Leaving Religion to
Save My Mental Health

I never wanted to deconstruct or ever believed that one day I would completely abandon my childhood religion. I was born into a Slavic Christian family. I am the 6th child out of 8 siblings. By the time I was born, my mom was already a super devout Christian, and my dad was “born again” at age 45. My fundamental developmental years were spent in a household that was living by only one rule book — the Bible. Every day we had to pray as a family, starting from the youngest and ending with the oldest. We attended church as a family at least a couple of times a week, if not more. I sang in children’s and youth choir. I attended all the church summer camps. My friends were only Slavic — Russian, Ukrainian people. We were not supposed to have any friends from other faith traditions or “the world,” meaning non-Christians.

The Christianity that I was brought up in was based on these core principles: You are born a sinner. You need salvation through Jesus Christ. You must figure out how not to lose your salvation by constantly being obsessed with “sin.” There is an enemy — Satan and demons — constantly fighting for your soul so that you would go to hell for eternity.

As a child, I was also exposed to stories about Christian persecution in the former USSR, all of it driving the point home that Christianity is the only true faith. I was exposed to stories of deliverance — how former witches came to know Christ and became “born again.”
In my family, there was no individual attention given to each child. We grew up emotionally and developmentally neglected and had to figure out life on our own.
As a child, I remember fearing God, but I was also obsessed with God. I wanted to be holy, pure, good — and definitely saved — because when I die, I wanted to be with my family in heaven.
The story of Jesus was hammered into my child psyche from a young age. The Easter plays, the crucifixion of Jesus, the plays about the prodigal son, the stories about Noah and Abraham — all these horror stories were saved in my brain as “good,” because God is love.

Because my particular church taught that salvation is losable, I developed this fear of losing it. I remember constantly accepting Jesus into my heart at every altar call. If I didn’t go forward, I prayed where I was: “Jesus, please forgive my sins and please come into my heart.” I never knew how “saved” was supposed to feel, and I never felt saved. I mimicked the people who went up front to the altar. My emotional distress was real, and it came from fear — but I didn’t know that. I just thought I was repenting and that meant I would be saved.

In the Slavic church, you are only allowed to get baptized as a teenager or adult, when you can understand that you are sinning. So I decided to get baptized at age 14. I went through baptism classes about being the Bride of Christ, how to be pure and holy, how you are not allowed to sin after you take this vow.

After this holy enrollment into the Kingdom of God, this is where I first began to experience anxiety attacks. I began to monitor my behavior: Did I lie? Did I steal? Did I say something bad? Was I angry or mean?

I lived my childhood and most of my adult life — until my divorce — pretty much by the book. I didn’t smoke, I didn’t have sex outside of marriage, I tried extremely hard not to masturbate. I shoved down all my sexual thoughts and desires deep into a basement. I didn’t listen to secular music. I didn’t read secular books. I only had Christian friends.

I was able to float pretty peacefully through life in my Christian belief system — until one point. I went through a divorce. I got married very young at age 19 and divorced at 27. This is not shocking if you grew up religious. We were not allowed to date, we were not allowed to have sex. You were just supposed to meet, and if he was a Christian, you get married. There was no sex education, no dating education — there was zero education, just the Bible.

When I was going through divorce, I realized that I had no rule book anymore. There is no guide on how to live when you are divorced in the Bible. I was lonely, scared, I felt abandoned and betrayed on all levels — so naturally, I craved connection. I began to date, to make out, to go further than that — and I felt guilt, shame, and terror. “I am sinning, I am sinning…” would play in my head. I was paranoid about getting pregnant even though I didn’t have penis-in-vagina sex — but I believed I would miraculously get pregnant. I took Plan B’s just in case. One time I had a weird period, and in my mind I concluded that I had a miscarriage — which meant an abortion — and then I felt like the most evil person. I labeled myself as the worst human being in the world. Of course, I didn’t have anyone to share this with, so I kept it to myself. At that time, there were other family issues happening with my brother and all of it felt like too much. I felt guilt, anxiety, fear, terror — and I drew the conclusion that it was me. My fault. God was punishing me because of my sexual sins.

