A neurodivergent’s experience of Christian youth festivals

Not everyone responds to things the same way. We should all know that, however it’s too easy to forget that neurodivergent young people exist in our groups, and they have very different experiences and at high stimulus events. Student, author, and playwright Chloe Perrin gives us her experience of what it was like to be a young person at a Christian festival with an – at the time – undiagnosed neurodivergent condition. Thank you, Chloe, for your honesty and clarity in helping us see another perspective! Over to you…

Cry Night

I spend too much time on TikTok.

Due to the number of hours I’ve clocked (remember, Christians don’t judge) the algorithm knows me pretty well and I’m frequently suggested content by fellow neurodivergent ex-youth-group kids. It was while mindlessly scrolling at 3am that I was suggested a video by one such creator asking if anyone else who went to Christian youth festivals remembers “cry night”?

I’d never heard it called that before, but I knew immediately what she was referring to. The culminating night of any Christian Summer camp, where a particularly heartstring-tugging talk is followed by weepy worship and an alter call. The night usually seemed positive – it was cathartic and a good number of young people would give their lives to Christ. However, I decided to do that most dangerous of things and peep at the comment section to see what these majoritively ex-Christians had to say. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t positive.

One word regarding the night popped up in the comments over and over again: manipulative.

Neurodivergence and “The Spirit”

I’m neurodivergent, which means I experience socialising, emotional processing and sensory stimuli very differently from a “typical” person. For me specifically, “normal” stimuli such as certain sounds or lighting can be massively effecting in a variety of ways. This knowledge has had me looking back at the numerous youth festivals I’ve attended to untangle what experiences were Holy Spirit and what were simply my brain being my brain, and when I read the comments on the Cry Night (as I’ll be referring to it) video I felt relieved. Seeing people explain the problematic elements of the night in a way I’d never been able to, I could finally put words to my suspicions.

The way I describe myself post-diagnosis is as having tools previously inaccessible to me. Through therapy I’ve been able to understand a world that isn’t designed for my brain, which makes it easier to identify what triggers my own physical and emotional responses. When I was attending youth festivals, however, I was undiagnosed with no inkling that my world experience was any different anyone else’s.

Cry Night was always a particularly messy night for me, where all my emotional hurt came flooding out in a glorious display of tears and mucus. At the time it felt like an appropriate response to what was going on around me – but I was never quite able to understand why my memories of this night felt bad. Had the spirit not moved me? Is the Father’s healing not sometimes messy because we’re broken people?

The Logistics of Cry Night

Let’s break down Cry Night. It’s the final or penultimate evening of a typically five-day long festival which usually involves camping. Logistically it’s a glorified evening service – big sermon followed by intense worship. The sermon is the most emotional of the week’s programme and we’re affirmed by whoever’s onstage that this is a safe space to open ourselves up to the Spirit. The lighting and sound design are big, the only other time you’d see such design being concerts. Everything is tailored to brush against the exposed emotional nerves of the young people present, making it easier to invoke the Spirit.

Those physical and emotional triggers I mentioned earlier? That’s the entirety of Cry Night: I’ve been camping for a week, my clothes are sodden because even in the height of Summer, British weather is still British weather. I’m getting zero energy from the sugar and junk food I’ve been binging on for five days straight, I’m tired. I’ve been sitting on the floor all week because chairs are illegal in youth spaces, I’m uncomfortable. Big lights and music – that’s a sensory overload right there. And to top it all off, I’m in the middle of a crowd, so socially I’m overwhelmed with little space to stim (self-stimulating behaviour to manage anxiety, for example I swing my arms or bounce on my toes).

Two worship songs in and although I don’t realise it my body is in panic mode. The lights hurt, the music pounds at my head, I’m losing the tangible sense of where I am or what I’m doing, and my thoughts are moving too quickly for me to even attempt to ground myself. I start to break, which is when curl into a tight ball and rock back and forth.

As a neurodivergent person most of my outward actions aren’t based on how I’m feeling but on what others are doing, I take my social cues from everyone else. On Cry Night, people are crying, spaced out or sometimes literally screaming, giving me little opportunity to gauge “correct” behaviour. Stewards checked in offering prayer, but none recognised my medical needs as my actions fell under the umbrella term for appearing overwhelmed in a Christian space: “being moved by the Spirit”. I couldn’t vocalise my discomfort because the only vocabulary undiagnosed me had to make sense of the situation was vague Christianese. I was “having a moment with Jesus”, nothing unusual there, it was happening to everyone.

Is it Really That Bad?

The fact that many ex-Christians refer to Cry Night as manipulative is no surprise, because it’s literally a design choice. It’s designed to help young people open up emotionally, to be vulnerable to accepting Jesus. The key word there is “vulnerable”, and if you’re manipulating people into a vulnerable position to get a reaction, you need to take into account that some people, like myself, are unable to handle that in a healthy way. This damage doesn’t last a night either; I’m still unpacking the emotional state Cry Nights put me in and my last one was half a decade ago.

There’s also the mountaintop affect. As someone whose neurodivergence gives them emotional instability and impulsivity issues, the comedown of the mountaintop effect isn’t just depressing for me, it’s dangerous. I felt big things at these festivals; things that forced me weeping to the ground. If I don’t feel that again until the next event, I think “why is the spirit abandoning me so often?” I don’t need to tell you the places that thought can take you, but I will stress that the general lack of NHS resources or peer understanding for neurodivergent people makes it ten times worse for us.

I’m not saying all Christian youth events are bad for neurodivergent young people, I know our understanding of accessibility is constantly changing and steps are being made. However, these events as a whole are still largely inaccessible to us. We wouldn’t dream of putting on a big youth event and taking away ramps or signers, I just ask that this sensitivity include neurodivergent young people as well.

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash