This Is My Family. I Don't Know What's Going To Happen When I Come Out, Any Armchair Experts Here? Sorry This Is So Long.

[Helvetios]

Hello everyone! For starters I'm 20, living with my parents until January, deconverted this May so it hasn't been too long. My parents are crazy and I actively hate them. I'm an undercover atheist and afraid of coming out for a variety of reasons; mostly because even after I move out, which they've come to accept, they'd still be paying my tuition (set up a fund when I was little). Ideally I'd like to not be dependent on them and have that suddenly taken away...although I don't think they'd do that, apparently my family isn't exactly 'normal' and I'd appreciate outside opinions. I'm basically wondering, what's their reaction going to be when I come out? Would they actually cut off funding or contact with me, or take out their worries on my sister, or would they refuse to leave me alone until I repent of my sins (spoiler: never)?

 

My friend once told me that he and his parents are on equal footing, they all like each other and they often hang out with each other's friends. I couldn't imagine anything like it, or even believe it was possible. I still can't.

 

My parents are still together. Dad's family was loosely Christian and most of them ended up as atheists. Mom's family is Christian; she took it and ran with it, and is the source of all the world's problems today. Dad doesn't have the courage to stand up for himself, sorry but it's true, so my mom gets the final say on all faith type things. They like to say it's 50-50 but we all know who wears the pants. He knows she gets irrational sometimes but if he's on me and my sister's side at all, it's quietly when Mom isn't around. We actually celebrate when she goes to visit grandma for a week. She has a phd in chemical engineering and he has half of one in computer science, so they aren't stupid, but still somehow young-earth creationists etc. Their idea of critical thinking is discussing what the pastor got wrong in Sunday's sermon on the car ride home.

 

Until my sister moved away for university she was 18 going on 12 in terms of maturity...she still has anxiety over the smallest decisions. Leaving was the best fucking decision she ever made and even in the first 24 hours away she had completely changed; we both blame our mom for how she turned out. We both have depression and things like that. You can imagine how religion helped with that.

 

I was raised with Vacation Bible School, VeggiTales, all of Ken Ham's materials (including the "Journal" of Creation which is complete bullshit, in retrospect), baptized and confirmed Lutheran, in private Christian schools since grade 6, and I've been to many churches. We left the evangelical Lutheran one when my parents decided they weren't true to scripture, and that became the reason for leaving every church after that until we joined a small Dutch Reformed one that was connected to my Dutch Reformed high school. My history teacher at the school aggressively justified the Crusades and promoted circular logic to justify Christian belief. My biology teacher couched a single lesson on evolution in so many disclaimers and bible verses that I didn't actually learn what evolution was until I was 19 in university. I had very strong faith as a teen and I also had a lot of personal problems such as mental illness and hallucinated spiritual experiences. I prayed constantly for healing and never got it. I was smarter than my classmates but so very behind socially. Never went out with friends, even.

 

And now for my mother...god, this is gonna be long, sorry guys. Where do I even start. If she was cut out of my life right now then so many problems would be solved. She was raised Christian, very strong faith from the start, teaching Sunday School at 14 and all that. Married my father and popped out a couple babies, and promptly stopped working. She didn't work again for 18 years, and even then that was a contract for online work. She volunteered at every church thing you can imagine; growing up, there was always a bible study or three in our house. My godmother is holier than a piece of Swiss carved into the shape of Mother Teresa: she sees the Holy Spirit dripping from her walls as a sign of anointing, believes in all kinds of faith healing, prophesied over me several times even before I was born, goes to a Pentecostal church now. Made me cry when I came out to her as bisexual (usual hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner talk). My mom looks up to her a lot. And no, my parents aren't keen on the gay thing either.

