RELIGIOUS TRAUMA SYNDROME BLOG

By Janice Selbie, MPCC Recently, I got very sick. Not the kind of sick where you stay home from work and want your mom to bring you chicken soup. I mean really sick. The kind of sick where your body stops negotiating and simply announces, “We are shutting this operation down temporarily.” For days, I could barely function. I needed a wheelchair to get to and from urgent care, where I received IV saline infusions every day because my body was struggling to stay hydrated. It

by Janice Selbie, MPCC Welcome to Easter, the annual holiday with the most confusing branding. Is it about resurrection, chocolate, or a rabbit running an egg distribution scheme? Somehow, “He is risen” and “check behind the couch for jellybeans” coexist without anyone questioning the plot. It’s a holiday that offers very little logical consistency yet demands a great deal of emotional participation. For those with religious trauma, it can feel less like a celebration and mo

By Janice Selbie, MPCC Grief does not require belief in the supernatural. The recent tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, BC, has shaken many of us. I have loved ones impacted by this loss, and like so many of you, I have felt that familiar drop in the stomach that comes when something unthinkable happens. In the days that followed, I recorded a reel with a simple message: Atheists mourn. We mourn deeply, fully, and fiercely. Grief is not owned by religion. It is owned by love. Yet whe

By Janice Selbie, MPCC When Belief Feels Like Safety As a clinical counsellor specializing in Religious Trauma Syndrome, I have worked for years with individuals recovering from high-control belief systems. Many describe the same emotional arc: immersion that feels safe, followed by relational disconnection, and later a painful realization marked by grief, shame, and loss of trust in one’s own judgment. Seeing similar patterns show up in AI-based beliefs has felt clinically f