July 16, 1989

36 years ago today (and about 5 months before the birth of Taylor Swift), I was baptized (the first time) into the church of Christ. I had just spent a week in the woods at church camp, and I was 11 years old. I was wearing a grey dress with ivory pinstripes and glasses, and a bowl haircut. I walked down the gold carpeted aisle of my tiny church and confessed I was a sinner.

And I was terrified.

You see, I had been in church since I was about 7 years old learning about heaven and hell. And heaven was a place I’d go if I did all the right things, but I couldn’t do all the right things because I was a sinful wretch, so I needed God’s grace to cover up all the very bad things I did as a small lower-class child in a small town in Kansas. All the terrible sinful thoughts I had, like thinking a boy was cute, and singing along to the radio when they said a “cuss word”. If, by chance, I wasn’t being a good Christian girl, I might end up going to hell, which was a place of torment in which my soul would burn for all eternity.

I now feel that teaching your children about hell is, at the least, harmful, and at the worst…..abuse. No child should be living in fear for their eternal soul at 6, 7, 8, 9 years old (no adult should either, but that’s for another day).

I was also a very anxious child by nature, and this fear of hell lit that anxiety on fire. I developed a crippling anxiety disorder called trichotillomania when I was 13 in which I pulled my hair out in order to soothe my anxious thoughts that made it impossible to sleep.

I feel as though I was the recipient of religious trauma due to my high-control religious upbringing. It did not allow me to develop a healthy sense of self or healthy coping mechanisms. It did not allow me to learn emotion regulation or self-compassion.

And that’s why I specialize in helping others in my therapy practice who have also had similar experiences.

If this is you, reach out.