 

More about mummy. Since we started at the Dutch church 3-4 years ago she's become increasingly involved in prayer ministry. She's on prayer teams at church with my dad: they pray for the service before it happens and after the service for people who want healing. She goes into hospitals and out on the street with people from church and prays for anyone. When I was ill, her go-to strategy was to pray for me before trying actual treatment (and it still took me a few years to get on medications, before which I nearly killed myself several times). If I felt better it was the prayer. If I got worse she micro-managed me, invaded my privacy constantly and prayed even harder. She 'encouraged' me and my sister to come along to apologist conferences and prayer workshops, and I only went to one of the latter before I refused to go to anything like that again. I'll post the link to it below, and to her current focus, a prayer healing room my godmother's been volunteering at for years. My godmother also got my mom into 'soaking in the spirit', prayer journaling and whatever else you can find by googling related things.

 

My mom isn't really strong, emotionally...she gets offended very easily like when I told her (at 20) that I would be moving out within a year. Or when I stopped posting my university class schedule on the fridge, and stopped answering every personal question she asked about me, or when I started to rebel a few years ago against her 'playing doctor' on her mentally ill children (mainly consisted of invasive questioning, demanding to see the places I harmed myself to make sure I wasn't lying about it, and internet research for naturopathic remedies). Years later she still spends quite a bit of money on supplements to 'fix' everything wrong with our family, and I take them because she's angry when I don't. She still emails my sister to see if she can get answers from her when I don't humour her. And if reality doesn't satisfy her, she alternately prays and pretends that things are going her way.

 

What my parents don't know: I'm an atheist. I hate religion in general and Christianity in particular. I want to study evolutionary biology as part of my degree because it's fucking awesome. I didn't save sex for marriage and I'm moving in with my boyfriend as soon as possible. I'm not ashamed of being queer, swearing, drinking or anything else. When she finds out that I'm an atheist, which ideally would be just before I disown her and/or cut off all contact, she'll probably have a mental breakdown or a heart attack. There's always the possibility that this will happen while they're still paying my tuition and I don't want additional complications.

 

Can someone give me their honest thoughts on this? What do you think of my family? I've spent the last few months realizing that everything I was raised to believe is a lie and whenever I've mentioned any of the above (or anything I didn't mention, this is all off the top of my head) to anyone else they've been shocked and they think it's fucked up. The majority of what I just wrote feels normal to me because I grew up that way. I don't know who I am without their tampering. Thanks in advance and apologies for the horrible wall of text. If you made it all the way through you get a gold star.

 

Ministry my godmother and my mom are in now: http://www.fathershearthealingministries.com/ Read the Ministries, Prophetic Words and Testimonies tabs.

 

Prayer workshop/therapy session I went to for training and healing: http://bethelsozo.com/about/#/3

[FreeThinkerNZ]

My honest view?  Yes your mother is crazy (more about that later) and no your story is not unusual for people on ex-c.  Sadly it is all too familiar.  Since you asked for my honest view about what you should do, I will say:  if at all possible, stay in the closet until you don;t need that tuition money... hard as that is... your mother is just too crazy to trust with your educational future.  At some point you may be able to work and/or borrow for your study but until then, I just would hate to see the worst case scenario happen.  I totally get how hard it is to stay in her orbit and not get to move in with your bf at the moment.  I wish I was somehow rich so I could give you a scholarship or something.

 

Your mother's level of infection with the mind virus is very extreme.  I will go so far as saying she is abusive of her children and husband.  I hate hearing about family violence, especially the religious kind.  There is an ex-c psychologist called Marlene Winell who has coined the term Religious Trauma Syndrome and her work might be worth looking up some time.  That is the level of extremism and abuse we are talking about here.  I feel for your sister too.  She will have her own journey of recovery to make, as you have yours.  You are doing incredibly well considering what your mother has put you through and still is.  I salute you.

 

On ex-c you will learn all kinds of coping strategies for dealing with your situation whatever choices you make.  We're so glad you're here.

[Deva]

Helvetios: Sorry to read about this situation. A college education is extremely important though, so I will agree with FreeThinker to stay in the closet until you have completed your education, as hard as that will be.

 

Its disturbing that your father doesn't stand up for his children, and see they get proper health care.  Very disturbing. But I don't think there is anything you can do about this. I am glad you are at least getting out in January, which is very soon! 

 

I never thought of Canada as being full of religious craziness, but I see I am wrong but looking at your links.  That sozo thing is particularly nuts.  All I really associate "sozo" with is the group Led Zepplin! It was on one of their album covers. Faith healing is really quite dangerous.

