems the conditioning you describe has happened politically with those who claim “the liberals already ruined it” as I heard an ICE agent say when bystanders objected to the warrantless arrest of a person in the street. (Video at meidas touch network). It seems there is an indoctrination that our country is going to hell or is ruined so it is ok to break the law and disregard due process. I don’t know if it is directly linked to Christian nationalism, but I think your writing on Project 2025 would support that it is. We saw it on J6 when people trespassed, destroyed property, and injured over 100 police officers doing their jobs but outnumbered by Americans who were rioting or engaged in an insurrection or both. Our nation is divided because of this brain washing of negativity.
You were very fortunate that your parents taught you how to see this conditioning. My parents were 100% all-in on conditioning me to accept that environment, which of course, helped the indoctrination stick. During my time in WCN, I had peers like you with parents like yours. Often, they went to different churches and sent their kids to my church's school because it was the only option besides public school (which they didn't want for their kids because racism.) Most of those classmates weren't as indoctrinated because their parents went to church elsewhere and didn't drink the WCN kool-aid my church offered.
When I was in it, we also had a spectrum of radicalization. Some people came to that church and sent their kids to that school, but one parent was all-in and the other wasn't. So some of my classmates got that perspective. Sometimes, neither parent was all-in but they had friends in the church and liked getting the private school discount, so they went through the motions and taught their kids to question at home.
I saw that video. Stewartson writes about MAGA and QAnon indoctrination as well in the linked newsletters. It all uses the same basic tools and results in people who have no idea they're indoctrinated but are incapable of thinking beyond that indoctrination.
It has become clear for some time now that our schools need to prioritize teaching critical thinking skills - beginning at the lowest level possible, then every year until graduation (which should not occur until a student demonstrates total capability). Kids are supposed to be learning how to listen, analyze, and "figure out" anyway. That has to be taken to the next level, big time. (I know that for years there have been teachers who lead classes in critiquing tv commercials in order to determine reality. It can be done!)
I have several German friends or part-German who were reared in German schools. They introduced mandatory ethics classes (religion is part of this study) after WWII. It isn’t a throwaway class. One must pass to graduate, as well as pass those introduced earlier to advance. I had language school last year with a German guy who almost didn’t graduate because of that class. And I wanted to say, “Why would you admit that?” But he thought being American, I wouldn’t understand. Whenever we move beyond this, we will need something related to try to reprogram broken brains.
Yes!! ("broken brains" .... how appropriate)
I can say from my own experience with indoctrination...it feels like one's brain is broken. These monsters break people's brains over and over and over again and reassemble them to be controlled.
(and next, it should be illegal to call any tv, radio, etc. program like "Faux" "news". Even they admitted in a court of law that they were an "entertainment" offering only...)
The theocratic model is “get them while they are young”. Before they are developed enough to smell BS or have the courage to ask questions of parents, clergy or any authority figure. And later on questioners get shunned in various ways or get the “God works in mysterious way which we may never understand and we need to just follow, to stay in His grace.”
Yes, this is 100% what Project 2025 proposed. Get them while they're young, and give them no outlet to escape it as they age. I repeatedly warned Americans that forced religious indoctrination would go from cradle to grave.
Another aspect for the hard core kool aid drinking parents is to keep the kids isolated from other possible ideas. Christian schools, home schooling, Christian summer camps, sports leagues, etc. The simple proof is found in the fact that the overwhelming majority of people end up with the religion of their parents, community and/or country. And the various religions of different cultures are often in basic disagreement with each other. Logically they cannot be all true from the one God, more likely they are all wrong, created by MEN to control society and have dominance over women and children. One of the major damages this does to the children and ultimately to society is that it teaches them a very backward epistemology where they often put ideas without evidence above rational thought and evidence. Lack of acceptance of the fact of evolution, that gay people are deviant and unnatural, despite the fact that a small percentage of people are born gay, etc. this allows them when they grow up to listen to their priest, preacher, rabbi, or muslim leader, or lying oligarch and vote for Trump and his MAGA followers. Of all modern countries we are second from the bottom as far as accepting evolution as true. Turkey is the only one below USA. Theocratic hate for scientific method is slowly taking us down as a leader in science and technology in the world economy. Why, because science destroys their made up control mythology. Evolution destroys the Genesis Adam and Eve mythology that is the starting point for all Abrahamic religions’ patriarchy and misogyny and sin. Eve from his rib to be a helper and baby maker. How convenient of God to give such standing to MEN only! It doesn’t take an Einstein or any one not indoctrinated, to figure out it was written by MEN for MEN!!!!
