Religious Trauma and Severance: When Faith Demands You Cut Off Parts of Yourself
This week, I grabbed coffee with a colleague who is also a religious trauma therapist in San Diego. We talked about our own experiences in high-control faith communities, our journeys away from harmful religion, and our shared love of gardening while browsing a local native plant nursery across the street from the coffee shop (because apparently, once you leave fundamentalism, you get really into plants!).
One thing we reflected on was how much we were taught to “die to self” in our respective former churches by pastors, mentors, small group leaders, etc. In high-control religion, you’re constantly told that you are inherently sinful, that your desires are dangerous, and that your thoughts can’t be trusted. Anything that comes “from the flesh” is considered evil and must be put to death.
In practice, this means repressing your wants and needs, gaslighting yourself out of certain feelings, and mentally strong-arming yourself into thinking “good” thoughts instead of “bad” ones.
Then, like many people this week, I watched the Severance Season 2 finale. (Don’t worry—no spoilers here if you haven’t seen it yet!) It got me thinking: there are a lot of parallels to religious trauma in the storyline of this show and how the characters navigate the situation they find themselves in. Fans of Severance, this one’s for you. Let’s get into it!
Severance and Religious Trauma: The Disconnect Between Who You Are and Who You’re Allowed to Be
For many religious trauma survivors, Severance is more than a hit series—it’s a familiar experience.
In the world of Severance, employees of Lumon Industries undergo a procedure that “severs” their consciousness into two separate identities: their “innie” (who only exists at work) and their “outie” (who has no memory of their workplace life). These two selves are completely disconnected from the other.
If you grew up in a high-control religious environment, you didn’t undergo sci-fi brain surgery (at least I hope not!)—but your mind and body were likely conditioned to do something similar.
You learned to compartmentalize. To suppress. To sever from parts of yourself that were deemed sinful, unacceptable, or displeasing to God. To shove down doubts and fears. To disconnect from feelings in your body. To push thoughts out of your mind. Your thoughts, emotions, desires, and even critical thinking were treated as threats—things that needed to be policed and controlled in order to belong to and stay in good standing with your faith community.
The Religious “Severance” Effect: How High-Control Faith Disconnects You from Yourself
In high-control religion, severing isn’t just encouraged—it’s required. From a young age, you’re taught that certain emotions, desires, and doubts are bad or dangerous:
Anger is sinful and destructive.
Fear means you aren’t believing God will protect you.
Attraction (especially queer attraction) is impure.
Independence is rebellion.
Doubt is a lack of faith and offends God.
So, you learn to cut yourself off from these parts of your humanity in order to be accepted in your faith community, and in order to be “good.”
Instead of feeling and processing emotions, you repress them. Instead of exploring your thoughts, you pretend you aren’t having them. Instead of trusting your instincts, you second-guess yourself at every turn because you were taught that you’re bad to the core.
Like the characters in Severance, many religious trauma survivors live in a constant state of internal disconnection—except instead of being divided between work and home, they’re divided between:
The self they had to be in order to survive in their faith community.
The self they buried—the one with very real and human (and valid!) thoughts, feelings, questions, and doubts that fell outside of what was allowed.
The Cost of Emotional Suppression in High-Control Religion
In Severance, the “innies” (work selves) live in an artificially controlled environment where their ability to think critically, form deep relationships, or question authority is tightly controlled.
Sound familiar?
High-control religion creates an environment where suppression is the only way to survive.
Doubt is silenced. Questioning doctrine isn’t just discouraged—it’s shamed and punished. You’re taught that asking hard questions means you’re spiritually weak (or even under demonic influence).
Emotions are policed and restricted. You’re expected to feel joy and peace in your faith, and if you don’t, it’s your fault for not being faithful or grateful enough. Grief, anger, and anxiety? Those are seen as spiritual failures (sometimes even sins), not normal human emotions.
Identity is prescribed. Your role in life—especially if you were raised as a woman—was predefined. You were told who you could be, what you could want, and what was off-limits. Any deviation from that script was defined as sin and disobedience.
Autonomy is stripped away. What you wear, who you date, what media you consume, and how you spend your time (and with whom) are all subject to religious oversight and monitoring.
Un-Severing and Re-Integration: Reconnecting with Yourself After Religious Trauma
One of the most compelling themes in Severance is what happens when the characters start to push against their imposed disconnection. They begin to crave wholeness— to live in a fully embodied and connected way instead of a fractured existence.
This mirrors the process of religious trauma recovery. After years (or decades) of suppression, healing is about reclaiming the parts of yourself you were forced to sever from.
1. Learning to Feel Again
If you were taught that certain emotions were bad, allowing yourself to feel them can be both liberating and terrifying. But emotions aren’t sinful—they are information, and provide you with valuable data about what you need and want. Anger, sadness, and doubt are just as valid and informative as joy and peace.
2. Challenging Old Beliefs
When you’ve spent your life accepting religious doctrine as absolute truth, questioning it can feel dangerous and perhaps like a slippery slope. But critical thinking isn’t rebellion—it’s a sign of curiosity and growth. You’re allowed to explore different perspectives, change your mind, and seek answers that make sense to you.
3. Embracing Your Full Identity
For many religious trauma survivors, parts of their identity were forced into hiding. Healing means reclaiming those parts, honoring them, and allowing yourself to exist fully, without shame.
4. Rebuilding Trust in Yourself
High-control religion conditions you to distrust yourself. You were taught that your heart was deceitful, that your instincts couldn’t be trusted, and that you needed external forces (like God or spiritual leaders) to guide your choices. But the truth is, you are capable of making good decisions for yourself. Healing means rebuilding that self-trust, step by step.
You Don’t Have to Live Severed
For those of us who grew up in high-control religion, Severance isn’t just a hit series—it’s a reflection of a reality we know too well. The experience of cutting off parts of ourselves to survive religious environments is painful, but fortunately it does not have to be permanent.
Healing from religious trauma is an un-severing. It’s a process of reclaiming your thoughts, feelings, identity, and autonomy. It’s learning that curiosity isn’t rebellion, that emotions aren’t sinful, and that you don’t have to live in fear of your own mind.
You deserve to exist as a whole and integrated person—not a fractured version of yourself shaped by religious fear and control.
And the good news? You don’t have to do it alone. If you’re on this journey of healing, I see you—and I’m here to help.
I offer religious trauma therapy in California, Florida, and Missouri, and am accepting new clients.
Ready to start healing? Reach out below to request a free consultation.