 

I am also glad you shared your story with us.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Wow.  Your family sounds perfectly normal to me.  Which is not to say that they actually are perfectly normal, just that they're about as fucked up as mine.  It's hard to say how they will react if/when they find out about your atheism; so it would be ideal if you could forego the conversation until you are financially independent, in my opinion.

 

Not knowing who you are without their tampering is another issue I can relate to.  I'm still learning new things about myself even after 11 years of being atheist.  The fun part is that I can decide that I want to be the kind of person who does "X" and then work to make myself an "X" doer; so I have a lot more freedom now to become who I want to be.  I would, however, advise counselling, especially while you are still young.

 

As for discussing biology, feel free to PM me anytime.  I just isolated some strawberry DNA this past weekend with Redneck Jr.

[Helvetios]

Thank you both for replying

 

I've talked to my dad's siblings before and they agree that there's nothing that can be done for him. Not long ago I wouldn't have even considered disappearing from my parents' lives or even going low-contact with them, but that's because all of us here have a habit of always putting my mom's feelings first.

 

As for proper health care, I am on medication now (which helps a lot) in addition to whatever my mom has researched. I'll just continue with the whole regimen until I no longer live with them, seeing as it hasn't done any harm so far. I'm also seeing a therapist at the university and before that I had seen at least four others, so it's not like they're opposed to psychology or anything. Mom's first choice might be my godmother's daughter (a prayer counsellor) but I haven't encountered any resistance in this area.

 

FT, I have heard of RTS and I do believe that it fits me and my sister. Sis is still a Christian, but she's never had any problems with my beliefs - and she's taking Japanese sword fighting at university instead of going to a Christian club my mom recommended, so there may be hope for her yet! My therapist hasn't ever mentioned RTS though...maybe she hasn't heard of it. I like how you refer to it as a virus, isn't that Dawkins' term for it? Hopefully she doesn't accidentally find out before I'm done university in 2018, that would be an interesting time. (4 more years!)

 

I never considered it abusive. That was something that happened to other people.

[RankStranger]

How many $$ is your sanity worth to you?

 

My suggestion would be that you take out student loans to soften the potential financial hit. Then do what you gotta do. Education is important - but so is living in a non-toxic environment.

[RealityCheck]

I just read this entire post.  Unfortunately I can't reply till I get off from my job.  For now all I will say is that I agree with FTNZ's assessment.

[Helvetios]

My boyfriend and I are assessing our financial position and figuring out what options we have. His family is also a bit interesting (he's in a similar situation, not as bad as mine) and his mom has recently caused him to lose access to a substantial amount of his student loan that was previously guaranteed. However we are in good co-op programs so we'll be working throughout our undergrad. How much is my sanity worth? I don't know, but four years is a long time.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

RTS is not widely known among therapists, it's essentially just Winell's term at the moment and is a long way from being accepted as an actual syndrome.  But it's a useful way of thinking about PTSD with a religious theme.

 

The God Virus is the title of an excellent book by Dr Darrel Ray.  I'm not sure who first coined the term but I have heard Ray's book is really good.

[midniterider]

Hello everyone! For starters I'm 20, living with my parents until January, deconverted this May so it hasn't been too long. My parents are crazy and I actively hate them. I'm an undercover atheist and afraid of coming out for a variety of reasons; mostly because even after I move out, which they've come to accept, they'd still be paying my tuition (set up a fund when I was little). Ideally I'd like to not be dependent on them and have that suddenly taken away...although I don't think they'd do that, apparently my family isn't exactly 'normal' and I'd appreciate outside opinions. I'm basically wondering, what's their reaction going to be when I come out? Would they actually cut off funding or contact with me, or take out their worries on my sister, or would they refuse to leave me alone until I repent of my sins (spoiler: never)?

 

My friend once told me that he and his parents are on equal footing, they all like each other and they often hang out with each other's friends. I couldn't imagine anything like it, or even believe it was possible. I still can't.

