For the ones who left the building
The damage was real. So is the way back.
Being told that God made you wrong, by a parent, a pastor, a whole congregation, is not a theological disagreement. It is harm. What follows is what helped other people, in their words, without asking you to pretend it didn’t happen.
What it does to a person
You were taught to distrust the one thing you can check: your own life.
Spiritual abuse works by making your own experience inadmissible. You feel what you feel, and then you are told that the feeling is the proof that you are deceived. It is a closed loop, and no honest person can argue their way out of it alone.
Many people leave not because they stopped believing in God, but because they stopped being able to sit in a room where they were the sermon illustration. That is not a failure of faith. That is a person protecting their life.
Things that are true right now
- What was done to you in God’s name was not God.
- You are allowed to grieve a community you lost, even if you chose to leave it.
- You do not have to forgive anyone on their schedule. Forgiveness is not the price of your healing.
- You can keep your faith, rebuild it differently, or put it down for a while. None of those makes you faithless.
Free, confidential, and not a church
If tonight is the hard night.
You don’t have to be in crisis to call. Someone will answer who has heard this before and will not argue with you about theology.
The Trevor Project
Crisis support for LGBTQ+ young people, 24/7. Call 1-866-488-7386, or text START to 678-678.
Open resource
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Free, confidential support in the US, 24/7. Call or text 988.
Open resource
Trans Lifeline
Peer support run by and for trans people. 1-877-565-8860.
Open resource
LGBT National Help Center
Peer counseling, coming-out support, and local resources. 1-888-843-4564.
Open resource
If you are in immediate physical danger, call 911 (US) or your local emergency number. These organisations are independent of this site.
What actually helped
Four things people kept telling us.
Stop arguing with the voice in your head
Years of being told you are an abomination does not leave when you change your mind. When the old voice speaks, name it: that is a sermon, not a fact about you.
Find one person who already believes you
Healing rarely happens alone. An affirming friend, a therapist who isn’t religiously affiliated, an online group of people from your own background. One is enough to start.
Read the text without a teacher who wants something from you
The verses are on the truth page, with the languages and the history. Read them yourself, slowly, and notice how much has to be added to make them say what you were told.
Let yourself be loved by people who don’t need to be convinced
Sometimes the church is not the place you heal. Sometimes a chosen family, a table, a choir, or a garden is. God is not confined to a building that locked you out.
You don’t have to go alone
Whole traditions already read it the way you do.
Affirming churches are not a fringe experiment. Entire denominations ordain LGBTQ+ clergy and bless same-sex marriages. Search these names plus your city, or look for the “Open and Affirming”, “Reconciling in Christ”, or “More Light” labels on a church near you.
Read the case for yourself