3 Ways Religious Trauma Survivors Minimize Their Trauma
Given that we’re already one week into 2026, I would be remiss not to say: happy new year. Wherever you’re reading this from, I hope you’re finding moments of joy, steadiness, and connection in the middle of… (gestures broadly) everything.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years in my work as a therapist is that certain themes tend to show up in waves. A topic will suddenly start appearing across sessions, clients will use eerily similar language, and I’ll find myself thinking, okay, clearly something is in the collective air right now.
The last month or so, that theme has been this: religious trauma survivors minimizing what they went through. Talking themselves out of calling it trauma. Downplaying the impact. Convincing themselves it “wasn’t that bad.”
Many people don’t realize that trauma often doesn’t look the way we’ve been taught it is supposed to look, which makes it even easier to dismiss the impact it had.
(If you’re new here, welcome. My name is Christine. I’m a religious trauma therapist in San Diego, CA. I grew up in conservative evangelicalism, was deeply committed to my faith, became a therapist, realized I was queer, left high-control religion for a bajillion reasons, and deconstructed. These days I am in private practice helping other people recover from religious trauma and spiritual abuse.)
Lately, I’ve been hearing versions of the same self-doubt over and over again in session. So let’s talk about three of the most common ways religious trauma survivors minimize what happened to them—and why this pattern makes healing so much harder.
1. “There Was No Big Event, So It Must Not Have Been Trauma”
This often sounds like:
“It’s not like I was in a major car accident where I almost died.”
“I wasn’t in active combat.”
“I didn’t survive a wildfire or a natural disaster.”
“Nothing that dramatic happened, so it couldn’t have been that bad.”
I understand where this comes from. Many of us were taught—explicitly or implicitly—that trauma only counts if there’s an obvious, life-threatening moment or event that you can point to.
But our understanding of trauma has evolved significantly over time with new research and data. Clinically speaking, trauma is defined far less by what happened and far more by how your nervous system responded to what happened. This is especially true in environments like high-control religion, where fear and shame based systems shape the nervous system over time rather than through a single catastrophic event.
If your system learned to survive through fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, that’s trauma. Full stop.
High-control religion is especially insidious because it often operates through chronic stress rather than acute catastrophe. Ongoing fear, shame, surveillance, manipulation, control, and conditional belonging can slowly shape a nervous system into a constant state of threat.
So i’s less like death by a single gunshot and more like death by a thousand paper cuts—subtle, relentless, and deeply impactful over time.
You don’t need a single “headline-worthy” moment for your body to have learned that the world was not safe.
2. “I’m Probably Just Being Too Sensitive”
This one usually shows up through comparison.
“Other people from my church left and they seem fine.”
“My siblings who were in the same faith community don’t struggle like this.”
First of all: the other people you are comparing yourself to might not actually be fine. Many people are very skilled at appearing okay while quietly not being okay—carrying a lot of pain beneath the surface.
But even if they are genuinely doing well, why would that invalidate your experience?
Trauma is shaped by context. No one else has lived your exact life. No one else had your family system, your role within it, your temperament, your responsibilities, or your particular mix of support and vulnerability at the time.
You had the nervous system you had.
You had the resources you had.
And you responded in the way your system needed to survive.
Sensitivity isn’t a flaw—it’s often a sign of attunement. And being affected by harm does not mean you’re weak. It means you’re human.
3. “Other People Had It Worse, So It Feels Wrong to Call This Trauma”
I’m going to be very direct here.
Trauma is not a competition.
There is no leaderboard.
No threshold you have to cross.
No imaginary panel deciding whether your suffering was “bad enough” to earn the label.
Someone else’s trauma does not cancel out yours.
This line of thinking often comes from shame—a belief that taking up space, naming harm, or receiving care somehow takes something away from others. But shaming yourself has never led to healing. Invalidating your own pain doesn’t make you more compassionate or morally superior.
It just keeps you stuck.
In fact, many religious trauma survivors were explicitly taught to minimize themselves, defer to others, and endure harm quietly. Continuing to downplay your experience is not humility—it’s conditioning.
You are allowed to name what happened to you accurately.
You are allowed to take your pain seriously.
And you are allowed to seek support even if someone else, somewhere, has suffered differently.
If This Resonated With You…
If you saw yourself in any of the above, you’re not broken—and you’re not alone. Minimizing trauma is an incredibly common survival strategy, especially for survivors of high-control religion and spiritual abuse.
Healing begins when we stop arguing with our own nervous system and start listening instead.
I specialize in working with survivors of religious trauma, purity culture, and high-control religious environments, and I am currently accepting new therapy clients in California, Florida, and Missouri.
If you’re curious about what healing could look like for you, I invite you to request a free consultation below to learn more about working together.
You deserve support that doesn’t require you to justify your pain first.