Compiled by the editors of The Ex-Christian Scientist. This is the second of three posts. For all posts related to this, see the tag Ex-CS Survey 2016.

In the first post on our 2016 survey of former Christian Scientists, we focused on the answers to a number of multiple choice questions. While these pointed up a number of identifiable trends among former Christian Scientists, it’s the answers to what we’ll call ‘essay’ questions that dig into some of the personal stories, reasons why people have left Christian Science, and some of the common threads between different people’s experiences. While all of us who’ve left Christian Science have our own unique perspectives and paths that led us out, there are still a lot of common experiences, emotions, and sometimes traumas that we’re processing.

Compiled by the editors of The Ex-Christian Scientist. This is the first of three posts. For all posts related to this, see the tag Ex-CS Survey 2016.

Recently, we took a very unscientific (but more scientific than Christian Science could ever be) survey of some former Christian Scientists, to see what their backgrounds were, how they got into Christian Science, when they left it, and some details on their lives as Christian Scientists. While this isn’t a scientifically-based poll, it does offer some insights–both expected, and unexpected by those of us who have conducted this survey.