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Goodbye Jesus

A Belief Left Covered In Dust, Now Found.


anna_nyetsirk

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Hello, I am Anna. This testimonial would probably be the least exaggerated and least dramatic of testimonies, quite detailed and elaborate but I kid you not, this really happened.

I was born a Filipino and baptized a Catholic. Whole immediate family is Catholic Christian (except me, now at least)

My Sundays in the past would consist of getting up early to ritually go to church, hear mass, eat a wafer, kneel to pray to 'the biblical God', Mary, Jesus, the Holy Spirit (yes in that order of rank), do the gesture of the sign of the cross or jenuflect (like a templar knight kneel of sorts), touch the holy water in bowls on top of marble pillar like structures, say the rosary using prayer beads with a crucifix at the end of it, wore pendants and mini medallions of certain Latin prayers of saints for protection.

There was a time early in my life that I thought all of this must not be what the true God intends. Cutting old live trees to make carved statues for people to touch and believe to be healed? Praying for dead people and paying for mass for them to be saved in Purgatory? Surely the true God must not be limited into just some glass box or a set of limiting boundaries or shallow tasks to fulfill to either be saved or be led to a path of 'righteousness'. They teach that the human nature, physiological and psychological is not really divine. And good trumps all.

I will talk about but briefly how my parents disciplined me and reasoned from scripture that because God loves his children he hits them with a rod. Believed that for many years and got conditioned to feel pain as a way to straighten me out somehow.

What they did not know is that in my early teen years, the very person I call godsister (daughter of my baptismal godfather) is actually my on and off school bully. She would taunt me and make fun of me at school, then at her house locked me in with another male classmate to watch porn for the very first time. And the first scene in that video is not heterosexual, but homosexual female to female. I was both curious and confused at the same time. My first view of naked intimacy is an unusual one, and it baffled me. That I start drawing them on my writing paper almost to the last leaf. My concept of faith was set aside to make room for this very new sensational images. That and one erotic novel paperback copy of a book I would read that belonged to my father in his teens tucked away in the bathroom. To @bobzilla_inator I'm sorry I never opened this up to you personally before. We'll talk more about this privately as the days go by, okay?

Maybe this was the trauma soil in which my mental illness set roots because my mind tried to wrap around too complicated information bombarded to me at such an early age. One day it just snapped and out comes the delusions of being in the midst of a multitude of angels singing to me not in my head, but as if around me. That I had the grandeur of being a fallen angel soldier who turned human (another delusion I didn't talk about @bobzilla_inator I was too afraid of you to know this)

This delusion made me walk aimlessly throughout different cities, wearing regular clothes (no one thought I was kookoo because I looked corporate decent, not dirty homeless) for maybe one or 3-4 rare separate instances. Made me trespass a newly build condominium compound and jump in their pool fully clothed. That because I thought I was a holy angel soldier, blessed a pool and made it either healing or deadly poisonous (idk it's a delusion go figure)

My influenced instilled religion led my mind to think of askewed and mystical things. Bu

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Continuation:

By then I had to be sent to a psychiatrist. Diagnosis: Bipolar 2 Schizophrenia. Took more than one meds initially, then when the hallucinations and the mood swing symptoms lessened, reduced to one medicine that I have now been taken for years (8-9 years now I think)

Remember that doubt in which I thought religion was a shallow limited man-made concept of God who tags human nature as sin to control the masses and acquire this power for gain and glory?

That was tucked away to collect dust in my mind when I joined a Catholic based, but modern Christianity worship influenced community to still try to understand all of it. Stayed for 3 or so years, 'served' in the music ministry, gave tithes, attended most of sector wide assemblies but still left this empty void that kept me wanting to know what I realized were more shallow vain, self-seeker-centered things I ever known to see. God's glory? Wild almost mystical worship?

