They Told Me I Was Born Broken

I had panic attacks as a child because of God.

Not because of death, or darkness, or the usual things that frighten kids. Well, yes, those things, but not because I feared being alone in the dark. I feared being there with hod.

The god I was taught was watching, always watching, and I was never quite good enough. He had created me to be born “in sin”. I was never quite safe. I walked around in a state of low-grade dread I didn’t have a name for, because nobody told me it had one. I panicked when the house was too quiet, fearing my family had been raptured and I was left behind.

Hypervigilance. Religious trauma. A nervous system that learned early that the universe was not on my side.

I was in my thirties before I started to understand what had been done to me. I’m 65 now, and I’m still working it out.

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