Religious Trauma

When I first heard the term, religious trauma, I immediately told myself, “Nah, that’s not me.” 

How could it be me? Yes, I was raised Catholic but we didn’t even go to church every Sunday. I remember one time while I was gambling on a slot machine, I stopped for a second and thought, “I’m literally at the casinos with my parents on Easter Sunday…with drinks in our hands!” I used to think back to this moment, how can someone like me have religious trauma? 

My awakening started with two letters flashing while I was at a red light waiting for it to turn green. RA. At that time, my mind was in pure chaos, non-stop internal chatter. Yet, those two letters flashing caught my attention amidst that chatter. I remember pulling my phone once I got home to do a search on the meaning of RA and within minutes my mind exploded with knowledge. I won’t lie, it took me a little bit to deal with the embarrassment of not knowing who Ra is, let alone any Egyptian deities. I consider myself a person who loves learning. I have a Masters degree who geeked out when it came time for exams and essays. I love studying, but when I learned about Ra, it was like the bubble I was living in just burst. Outside of Catholicism, the only gods I knew were taught in school as mythology. Zeus, Poseidon, Athena…Greek gods…just mythology right? I wasn’t even aware of what “pantheons” meant! 

This should have been my first sign but back then I didn’t see it. I was too worried figuring out what in the world was going on with me. The pull to learn about other deities was there immediately and within weeks, I watched/read EVERYTHING I could regarding Egyptian deities. With the new knowledge I was gaining, my dreams became more in depth. I knew I was receiving signs and messages while awake, but most definitely in my sleep. I eventually got the courage to get a deity confirmation reading which led me to explore Greek deities as well. 

The point of all this rambling is that while I was learning all this new information, I was accepting it and as I was accepting it, I was becoming a polytheist. I was questioning EVERYTHING I was taught since I was born. And yes, even then at this point, me thinking I had religious trauma never crossed my mind. 

It wasn’t until I reached learning about Lucifer and mainly, Lilith. 

The interest was there. I had videos about Lucifer saved in my “Watch Later” for months. His push was gentle but persistence. It was a push that I am so grateful for because it was what I needed to finish breaking all these cycles I was stuck in. I look back and realize I was scared back then and boy, was I more scared of Lilith too. As I felt their presence more around me, my questioning was rising, only this time I was going backwards to anxiety. I had no issues learning about underworld deities in other pantheons but once I got to Lucifer, the reality of religious trauma hit me. What if all this time I was being led by the devil just like I’ve been taught? What if it’s all lies and deceit just like I’ve been taught? What if it's all a facade and I’m going to hell? What if I open the door and let something truly evil in my home? How will I get rid of it? Would I be able to get rid of it?

I’ve been taught, I’ve been taught….

But that call kept coming through and one early morning, I just answered it. I watched that first video. Then another and another and another. One thing I noticed right away was almost the same shared experience at the beginning of being scared to go to hell. Most of the people I watched had more reason to have religious trauma than me as they had a stricter religious upbringing and yet, I resonated with the fear. I did some heavy inner work on this for a while. I meditated, I used divination tools to ask questions until I went from ‘what if it’s all lies and deceit just like I’ve been taught’ to ‘what if all I’ve been taught is lies and deceit?’