FreeThinkerNZ Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I am a 45 year old woman who recently deconverted. I was raised in an evangelical home in a bible belt community. It never occurred to me that there was an alternative to being a xian, until I was 15 and made my first deconversion attempt. I say "attempt" because it only lasted 10 years. During that 10 years I stopped attending church and believing in god, and basically lived the life of a non-xian, attending university in another city and starting a successful career in local government. When I was 19 I came out as bi, which was challenging for me but begrudgingly accepted by my family. I was diagnosed with mild Asperger syndrome at 23. Things went well in my life until stress at work led to my first episode of depression and suicidal thoughts. In my depression and desperation I returned to xianity, thinking maybe god was real after all and he could help me and heal my depression. Over several years I prayed and hoped and wished and believed but nothing ever changed. One time I even believed that I had been miraculously healed, but it was just antidepressant side effects causing a mildly elevated mood. That was such a bummer at the time. During those years I identified as heterosexual, was celibate, and attended a fundamentalist church. I prayed for the husband that I knew god was preparing for me, somewhere out there, among the eligible young xian men that were somehow outnumbered by 2:1 in the xian community. After 4 years of waiting for a cure, and a husband so I could start a godly family and live the life I was being indoctrinated about, 3 times a week, I starting looking elsewhere for fulfilment. Over a couple of months I slipped away from fundamentalism and became a liberal xian. I stopped going to church, because I couldn't find one liberal enough for me. I reframed my ideas about god and the bible - god became less involved in my day to day life and the bible became less literal. This meant I could reconnect with some of the beliefs and lifestyle I had from 15-25 years of age. I started having sex again, and my politics changed. I enjoyed my 30s for the most part - the idea of god meant less and less to me but I still believed there was a god and I was going to heaven. I thought about heaven more all the time, especially as the depression worsened. Suicide seemed like an "option" because at least I would be with god. Xianity really is a death cult, as Christopher Hitchens said. I had changed jobs but there was still a lot of work-related stress and I eventually burned out completely. Because I couldn't work, my financial independence disappeared. Broken, I moved back in with my parents at the age of 44 and started receiving disability income support. My parents are lovely, sweet people, in their early eighties and very fit for their age. Their xianity is less evangelical than it was when I was a child and while they would no doubt like me to be a xian, they don't discuss it with me at all. I will be forever grateful that they provided me with a safe, warm home where I could start rebuilding my life. Over the years I had been drifting back towards god and in my broken state I started tagging along with my parents to their church. I fell into xianity again, but just for a short time, less than a year. I was not a fundie in political terms but I did believe there was "satanic activity" in the world that I needed god to guard me against. However, third time around, xianity made less and less sense to me and I found myself questioning and trying to rationalise that which cannot be rationalised. One day I woke up and thought "god doesn't exist". I tried to believe again but I just couldn't do it. I thought to myself, am I ok with not going to heaven after I die, and the answer was yes, am ok with that. I (mostly) had no hear of hell, because my two forays back into xianity had been about accepting the bribe of heaven rather than the fear of hell. I had wanted someone, anyone, to relieve my suffering, even if that meant trying to have a relationship with a figment of my imagination. I suddenly realised the absurdity of it all. I sought out atheist writings, including Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, both of whom I really enjoy. Watched a lot of debates on youtube. I found my depression genuinely improving as I explored a new world of reason and science instead of what I had been taught by tradition, revelation, and authority. I love this quote from Hitchens: "All major confrontations over the right to free thought, free speech, and free inquiry have taken the same form - of a religious attempt to assert the literal and limited mind over the ironic and inquiring one." I plan to resume my career over the next year. I have recovered from severe, chronic depression by opening my mind and embracing free thought. This has done more for me than xianity ever could. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtify Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 Welcome! Your story sounds so familiar. I am also someone who reconverted in my late 20's and the guilt burden was so painful it caused severe depression. Right now, there just isn't enough research about the relationship between fundamentalism and mental illness to claim causality, but I can speak from experience that my depression lifted after I stopped believing in god. I'm not saying that all mental illness is caused by fundamentalism, obviously not. I'm just saying that there is a certain kind of depression that comes from the faulty thinking that monotheism allows. The idea that there is some judge in the sky watching and keeping score, it can cause people to feel a certain frustration and needless rejection. I'm so glad that you have joined this forum so that you can work through how and why you became depressed. I really hope that you are able to return to your career with the peace of mind that was missing during your christian years and even the years you were a doubter but still clung to that last hope that god existed. Now that you know there is no reason to believe in god, you are less likely to reconvert for the 4th time. Best of luck to you! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted April 1, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted April 1, 2014 Deconversion led to a lot more happiness for me, too. I think I was so buried under doctrine and the cognitive dissonance that my mind couldn't process my emotions properly. What a weight lifted! I'm glad you're here and if there is anything I can ever do for you, just give me a holler. