My Family Cut Me Off Because of Religion

How to Deal With Overly Religious Parents Mindfully

Published February 24, 2021

When parents and children take differing religious beliefs, it tin can atomic number 82 to stressful, painful, and overwhelming family conflicts and discord. Your historic period, if there is abuse nowadays inside the family system, whether you still alive with your parents, and if utilize any of their resources can all bear upon how y'all may choose to deal with overly religious parents.

How to Deal With Overly Religious Parents

It's important to understand in the simplest terms that in a healthy and loving parent-child relationship, the love from the parent to the child should be unconditional. This ways that regardless of your belief organisation, the dearest your parent feels towards you should non be based on any conditions.

• Your parent(s) accepts you for who you are and supports your growth into the person you were meant to be.
• Your parent(s) tin accept that you have differing beliefs and values from theirs.
• Your parent doesn't reject you lot based on your belief system.
• Your parent(s) understands that you lot volition develop or have developed into a unique developed and doesn't expect you to be a carbon re-create of them and their beliefs.

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If your parent is overly religious, but you feel he or she loves you unconditionally and accepts your individual belief system, you probable have a salubrious relationship with them regardless of your differing beliefs. If you suspect you have an unhealthy relationship with your parent and your conventionalities organisation is adding to the strain, proceed in listen that your religious differences are not the root cause of the relational dysfunction you are experiencing.

How Do You Cope With Extremely Religious Parents?

Every situation will be unique, but in general, you tin consider:

• Environs yourself with healthy and safety friends and/or family members who accept who you are and your belief system.
• Create a mantra for yourself that you tin can say when you're feeling upset about your familial circumstances. This may exist something like, "It's okay to have different beliefs" or "Information technology's important for me to exist truthful to myself."
• Continue a journal that you can go along private and use it to vent your feelings and thoughts. Do not go on a tangible or easily accessible periodical if your parent(s) has a history of going through your room or items and tin be volatile.
• If you lot live with your parents and y'all are a minor and they are threatening abuse or have been abusive and you feel unsafe, discover a safe place to go immediately, tell a trusted adult, phone call the police or a crisis line. Continue in mind that abuse tends to escalate, so don't wait and go with your gut if yous feel you lot are in danger.
• If you will exist living with your parents for several more than years, yous can brainstorm to gear up personal boundaries. This ways beginning to let go of the notion that y'all will agree with your parents regarding religion and privately embracing your own unique belief system. Recollect, you lot exercise not need to share everything with your parents. You are entitled to develop your own belief system and you can definitely continue that to yourself if you feel doing so volition go along you safe.

How Do Y'all Tell Your Religious Parents You're Not Religious?

If you want to tell your parents you lot are not religious, it's important to consider what their reactions may be and whether you lot will feel emotionally and/or physically safe afterwards. While some parents may be accepting of differing behavior, others may swing the opposite manner and completely refuse or disown their kid.

• If your parent(s) are non calumniating, and you lot believe it would be safety to tell them your thoughts, yous tin share your belief system in a neutral way without denigrating their beliefs.
• If your parent(s) accept a history of being physically and/or emotionally abusive, it'due south best to continue your belief system private, as they are probable unsafe to open up up to.
• If you live with your parents or they are providing some resource for you lot, think about how telling them will bear upon your ability to access these resources, particularly if you need them for survival (food, shelter, etc.).
• If you don't alive with your parents, are non taking any resources from them, and they practise not take a history of being calumniating, you can consider telling them in a neutral way.

Is It Legal for Parents to Force Faith?

It is not legal for parents to force religion onto their children. Under the U.s.a. Constitution, all Americans, including minors, have the right to liberty of religion. However, enforcing this right with legal activity is pretty catchy and as long as a minor is provided for in terms of nutrient, shelter, habiliment, education, and medical care, how a parent(s) choose to incorporate religion into their family is upwards to them. Using religion equally a ways to abuse or manipulate your child in any way is known as spiritual corruption and is not only extremely detrimental to the kid, only is also grounds for Child Protective Services to get involved.

