Shame, Guilt, & Spiritual Disconnect During Withdrawal

Today Elissa and I are discussing a topic we've been hearing a lot about from people we've been working with, and a topic we're very familiar with, having gone through withdrawal ourselves: spiritual disconnect and guilt during psychiatric drug withdrawal. It can be a taboo subject, because it can be hard to talk about spirituality in the withdrawal space. So we want to start there. We want to talk about the taboo thing and share what we learned through our healing process.

We'll be sharing from a Christian perspective, but this is welcome to anyone, from any background, if you have any interest or curiosity, or feelings of deep doubt or fear in this area of spirituality.

Transcript

(Lightly edited for readability)

Joanna: So I want to start off with this, Elissa: what have you heard from people the most that they've been struggling with spiritually when they're going through withdrawal?

Elissa: Well, the withdrawal process causes a lot of disconnect with the relationships in your life. So this also includes a disconnect in any kind of spiritual relationship as well. What I'm hearing is people feeling a lot of shame and guilt around not being a good enough Christian, not being the way they were either on the meds or maybe before the meds, and not being able to exhibit the fruits of the spirit that we hear about in the Bible: giving, or even wanting to get out and be with other people. They feel shame and guilt about that, and that's what this whole conversation is about: eliminating or lowering a lot of those shame and expectations that you have of yourself in your spiritual life. That's why we're doing this.

Joanna: Yeah. And in your case, Elissa, was that something you dealt with in withdrawal at all? Was that a theme for you?

Elissa: Yes. It was a big thing for me. I had a lot of anhedonia, which is feelings of no pleasure, no joy, feeling very flat, and I felt very unmotivated. I'm a big journaler; if people know me in this community, they know I've journaled my journey. I just have to get things out on paper. It helps me.

So I went back through my journal. A year ago, this entry was actually dated 5/26 of '25. I was 15 months off of medication at that point, and I was having a lot of disconnection, anhedonia, lack of motivation, all of that. I wanted to read a little bit of what I wrote about how I was feeling at that time, because I think it'll help a lot of people in this community connect with this.

The journal entry goes: "I'm in a phase currently where I'm avoiding Bible and God, and I don't know exactly why. A major amount of anhedonia and apathy is at play. I'm not sure when the spiritual part of me will grow back, because I know it's still in there. I'm just not able to access or feel it very much at all in the last month or so. I'm not exactly mad at God, really, just have very little empathy lately. It has more to do with lack of joy or motivation than anything. I definitely haven't lost my faith. I just have no access to it and cannot care about the part of me where spiritual love lives. I know that God understands much better than me what's happening in my brain right now, and that He's not disappointed in me for my lack of trying to be close to Him."

So I had a lack of relationships. I had a lack of connection, and I know you felt that way too, Joanna. That also includes a lack of love. And if you have a lack of love within you, it's not your fault. That is a symptom. Anhedonia, lack of motivation, flatness; you just can't feel that within you. And it includes every relationship in your whole life, not just human.

Joanna: Yes. And it's interesting how our brains are trying to find a solution. I think sometimes our brains will tell us, "Well, you're not trying hard enough," or it was because of something wrong you did, or there's something wrong with you, simply because our brains are trying to figure out what it is that they need to change. And it really is just simply that we have less emotion all around. If you look at any relationship in your life, when you're going through withdrawal and you're having acute symptoms or even really difficult symptoms, every relationship in your life is affected. You might not feel as much joy or feel as much love or connection. It doesn't mean you did something wrong. You just have less sense of connection.

Elissa: Yes. And the journal entry I just read, at the end of it: it's not for lack of trying. It's almost like we blame ourselves for not trying to be close to God. But it doesn't even have anything to do with us not wanting to try to be close to God. We're just unable to try. That trying is not available. We can't access that trying. So there's no guilt and shame in that. We're doing the best we can with what we have access to in an injured brain.

And it's difficult. It's not only difficult in your relationship with your husband or your wife or your son or daughter or brother, whoever your family members or close friends are; you feel that disconnection with them. We get questions all the time about how to deal with relationships. This is part of it. This is part of a very important relationship that Joanna and I have, to God. And so you feel that guilt and shame. I did. Even though I read that journal entry, I did feel that guilt and shame, like, "Oh, I'm never going to have that again." That was a symptom, me telling myself, "I'm never going to get well again. I'm the worst one. I'm never going to get well." All of that kind of brings guilt and shame in itself.

