Help Us Rescue Survivors of Cults and Religious Abuse

The Deconstruction Doulas is a tiny (three person) non-profit that helps survivors of high-control religious abuse to safely "deconstruct" their faith, escape situations of religious abuse, and heal from their wounds. We do this by providing free resources, retreats, financial aid, and practical support via volunteers and staff that we call "deconstruction doulas."

We need to raise $15,000 of support to keep caring for our community members while we try to raise more serious, long-term funds from larger donors.

You might be thinking, "Religious abuse? That's crazy. If you're part of a religious group that's hurting you, why not just leave?"

We really, really wish it was that simple. Let's talk.

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The following is a true story. Details have been altered to protect the identity and current situation of this survivor (and others):

Somewhere in the Upper Midwest during the 90s, a little girl is raised in a fundamentalist evangelical household. Her parents are former missionaries, and now they work for a Christian non-profit and are highly involved at their church.

This little girl is taught by her parents and their church that her highest calling is to be a wife and mother. She’s told that her female genitalia means that God has assigned her a role in life: to submit to men’s authority, especially her father's and future husband's.

She earnestly obeys. She waits for a godly husband approved by her church and parents, marries him, and devotes herself to him. She wants to be a good person and a good woman, and since this is the path she's given, she walks it faithfully.

Ten years later, this woman has six children. She is wracked with depression, anxiety, spiritual OCD, and chronic health issues from too many pregnancies too close together. Her husband openly flirts with other women and screams at his family daily over some domestic issue or other. He's also highly regarded at their church as a 'godly man' despite these being known issues. Her friends (all of whom are at the same church) tell her that she's being ungrateful when she brings up the flirting; after all, many women can't find a "good husband" that "provides." They tell her she needs to just try to "be sexier" for him, and he'll treat her better.

Her religion prevents her from accessing any mental health resources; instead, her church connects her with a 'biblical counselor' who requires her to handwrite confessions of sin, memorize Bible verses, and work on being 'more enthusiastic' about having sex with her husband. If she expresses any sense that he might need to change his behavior too, she is told that this is "unloving" and a sign that she "refuses to forgive." She is warned that she is in danger of eternal, conscious torture in Hell if she does not change her emotions toward her husband.

When her husband eventually strikes her instead of just shouting at her, she goes to the police and files a report. Her church -- which is her entire community, resource network, and pool of friends -- tells her that this was sinful and rebellious, and they formally shun her. She is given a "restoration plan" that includes daily sex with her abusive husband, weekly meetings with her pastor to "confess sin." She is threatened with loss of custody over her children if she presses charges and fails to comply with the plan.

At this point, this precious soul was bereft of hope and planning to take her own life.

In desperation, she found a dark corner while her husband was at work and, away from the searching eyes of her mother-in-law, searched "what is spiritual abuse" on Google. And it pointed her to us. Deconstruction Doulas.

Three years later, this precious soul and her children have been able to get out. She has a job, her kids have a safety net, and she has stable access to mental health resources and healthcare. She writes,

"Margaret and the DD people literally saved me. My kids' lives too. They didn't just help us get out, they helped us build a new life together. They cried with me, connected me with so many wonderful people, and even covered bills and helped me get a job. I have hope. God doesn't hate me. I'm not all the way healed yet and maybe never will be. But now I know that I am worthy of love. I am not going back."

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This is what Deconstruction Doulas does: we get people out of dangerous, high-control religious spaces and help them make a life for themselves apart from the abuse they've experienced.

Since we informally got started in 2021, we've helped over 150 families (and counting) escape such situations. While this might seem like an isolated issue, the truth is that coercive religious abuse is relatively common. Between 10-15% of American adults are experiencing high-control religious abuse right now. This is a massive number of folks, but because it involves religion, Americans tend to be "hands off" about the subject, treating like it's just a "private matter."

But the stats are ugly. And without interventions, it gets even uglier.

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Hi. My name is Margaret. A few years ago, me and my friend Erin, along with my husband David, started a peer-support group for folks who had suffered spiritual abuse.

You can learn more about our personal stories at the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast, or on our Instagram account at @deconstructiondoulas.

But the main thing to know is that the community that developed from us trying to create a place of safety on the Internet has become a very real, and increasingly large community across Canada and the US. The people we serve have all escaped high-control religious environments in one form or another, and the trauma has wrecked them the way it wrecked us.

But matters of spiritual abuse are often difficult to explain to the non-religious. And if your experience of religious spaces has been mostly positive, it can be really hard to understand how someone might experience so much harm in a place that's done you so much good.

Our survivors' central struggle usually lies first in getting out. Then, staying out becomes the priority. But for the women especially, a combination of high-control religious programming, (usually) violent childhood trauma, and ongoing domestic abuse make these two things next to impossible. Our survivors need time to deprogram from their high-control religious context, begin to get help resolving their childhood trauma, and in some cases, escape their coercive or violent living situations.

Survivors become a part of the Deconstruction Doulas community by connecting with one of our deconstruction doulas, joining one of our deprogramming cohorts, or connecting with our community for support and educational resources.

But it takes financial resources to do this work. We have one full- and one part-time employee, and within our community, there are enormous needs that are beyond our ability to help with. Some of our women have disabled children who need medical care. Others are dealing with health issues of their own.

Our community - both men and women - have bodies and lives that are utterly ravaged by abuse. We have folks with everything from severe OCD to cancer, and we have identities ranging from trans atheists to reconverted Anglicans - but we're all under one "roof," so to speak.

And that's because regardless of all our personal religious beliefs, we've all learned one thing: we stick together in love. Period.

Once someone has become a part of the Deconstruction Doulas, caring for them takes time, money, and people. Deconstruction Doulas provides the time and the people. However, we need your help to provide these survivors with the funding necessary to not only get out, but also stay out.

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Here’s what we’ve done so far:

The Problem: Time

When we started this project, we knew that it was going to be a long shot, and that it would have to start "working" in a limited amount of time. There are over a hundred families represented in this community already, and we feel an acute sense of responsibility to continue this work.

Unfortunately, it's not possible for us to work "normal" 40-hour a week jobs AND continue to serve survivors, plus manage the logistics and cover the (rapidly growing) expenses.

So we have to pick: the precious people in this community, or a regular paycheck. We want to pick the former. We want to leap to our feet in answer to that need.

But we have to secure support to do it.

What We Hope to Build:

//How You Can Help//

Short term: We are trying to raise $15,000 to cover the Deconstruction Doula's expenses until we can secure full support from larger donors. This money would go to paying our two employees enough to keep their own lights on; their salaries are just enough to cover living expenses; no 401 (k) s or savings accounts are being funded here. If we raise enough, we can also start addressing more financial needs within the larger community.

Long Term: If you'd like, have a look at our Patreon and consider offering monthly support. Right now, this pool has to cover everything that comes up in our community, and the need outstrips our current giving by a rate of about 6 to 1. Even giving $8 a month is a big deal; being able to predict what we'll have to give survivors helps us plan and spend our time resources more efficiently.

Thank you.

To put this in Christian terms, these survivors and their families are "the least of these." They are the "little children" who were "caused to stumble" by those who sought to use and abuse them.

Thank you, thank you for helping us build safety for a group of people who have never known safety in their entire lives.