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdelsolray Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Regardless of your historical or current religious beliefs, regardless of your relationships with those around you and regardless of how you feel or think, I would suggest that you address the psychological, emotional and mental issues you have identified in your post with professional medical intervention of your choosing. The human brain is a complex organ, of which medical science is only beginning to understand. Still, it is known that chemical imbalances within the brain can often be addressed with appropriate talk and drug therapy. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted April 2, 2014 Author Share Posted April 2, 2014 Thanks for the comments, I feel warmly welcomed. I am getting good drugs and talk therapy, which is really helping. It is taking a long time to put myself back together again but at least I am now pointed in the right direction... towards enlightenment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodsy Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 A warm welcome to you, FreeThinker. Love the name! I have found so much help here and I know you will, too. This is a safe place where you can just let your hair down and there will always be someone to help you. I wish you peace! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam5 Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Hi FreeThinkerNZ, welcome to the fourm. I enjoyed reading your testimony. I can see some familiar things in a lot of the testimonies here. It never ceases to amaze how religion can mess people up. It should come with a health warning! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinas Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Welcome. I hope that you can now settle to a secure, happy and stable future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtify Posted April 2, 2014 Share Posted April 2, 2014 Regardless of your historical or current religious beliefs, regardless of your relationships with those around you and regardless of how you feel or think, I would suggest that you address the psychological, emotional and mental issues you have identified in your post with professional medical intervention of your choosing. The human brain is a complex organ, of which medical science is only beginning to understand. Still, it is known that chemical imbalances within the brain can often be addressed with appropriate talk and drug therapy. Good luck! Yes, I agree. I am not saying that becoming free of religious brainwashing takes the place of good medical care; certainly not. But, Best Practices for treating depression includes CBT(http://padesky.com/ai1ec_event/best-practices-cbt-for-depression-suicide-2013/?instance_id=) . Managing depression often requires changing habitually negative and self-defeating thought patterns. This forum helps people examine their false beliefs. So many of us have been damaged by christian brainwashing, but this isn't something that a yellowpages counsellor is likely to know about. It isn't in the DSM 5, but Religious Trauma Syndrome will become more recognized in the future. There are new discoveries in psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience just like in any other fields of science. Now that RTS has been defined and described with its own specific symptom cluster, it is likely that more professionals will recognize it and use the label. Then, it will eventually be categorised in a future diagnostic and statistics manual. Here is a featured article about Religious Trauma Syndrome on ex-c : http://new.exchristian.net/2011/06/religious-trauma-syndrome-its-time-to.html and here are the symptoms: • Confusion, difficulty making decisions, trouble thinking for self, lack of meaning or direction, undeveloped sense of self • Anxiety being in “the world,” panic attacks, fear of damnation, depression, thoughts of suicide, anger, bitterness, betrayal, guilt, grief and loss, difficulty with expressing emotion • Sleep and eating disorders, substance abuse, nightmares, perfectionism, discomfort with sexuality, negative body image, impulse control problems, difficulty enjoying pleasure or being present here and now • Rupture of family and social network, loneliness, problems relating to society, personal relationship issues Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted April 3, 2014 Author Share Posted April 3, 2014 Thanks everyone, you are all so welcoming. *Hug* xtify, I am about to start a course of CBT, really looking forward it. I am only now realising where my perfectionism and anxiety likely comes from. I love my parents and I don't blame them for indoctrinating and emotionally neglecting me because I have met their parents and I know where they got it from. There is a subtle judgmentalism and expectation-setting that came through in my childhood and it's a hard habit to break. But I am now learning to be gentle with myself and others and to focus on what's really important in life. I am focussed on getting the most out of this one life I have instead of wishing it would be over. Every day is a new opportunity to experience the world and to enjoy learning stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtify Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Thanks everyone, you are all so welcoming. *Hug* xtify, I am about to start a course of CBT, really looking forward it. I am only now realising where my perfectionism and anxiety likely comes from. I love my parents and I don't blame them for indoctrinating and emotionally neglecting me because I have met their parents and I know where they got it from. There is a subtle judgmentalism and expectation-setting that came through in my childhood and it's a hard habit to break. But I am now learning to be gentle with myself and others and to focus on what's really important in life. I am focussed on getting the most out of this one life I have instead of wishing it would be over. Every day is a new opportunity to experience the world and to enjoy learning stuff. I'm really glad to hear that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masomenos Posted April 6, 2014 Share Posted April 6, 2014 i can relate. my problem is, i wanted to believe but my heart couldnt rejoice in what my mind rejected. i tried and tried. it all happened gradually, with lots of study and thinking. the last time i left the confessional, i realized, for the first time, it was ok not to believe.....and ive been fine since great story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted April 6, 2014 Author Share Posted April 6, 2014 Thanks Masomenos and, welcome to Ex-C! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stryder Posted April 6, 2014 Share Posted April 6, 2014 You've already helped encourage me freethinkerNZ. This site is so helpful because of the people here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts