A Private Trauma: Students who attended religious private schools discuss lasting trauma and their experience transitioning to East

*Names changed to protect identity

Then-freshman Erica Keely’s* hand confidently shot up into the air.

Why would he ask a question that we all have the same answer to?

The poll in teacher Steve Klein’s honors world regional studies class was “Are you Catholic?” Keely expected every hand in the room to be raised, just like they would’ve been at her old private school, St. Ann’s Catholic School.

Yet she counted only two other raised hands.

She was shocked. Up until that moment, Keely had assumed everyone she knew was Catholic.

It’s not like she didn’t know other religions existed — her old social studies teachers had offhandedly mentioned Judaism and Hinduism before. But they also taught her that Catholicism was the “right” religion. 

Turns out, maybe Keely didn’t have the world figured out. Maybe there wasn’t only one answer to every question — how humans came to be, which genders should love each other, what happens after death.

“If my younger self would see me now, she would be very confused,” now-senior Keely said.

She spent her first weeks at East in a state of incredulity. People were eating chips and chewing gum in class and wearing short-shorts instead of plaid skirts 2” above their knees. Gay people existed outside of the internet and news? Transgender people were real? A classmate introduced themselves to her with “they/them” pronouns, and she was left speechless. 

Where is the order? Where are the firm Catholic rules?

For students like Keely, the transition from religious private schools to public school is akin to starting a new life. Over three times more students per grade. More diversity. More than one religion. After a student spends their early, impressionable years learning from a religious viewpoint, switching to a public school like East can impact their mentality and religious beliefs.

In an Instagram poll of 101 East students, 56% felt negatively impacted by attending religious private school. 35% reported experiencing religious trauma. Vivid memories of their grade school days — both sentimental and scarring — can stick with them forever.

Religious trauma is a broad and informal term that refers to trauma stemming from a religious institution or within the faith community, according to therapist Amanda Roman. Local clinical psychologist Dr. Louise Gordon has worked with clients who have experienced this circumstantial form of trauma.

“From my own 20-plus years of clinical experience, when people grow up in an environment where they don’t have a choice whether to practice religion or go to a school where these values are enforced, it can be very traumatic because the way religion is practiced can be very harsh,” Gordon said. “I’m not saying it’s always like that, but if you’re forced to practice something that you don’t believe in and abide by certain behaviors because of that religion making you feel stifled or restricted, it can become a problem.”

All six of the major religious private schools in the area that can feed into East or where students commonly transfer from are Catholic — St. Ann’s, Curé of Ars, Bishop Miege, St. Teresa’s, Rockhurst and Notre Dame de Sion. Many students from these schools choose to continue on to parochial high schools, according to Assistant Principal Dr. Susan Leonard. Still, some elect to attend public schools like East.

“It’s not necessarily like everyone had a bad experience there, but certainly if you’re looking to transfer schools, something wasn’t working for you,” Leonard said. “Sometimes it was a flat-out bad experience, and you need a fresh start. But, a lot of times it’s just that East offers something that religious private schools don’t, like a co-ed environment and a wider variety of extracurricular activities.”

But for Keely, going to her grade school was a bad experience. Same with sophomore and Curé alum Cara Miller.* Biblical lessons and weekly chapel ingrained in them the idea that there was only a single right answer to every question. In eighth grade, one of Miller’s Indian Hills Middle School friends mentioned learning about how humans evolved from apes in science class. Miller had a gut reaction: I’ve never heard that before. It must be wrong.

She was never taught evolution at Curé and had accepted the idea that Adam and Eve were the start of humanity.

“That shook something in my core,” Miller said. “I was offended. It was totally new.”

She believed that a Bible story about a man named Jonah living inside a whale was nonfiction until sixth grade, when she began meeting non-Catholic friends at an out-of-school theater company. They laughed when overhearing her talk about it. All of a sudden, it was like Santa wasn’t real.

“My classmates at St. Ann’s and I used to all be like, ‘Wouldn’t it be so cool if we were the chosen one to be in the whale?’” Miller said. “We were taught those stories like stone, hard facts. I genuinely believed that every single animal in the world was on that ark and that Noah sailed during a huge, worldwide flood.”

Miller would feel pressure to conform to her former classmates’ and teachers’ opinions that abortion and homosexuality were sins. She remembers classmates making fun of any boys that acted feminine or sensitive and were suspected to be gay.

Those snickers and pointed fingers would follow Notre Dame de Sion Lower School alum and current junior Liam Allen* through the halls of elementary school — he was gay, and it was funny to his class.

Allen knew the drill. Swallow the hurt and keep a low profile. He wasn’t officially “out” yet, but people just knew he was different by the “girl-ish” way he talked.

During prayers at mass, he would sometimes peek to look around at the bowed heads of his peers with brows furrowed and eyes squashed shut. Everyone always looked so devoted. 

He’d straighten up, pressing his clasped hands harder into his forehead, and pretend to be deep in prayer. But doubts crept in.