Connection is important as a human being. And when you don't have that, you feel it. But that does come back. That did come back with me and Joanna. We healed all of these things.

And that leads me to my next question for you, Joanna, and we can both talk about it. How do you compare your spiritual connection with God during meds, in withdrawal, and currently, after you've been healed? How has that changed for you?

Joanna: Oh my goodness, tremendously. A lot of times when I was medicated, my faith became very much based on the facts, and there were just fewer and fewer times that I felt deeply connected to it. I remember at one point having a med change that worked, and then I'd feel like, "Oh, okay, I'm in a good place. I can feel connected to God." But at times when it was a really bad fit medication-wise, or I was going through a withdrawal between meds not knowing it, I would just tank spiritually.

I remember one time I went to have a quiet time, and I went on this little walk, and I was out in the woods, even on a trip with my family, and I remember just being like, "It's like God is gone. It's like He's not even there at all." I don't know what happened, but it was like this darkness. And I think that darkness can come from withdrawal: feeling spiritually dark, even though the truth of God is still real. So I had a lot of years of going based on my faith, but not necessarily feeling connected to it very much.

And then in withdrawal, oh my goodness, I had so much guilt and shame and feelings of condemnation. I'd kind of go back to the facts: "Okay, this is what my faith is." But my feelings were so different, and my thoughts. Feelings of guilt, feelings of shame that something was wrong with me I could never fix. And then feelings of, "I wonder if I did a sin that can't be forgiven or something." And all of that isn't true, because the truth is that God loves us, and He sent His Son to pay for our sins so that there would be nothing that can't be covered by Him if we turn to Him. He wants a relationship with us. It's not like, "Oh, I've got this laundry list you've got to work off." That's not how He works. I knew that as a fact, but in my feelings, I felt like I had a long list of wrongs that I couldn't work off, or a long list of why maybe I'm being punished. That's how I really felt in withdrawal. I remember sometimes even saying stuff like that out loud, and my husband would be like, "That is not right. That is not how God sees you."

And as I healed, that completely changed, where I was able to not only hold the truth as a fact I'm going to believe, but I could feel aligned with it. I could have that real joy and that real connection to God. Even just spontaneous joy. The things I could read in the Bible felt real to me, not like removed facts from my life. So there was a huge difference in those three different experiences: being medicated, then going through withdrawal, and then healing.

Elissa: Yes, it was very similar for me. On the meds, I felt like I had a lot of faith in God, and I was doing all the right things, but my lack of emotion when I was on the meds made it feel like a checkbox. Like I was checking a list and being a good person. Even though I could feel connection from time to time, it's nothing compared to what it is now. It was very low, and my moods were always either up and down or flat when I was on the meds. So I did the best I could.

And in withdrawal, it was just unavailable. It was unavailable. Just like I read in my journal entry, it was not accessible. It was typically dark, just like you said. And you just focus on the negative. So I just kind of spiraled down. I wrote that journal entry on a window day. If I were to read a journal entry from a non-window day, it would be very dark. It would be, "I do feel guilty. I feel like I'm being punished in withdrawal."

You are not being punished in withdrawal, if anybody's believing that. That was just a distorted thought that I had, that I was being punished. You are not.

And now that I'm healed, I feel joy. For the first time in this process, I felt joy about God, joy about my salvation and eternity, and a connection with God like I just don't even remember. And that's what everyone in this community has to look forward to. That feeling of joy and connection will come back. It took a while for me to feel that again, but I did. That's the hope we want to give everyone: those feelings will come back, and then some. Absolutely beautiful.

Joanna: That's right. And it's so wonderful to be able to not just agree with our faith, like, "Yes, okay, I know God loves me," but to feel that. I guess I can compare it to a relationship. If someone says, "I love you," and you're like, "Okay," but you don't feel it, it's like a fact. But it's so joyful to come to that place of really being able to internalize that and feel the joy of being loved, of being part of God's family, and that He cares for you. That is true for you right now, whether you can feel it or not. But one day, as you heal, you're going to feel that. And that is going to make you flourish.

