You Lied to Me About God

A Memoir

By: Jamie Marich PHD

Narrated by: Jamie Marich PHD

"An intimate and important memoir of deconstructing and reconstructing faith after abuse ... a spiritual memoir that does not shy away from abuse, queerness, or the multifaceted character of God." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A courageous, vulnerable, and spellbinding memoir that explores with visceral impact what happens when harm starts at home—and is exalted as God’s will

For readers of Unfollow and Jesus Land: Jamie Marich explores spiritual abuse, intergenerational trauma, and weaponized faith

At nine years old, Jamie Marich asked God to end it all.

Doing it herself would be an irrevocable sin: an affront to the church and her father’s God. She prayed instead for the rapture, an accident, a passive death—anything to stop the turmoil of feeling wrong: wrong in her body; wrong in her desires; wrong in her faith in a merciful God that could love her wholly as she was.

You Lied to Me About God explores the schisms that erupt when faith is weaponized, when abuse collides with the push-and-pull of a mixed religious upbringing tyhat tells you: no matter which path you choose—no matter what you know in your heart to be true—you’re probably damned.

With resilience, strength, and gut-punching clarity, Marich takes readers through a tumultuous coming-of-age marked by addiction, escapism, spiritual manipulation, misogyny, and abuse. She shares with unflinching detail the complicity of her mother’s silence and the lengths her father went to assert dominance and control over her body, her desires, her identity—and even her eternal soul—”for her own good” and with a side of televangelistic hellfire.

Hitting a breaking point, Marich embarks on pilgrimage: from shrines in Croatia to ashrams in Florida, she reckons with what it means to come home to a faith that heals and accepts her wholly as she is: in her queerness, in her body, and in her deep relationship to an expansive and loving God.

Well-told

This is not easy content for someone to write about, but Jamie did it...."skid marks" and all.

Everything

As someone who also grew up in the Catholic faith and who has issues with organized religion it was nice to see how someone also felt as well. Jaime Marich is a wonderful story teller and I highly recommend everyone to read this book.

Honest take on spirituality, mental health, and organized religion

I loved Jamie’s raw unfiltered journey through life, religion, and finding her own take on who God is to her. I could not stop listening to her story.