I almost lost that tiny inkling of belief of a more, if not most incomprehensible, vast great omni-existing God. That inkling at certain moments were covered in layers of newspapermache as doubt. Then I met @bobzilla_inator. We went on a very curious journey for our souls. Wherever he sides with I try to listen. Learning new things outside Catholicism and debunking a lot by disproof by way of Protestant views of Christianity. But we were left baffled again, individually and apart. I was living a pretentious lie of following Christianity and somehow wanting to know the real "truth".

Well guess what. I didn't find it in any Christianity or branch of it at all. Nor in Catholicism (that train left so long ago you I tell ya). That inkling had a a name, Pantheism! My belief is not a farfetched hint of an idea. It's an actual belief! Not religion those two are different. And now what I seek here is support and help so I can understand what this belief truly is. God is in everything, he definitely exists. Within us, within all of creation, earthly or otherwise. He is consisting of both light and dark, good and evil, gentle and strong, minute and vast. My eyes opened to a world of less if not all shed of fear and now am learning to embrace who I really am and appreciate not just me but the people who share the same belief and the ones who though may not comprehend, accept and respect it.

Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful day filled with true happiness and freedom.

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Welcome Anna. You have found likeminded folk here. I hope this site will be helpful for you & the trauma you're dealing with. 

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Pardon me for the segmented content. I would also like to clarify that along the years before I met @bobzilla_inator I had plenty of relationships. I did not choose to discuss about its details though because I felt was irrelevant to my journey of un-learning religion. It was basically a mixed series of good, wild, emotionally abusive, restricting relationships, that is all I choose to share about it. Thank you for understanding and much love.

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3 minutes ago, Geezer said:

Welcome Anna. You have found likeminded folk here. I hope this site will be helpful for you & the trauma you're dealing with. 

Thank you so much. A special person in my life showed me this site and it all went from there.

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Also chose not to share some in between moments in that journey for personal reasons. If you ask @bobzilla_inator he can explain a bit, if he chooses to. I thank him btw for introducing this website to me.

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Good for you for joining. I too was abused by way of verses explaining it away such as "spare the rod, spoil the child" and exposed to things way beyond my developmental level as a child. The sexual abuse and physical abuse was the worst but then again the mental and emotional abuse was also the worst. It's safe to say it was all bad. I have been diagnosed with 8 or 9 different mental health disorders one of which is bipolar NOS. However the only ones I put much stock in is the C-PTSD, anorexia nervosa, dissociative disorder, and OCD. I was in fundie charismatic/Pentecostalism. You're brave and strong for sharing. You're definitely not alone. It resonates with me very much. I just recently posted my story also. Support and solidarity. 

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From what I'm thinking, I might have C-PTSD centered around Christianity... feel nauseous whenever I read anything Calvinist, especially... I was self-brainwashed into that...

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2 hours ago, bobzilla_inator said:

From what I'm thinking, I might have C-PTSD centered around Christianity... feel nauseous whenever I read anything Calvinist, especially... I was self-brainwashed into that...

Have you been diagnosed with PTSD? C-PTSD is differentfrom PTSD in that PTSD is usually from one or a few traumas (like a natural disaster, war, a car accident, or one rape) whereas C-PTSD aka complex post traumatic stress disorder and it's caused by a cumulative effect of traumas spanning over years and where there is no means of escape (such as being kept in captivity and/or prolonged abuse in childhood, multiple rapes, or a long-term domestuc violence situation etc). I personally had all of the above. But only a doctor can diagnose. However I was self-diagnosed for the longest time. There are questionnaires you can do online to help you along. You're not alone. The Christian religion is very traumatizing in and of itself and throw in abuse and rapes and domestic violence and you have a trifecta for mental health issues and trauma-related issues.

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C-PTSD probably, it was a prolonged, gradual feeling of being condemned for being the very person 'god made me' as.

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Well, it's a cluster of symptoms. I can send you some information on it. Usually with C-PTSD there is also dissociation. I myself have a dissociative disorder. Will PM you information on these mental health disorders 

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4 minutes ago, LovelyChantel said:

Well, it's a cluster of symptoms. I can send you some information on it. Usually with C-PTSD there is also dissociation. I myself have a dissociative disorder. Will PM you information on these mental health disorders 

 

Thank you. I relate with the disassociation to a degree.