So I have a couple more questions. One of the things I have heard is, "I feel like a bad person," or, "There is something wrong with me, that I can't ever recover, like I'm somehow bad." That shame factor. Is that something that you've heard before too?

Elissa: Yes. It goes back to what we were just talking about with the punishment. You feel like these bad things are happening to you in withdrawal, and it must be your fault. Maybe you took the meds, it's all your fault, and you're being punished now for coming off.

I had those. They were loops within my brain, that I was somehow inherently bad for having to suffer the way that I was suffering with all the withdrawal symptoms. That is just something your brain will produce as a result of this injury, and that will heal. I do not experience that anymore. I did experience that for a very long time during withdrawal. I do not experience it anymore. That is gone. That part of my brain did heal.

And that is typical of a lot of people. I'm not going to say 100%, but a lot of people in this community feel that: "What is wrong with me? I must be bad. There's something inherently broken, and I have to suffer because of being broken." And that is not true either. People heal, at whatever timeline, in this community. Sometimes it takes people a long time to heal, sometimes it does not. It just depends on the person. But still, these are just symptoms of this injury that you're having to experience. I experienced them.

Joanna: Yes. And it's strange that an injury could cause such emotional symptoms and spiritual symptoms that it's easy for us to think, "Oh, it can't be because of withdrawal. It's got to be something else."

Elissa: Yeah, but it's all-encompassing. It takes over your whole brain and different parts of your body. So it's going to incorporate every area of your humanness. And people don't realize that, and these thoughts seem very real. They seem so real that you want to believe them. And so that's why we have a community of people that are trying to support each other in this, and keep on telling each other the truth about what's going on instead of believing the distorted thoughts that keep looping over and over and over again.

Joanna: That's right. And I've also heard, and I experienced this too, a lot of looping over things I did wrong in the past. Even if I had already dealt with that, I had already repented for that, it would just loop again and again. "Oh, remember you did this? Maybe that's why you're going through withdrawal." Or, "Remember you did that," or, "Remember you said this."

Part of what I learned going through this process is that our brain is trying to organize our memories and our experience. So it will just bring old things up, and it's part of how the brain reboots and rebuilds. And so after a while I learned, okay, every time that comes up, that same old thought about something wrong I did, how do I organize it? What do I tell myself about that thought? I'm not going to be able to control that this thought keeps coming up, but I can pray. Or I can let it go, or I can say, "That was then, this is now. God is merciful." Reminding myself of simple truths. That eventually helped me.

Some of you may be in that situation where you're looping about something you did do wrong in the past. But there is nothing that's beyond God's grace. He loves you, and He is merciful. The Bible says He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. So there's nothing that you can't turn to Him about and have covered by His grace, and He is more than overjoyed to meet you there. You maybe can't feel that joy and that mercy right now, but it is real and true. And as you heal, you will feel that fully, and things will come into their proper perspective: that you are loved, that there's nothing you could do that He's not going to forgive when you turn to Him, that He has good plans for you, that He has your best in mind and a good future for you, and that you are valuable to Him. And it's not based on something you've done. It's simply that you are created by Him, and you have value in His image.

So all of those things are true. You may not feel them in the moment, because this is a time of terrible symptoms that can overtake our perspective and our whole experience. But the truth is still there, and in time, you will be able to feel that truth more fully. I remember when I rounded that bend, where I was like, "Oh my goodness, now I actually can see things clearly," and I wasn't under that terrible dark cloud.

Elissa: The same thing happened the same way for me. I've told people in this community that I had a long way before I healed. And a lot of that was happening during that time period. There was a lot of looping about, "I am never going to get out of this spiritual slump. I must have done something that's causing me not to be able to get out of this spiritual slump." And it's not. It has nothing to do with lack of trying, lack of faith, being mad at God. It has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with the fact that you cannot process through these things. Your brain will not allow you to do that because of the injury. So it will focus on things that are false. And when you get to the point where your brain heals that part of it, or starts slowly healing that part of it, you will start seeing the truth again.