When I said to you the other day that parents who want to rear children who can think critically must create those structures now, this is what I meant. (Sorry for such a garbled sentence. I have a migraine today and am not always eloquent with a pounding head. Ha.) If future American parents want to train critical, logical, reasonable thinkers, they're going to have to establish a means to educate their children apart from what's going to be on offer. And that's assuming the regime will allow that. I honestly don't expect them to, because they know they created their own alternate world to indoctrinate generations of Americans and bring us to this point.
You are exactly correct: “One of the major damages this does to the children and ultimately to society is that it teaches them a very backward epistemology where they often put ideas without evidence above rational thought and evidence.” Thank you.
It also teaches people to be authoritarian thinkers. I wrote about this last year. We have millions of Americans who have been indoctrinated into authoritarian thinking, where they don't listen to others, cannot compromise, bully anyone who disagrees, and want to force everyone in society to live by their rules.
So true!!!
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Prior to being adopted at the age of 7, I was shuffled around to several foster homes, some abusive, some not. All of them were adherents of evangelical religions. I could recite many bible verses related to behavior and hell. My adoptive parents were members of The Church of Religious Science. At age 7, I was very confused by this, but as I was accustomed to following the teachings of whom ever I was residing with, I began to believe their teachings as well. Luckily, their teachings are more open, but also harmful. They advocate a great deal of magical thinking: “You are sick, upset, have bad things happen to you because you are not thinking positively enough.” I was finally able to mostly, not completely, escape from both the Christian beliefs, and the magical thinking ideas when I went to college and studied sociology, psychology, and philosophy. Still, in my late 60’s, I sometimes struggle. As you explained, thought indoctrination is very difficult to overcome. Thank you again so much for sharing your insights.
Shirley, I'm grateful you escaped and were able to find rational, logical thinking that gives your life meaning. You're not alone in still being triggered. I can't do this work without being triggered, and the triggers usually come from unexpected places. I compared this indoctrination to cancer intentionally. Just as it is often difficult to completely get rid of a malignant tumor, it is difficult to completely eradicate this indoctrination, no matter how hard one works to overcome it.
Last week I looked after an elderly neighbor for several hours.She was watching Joel Osteen, the “prosperity gospel” preacher with one of the largest congregations in America.Every other commercial was an ad,with Mike Huckabee as spokesperson, asking for donations to a Christian/Jewish org to help the victims in Israel who were “starving” and “in need of a bomb shelter”.
As if we need even more examples of Christian Nationalist indoctrination in action. Ugh. Joel Osteen. What an asshole.
Andra, thank you for this substack and sharing all you have been through. You are an example for others that they can escape and get control of their mind and use their brain power as you are doing to make society better for all. 🥇👍💪❤️
But I had to want to. Nobody could force me to do this work; I had to realize it was necessary, and I had to undertake the very arduous task of doing the work.
One of the most insidious things about this indoctrination is that people don't realize they're indoctrinated. They don't realize this is a formalized set of tools that intentionally work to infect people's brains and control them. If I said something like that to anyone I know in that world, they'd be offended, not enlightened.
Right. This is what's hard for me to navigate, too, with the few remaining contacts I have in that world - when the indoctrination works, its victims become its most zealous enforcers and truly believe they're doing God's will by perpetuating the system. It's too painful to conceive that it could be wrong at its core to treat people this way.
I finally let everyone in that world go (and I had very few remaining.) I finally realized that they will never change unless and until they realize they must. It's painful, but it freed up more space for decent, empathetic people who choose me over religious indoctrination.