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30 minutes ago, bobzilla_inator said:

 

Thank you. I relate with the disassociation to a degree.

In my case I have been known to black out minutes, to hours, to complete memories. Just, gone. Poof. And also have had complete identity shifts to where I'm no longer me anymore but someone else, not in control of my body or anything. 

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15 minutes ago, LovelyChantel said:

In my case I have been known to black out minutes, to hours, to complete memories. Just, gone. Poof. And also have had complete identity shifts to where I'm no longer me anymore but someone else, not in control of my body or anything. 

 

That scares me... that never happened to me... Memories are patchy though.

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Welcome to Ex-c dear Anna. I'm glad you found us through your friend. You are amongst many who understand the mind fuck of religion and the abuse one accepts while in it, thinking it is normal. Keep reading all the posts to see that you are not alone. I am looking forward to hearing more from you and again, I'm so glad you are here. It's gonna be alright. It just takes some time to sort things out. The members here all understand. I, personally would have lost my mind if I hadn't found this site. I was in very bad shape when I arrived here and the members loved me back to 'somewhat' normal again. Reach out honey, there is always someone here to help you.

 

Big (hug)

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4 hours ago, Margee said:

Welcome to Ex-c dear Anna. I'm glad you found us through your friend. You are amongst many who understand the mind fuck of religion and the abuse one accepts while in it, thinking it is normal. Keep reading all the posts to see that you are not alone. I am looking forward to hearing more from you and again, I'm so glad you are here. It's gonna be alright. It just takes some time to sort things out. The members here all understand. I, personally would have lost my mind if I hadn't found this site. I was in very bad shape when I arrived here and the members loved me back to 'somewhat' normal again. Reach out honey, there is always someone here to help you.

 

Big (hug)

Thanks @Margee and hoping to understand more. Support is really good here. Since nobody in my family believe the same way. Friends IRL respect it but stay in their own beliefs. 

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11 hours ago, LovelyChantel said:

Good for you for joining. I too was abused by way of verses explaining it away such as "spare the rod, spoil the child" and exposed to things way beyond my developmental level as a child. The sexual abuse and physical abuse was the worst but then again the mental and emotional abuse was also the worst. It's safe to say it was all bad. I have been diagnosed with 8 or 9 different mental health disorders one of which is bipolar NOS. However the only ones I put much stock in is the C-PTSD, anorexia nervosa, dissociative disorder, and OCD. I was in fundie charismatic/Pentecostalism. You're brave and strong for sharing. You're definitely not alone. It resonates with me very much. I just recently posted my story also. Support and solidarity. 

Thank you @LovelyChantel. Really glad to know that what happened to me I can actually share and not be judged as seeking for famous attention or pity (in which I don't seek both at all). The admins here are right, though we are posting in a public space (online) these are still private information about ourselves vulnerable to attack if the wrong people happen to get a glance of it then take it out of context. We still have to be careful what we reveal here, safe space or not.

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9 hours ago, bobzilla_inator said:

From what I'm thinking, I might have C-PTSD centered around Christianity... feel nauseous whenever I read anything Calvinist, especially... I was self-brainwashed into that...

Thank you for the support you gave. I send you off now and if we ever see each other here again, you won't expect hostility (never would I want to be hostile with anyone here anyway) from me.

Only love and support and no preconceived judgement. 

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2 hours ago, anna_nyetsirk said:

Thank you @LovelyChantel. Really glad to know that what happened to me I can actually share and not be judged as seeking for famous attention or pity (in which I don't seek both at all). The admins here are right, though we are posting in a public space (online) these are still private information about ourselves vulnerable to attack if the wrong people happen to get a glance of it then take it out of context. We still have to be careful what we reveal here, safe space or not.

Yes I agree. But at the same time want to speak freely. So I share openly. 

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