Religious Trauma Induced Insomnia (RTii)

Описание: This is helping me with lifelong insomnia.
I think a lot of folks may struggle with a similar thing.

Some of the concepts can apply to other paradoxus they can keep a person awake or worries that won’t go away or a puzzle that needs to be solved.

For me, it is religious trauma syndrome (RTS). Being exposed to the idea of eternal conscious torment as soon as I was old enough to understand words. I don’t believe it’s right to expose a toddler to this notion. I don’t think anybody said out to harm children, but I do think it is emotional, spiritual, psychological abuse and a very brutal way to keep people from leaning a belief system. Truth about loving each other would be good enough on its own. It doesn’t need the “help” of scarring children.

Some key concepts:

If you were raised with:
• Infinite punishment
• Thought-crime
• Unknowable authority
• Salvation contingent on belief, not behavior

Then your nervous system learned:
“I can never be sure I’m safe.”

When the topic is eternal suffering, ambiguity becomes intolerable. The mind keeps scanning because the cost of being wrong feels infinite.

That imprint survives long after belief collapses.

I recommend reading this out loud before bed:
“There is no coherent system (religious or philosophical) in which a finite, confused human is morally responsible for avoiding infinite punishment through correct metaphysical beliefs under uncertainty.” Or listening to this video.

Trying to reason or solve or pleading with an unknown can reenforce the stress, even when it feels like it could solve it.

That perseveration is arousal + meaning + infinity, which is the worst possible combo for sleep. The brain is trying to close an open threat loop.

It could be that your insomnia isn’t curiosity about death. It’s your brain asking:

“Is there a catastrophic outcome I could still accidentally trigger: and am I responsible for preventing it?”

That’s a survival question, not a theological one.

————
“fear doesn’t need belief to persist: it only needs early authority + moral terror.”
James Baldwin.


And if you’re like me and still think there may be something spiritual or metaphysical out there, consider this:

Anything worthy of saving humankind does not communicate through terror.

I can’t be the only one raised with the concept of ECT (eternal conscious torture). Know that you’re not alone.