I had a nervous breakdown. I remember crying nonstop because I felt paranoid about being bad, going to hell, and that God would never forgive me (because I was taught that).
I decided to get deeper into church, because they would help me. I went to pastors, Sozo groups, inner healing groups, deliverance groups — because they all pointed fingers at me. It was my fault I opened the door to sin and the devil. It was my fault because I didn’t forgive my ex-husband for cheating. It was my grandma’s fault because of “generational sin.” The heap of blame was so heavy…
I was taught that fear, anxiety, and bad thoughts were controlled by demons.
The further I went into church or to family to get help and heal — the deeper into the pit I fell.
I turned against myself, because it was my job to find sin in me and get rid of it. I became a police officer to myself and the other part of me was the tester. “Am I saved? What about that bad thought, that bad feeling?” The vicious cycle drove thoughts and emotions round and round in a locked toxic pattern.

Losing control of my mind because of the core toxic teachings I was given made me feel like I was crazy, possessed, mentally ill…

Fast forward to COVID. I was attending a Charismatic church in Austin, Texas — Bethel. Where demons are real, Jesus was coming anytime now, and we had to save the city and wait for revival. I tried everything at this point, learned every deliverance prayer, and I was feeling worse and worse. I didn’t know why. I started having sleep paralysis — nightmares in REM sleep where the body is paralyzed but the mind is awake (now I know it was from religious trauma).
My friends left the church during the Black Lives Matter movement because the church made everyone sign contracts — if they served in church — that we don’t support gay rights and so on. That’s why they left. I was the last to leave, when the pastor’s wife gave a sermon on revival — saying that if God tells you to do something crazy that doesn’t make sense, you have to do it. Her example was how God healed someone by slapping them, or drop-kicking a baby. I know!!!! I didn’t even know if I was really hearing this… or imagining it.

That was the last straw.

I went to a Christian counselor to see if I could get help. She totally sucked — but one thing she told me made a huge pivot in my life. She said, “Olya, you are allowed to question.” That’s it. It was as if my brain came online.
Somehow, I stumbled upon deconstruction content online — on Spotify, Instagram, YouTube — and that was my first true saving grace. I began obsessing and reading books like Pure by Linda Kay Klein and You Are Your Own by Jamie Lee Finch. I had the biggest AHA moment: Wait — it’s not me. It was the environment I was in and what I was taught.
From there, I worked with secular, religious-trauma-informed therapists and coaches. Lots of money was spent — I went into credit card debt because I didn’t really have money.
My second biggest AHA moment — when I was finally able to let go of Christianity — was when I was doing homework that my coach gave me, and for the first time I understood with my whole being that the Christian God is not love. Hell is not love. Fear is not love. Punishment is not love. Manipulation is not love.
I got love all wrong.

That’s it. I was done.

I stopped attending church. My siblings know I am not a Christian. My mom I am still working on… I have to add that the point where I let go of Christianity and had nothing in place to hold my existential fears was the most uncomfortable and terrifying. But slowly, with the help of psychology and other people who have gone through this, I was able to feel safe again.
Where I am today: I am in school studying Psychology so that one day I can help people like me. What helped me replace religion was forming a new foundation on how to understand the world and myself — and for me, that is through the lens of psychology.
I am still on a journey of rewiring my horror stories into loving, peaceful, and accepting narratives that hold as much grey as possible. I still get triggered by spiritual content and sometimes feel as if a tiger is chasing me — but now I also feel more grounded, because I know what is happening in my body and how to help myself.

I think it will be a lifetime journey — and that’s okay. I am so happy that so far I have gained my sleep back, I am not afraid of the dark, my mind has slowed down and feels more grounded, and overall I feel lighter and happier.

To anyone on this journey, I just want to say: You are not alone. There is hope and freedom on the other side. Be kind to yourself. Find resources and community to help you along the way.

Lots of hugs and love,
Olya