CPTSD + Religious Trauma Resources

My CPTSD + religious trauma resource list

This resource list is not meant to be all-encompassing. These are just just a few of the things that have helped me on my Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and Religious Trauma healing journey. Maybe you’ll find something helpful too! Everyone's healing journey is different. You are your own best guide, but you are not alone. 

1. Mental health

Finding a therapist you vibe with is hard! I found mine through word of mouth, but psychologytoday.com/therapists is usually a good place to start.

I’ve experienced depression and anxiety since middle school, so I take an anti-depressent medication daily as prescribed. This is not medical advice, just to say if your doctor recommends the store bought kind of serotonin for you too there’s no shame in that. Our bodies went through a lot!

Religious Trauma informed therapists seeking connection in your area!

A Beginner’s Guide to Therapy: How to Find a Therapist

2. Book Club

My therapist recommends lots of books, sometimes I read them (and vice versa). This book was instrumental in giving me new language and a framework for my experiences:

• Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion

Other Book Club books:

• Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve — If you experienced Religious Trauma and/or have CPTSD there’s a chance your Vagus Nerve sustained some damage. This book contains very simple exercises that may help repair that connection. I don’t believe this is a magic bullet or cure-all, but I’ve found it helpful.

• It's Not You, It's What Happened to You: Complex Trauma and Treatment

• The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

• The Feelings Activity Book for Children: 50 Activities to Identify, Understand, and Manage Your Feelings *Great for adults too!

• The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

• The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

• Bad Theology Kills: Undoing Toxic Belief & Reclaiming Your Spiritual Authority

• What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

• Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation

3. Organizations, support groups & guides

• Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery

• Reclamation Collective

• igotout.org

• CPTSD foundation - their daily support calls were a game changer!

• Religious Trauma Institute

• The Deconstruction Network

• Alcohol Rehab Guide

4. Online courses

I had to relearn a lot of things, this list includes free and paid courses.

• Introduction to Genetics and Evolution

• Understanding child development: from synapse to society

• White Homework

• Christian Supremacy and Decolonizing Faith: Deconstructing Christian Supremacy

• AntiRacismForBeginners.com

• Introduction to the New Testament History and Literature - Taught from a historical perspective, not theological

• A Very Basic Sex Ed 101 for Purity Culture Dropouts

5. Movement & meditation

Gotta get back in your body somehow! But did you know certain types of meditation or breathwork can be triggering or retraumatizing if you have Religious Trauma or CPTSD? Nothing’s wrong if you “can’t meditate.”

• Local community classes — Great ways to make connections or simply show up for youself!!

• Trauma informed yoga

• Somatic meditation

• Walks — In town or in the woods

• Vagus Nerve/Nervous System Health with Sukie Baxter

• Calm — Jeff Warren’s Daily Trip series is my favorite, when I use this app (not often). His approach is accessible to me and allows me to get curious about my inner experiences, but I fall mostly in the “can’t meditate” camp.

• Peloton — I love low-impact rides with Cody Rigsby and Jess King, and I exclusively practice yoga with Kira Michel now.

• I really don’t like to sweat or lift heavy things though, so if you’re into that — idk, maybe there’s something on YouTube.

6. Arts & crafts

Gotta re-connect with you inner child too! Pottery classes, playing bongo drums, alcohol ink painting, tapestry weaving, macrame, coloring, dancing, and gardening are just a few of the activities I’ve played with since starting this healing journey. Find what works for you!

7. Science

I remember thinking during high school standardized testing that I would never, ever, read scientific studies in “real life.”

Parenting & child development

• Cumulative Childhood Stress and Autoimmune Diseases in Adults (2012)

• Intergenerational Transmission of Emotion Dysregulation: The Role of Authoritarian Parenting Style and Family Chronic Stress (2019)

• Intergenerational Transmission of Emotion Dysregulation Through Parental Invalidation of Emotions: Implications for Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors (2014)

• A Conceptual Model of the Intergenerational Transmission of Emotion Dysregulation in Mothers with a History of Childhood Maltreatment (2020)

• Global Perspectives on Resilience in Children and Youth (2014)

Worldview

• When are assumptions shaken? A prospective, longitudinal investigation of negative life events and worldviews in a national sample (2019)

• When the world collapses: changed worldview and social reconstruction in a traumatized community (2014)

Religion & thought reform

• Victimhood, racial identity, and conspiracism interact with Christian nationalism to lead to support for violence (2022)

• Dr. Robert J Lifton’s 8 criteria for thought reform (1987)

• Religious Trauma Syndrome: It’s Time To Recognize It (2011)

• Mechanisms of religious trauma amongst queer people in Australia’s evangelical churches (2022)

CPTSD

• Complex PTSD: A Syndrome in Survivors of Prolonged and Repeated Trauma (1992)

• Evidence of complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) across populations with prolonged trauma of varying interpersonal intensity and ages of exposure (2016)

Chronic disorders & polyvagal theory

• Pain Sensitivity in Patients With Major Depression: Differential Effect of Pain Sensitivity Measures, Somatic Cofactors, and Disease Characteristics (2016)

• Having your pain invalidated is associated with increased shame and, in turn, an increased risk of depression (2022)

• Psychological controversies in gastroparesis: A systematic review (2017)

• Traumatic stress and the autonomic brain‐gut connection in development: Polyvagal Theory as an integrative framework for psychosocial and gastrointestinal pathology (2019)

• The Gut Microbiome and Mental Health: Implications for Anxiety- and Trauma-Related Disorders (2018)

Gender & sex equality

• Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands (2015)

• Hunter-Gatherer Women (2020)

• Transgender Athletes in Sports Competitions: How Policy Measures Can Be More Inclusive and Fairer to All (2021)

• Are women the more empathetic gender? The effects of gender role expectations (2021)

• Feeling Not Wanted/Loved and Depression: Does Gender Matter? (2021)

• Understanding the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Mental Health of Transgender and Gender Nonbinary Individuals Engaged in a Longitudinal Cohort Study (2021)

8. Mad Libs-style Religious Trauma scripts

Coming soon! I’m working on a series of Mad Libs-style scripts that may assist with difficult conversations such as: Going no contact with a loved one, discussing religious trauma, setting new boundaries, etc… If you have a specific script you’d like to see please contact me.