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Goodbye Jesus

The Story Of The 16 Year Old Gay Atheist


Phoenix415

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Hello all! I've been lurking for a few days, so I decided to post my deconversion story. (Warning: long).

 

I was born and raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, and I went to a Pentecostal church pretty much up until my deconversion. Also, I was homeschooled using a Bible-based curriculum. So, for my childhood, it was CHRISTIANITY CHRISTIANITY CHRISTIANITY everywhere I turned. 

My church was absolute shit and so demon-obsessed. It didn't matter how young you were-you were learning about the demons and how "absolutely real" they were. 

So when I was nine years old, the trouble started. I became EXTREMELY paranoid that I'd blasphemed the Holy Spirit, or that the joke I'd made would damn me. I'd cry so much after church services, especially since we were doing a unit in my class on Revelation, the end of the world, and demons. 

 

Mind you, my class was made up of nine and ten year olds. Going through Revelation with them? No, that's fucked up. Telling a bunch of young kids that they'd be "raptured" or if they weren't "good enough Christians", they'd have to live through a bunch of shit? Not okay. 

But back to my freak outs. I couldn't sleep alone because I'd get so worried that I'd wake up in Hell, or wake up in Judgement. I remember nights where I would just cry my eyes out and beg God to not come back until the morning, so I'd have the chance to ask forgiveness. I remember one particularly bad night. It was after a man had given his testimony at church, and he said that Satan tried to kill him on two different occasions and that it was only faith in Jesus that saved him. I tore out of that service sobbing. After we got back home, I couldn't sleep for anything. I kept thinking that my hamster running on her wheel was Satan scratching at my door.  

My parents tried to help best as they knew how, by praying for me and reassuring me that God loved me and I wasn't going to Hell.

Luckily, the freak outs stopped when I was eleven years old. I got, for lack of a better phrase, balls-deep in Christianity. I became that annoying kid that brings Jesus into every conversation, but my faith was actually pretty strong for a while

 

Then, I turned 13. My 13th year brought two things along with it: my first year at a public school and realizing that I was a lesbian. 

I'm not going to comment much on my first year of public school, just that it was absolutely awful, but it set the stage for my eventual deconversion. 

I am, however, going to talk more about realizing my sexuality. It had been in the making for a while, but this was when it all came together. 

I developed feelings for my best friend at the time. There was so much confusion surrounding that crush, wondering what it meant, and coming to the discovery that I'd never really felt that way about a guy before. When I came to the conclusion that I was gay, it freaked me out. Aside from being demon-obsessed, my church was also vehemently anti-gay. I googled stuff like "how to come out" and "is being gay really a sin." 

My plan was not to come out to my parents for a while, but my mother went through my internet history and found what I'd googled. She had a lot of denial when she confronted me about it, telling me that I "wasn't gay" and reading me the verses that say that homosexuality is sin. Fun fact? She also told my father and sister, and my sister in turn told her cousin. 4 people I didn't get to come out to on my own. 

I kind of went "undercover gay" at this point. I was open about it at school, but at home I pretended to be straight. It actually worked for a bit, until my mother read my Facebook messages and saw that I had confided in a friend from school about it, a girl who also went to our church. Well, when my mother realized I wasn't "undercover gay" anymore, she freaked out on me. She screamed, cried, told me things like "it makes me want to curl up under a rock and die that you would think you were gay", and "when you leave, you can just go marry your nasty little lesbo person somewhere else and not even talk to us!" After this incident, she didn't talk to me for weeks, and I developed a sort of "fuck you" attitude towards church and God. I sat in the corner during services on my phone, and I kind of accepted the fact that as far as everyone was concerned, I was damned. This ended after about a month or two, and was replaced with me praying to not be gay anymore. 

She began talking to me again, but we were on thin ice. I could tell that my entire family knew, as they would go on long rants about sin and how we needed to repent, all while staring at me. So, and I'm ashamed to say this, I went back in the closet. Spent the next year fighting my attraction to females and tried, really tried to convince myself that I liked males. 

After a year, I finally said "fuck it, I'm done," and actually accepted myself as a lesbian. 

 

But, back to my deconversion. It really started going underway my freshman year. (Another fun fact, as part of the reaction to me being gay, I had to switch schools). I began to think that traditional worship and the general way churches were run was wrong and not of God, so I began studying the Bible to see what it had to say about worship. While studying, I found things that disgusted me, and loads of contradictions. 

As I was still Christian at this point, I began hunting for answers from my pastor. He could never give me a straight answer, and he dodged around my questions. 

