Indoctrination: How Control Is Baked Into the System
This is Part 1 of a new blog series exploring religious indoctrination and how it shows up in areas like gender roles, purity culture, and politics.
When Belief Isn't a Choice
If you were raised in a high-control religious group, you probably weren’t just handed a belief system— you were immersed in one. Told it was the only truth. Taught to obey without question. Warned that doubt was rebellion. That curiosity was dangerous. That leaving meant eternal consequences.
This is indoctrination.
And for many who’ve left churches, cults, or authoritarian religious settings, realizing you were indoctrinated can feel disorienting. Like your thoughts weren’t fully your own. Like your fear isn’t just emotional— it’s wired into your nervous system.
So what is indoctrination, really? And how does it impact your ability to think, choose, and trust yourself, even years later?
Let’s break it down.
What Is Indoctrination?
Indoctrination is the process of teaching someone to accept beliefs uncritically. It’s not education or exploration— it’s repetition, control, and conditioning.
In religious settings, indoctrination often begins early, before you can fully think for yourself. It uses authority, fear, and reward to shape behavior and identity. Over time, it can feel less like belief, and more like survival.
Some hallmarks of religious indoctrination include:
Absolute authority: The leader, scripture, or church is never to be questioned.
Black-and-white thinking: Things are either holy or evil, right or wrong, us or them.
Fear-based control: Doubting or disobeying leads to punishment, spiritually or socially.
Suppression of the self: You’re taught to distrust your feelings, thoughts, and desires.
Isolation: You're discouraged from engaging with “outsiders” or alternative views.
Indoctrination doesn’t always look extreme. It can sound like love, truth, or care. It can be cloaked in family, faith, and community. And that’s what makes it so powerful. If your experience of spiritual leadership has been marked by fear or control, it may feel disorienting to imagine something different, like this retelling of the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. Hearing it from that lens— a story I thought I knew well— was like I was hearing it for the first time. And that gave me just enough of a footing to begin naming that what I had been experiencing was indoctrination.
Indoctrination and the Nervous System
When fear is used to enforce belief, your nervous system doesn’t just remember the doctrine, but it remembers the threat, too.
In my work with clients who’ve left high-control faith environments, I often see the long tail of religious indoctrination show up in their bodies. Panic attacks triggered when hearing worship music. Shame spirals after asserting a boundary. Freeze responses during conversations about faith and scripture.
This is not “just in your head”. It’s a nervous system shaped by spiritual abuse; shaped by fear, guilt, and chronic hypervigilance.
Over time, this kind of conditioning can result in:
Chronic anxiety or panic
Difficulty making decisions
Emotional numbness or dissociation
Internalized shame or self-loathing
Fear of punishment or rejection
Exhaustion from people-pleasing or over-compliance
Even after walking away, your body might still be bracing for the consequences of disobedience. That’s indoctrination’s grip. And it takes time, support, and safety to unwind.
Indoctrination Is Not Your Fault
It’s easy to blame yourself: Why didn’t I question things sooner? Why did I believe all of it?
But indoctrination is designed to bypass your autonomy. To condition obedience. To punish resistance.
You were taught what to believe before you had the tools to ask if it was true. You were trained to feel fear or guilt at the very thought of walking away. You were not naive. You were groomed to comply.
That’s not your fault.
In my eleven years of private Christian schooling, including college and seminary, it was regularly reinforced by teachers and professors that questioning God was a slippery slope. This was confusing, because I was also told that doubt was normal and encouraged to “work out [my] own faith with fear and trembling.”
But when I vulnerably and courageously brought my questions, whether about Scripture, injustice, theology, or my own experiences, I was often met with spiritual shutdowns rather than curiosity. I heard things like: “The Bible is inerrant and infallible; if you don’t agree, you’re wrong.” “Truth doesn’t change just because you don’t like it.” “You’re making an idol out of your feelings.” “This isn’t about your understanding; it’s about obedience.” “Be careful; you’re on a dangerous path.” “This is why we don’t lean on our own understanding.” “You're cherry-picking Scripture to suit your emotions.” Over time, I learned that my questions weren’t safe, and neither was I if I voiced them.
I didn’t know it then, but what I was being taught wasn’t just devotion; it was fear-based control, wrapped in spiritual language. And it would take years before I realized how deeply those messages had rooted themselves in my nervous system, my relationships, and my sense of self.
Healing from Indoctrination
Leaving a high-control system is not just about rejecting harmful beliefs. It’s about reclaiming your ability to think, feel, and choose for yourself.
Healing looks like:
Learning to sit with uncertainty without spiraling
Building trust in your own body and intuition
Challenging binary thinking and reclaiming nuance
Processing grief, shame, and anger with compassion
Creating space for exploration, spiritual or otherwise
You don’t have to “get it all right” to heal. You don’t have to land on new beliefs immediately. The healing itself is the reclamation; not what you believe, but how you come to believe it.
This post is the first in a new blog series on religious indoctrination and deconstruction, exploring how deeply embedded beliefs continue to impact us long after we’ve left high-control environments.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing about specific forms of indoctrination, including gender roles in Christianity, purity culture messaging, religious control of politics, white supremacy in the church, education, self-trust and the body, and how family systems can mirror coercive dynamics.
If you’ve ever felt trapped in beliefs that no longer serve you, or wondered why you still carry fear, shame, or confusion around your choices, you’re not alone. These patterns are learned, but they can be unlearned.
You’re Allowed to Take Your Mind Back
If you’re still exploring what you believe, or if you’re afraid of what will happen if you even ask the question, I see you. Indoctrination tries to convince you that you’re the problem. That you’re broken, lost, deceived.
But maybe what’s happening isn’t failure. Maybe it’s awakening.
If you’re wondering what it might look like to walk through this with someone who gets it, I’d be honored to walk with you.