I think most people have a difficult and painful childhood. I'm pretty sure most end up healing without the help of a religion. I know I didn't need it. On the contrary, I only started to heal when I realized it was a crutch that I didn't need, and that was used to beat me down. Rejecting god, and then coming to realize that it's all nothing but a fairy tale was the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I have been happy ever since!
Religion was invented to justify and legitimize child abuse.
God is nothing more than the ultimate hypocritical, petty, narcissistic, abusive parent. Bad parents like to hold their children accountable to rules they violate with impunity themselves, so they invented an imaginary being who does the same thing and then tell their children that kind of behavior represents the highest moral good. He also serves as a convenient scapegoat: "It's not that I'm just an immature asshole who likes to punish people smaller than myself because I can - the divine creator of universe and the source of all that is good told me to do it!"