The Biopsychosocial Toll of Shame: Finding Social Safety After Orthodoxy
My work as a therapist often revolves around healing the invisible wounds of shame and trauma. Recently, I've been reflecting on the brilliant research of Dr. Lisa Diamond on social safety and stigma, and it perfectly articulates the complex pain I see in clients navigating faith transitions and identity shifts.
I believe that understanding social safety isn't just theory—it’s the key to healing.
What Resonates: The Physical Toll of Rejection
What immediately resonated with me in the research on social safety is the concept that chronic social rejection is not just an emotional slight; it is a physical assault on the nervous system.
When you are part of a marginalized group—or in the process of leaving a community where belonging was conditional—your mind is constantly searching the environment for cues of danger. For clients leaving high-demand religious systems, this rejection is often constant: it comes from family, community, and even their own internalized voice.
This chronic lack of safety leads directly to the symptoms I see every day: anxiety, hypervigilance, dissociation during intimacy, and emotional burnout. The body is always braced for judgment. My experience as a former religious educator, navigating my own shift from orthodoxy, gives me a firsthand understanding of how the body keeps score when the spiritual environment is unsafe. My personal journey "from orthodoxy to compassion" was necessary because the constant negotiation between authentic self and conditional belonging was unsustainable.
The part I don't relate with anymore is the idea of trying to "help" or "fix" someone's beliefs out of pity. As Dr. Diamond's work implicitly supports, true compassion requires stripping away the "helper" identity. In my former role, I sometimes saw myself as the helper, which created distance and lacked warmth. Now, my work is about replacing that pity with genuine curiosity and non-judgment, fostering a relationship where the client's experience is honored, not managed.
Reclaiming Safety: Where Do I Feel Safe?
The antidote to social rejection is belonging and mattering. This forces us to ask: Where do you feel safe? Who do you feel safe with?
For me, safety is found in spaces defined by unconditional acceptance, not performance.
Where I feel safe: I feel safe in spaces where my complexity is not just tolerated, but affirmed. This includes my specialized clinical communities (like AASECT and the MMHA, where I serve on the board) and, fundamentally, in my own home, which we have intentionally redefined around values rather than external rules.
Who I feel safe with: I feel safe with my wife and sons, who lived that difficult transition alongside me. I also feel safe with professional colleagues who understand that Identity-Affirming care means honoring a client's past without demanding they adopt a new worldview. This safety is built on shared integrity and vulnerability.
Prioritizing Mattering
Dr. Diamond asks, “Who are the people that give you that feeling that you matter?”
The people who give me the feeling that I matter are those who validate my internal truth without needing to understand or agree with every facet of it. They are the people who value my authenticity over my performance.
How can you prioritize those people?
Prioritizing them requires action and boundary work:
Time Investment: Intentionally dedicating time and energy to those relationships, even when work or community demands interfere. As a Highly Organized person, I schedule time for connection—whether it’s pickleball with my wife or dedicated time with my sons.
Boundary Setting: Using my clinical knowledge to set and Hold Boundaries with Grace against interactions that drain me or compromise my core values. This means protecting my emotional energy from those who require me to be smaller or less authentic.
Active Reciprocity: Ensuring that in those safe spaces, I am also providing the Generous Listening and validation that makes them feel like they matter. Connection is a mutual exchange, not a one-way street.
Healing from trauma and chronic shame is a process of internalizing safety until your body no longer needs to constantly search for danger. By intentionally prioritizing relationships where we truly matter, we replace the physical toll of rejection with the profound health benefits of belonging.
If you are struggling to move past the anxiety and shame left by social or religious rejection, please know that you are not broken. You are reacting normally to an unsafe system. Therapy can be the safe space to reclaim your body, your values, and your story.
Mike Fuller, LCSW, CCTP