 

My parents are still together. Dad's family was loosely Christian and most of them ended up as atheists. Mom's family is Christian; she took it and ran with it, and is the source of all the world's problems today. Dad doesn't have the courage to stand up for himself, sorry but it's true, so my mom gets the final say on all faith type things. They like to say it's 50-50 but we all know who wears the pants. He knows she gets irrational sometimes but if he's on me and my sister's side at all, it's quietly when Mom isn't around. We actually celebrate when she goes to visit grandma for a week. She has a phd in chemical engineering and he has half of one in computer science, so they aren't stupid, but still somehow young-earth creationists etc. Their idea of critical thinking is discussing what the pastor got wrong in Sunday's sermon on the car ride home.

 

Until my sister moved away for university she was 18 going on 12 in terms of maturity...she still has anxiety over the smallest decisions. Leaving was the best fucking decision she ever made and even in the first 24 hours away she had completely changed; we both blame our mom for how she turned out. We both have depression and things like that. You can imagine how religion helped with that.

 

I was raised with Vacation Bible School, VeggiTales, all of Ken Ham's materials (including the "Journal" of Creation which is complete bullshit, in retrospect), baptized and confirmed Lutheran, in private Christian schools since grade 6, and I've been to many churches. We left the evangelical Lutheran one when my parents decided they weren't true to scripture, and that became the reason for leaving every church after that until we joined a small Dutch Reformed one that was connected to my Dutch Reformed high school. My history teacher at the school aggressively justified the Crusades and promoted circular logic to justify Christian belief. My biology teacher couched a single lesson on evolution in so many disclaimers and bible verses that I didn't actually learn what evolution was until I was 19 in university. I had very strong faith as a teen and I also had a lot of personal problems such as mental illness and hallucinated spiritual experiences. I prayed constantly for healing and never got it. I was smarter than my classmates but so very behind socially. Never went out with friends, even.

 

And now for my mother...god, this is gonna be long, sorry guys. Where do I even start. If she was cut out of my life right now then so many problems would be solved. She was raised Christian, very strong faith from the start, teaching Sunday School at 14 and all that. Married my father and popped out a couple babies, and promptly stopped working. She didn't work again for 18 years, and even then that was a contract for online work. She volunteered at every church thing you can imagine; growing up, there was always a bible study or three in our house. My godmother is holier than a piece of Swiss carved into the shape of Mother Teresa: she sees the Holy Spirit dripping from her walls as a sign of anointing, believes in all kinds of faith healing, prophesied over me several times even before I was born, goes to a Pentecostal church now. Made me cry when I came out to her as bisexual (usual hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner talk). My mom looks up to her a lot. And no, my parents aren't keen on the gay thing either.

 

More about mummy. Since we started at the Dutch church 3-4 years ago she's become increasingly involved in prayer ministry. She's on prayer teams at church with my dad: they pray for the service before it happens and after the service for people who want healing. She goes into hospitals and out on the street with people from church and prays for anyone. When I was ill, her go-to strategy was to pray for me before trying actual treatment (and it still took me a few years to get on medications, before which I nearly killed myself several times). If I felt better it was the prayer. If I got worse she micro-managed me, invaded my privacy constantly and prayed even harder. She 'encouraged' me and my sister to come along to apologist conferences and prayer workshops, and I only went to one of the latter before I refused to go to anything like that again. I'll post the link to it below, and to her current focus, a prayer healing room my godmother's been volunteering at for years. My godmother also got my mom into 'soaking in the spirit', prayer journaling and whatever else you can find by googling related things.

 

My mom isn't really strong, emotionally...she gets offended very easily like when I told her (at 20) that I would be moving out within a year. Or when I stopped posting my university class schedule on the fridge, and stopped answering every personal question she asked about me, or when I started to rebel a few years ago against her 'playing doctor' on her mentally ill children (mainly consisted of invasive questioning, demanding to see the places I harmed myself to make sure I wasn't lying about it, and internet research for naturopathic remedies). Years later she still spends quite a bit of money on supplements to 'fix' everything wrong with our family, and I take them because she's angry when I don't. She still emails my sister to see if she can get answers from her when I don't humour her. And if reality doesn't satisfy her, she alternately prays and pretends that things are going her way.

