Verified by 
According to Dr. Marlene Winell, psychologist and director of the organization Journey Free, religious trauma syndrome is defined as:
"...the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination. They may be going through the shattering of a personally meaningful faith and/or breaking away from a controlling community and lifestyle. RTS is a function of both the chronic abuses of harmful religion and the impact of severing one’s connection with one’s faith.”
RTS is not an official diagnosis listed in the DSM-5. But for a powerful, compelling, and ultimately inspiring book illustrating the very real emotional challenges that can result from breaking away from one's religious faith, look no further than Wayward: A Memoir of Spiritual Warfare and Sexual Purity, recently published by Alice Greczyn.
Wayward recounts Greczyn’s harrowing journey as the child of Christian parents who took her and her siblings around the country for years—at times living homeless—in obedience to what they thought was God’s will. Greczyn struggles with insecurity, anxiety, and being a young woman in an oppressive religious culture that offered her little support or agency. Fortunately, her inner-strength, intelligence, and raw integrity ultimately pave the way for hope, healing, and liberation. Today, she is an atheist.
I spoke to Greczyn about her experience. Below are excerpts from my recent interview with her.
PZ: What prompted you to write this book?
AG: What ultimately drove me to write Wayward was knowing there was someone else out there who had gone through a similar deconversion as me, and who felt equally alone. I crafted my pages with the intention of offering readers the same catharsis and healing I've found in other leaving-religion memoirs. I’m so grateful it seems to be accomplishing the very thing I hoped it would: comforting lonely ex-Christians who felt like they were the only ones for whom God was never real.
PZ: Were there any good aspects to your religious upbringing?
AG: Yes, there were good aspects to my religious upbringing, but few that I feel wouldn’t have been found outside of religion, such as friendship, community, and a sense of purpose. What faith gave me that a secular outlook can’t is a reason for existence, a justification for why bad things happen, and the comfort of believing in a divine plan. These were what I grieved most when I lost my faith.
But it is also the loss of these that allowed me to find the beauty in life here and now. I am a much healthier, kinder, more compassionate person without faith than I was as a believer, and life is infinitely richer and more precious.
PZ: You also write about hard, painful, and traumatic experiences.
AG: For me, the worst part of growing up religiously was the bewildering confusion of it all, coupled with loneliness and shame. The Bible, which I read cover-to-cover when I was twelve, crushed me with its sexism and abuse in the name of love, and with its mind-bending contradictions. My intellect was constantly at war with my faith, and this self-gaslighting scarred my psyche in ways that made it very difficult to trust myself and others. [In my view], the Christian faith erodes self-love, never failing to remind us that we are unworthy of any love but for Jesus’ sacrifice. Die to yourself, lean not on your own understanding, your heart is deceitfully wicked… These verses [can be] deeply damaging to developing minds. Self-doubt, self-harm, and self-hatred were things that took me years to overcome. These prime us for abuse and self-sabotage later in life. When you’re taught to turn the other cheek and constantly reminded how unworthy of love you are, why should you ever stand up for yourself?
PZ: You also write a lot about fear.
AG: The fear propagated by certain religions deserves more attention, [in my view]. It’s something so many believers and ex-believers alike struggle with.
I was raised to view life through the lens of spiritual warfare, to believe there was a cosmic battle between good and evil going on in the invisible spirit realm among us. Disobedience to the perception of God’s will gave Satan and his army a “foothold”—an opportunity for attack. Maybe the attack would be a car accident, a natural disaster, or cancer. I often kept my fears to myself once I joined the secular world as a young adult, because chronic fear of invisible forces sounded mentally ill.
What can be done about it? Short of ridding our cultures of the good vs. evil story prevalent in many religions, I think the next best thing is to continue training therapists to recognize symptoms of religious trauma, which is often fueled by this chronic fear. Religious trauma syndrome, a term coined by therapist Dr. Marlene Winell, [may be] diagnosed [as] C-PTSD. Fortunately, there are many doctors, counselors, and therapists now working to validate religious trauma so that clinicians can help their patients more effectively.
I also think simply talking about the damage of fear- and shame-based indoctrination goes a long way in debunking it and letting other sufferers know they’re not alone. Whether through comedic memes on social media or a deep conversation on a podcast, raising awareness of the long-lasting harm of chronic spiritual fear can go a long way in setting people free from it.
PZ: Do you believe that the kind of Christianity you grew up in harms girls more so than it does boys?
AG: I [personally] think the harm of American evangelicalism can be equal among both sexes. With females, certain symptoms of religious trauma are more quantifiable, such as purity culture-induced vaginismus. The God of the Bible clearly deems girls and women to be of lesser value than boys and men, and females are expected to be submissive to males. But anyone, regardless of sex or gender, can be harmed by [some of] the teachings of Christianity.
PZ: How has your morality changed since you left Christianity?
AG: Morality, I think, is subject to a culture’s time and place. If my Western culture views traits like kindness, empathy, and integrity as the fruits of morality, I [personally] did not find morality in Christianity. As a Christian, I was far more judgmental, both of myself and others, and I lied a lot, to myself and others. I hurt when I meant to help and alienated where I meant to include.
As an atheist, I am much more able to “meet people where they’re at,” because I’m not trying to view them as I thought Jesus would: as broken sinners in need of forgiveness. I’m far more accepting now, of myself and others, and I’ve found that acceptance leads to understanding which leads to love.
PZ: How do you find meaning in life as a non-religious person?
AG: Ah, the ultimate question, where the rubber meets the road! The short answer is this: Where I find wonder, I find meaning. I don’t think there is any inherent meaning to life. I don’t believe the journey is the destination or any of that nonsense. Positive thinking always felt dangerous to me, for it felt like denial. I think my life is meaningful because of the people it in, first and foremost. Nature, science, pleasure, and ultimately love are what keep me wanting to be here.
PZ: What do you hope readers will take away from Wayward?
AG: The encouragement to let go of what is not true for them. I think the experience of what some call God can be very true, but it isn’t for everyone (nor are mystical experiences exclusive to religion). I wasted so many years trying to please a God who was never real to me, even when I believed in him. I hope someone who reads my book gives themselves permission to stop pretending if faith is no longer or never was real to them, either. There is so much more freedom outside the confines of spiritual belief.
