Surviving Evangelicalism

Growing up inside the movement that is shaping your headlines.

People often ask me what it's like to grow up in a cult. It’s a question I never thought I'd have to answer, because for most of my life, I didn’t realize I was in one. Before I escaped, I would've said my upbringing was pretty typical. My parents were strict, but James Dobson and Focus on the Family were shaping the values of everyone around me. I had been told it was a privilege to have been raised that way. What I didn’t know was that the world I grew up in was carefully designed to shape my identity, purpose, and politics from the start. I was being groomed for spiritual, cultural, and political battles without even knowing it.

From the moment I was born, I was taught that our mission was to take America back for Jesus.

It's been five years since I escaped this world. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday, while other days I feel like I've aged in dog years, trying to keep up with everyone else. Growing up in fundamentalist evangelicalism, time moves at a different pace. You’re not encouraged to explore the world; instead, you’re warned against it.

Everything had to pass a purity test: movies, music, clothes, friendships, even my thoughts. I recently heard Candace Cameron Bure say on a podcast that she avoids movies that might bring a spiritual "portal" into her home. She mentioned a can of water—Liquid Death—as if it were some demonic force. Looking back on my journals from my early twenties and thirties, I can say I once shared a similar perspective. I used to be scared of letting the devil in through a CD or a PG-13 rating.

Obedience felt like a moral obligation. Compliance was seen as a virtue. And what passed for joy was often just dissociation with a smile.

I wanted people to ask, “How do you stay so joyful? Where does your peace come from?” so I could say “Jesus,” and count it as a spiritual victory. I didn’t know then that joy built on fear was a facade for safety.

Leaving cost me more than I ever thought possible. It meant losing my community, family, and the future I'd envisioned. But it also gave me my freedom – the freedom to reclaim my body, my voice, and the ability to think for myself. Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to understanding what happened. I've studied trauma, cult dynamics, and the lasting psychological effects of authoritarian religion.

Here's what I’ve come to realize: those of us who grew up in this movement aren't broken. We're not a punchline, and we're not irrelevant. We're people who've had to rebuild ourselves from the inside out.

We can recognize coercion because we were raised inside it, and we learned to identify propaganda because it shaped our worldview. It's not just documentaries that help us spot a cult, but rather the fact that they often involve people, churches, or situations that are familiar to us.

And now, we’re watching the playbook we were trained with roll out across the country.

Each headline serves as a reminder of something we've been taught to stand for. Whether it's book bans, attacks on LGBTQ+ youth, abortion restrictions, or politicians using God's name to justify inhumane actions, it's clear this isn’t a culture war. It’s a carefully orchestrated campaign rooted in decades of indoctrination—and it feels disturbingly familiar.

When we speak up, we’re not doing it for attention; we’re doing it because we understand the consequences of ignoring warning signs. Unfortunately, our stories are often consumed in the same way as true crime content. People seek the emotional arc rather than face the uncomfortable truth.

They want to hear what we escaped from, but they don’t want to believe they’re living inside the outcome of it.

Many of us did not attend the “right” schools or begin our careers immediately after college with internships and mentors. Many of us are still figuring things out, like managing credit scores, navigating health insurance, and setting boundaries. We weren’t raised to succeed in the world; we were raised to evangelize it.

But don’t mistake that for ignorance. We carry a different kind of expertise. One forged in secrecy, silence, and survival.

Here’s a glimpse of what that survival has required:

What We Struggle With After Escaping Evangelical Christian Nationalism

Religious Trauma & Fear Conditioning

• Persistent fear of hell, Satan, or divine punishment

• Guilt over questioning, doubting, or disobeying authority

• A deep, unresolved anxiety about “falling out of God’s will”

Psychological & Emotional Impacts

• Binary thinking: everything reduced to good or evil

• Chronic self-doubt rooted in spiritual conditioning

• Hypervigilance, as if you’re constantly being watched or tested

Education and Intellectual Development

• Indoctrination prioritized over inquiry or curiosity

• Textbooks that rewrote history and demonized science

• Concern about secular environments, such as universities or classrooms, that challenge traditional values

• Delayed intellectual confidence due to years of suppression

Family, Boundaries, and Identity

• “Honor thy parents” used to justify emotional control and abuse

• Estrangement and grief after deconstructing or coming out

• A fractured or absent sense of self after years of submission

• Guilt or feeling like a traitor when you go no contact with your family

• A poor sense of boundaries, oversharing, and fear of not being understood

Body, Autonomy, and Sexuality

• fear of physical intimacy, touch, or romantic attraction

• Shame that lingers around sex, even in safe relationships

• Struggling to recognize or express personal needs and boundaries

Socialization and Culture Shock

• Missing shared experiences and cultural references

• Difficulty trusting or connecting with peers who were not raised in a restricted environment.

• Feeling like you’re always translating your upbringing to be understood

Feeling a Decade Behind

• Delayed start to education, careers, or independent living

• Playing catch-up while carrying trauma, most people can’t see

• Mourning the things you never got to do or be

Political and Moral Confusion

• Distinguishing faith from nationalism

• Recognizing how religion was used to manufacture consent

• Seeing political power structures mimic the very systems you escaped

Loss, Grief, and Healing

• Grieving a version of God that was used to instill fear

• Processing the absence of unconditional love in your formative years

• Learning to find meaning in nuance instead of certainty

This is the short list

We didn’t choose to be experts in authoritarian religion. We became that by surviving it.

If you want to understand what it’s like to grow up in a cult, don’t just ask us about our experiences. Inquire about what we observe happening today.

Because this is not just our past; it is your present.

And it doesn’t have to be your future.

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