Why Parents Should Not Force Religion

A parent's job is to provide a loving, nurturing, healthy, and rubber environment where their child or children are able to explore and develop into a unique private without fear of parental rejection. When religion is forced in an overly rigid environment, the kid is non given the opportunity to explore their own thoughts, belief system, and values. This tin can negatively bear upon the child every bit they develop into adults past:

• Reinforcing the notion that they can't think for themselves
• Reinforcing the notion that their behavior are wrong
• Heightening household stress and discord, which can lead to internalized feelings of anarchy equally the norm
• Increasing their gamble of developing mental wellness symptoms and disorders
• Negatively impacting their ability to have healthy adult relationships
• Negatively impacting their ability to trust their own gut

Controlling Religious Parents

If your parents are controlling when it comes to religion, chances are they are rigid in terms of how they live their lives and parent in general. Proceed in mind that the subject of religion is likely just the tip of the iceberg and may stand more as a metaphor for what your relationship with your parent looks like. With overly controlling parents, you may experience or notice:

• Misunderstood, rejected, and belittled
• Smothered, on edge, and nervous to be yourself
• Low confidence in yourself and your ability to make sound decisions
• Difficulty maintaining good for you relationships
• Finding yourself unconsciously drawn to rigid, intense, or controlling partners

Set Appropriate Boundaries

Because yous know your parents best, you can employ your history with them to understand if setting boundaries is a viable option for you lot. You can set boundaries if:

• There is no history of abuse- abuse is already a gross violation of boundaries
• You have set boundaries successfully in the past with them and they have been respected (for example: if y'all say, "I don't feel comfortable talking most that," are you pressured or pushed to discuss or are your boundaries respected?)
• You feel emotionally safety enough to prepare some boundaries with them

Setting appropriate boundaries may look like telling them you respect their religious views, merely are exploring your own beliefs, or letting them know you aren't comfortable discussing a sure religious topic going forward. You may also make up one's mind to no longer nourish sure religious events or participate in religious services. It is up to you to determine what you are and are not comfy with. While some may feel comfy with certain religious holidays, or attention a religious service, others may not desire to participate in anything religious whatsoever.

Seek Exterior Support

Feeling parental rejection is one of the well-nigh painful and visceral unconscious and conscious experiences a child, even an adult kid, tin go through. If you experience that your parent(due south) has rejected you, doesn't have y'all, doesn't understand you, or bases their love for you on sure atmospheric condition, it's a good idea to find a therapist who tin can aid you lot process this. Even though religious disagreements may experience like the major problem within the family arrangement, at that place may also be traumatic experiences and attachment issues beneath the surface.

Dealing With Overy Religious Family Members

Whether you live with your family unit members or non, there are means to bargain appropriately when your opinions differ:

• Recall that beingness a mature and healthy adult means understanding that non everyone will share your same conventionalities arrangement, so information technology'due south important to be respectful of your family'due south belief arrangement, even if they aren't of yours.
• If your family members bring up religion and you feel uncomfortable, detect means to minimize contact and/or remove yourself from the state of affairs in a respectful manner.
• If your family members are highly combative regarding faith, don't engage with them. You can say, "I respect your opinion", "Let me think well-nigh that", or "I hear you" without further engaging in the conversation. If things get really heated, remove yourself from the situation.
• Remind yourself that it's absolutely okay to remember for yourself and have dissimilar beliefs than your family unit members. While this tin be painful and challenging to do, go on in heed that you lot can provide support and loving credence for yourself.
• Surround yourself with accepting friends who you lot tin exist yourself with.
• Find healthy ways to vent and process your experience with your family members.

How Do Y'all Cope With Religious Parents?

Depending on your unique circumstances with your parents, you will need to thoroughly evaluate the situation earlier making whatever decisions regarding setting advisable boundaries, sharing your thoughts, and seeking exterior support.

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