Leaving your faith (without losing your mind)
If you’ve left a religion that once shaped everything about your life, and now you feel confused, guilty, angry, flat, relieved, terrified, liberated, or all of the above before breakfast, congratulations! You are having a very normal reaction to something that is definitely not small.
Leaving your faith isn’t just “changing your mind.” It’s more like dismantling the scaffolding that held up your entire worldview and being told, “Cool, now just pop a new one up yourself.” No instructions included.
If that feels hard, it’s because it is.
Why leaving religion hurts so much (even if you’re glad you did)
For many people, leaving religion feels like a breakup or a divorce. There’s grief, anger, guilt, loneliness, and that awkward moment where you realise all your friends came with the relationship.
The tricky part? When marriages end, people bring food. When religion ends, people tend to bring Bible verses… or silence.
Your faith probably gave you:
A ready-made identity
Clear rules (very clear, actually)
A built-in community
Answers to Big Life Questions™
A sense that someone else was in charge
So when you leave, you don’t just lose beliefs, you lose structure. And suddenly you’re expected to rebuild meaning, values, friendships, and purpose while quietly pretending you’re “fine actually.”
(It’s okay if you’re not.)
The very normal phases of “Oh God, I've left God”
People tend to move through a few overlapping phases after leaving a rigid or high-control religion. You might recognise some of these. You might be in several at once. You might read this and say, “but why is this so accurate?”
1. Separation: The cracks start showing
At some point, the faith worked (or at least worked enough). Then questions crept in. Things stopped adding up. You tried harder (because that’s always the answer, right?), prayed more, read more, sought guidance… and were often told to stop thinking so much.
Eventually, something gives. Sometimes it’s dramatic. Sometimes it’s slow and quiet. Either way, leaving begins long before you actually leave.
2. Confusion: Welcome to the existential free-fall
Once you’re out, things can get weird fast.
Religion often answers:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What’s right and wrong?
What happens when I die?
Is this feeling a sign from God or just anxiety?
When that framework disappears, people often feel untethered, like being dropped into adulthood again, but without the illusion that someone’s supervising.
Old fears can resurface too. Even if you intellectually reject hell, your nervous system may still be like, “Okay but what if?”
At the same time, many people feel an unexpected lightness. A sense of freedom. A quiet joy. Or the thrill of realising you’re allowed to think your own thoughts now.
3. Avoidance: Absolutely no thanks to anything spiritual
Many people then go through a phase of wanting nothing to do with religion or spirituality. Churches? No. God talk? Hard pass. Worship music? Immediate flight response.
This isn’t immaturity, it’s self-protection. When something hurt you, stepping away from anything that resembles it is often necessary before you can heal.
4. Feeling: The emotional backlog arrives
And then? Feelings! All the feelings.
Anger is common. Anger about lost time. Lost choices. Shame you never deserved. Fear that was framed as love. You might feel angry at leaders, family, God, yourself, or that one youth pastor who definitely should not have been allowed around teenagers.
Grief shows up too. You’ve lost:
A relationship with God or Jesus
A spiritual family
Certainty
Safety
A future you were promised
That’s real grief, even if no one around you knows how to name it.
5. Rebuilding: Slowly becoming yourself (again? or for the first time)
This is where things start to soften.
You begin sorting through what you were taught and deciding what actually fits you. Some values stay. Others get lovingly (or not-so-lovingly) tossed out.
You learn to make choices because they feel right, not because you’re afraid of punishment or disappointing an invisible audience.
Confidence grows. Life starts to feel like something you’re participating in, not performing.
Common “wait, is this because of religion?!” after-effects
Self-worth (or lack thereof)
If you were taught that self-esteem = pride and self-sacrifice = goodness, learning to value yourself can feel deeply uncomfortable.
You’re not selfish for caring about yourself. You’re not broken for wanting joy. You’re just human.
Guilt
Religion is very good at teaching guilt and very bad at teaching self-compassion. Many people leave faith with an internalised moral critic that did not leave with them.
Unlearning perfectionism and learning to be human takes time (but it’s worth it!).
Being in the world
If you were taught that the world is fallen, dangerous, or temporary, learning to enjoy life can feel oddly… wrong.
Recovery often includes learning to notice beauty, pleasure, and connection without needing to justify it spiritually. You’re allowed to be here. This life counts.
Responsibility without a divine manager
When you’ve been taught that God is in charge, suddenly being responsible for your own choices can feel terrifying (and sometimes exhausting).
But it’s also where real autonomy, confidence, and self-trust grow.
Meaning after faith
Some people rebuild spirituality. Some don’t. Some do a bit of both. There is no correct outcome.
What matters is that whatever gives your life meaning supports your wellbeing, rather than controlling, shaming, or silencing you.
Independent thought: Now with less supervision
Most people want to think for themselves. Even people who were once deeply committed to religious authority usually want autonomy, they just didn’t have language for it, or were taught to be suspicious of it. Independent thought was often framed as pride, rebellion, or a fast track to eternal consequences, so it makes sense if it still feels a bit edgy now.
Recovery isn’t about rejecting belief for the sake of being contrary, or replacing one rigid system with another slightly trendier one. It’s about developing the capacity to choose what fits you, without fear, coercion, or someone else hovering in the background asking whether you’ve prayed about it. That means learning to tolerate uncertainty, make decisions without guaranteed reassurance, and accept that no one is coming to grade your choices at the end.
For many people, this is the first time they’ve been allowed to ask, “What do I actually think?” without immediately following it with, “…and is that okay?” That can feel uncomfortable, awkward, and occasionally panic-inducing, but it’s also deeply human. Autonomy isn’t something you suddenly achieve; it’s something you practise, often clumsily, with a fair bit of trial and error.
In the end, most people don’t leave religion because they want chaos or meaninglessness. They leave because they want authorship over their own lives. Freedom of thought, even when it’s messy and incomplete, tends to be what people were reaching for all along. They just didn’t know they were allowed to want it.
