What Religious Trauma Looks Like in Women Raised Mormon
Growing up Mormon doesn’t just shape what you believe.
It shapes how you see yourself.
How you make decisions.
How you understand relationships.
How you interpret your emotions.
How you measure your worth.
So when you leave, you’re not simply leaving a church.
You’re leaving:
A scripted identity
A built-in community
A behavioral checklist
A structure that told you who to be and why
And because high-demand religions don’t just shape your beliefs, they shape your nervous system, the impact doesn’t disappear just because your records are removed.
That lingering impact has a name:
Religious Trauma.
What Is Religious Trauma?
Religious trauma happens when teachings, practices, or cultural expectations from a religious community create chronic fear, guilt, shame, or disconnection from your authentic self.
It’s rarely one dramatic event.
It’s usually the accumulation of small, repeated lessons that taught you things like:
Your desires are dangerous
Your body exists to be controlled and covered
Your intuition cannot be trusted
Your voice is secondary to authority
Your job is to be agreeable, faithful, and pleasant
Your worth is conditional, and always at risk
And if you were raised as a girl in Mormonism, these messages were amplified.
From a young age, you were taught:
Modesty is morality
Obedience is safety
Purity is identity
Self-sacrifice is the “right” choice
“Goodness” means not making others uncomfortable
Your sense of self was shaped around avoidance, appeasement, and performance.
So, What Does Religious Trauma Look Like in Women?
In my therapy office, I see the same patterns over and over again, and they make complete sense once you understand where they came from.
Here are the most common ones:
1. Feeling “Too Much”
Growing up Mormon taught you to:
Cry quietly
Smile through discomfort
Be pleasant, calm, and self-controlled
So now, when you feel strong emotions?
It can feel unsafe.
Like something must be wrong.
Like you need to shrink.
But having emotions doesn’t make you dramatic. It makes you human.
2. Chronic Guilt (Even When You’re Not Doing Anything Wrong)
The internal alarm that says:
“Am I being selfish?”
“Should I be doing more?”
“Am I disappointing someone?”
That comes from conditioning, not truth.
You were taught that:
Self-sacrifice = virtue
Rest = laziness
Desire = danger
Boundaries = unkindness
Learning self-trust can feel like betrayal at first, even when it’s actually self-connection.
3. Difficulty Making Decisions
When your entire life was pre-decided for you- mission, marriage, motherhood, purpose- you didn’t get the developmental space to ask:
“What do I want?”
So when you leave, even small decisions can feel overwhelming:
What do I believe?
What kind of parent do I want to be?
What do I enjoy?
What do I choose when there isn’t a “right” answer?
This is not immaturity.
This is underdeveloped autonomy.
And you can build it now.
4. Fear of Being Judged or “Seen as Bad”
Mormonism doesn’t just teach beliefs, it teaches morality as identity.
“Good women” are:
Modest
Humble
Selfless
Grateful
Believing
Contained
So leaving the church can feel like you’re now being seen as:
Disappointing
Rebellious
Ungrateful
Dangerous
“Too much”
This can create:
People-pleasing
Hyper-awareness of others’ opinions
Performing “okay-ness” even when you’re not okay
You’re not afraid of being wrong, you’re afraid of being unlovable.
5. Disconnection From Your Body
Modesty culture teaches you to live from the neck up.
Your body becomes:
A potential threat
A thing to manage
Something to hide, police, or ignore
So reconnecting with your body now might feel confusing or vulnerable.
Rest, comfort, desire, pleasure- they are skills, not instincts, when your body was framed as a liability.
Learning to inhabit your body again is sacred work.
Why These Symptoms Often Show Up Years After Leaving
When you first leave, you’re in survival mode.
You’re just trying to:
Keep the peace
Hold your marriage together
Find new community
Understand your beliefs
Function day-to-day
The emotional impact comes later, often triggered by:
Having children
Parenting differently than you were parented
Realizing your identity was borrowed
Trying to build a life based on what you value
This doesn’t mean you’re late. It means your system is finally safe enough to feel.
What Healing Actually Looks Like
Healing religious trauma is not about hating the church.
And it’s not about “starting over.”
Healing means:
Rebuilding self-trust
Letting your emotions exist without shame
Developing your identity from the inside out
Reconnecting to your body as home
Creating relationships rooted in mutual respect — not obligation
It is slow, grounded, deeply human work.
You don’t have to do it alone.
If You See Yourself in This, You’re Not Alone
This is exactly what I help ex-Mormon women with in therapy.
If you live in Arizona, I offer:
There is room for your story here: the tender parts, the angry parts, the grieving parts, the rebuilding parts.
You don’t have to hold this alone anymore.