I wonder if God loves me.

“When I was younger, I would think, ‘Maybe when I get older, I will start to believe this,’” Allen said. “I never did. But, all I was taught was religion, so that’s what I felt pressured to believe.”

Gordon notes that living under pressure and strict rules as an adolescent can have varying effects based on an individual’s specific circumstances.

“If it’s done with coercion and harshness without dialogue, it can cause negative effects and anxiety that will show up later,” Gordon said. “I’ve seen that very frequently.”

Sophomore and Curé alum Audrey Apprill agrees that her grade school pressured her into Catholicism and discouraged other beliefs. She still believes in God and core Catholic values like kindness and charity after coming to public high school — despite still dreading going to church — but her religious views have softened. She’s now more forgiving of herself when she forgets her homework or messes up a school presentation and has higher self-esteem.

“I used to feel like I had to pray out of guilt,” Apprill said. “I felt like if I messed anything up, I would have to pray to make it better. Now, I pray in a loving way.”

Growing up, she noticed friends and classmates who were unhappy or struggling with suicidal thoughts and self-harm. She wrote an email to administrators in seventh grade, urging them to focus on students’ mental health rather than religious vigor. They promised to make improvements.

“At East, it’s a huge difference because they seriously prioritize mental health,” Apprill said.

Different opinions about religion and even less heavy topics aren’t as taboo at East, according to Apprill. Common assignments like essays for English class are handled differently with no emphasis on religion — teachers encourage students to share their beliefs and support them with research. She feels that “everyone’s opinions are respected” during socratic seminars and she can speak freely as long as she supports her views with facts.

“For school projects [at Curé,] you had to listen to one opinion and agree with it,” Apprill said. “For example, we had mandatory assignments about why you like being a Christian or why you love God. It was never really open to interpretation.”

She and Miller grew up scared of new ideas — and terrified of sinning. Terrified of going to hell. In elementary school, hell was described as burning in fire forever. In middle school, it became eternal isolation.

“[Teachers] would threaten hell often,” Miller said. “Like, ‘If you don’t follow the 10 commandments, then you’re going to go to hell.’ My eighth grade teacher described hell as sitting in a pitch-black room alone forever. With, like, demons. Scary s—. They tried to scare us. I was just a kid.”

Similar situations at Keely’s grade school are what she believes to have caused her anxiety disorder today — including maladaptive dreaming induced by stressful situations which she uses to distract herself from reality.

According to psychologist Eli Somer, maladaptive dreaming is a condition where a person regularly experiences intense and highly distracting daydreams potentially triggered as a coping strategy in response to trauma.

She also experiences panic attacks, which are triggered by religious cues as ordinary as seeing a crucifix. It started during eighth grade when she couldn’t sit through an entire church ceremony without leaving the room. 

“I couldn’t [be religious] anymore because they taught me that God is always watching,” Keely said. “He’s always judging. He’s always looking at you and nitpicking every single thing you’re doing, and he’s disappointed in you. That’s when I started feeling anxious.”

One possible symptom of anxiety is worrying about something that could potentially happen that is, in reality, not happening, according to Gordon. A gum wrapper could fall out of Keely’s backpack and blow away, and the guilt of littering will weigh down her conscience all day. I can’t mess up. She still feels a need to earn her place in heaven.

The last time Keely visited her grade school was for a recently-passed East student’s funeral. The dusty scent of the chapel transported her back to a more sheltered time.

“Being there was really hard,” Keely said. “It made me want to sit up straighter in the pews. Not only was I grieving because I had lost a friend, I was grieving because I felt like I had lost myself in that school, too.”

Still, she admits that some of her past classmates had different experiences at their religious schools and that not everyone was negatively affected. Sophomore and St. Paul’s alum Millie Norden’s family loved her grade school where her sister, mom, aunt and grandma all attended. The familiar faces and routines made it feel like a homey, tight-knit community.

“It was completely different from East, and I knew every student and teacher there super well,” Norden said. “Here, I don’t even know half of my grade.”

St. Paul’s taught her morals such as loving her neighbor as herself during chapel every morning. Curé of Ars Assistant Principal Jackie Barber explains that teaching the Catholic faith to students at a young age is important to creating faithful and professional people who will grow up to lead our country.

“As educators, we want our students to be kind and respectful,” Barber said. “So, we focus on being ‘like Jesus’ and ‘like Christ.’ That’s a big difference in what we do here versus public school, through a 30-minute religion class every day and weaving that faith into all of our subject areas.”

As a former public school teacher, she points out that there are benefits to both public and religious private schools. But, Barber also sees misinformation surrounding these conversations. 

“Catholic school isn’t for everyone,” Barber said. “I think people should be able to have a professional conversation about it without being disrespectful.”

As a public school, East is legally required to take a neutral stance on religion, according to Leonard. This means offering equal opportunities to all denominations.

“It’s really just about if the experience a school is offering you is what you really want,” Leonard said.