 

What my parents don't know: I'm an atheist. I hate religion in general and Christianity in particular. I want to study evolutionary biology as part of my degree because it's fucking awesome. I didn't save sex for marriage and I'm moving in with my boyfriend as soon as possible. I'm not ashamed of being queer, swearing, drinking or anything else. When she finds out that I'm an atheist, which ideally would be just before I disown her and/or cut off all contact, she'll probably have a mental breakdown or a heart attack. There's always the possibility that this will happen while they're still paying my tuition and I don't want additional complications.

 

Can someone give me their honest thoughts on this? What do you think of my family? I've spent the last few months realizing that everything I was raised to believe is a lie and whenever I've mentioned any of the above (or anything I didn't mention, this is all off the top of my head) to anyone else they've been shocked and they think it's fucked up. The majority of what I just wrote feels normal to me because I grew up that way. I don't know who I am without their tampering. Thanks in advance and apologies for the horrible wall of text. If you made it all the way through you get a gold star.

 

Ministry my godmother and my mom are in now: http://www.fathershearthealingministries.com/ Read the Ministries, Prophetic Words and Testimonies tabs.

 

Prayer workshop/therapy session I went to for training and healing: http://bethelsozo.com/about/#/3

 

Moving out ought to improve things a lot. Your stress and anger level will drop if you aren't around your parents anymore.

 

You don't have to depend on their school financing unless you want to. Why do they need to know you're an atheist (or any other intimate personal details? It's none of their business and all they will do is be morons when you tell em.) Be glad you are realizing the bullshit of religion at an early age. :-) Some of my remote relatives think I'm a fundy still. They can think whatever they like. I don't give a shit. :-) The only person I feel it important to share my beliefs with is my wife. Everyone else can bite me. :-)

[RankStranger]

Some people will control you to the extent that they can.  The only way you'll have peace is to put yourself in a situation where they can't control you.  Financially, emotionally, whatever.  I'm not saying you need to do it immediately or all at once- you're the best judge of when and how.  Just saying that sometimes there's no point in wishing a person would change their behavior- they won't or can't.  Sometimes you just have to accept that you can only control your own actions... and then set boundaries or distance yourself as necessary. 

[Helvetios]

midniterider - it's important for me personally that people know where I stand. I don't see lack of belief as something that has to be hidden or ashamed of, and I expect the people around me (including my parents) to deal with it reasonably if they wish to continue the relationship. The reason I haven't brought this to light yet to my parents is because of the power imbalance and the potential consequences that I want to be prepared for.

[RealityCheck]

It sounds to me as if you've analyzed the situation quite well.  You've already considered the consequences of coming out to your parents and how to mitigate those consequences.  The tone of your post is that of frustration and desperation.  The only thing I can add to this conversation is avoid making a potentially life changing decision while mentally compromised (upset, angry, etc.)  I can imagine how your parents (and especially your mom) are making you feel right now. 

[midniterider]

midniterider - it's important for me personally that people know where I stand. I don't see lack of belief as something that has to be hidden or ashamed of, and I expect the people around me (including my parents) to deal with it reasonably if they wish to continue the relationship. The reason I haven't brought this to light yet to my parents is because of the power imbalance and the potential consequences that I want to be prepared for.

 

It's understandable that you don't want to be ashamed of your lack of belief. Your expectations of how they deal with it could be wrong though. But you know them much better than anyone else. :-) Do they need to know this information right now? Or can it wait until they are done paying for your college?

 

I'm about 30 years older than you so I'm looking at your situation from the point of view of an adult who has been away from Ma and Pa for a long time. But I do remember having some unpleasant young adult conversations with them regarding my getting my life going. :-) I made my own reasonable escape plan (that mom didnt like) when I was 18 and that friction with  my parents evaporated pretty quickly. Being a long drive from the parents means peace of mind.  :-) I wish you well. Getting out of the parental house one way or another will help immensely.

[Helvetios]

Thanks everyone for their responses.

[Scottsman]

I had no idea how my parents would react. They are nuts. I moved out first. Still havent told them. Just bailed on church and doing my own thing now.