My trauma is this. My worst experience with religious people was when I was 17 and I had a group of three elders (older appointed men) assigned to assess my case of immorality. They are called a judicial community. Anyway they suspected I was lying to them about the exact events that took place being my boyfriend and I. They wanted to know details about how far we had gone sexually with each other. Supposedly they needed the information to discern whether or not to kick me out. But next they invited me to meet them at another kingdom hall (church). I thought it was just going to be us. They failed to mention there were going to be three other Elders and my boyfriend there.
So here I was, 17, the only girl there with 6 old geezers and my teenage boyfriend all sitting in a circle going into detail about our sex life. They asked us questions like, "Did you masturbate at all? How much clothes did you have on? Where was it? How many times?" Etc. Etc. VERY DISTURBING. I don't know how I didn't realize how wrong it was and why I didn't run out of there. The brain washing was strong with this one. (AKA: me.)

Being beaten by the sheriff and run out of town to protect my children's souls.

My best friend had AIDS and, when he didn't have much time left, he asked his older brother (who lived in another state) if he could see him one last time. His brother sent him a bible and told him he still had time to save himself from hell if he hurried. Oh, and he'd be praying for his soul. I can't fathom anything that hurt's another human being that intensely as being good.

Religious people who insist Satan exists... violent people.

My daughter was told at age seven by a friends grandmother because she wasn't baptized she was going to hell.

At the daycare my son goes to (which does not in any way indicate that it is a "Christian daycare" ) the teachers are making the kids recite prayers before they even leave for school on the bus. My son came home a few months ago asking to get baptized. He said he learned that if he doesn't he won't go to heaven. He is 6, so I took him to get baptized so he wouldn't be scared since the daycare so carelessly threatened the kids with hell. I also did it so my mom would stop asking me constantly to do it (she is also religious).

While I was still a Christian and an active youth. The parents of a church mate decided to open a Christian Coffeehouse. I got my entire Bible study group to help set up and paint the place and get the place going. I even brought my home stereo system and speakers so that they would have a basic PA system and DJ capabilities. It was a cool thing for awhile, till one day the adults told me that "GOD" told them I should donate my equipment to them. I asked why didn't God ask me himself. I got some BS answer from them. I told their son what his parents said and he agreed with me that it was BS and got the spare keys and we got my equipment the next day. If they had come to me as themselves and asked if I would donate my equipment to them I probably would have. My experiences with that church and that group of people that finally turned me away from organized brainwashing. That was 25 years ago. I haven't returned to the church since.

Told to forget and stop mentioning child molestation

I have been very lucky not to have had any alarming experiences of religious people but one only has to turn on the news to see others who have endured incredible hardship and suffering at the hands of extremists.... nearly always based on religion.

in foster home , first time in a church . they started talking about eating flesh and drinking blood . I thought they were zombies going to eat me. turns out it was only crackers and juice

Cant think of anything significant.

How do you pick just one? My first thought was about the men who used to pursue me (perhaps "hound" is a more appropriate word) and then would get additionally aggressive with me because I was an atheist and refused to believe what they did. Next thought was of the religious "friends" I had who told me that I should stay with my abusive husband because divorce was a sin and that it was better for my children to have an abusive father than no father at all (spoiler alert- it definitely was not). Finally, I think it would be being taught to be hyper judgmental and constantly guilty simply because of poorly written and transcribed words from an ancient book.

I went to Easter services at bethel temple because they were offering a free ham. (I was poor back then). At the end of an hour of hearing how reprobate we all were, some of the women pulled me up to the front to pray for me. They were all speaking in tongues and crying. I was surrounded, so I made a deal with their God. If he let me go home that day, i would never go back. I got home and never went back! the truth is that I was really scared while those women were carrying on. It was weird.

I'll never forget this because it came from my own brother. While I was still a closeted lesbian, I remember just briefly mentioning the gay rights movement. From there it seemed as if the conversation had died and we moved on. Then he started talking about this murder trial that was happening at the time, and not only did he compare that to the "sin" of being gay, he said that being gay was worse than murder. That may not be the worst I've ever had, but coming from my brother it terrified me back into the closet when I was almost ready to come out.

A few days ago at a smoke shop: I give my ID and the cashier, who looked at my jewish-muslim name and was like ''are you Muslim?'' to which I answered ''I am atheist'' and he was like ''what are you doing in the US?'' and I go ''studying'' to which he replied ''honestly I don't get why certain men don't give an education, values or principles to their daughters and just send them on the other side of the world like this'' pointing his fingers at me. I felt so disgusted and left without saying a word, it was horrible and I had never felt more uncomfortable before.

When my son was a baby I had post partum depression. It got so bad I was hospitalized. A couple of days into my stay I called my pastor at the time, looking for encouragement. He told me that it was my fault that I was sick, because I had fallen away from God and I was a sinner. I immediately gave up on religion and haven't been back to church since.

Being told by a priest that If my attendance at Sunday school wasn't 100 percent ( proved by buying a votive stamp ) , I would go to hell . I was 6 at the time .
I ran home ,crying ,terrified and told my dad , who marched me back to the church and promptly knocked the offending man of the cloth on his ass.

Because I had been a christian minister I was considered the worst of the worst pagans. I would even boast and say that I was the worst kind of atheist, because I am the godless kind. The worst part is that I lost "friends" who I thought were truly "friends." Also, my sister used to cry every time she would talk to me on the telephone or see me in person because she told me that she will miss me so much when she is in heaven and I am not. My answer to her was simply that we had better really enjoy each other's presence now all the more if she thinks that we will be separated forever.

Way back when I was trying on religion I was at a church and I overheard a woman talking about her foster children (native American). She was so excited about how she had removed all the spiritual culture of their life and replaced it with her religion. I wanted to vomit.

When I was around 11, we had a Pentecostal Holiness lady who drove the carpool to and from school for the neighbourhood kids. The others had stopped riding with this lady and I found out why the last time I rode with her. After she picked me and her son up and left the school, heading down the street, she suddenly floored the gas pedal and began singing, "we're gonna see Jesus in the sky!" and drove like bat out of hell, steering the car with her fingernail. When she screeched to a halt in front of my door, she saw the books I had and the scinece project I was working on and said, "You're gonna have to get that monkey stuff out of your head because God created us in his image!"

Okay it wasn't my worse experience but it was kinda funny. I kid you not when my friend found out her response was, "So you think this all just magically got here?"...just what? No? That's not how this works...

A religious woman and I got into a discussion about God; she said, "Where does love come from then if there is no God." I answered that love is inherent: all animals love their babies." She uttered nary another word and turned to another religious person to talk to.

Being married to one! Five five years were good, last four years were unbelievable. I had to leave just to keep my sanity.

They go to church each Sunday to discover what the "sin's" are of their neighbors and fellow workers on the job are or that of each other. They love to judge without mercy.

Being told how wrong or evil I am just because I never fell for what the "book religions" preach and teach. Good people come in all shapes and sizes, all races and beliefs. My god comes in all genders and forms and does not dictate as to how or what I believe, I am not about to battle my beliefs against anyone else's.