Voice Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 When you come out of a cult or religion, there is a recovery process, but what defines the process? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orbit Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 I've heard it compared to the stages of grieving: denial, bargaining, anger, acceptance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinas Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 I have never considered and have no idea what defines the process. I suspect it is complete, however, when there is no more fear of the threats that the religion makes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyson Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ky04u8kPZqA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyson Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Winell has found some of her clients develop other forms of spirituality, or go to more liberal Christian denominations quite happily. Atheism is just one part in the spectrum of outcomes. She had a fundamentalist upbringing as a child of missionaries in the Assemblies of God. She is no longer a Christian. Her mission is the end the suffering caused by religion (using clinical definitions), and finds all forms can be toxic, depending on the particular person and circumstance. She has mentioned clients from many Christian denominations, even from other religions such as Islam and Judaism. Part 2 here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orbit Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Winell has found some of her clients some develop other forms of spirituality, or go to more liberation Christian denominations quite happily. Atheism is just one part, an extreme in the spectrum. She had a fundamentalist upbringing as a child of missionaries in the Assemblies of God. She is no longer a Christian. Her mission is the end the suffering caused by religion (using clinical definitions), so all forms can be toxic... depending on the particular person and circumstance. She has mentioned clients from many Christian denominations, even from other religions such as Islam and Judaism. I wish there were more professional mental health practitioners doing the type of therapy she's doing. I've considered returning to graduate school to get a degree in psych or counseling so I can do similar work. That would be great, Human. The world needs more secular counselors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voice Posted August 31, 2014 Author Share Posted August 31, 2014 So it sounds like de-conversion is the heavy emotional part and coming to terms with things like doctrine, leaving the religion, but recovery is the long term, real life stuff, starting over making friends and building social networks, adapting to basic life things, and re-discovery of self, who we are. For some of us, myself included, getting past the fears was part of recovery, that all took around 10 years for me. I had de-converted long before that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ Fuego ♦ Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 It depends on the person as well. For me, once I understood that it was not real, it basically went *poof*. There were some things that I still worked through in dreams, such as "what do I do with fear of the devil?" and those have been fascinating dreams. But really, I have no fear of the god of the Bible anymore because he is a myth. Others on the forums seem to have genuine troubles breaking free, and lingering doubts and fears. Some of them are also hindered by mental illnesses that compound the fears and what-ifs, making it that much more difficult to break the programming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 I think for many people deconversion means three different things, (1) the process of doubting xianity and searching for the truth, (2) the moment when you realise god isn't real and (3) the process of adjustment after being a xian. So its both a moment and a process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bhim Posted September 6, 2014 Share Posted September 6, 2014 To me, the intellectual conundrum was a relatively small issue. I did not cease to believe in Jesus because I found Christianity implausible, but my intellectual assent to Christian doctrine fell away in a matter of days. The social aspect of deconversion was far more significant. Despite having been an evangelical for a mere six years, I was fully invested. A large number of my friends were evangelicals from the same church, and I lived with many of them. I wanted to go back to my old religion right away, but this would have been problematic given that these people were my housemates, coworkers and neighbors (yes, we'd all chosen to live on the same block of our small college town, and believe it or not two of my evangelical friends were fellow physicists in my department). For me, deconversion was not a process of accepting the falsehood of Christianity; I already knew how to believe in something besides Jesus since I'd grown up in another religion. My deconversion consisted of divesting myself of all Christian relations. This process took over a year and consisted of moving to a different part of town, developing my friendships with my fellow non-Christians, and establishing a life and livelihood that didn't involve Jesus. It was a long process, but I now live fully separated from Christianity, and my life has returned to the state in which it was before I converted. Christianity has been the largest waste of my life by far, and this is one reason I detest it so deeply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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