Thanks for this post Andra. Here are a couple of my personal CN stories. I grew up in the South so I am familiar with Christian indoctrination. Fortunately, my parents were not really religious, although many other people in my family were. I did go to church sometimes though to hang out with my friends. But after high school I could see that many of them really embraced Christianity and decided to stay close to home. I never bought into Christianity like they did but respected those who did. I faced an onslaught of attempted indoctrination not by my parents by my pentacostal Aunt. She was constantly sending me religious publications like James Dobson's Focus on the Family. As you know, he advocates harsh punishments for children and is also is very anti-abortion. This is the point when I started rejecting Christianity and questioning all of religion. I told my Aunt that if she ever wanted to see me again, she would cancel that FoF subscription tout suite. She canceled it. I moved away from the south a couple of decades ago and am now in LA. I have to psychologically prepare myself when I go back to the South because I can't stand how God, church, religion, Jesus, and being a good Christianity is constantly brought up in conversation. My husband (who is not religious either) is from Tennessee. His father is a full-blown CN who believes he is the most wonderful, devoted Christian. On a daily basis, his father would send out political news articles to everyone in the family (@25 people) about all the usual BS Christians love to hate and talk about - abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrants, Israel, civil rights, etc. One day he sent out a random bible verse, clearly anti-abortion, that went something like "and God knitted me together in my mother's womb". I was grossed out, so I wrote a response just to his father along the lines of "that is a repulsive and perverted bible verse". Unbeknownst to me and my husband, his father forwarded my email to everyone in the family but took me and my husband off the distribution list. I only found out because my husband's brother emailed me to say " We loved your email, you stood up to the proverbial bully" . I told my husband and he confronted his father who never mentioned it or apologized to me. The good that came out of this was that he took me off all emails. But recently (almost a year after the knitted womb email), he sent out a message which he actually included me on. It was a quote by Morgan Freeman: “There comes a day when you no longer feel the need to prove anything to anyone. Not because you’ve given up - but because you’ve grown up.” Obnoxious! A couple of people in the family texted me and said I think that was meant for you! I agree. The arrogance this man is breathtaking. That this so-called Christian betrayed and stabbed his own son in the back to make his wife look like an awful, sinful person just leaves me speechless. This is definitely a case of a person who has been so indoctrinated, they have no idea who they even are. Thanks for letting me get this out Andra. Your substack really resonates with me.
Ugh James Dobson. I shared a fellow Substacker’s newsletter last week wondering where his tell-all documentary is. He was ever-present in my upbringing.
I’m sorry you have been treated this way by family. Indoctrination makes people intolerable. My husband and I both deal with it: WCN MAGA on my side and MAGA on his. I know how much this weighs on a soul and how that dread crushes. I hope you and your husband continue to grow together and sideline it in your lives. It is so, so hard when it’s family. Especially for southern women who are also indoctrinated to behave certain ways and play certain roles.
Thanks Andra!
Sad but FASCINATING article. The amygdala "fear storage" concept may explain my own reactive behavior in certain situations that has never made sense to me. . But my situation (including possible previous background events) is nowhere NEAR that which you describe here, which is unbelievable. IDK how anyone could overcome such wretched, evil childhood experiences. You are one strong, STRONG cookie. Thank you for sharing this, and for all the work you do to expose the realities of the CN cult.
According to my research, the amygdala is part of all fear responses. It is where fight-or-flight response is triggered. It is also where our most damaging reactions are stored.
This is fascinating because as a child, I also had recurring night terrors and I put it down to the trauma of discovering my (birth) father died in a terrible accident but that was also at the same time my JW grandparents were showing me pictures of Satan in their Witness literature and talking heavily about that stuff. One night, my mom said she found me standing on my bed in my sleep, crying out, "Jesus Help Me," "Jesus Help Me".
This imagery is abuse. IT IS ABUSE. How could a child NOT have night terrors after being repeatedly exposed to such imagery and stories? I am so sorry we have this in common.
I'm encouraged to hear EMDR was helpful for you. My spiritual trauma is quite deeply engrained, but I'd gotten the impression that EMDR is focused on specific incidents of abuse rather than an entire climate of constant fear, so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to benefit from it. I will look inot it further.
I'm sorry to hear that you have suffered similar religious abuse. While I can't vouch for how it works for individual people, it worked for me. My therapist did an intake interview where we talked about themes of abuse. From that conversation, she narrowed it down to a couple of tracks she wanted to pursue. The message and the fear were constant, but she was able to get to root issue buried in my amygdala versus treating all the various messages of fear.
If you decide to pursue EMDR, please let me know how it works for you.
As someone who was raised Lutheran, my experience was not as bad as yours, but until the last few years when I became agnostic I still worried about hell. Now I know it was just bullshit to keep the peasants in line and filling the collection plate. Thank you for what you do. This is one of my favorite Substacks.
It burrows in and doesn't want to leave, regardless of how diligently we work or how much we grow.
I was in Iceland in 2021 when the first of many volcanic eruptions happened. I'd just spent time with my friend Kat, who's Danish, and she told me how hell is a frozen wasteland in Norse lore. I stood feet from fresh, hot lava that scalded my face, and I tried to imagine how hell went from "frozen wasteland" to "hot lava," and I realized it caters to what people fear. This suffering, this banishment, this eternal damnation, is the key to their indoctrination's success. It is tailored to a horror its targets can understand and fear viscerally.