“I left the church 20 years ago. Why does it still feel like it lives inside of me?”
I hear this line from almost every former Adventist (or fundamentalist) I work with.
When I left two years ago, it felt like I was plunged into hell emotionally and mentally. (Though I was so happy to be out.)
That's because my whole life I had to numb out the pain. The cognitive dissonance. Feeling like I was never enough.
But then, the dam cracked. And all of those emotions came flooding through.
Here’s why you feel that:
When you were an Adventist, you tried so hard to be good. To please God. But even now — even though you left — you still feel it, don’t you?
The shame. The fear. The second-guessing.
That’s not because you’re weak. It’s because the church trained your nervous system and subconscious mind to stay stuck in fear and control.
Here’s how they did it — using what Steve Hassan calls the BITE Model:
✨ Behavior Control — They told you exactly how to dress, what to eat, what music to listen to, and who you could date. (Maybe you remember being shamed for wearing makeup or for eating “unclean” food at a potluck.) Even your private choices — your sexuality, your thoughts — were called sinful.
✨ Information Control — You were warned not to read books or listen to podcasts that might “lead you astray.” They left out the messy parts of church history — and if you brought them up, you were labeled rebellious. Even now you might feel guilty just for Googling the truth.
✨ Thought Control — You were taught We are the remnant. Everyone else is lost. Any doubts or questions were called “temptations from Satan.” You learned to distrust your own feelings and intuition — believing your heart was “deceitful above all things.”
✨ Emotional Control — You were flooded with shame and fear: fear of hell, fear of persecution, fear of losing everyone you loved. Even happiness and rest came with guilt —I remember waking up on the couch on a Sabbath afternoon to the sound of my mom’s voice reading to me an Ellen White quote about not napping… on the day of rest, of course.
And now? You might still feel:
Anxious or numb without knowing why
Like you can’t trust yourself to make decisions
A knot in your chest when you try to relax
Scared to speak up or set boundaries
Disconnected from who you really are
Leaving the church was a huge step — but it doesn’t undo the damage by itself. Because the trauma lives deeper — in your body and subconscious.
That’s why, when I work with clients, we don’t just process through our stories—we gently work with the nervous system and subconscious to release what’s still gripping you — so you can finally feel free, calm, and at home in yourself again.