It's beautiful on the other side. Joanna and I both didn't think we were going to make it. We had looping thoughts of, "We're never going to make it to the other side. This is too bad." There's nothing too bad to heal. There's nothing too bad that God cannot heal, or that your brain is not built to be resilient enough to heal. So that's the truth of the matter. A lot of people in this community are looping about the lies of the matter, and I did that. But that doesn't mean that you're not going to make it to the other side either, if you believe the lies. It's still going to get to a point where it will be gone. Gone.

Joanna: That's right. It has an expiration date. We just don't know what your expiration date for withdrawal is, but it's going to expire, and it will just be done.

Elissa: And so the last question I have for you: do you think that connections made through going to support groups help with your spiritual connection as well? How did you experience that when you went to support groups?

Joanna: Yeah, that's a great question. I think when I met you, it was a huge help for my faith, because you were choosing to still believe that God loved you. You were choosing to believe that God still had good for you, even though you were in the thick of it. Like, I could tell. And I remember that being like, "Okay, that is such a comfort, that she knows what this is like and is going through this, but she's also choosing to believe God, even though it's happening at the same time." So it was very comforting and uplifting, and it helped me to feel less alone in the aloneness, if that makes sense.

Withdrawal just has an isolating effect on us, I think. All the factors of how it affects your life, but then even just being with people can feel like, "Hey, you don't really get what this is like." And so I think in that way, groups can really help, because these are people who know what this is like. So it can bring a comfort and an encouragement through that process.

Elissa: Yes. And even though you can't literally feel in your body the comfort, because I had so much anhedonia I wasn't able to really feel the comfort, I think when I was in those support groups, they just made me have a knowledge of being safe. They regulated whatever was unstable in me at that particular day. Because I would shift from anhedonia and flatness to way over-emotion, and my emotions were all over the place, and I was unable to access any kind of regulation. And so when I would go to the support group, I would just feel good after I left, because I was like, "Oh, these people get it. They've given me some tips. They've given me something that helped them. I have some hope. I have some hope." After I would leave there, I would just feel regulated.

I just remember getting off the support groups being excited, and I would tell my husband, "You wouldn't believe what they just said. This is so great. This is so great." And being so isolated, it just helped me feel alive.

And then having a healing buddy, like talking with you: "This day is horrible. I've got to call Joanna. I've got to text her. I've just got to get some hope." And that helped. That just really helped me to know that there was another person out there, a believer like me, who was just hanging on, still undergoing the suffering of the symptoms, but at the same time saying, "I know we can get through this. I know we can do it." Some days I just needed to hear those words. We provided those things for each other.

Joanna: Yeah. And just so everyone knows, Elissa and I were both part of Angie Peacock's group when we were going through our withdrawal process, and we got a lot of help and support through that. So I definitely recommend her group as a resource. And we also host groups now together, which is really our joy to do, because we're able to pass forward that good message onto you all that we received, which is: your healing is coming. It's on its way right now. You are in that process right now. And all of these thoughts of separation, feeling separated from God, or guilty, or shameful, are not indications that you aren't healing or that you are wrong in God's eyes. He is faithful, and He loves you, and He has good plans for you. And so we just want to remind you and encourage you of that: despite how you feel, you are on a trajectory of healing.

Elissa: Yes. The support groups just really helped me to regulate and connect with other people, and I was so isolated on my journey that those just helped save me in this process. So everyone in here: connections are vital in this. They just made me feel safe, like people wanted to hear from me. And sometimes you get stuck in your own head in this process, and that takes you out of it. That was so important for me, to be taken out of my own looping thoughts into a group where people were listening to me and wanted to hear from me, and I could hear them. Just that human connection, especially with other believers, but with other humans, is just so real and so loving to me.

And it's hard to always have that love for yourself in this process. But Joanna and I have healed from all of those things, and so we're here in this community trying to give people that hope, and just support people in these groups where we can all be together and get to know each other on a personal level, and support each other and give each other hope that you will get through this no matter what. We're on the other side of this, and so we're here to share our newfound joy that we have in this. We're living proof that you can do this, and you can do this with support from other people.

Joanna: That's right. 100%. Just know we are here backing you up and supporting you through your healing, and your healing is on the way.