As freshman year went on, I found more questions the Bible rose, and I actually began studying evolution. The person who made the journey with me? My mother. We both abandoned our faith around the same time, and we had long discussions about what we'd found in the Bible. 

We left the shithole Pentecostal church while we were in deconversion, actually. Ever since then, not one person from there has tried to contact us and has ignored our attempts to keep a relationship going. Nice "Christian love". 

I made the jump from questioning to Atheism the summer before my sophomore year. Pretty big moment, actually. I had been questioning for a long time, and I thought "you know, if I just read the Bible one more time, I'm sure it will make sense." 

I opened my Bible, read about a page of it, and actually cried. The fact that none of it, or God, was real was glaringly obvious at that moment. "I don't believe this," I whispered, and shoved my Bible under my bed. 

 

So now we come to present-day, 2016. I've been an atheist for almost two years now, and my mother has come around and accepted me. 

Thank you for reading, I'm very sorry it was so long, but now you know how I became the 16 year old Gay Atheist in the Bible Belt. 

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Welcome to Ex-C! 

 

Thank you for sharing that! I understand the back-and-forth you did, trying to fight your nature and deny who you are. While I'm not gay, I spent years trying to fight my skepticism and doubts and atheism. Back and forth, over and over, lying to myself, hurting myself, wasting so much time. 

 

I'm glad you're free, and your mother also accepts you! Is she also an atheist? It's great that one of your worst critics has seen the light and become one of your staunchest allies! Seeing your struggles with your sexuality probably caused her to question her faith and the justifications she had for it, and contributed to her upset and lashing out at you. I'm sorry that all had to happen, but you stayed true to yourself, and helped someone else see the light of reason as well :)

 

Welcome again to the forum!

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Welcome!

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You are an amazingly strong person. Congratulations on your successful journey. And welcome to the forum.

 

When you finally shoved that Bible under your bed for the last time, did you feel like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders?

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Welcome! I think it's great that you are on good terms with your mother too. smile.png

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Hi Phoenix, welcome to the forums :)

 

Your story is really resonating with me. My 16-year-old daughter has a male friend who is currently in a very similar situation that you found yourself in before your mom's deconversion. I hope he will eventually find the acceptance that you've found from your mom.

 

Not only that, but I also resonate with your mom, as I too was once a hard-core Christian who was homeschooling my kids. 

 

And I, too, left my Pentecostal church, and with it, my entire social circle.

 

I'm glad you got out young and that you're here. It's a great community.

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Thank you for sharing your story, Phoenix. There is much to learn from and to relate to, even for me who's old enough to be your grandfather. When I was 16 I started to realize I only was attracted to other guys, but it took me much longer to come to terms with and do something about.

 

I hope you stick around on here.

 

I too am glad that your mother is standing with you.

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Thank you all so much for your kind replies! :)

 

Lycorth- She's agnostic, actually

 

Older- yes, absolutely! It was one of the scariest things I've ever done, but it felt amazing.

 

Thank you all who replied!

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Hey Phoenix 415, 

 

I'm really glad to hear that you got yourself out of Christianity. I'm also jealous that your mother deconverted with you, because my mother is like an alcoholic clutching their bottle and my one wish would be for her to give it up and be a normal person. 

 

You pointed out something that many people do not realize or think about, which is the psychological impact the stories in biblical scripture have on young minds. I remember going through experiences similar to what you described, fear that my thoughts would send me to hell etc. At one point when I was about 12, I was supposed to spend two weeks at my catholic cousin's house in the midwest and I had to leave a week early because I started experiencing panic attacks from all the dark religious imagery they had (suffering Christ's and creepy virgin mothers). When I was 24, my uncle tried evangelizing me and I experienced a panic attack (or ptsd flashback) and had trouble speaking and with short term memory. I couldn't trust him after that. The Bible is not meant for kids and to teach those stories to young children is psychologically abusive. 

 

Sorry that your mother was so intrusive as you were coming out. It seems inappropriate and insensitive to out you to your family the way you described. Hopefully she is not like that anymore and if she is, you can always set whatever boundaries you need to.

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Hey Phoenix,

 

I'm so glad that your relationship with your mom has been repaired and become even stronger. One of my biggest fears about coming out (as gay, already out as a non-believer) to my parents is that it won't be fixed after, and seeing stories like yours always gives me hope. You're stronger than me, it took me much longer to throw my bible across the room. 

 

Welcome to the forums! And thank you for sharing.

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