Knightley Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 Now that you're an excer, are you enjoying life more or less? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandora Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 Definitely. BTW, you're a post whore... trying to get that count up. Hee hee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JP Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 Not really. I still worry about being damned an what not. Plus I've got a bunch of issues that relate to OCD and what I call "supernatural anxiety." I can't stop going over the events of my past and wondering if it was all some sort of great plan for me. I just wish I could stop and smell the roses some time. It's getting better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knightley Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 Definitely. BTW, you're a post whore... trying to get that count up. Hee hee i'm trying to pledge to the sorority that has no name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knightley Posted May 29, 2006 Author Share Posted May 29, 2006 *shh* whisper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vortex Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 I am definately enjoying life more. 1. I no longer worry that some vengeful "God" is going to toast me like a marshmellow if I eat a steak on Friday. 2. No more confessing my "sins" to a bored priest who hands out the same "Three Our Fathers, Three Hail Marys and now recite an act of contrition." for everything. 3. Less money in collection plate = more money in my pocket. 4. Guilt free sex! (Need I say more?) 5. The ability to relate to the divine as I see fit with no intermediary and stand before it unbowed by guilt, and without fear as a free person. 6. No longer have to be a self-righteous prick who looks down their nose at other faiths, or those with no faith at all as being hellbound and trying to convince them of the error of their ways. Sure, I have residual scars. But I'm getting better, not worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I Broke Free Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 My stint “in the fold” only lasted two years back in late Seventies. During that brief period I cried a great deal and fantasized about killing myself. Yes, life is much better now. Now I fantasize about killing Christians instead; a much healthier mindset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 Holy fuck, you bet your sweet bippy I'm happier now. I live with clinical depression. It amazes me to look back at when I was Xian and realize how pathologically Xianity played into the darkest, worst days of it. It was almost as if the meme encouraged being depressed and anxious - there was always something to feel bad about, something I was doing that was wrong, or wasn't doing that I should be, or something wrong with me for not being a Good Little Christian Girl/Wife/Daughter/Sheep. And it all fed my depression like MAP gas on a bonfire. I was a sinner, I wasn't worthy of Gawd's love, I was flawed and wicked and unholy... and yet I was also shamed for not realizing that I was a Child of Gawd too, and precious in His sight, and all that Xianese crap... whoa, what a mindfuck. Taught that I was awful, yet shamed for believing it. Go figure. Even when I was being treated (on meds and/or in therapy, usually both) I was suicidal most of the time, depressed, anxious, fretted nonstop over whether or not I and my loved ones were hellbound... I stayed in a miserable, loveless marriage for 4 years because the church said I shouldn't leave. I had no future - I couldn't go back to school because the spouse refused to move. I had no job and limited marketable skills. I was supposed to be the dutiful wife and not be sad or upset about anything... again, conditions set up so that I was miserable, and then set up to shame me for being miserable. Fuck that. I left that marriage, left that life, left the church to save myself. No Jesus came down and saved me from anything - I saved myself. I have less money, a teeny house, lots of debt, and a lot of future uncertainty now - but I'm a thousandfold happier now than I ever was as a Xian. I went to school, I remarried to someone who loves me very much, I have a cute wiener dog, and I do what I like, with whomever I please, whenever I want, and fuck the hellbound shit. And amazingly enough, most of the time I'm not depressed and suicidal anymore. I'm on the lowest dose of meds I've ever been on, my bad days are much fewer & farther between, I worry some but don't generally wind up into a panic about life anymore, and I haven't been suicidal for... jeez, months now. My life was utterly, rancidly, suicidally awful when I was Xian. It's amazingly great now, partly from giving up the meme. And Xians don't like to hear that. So many Xians can't imagine how life without Jeebus could be anything other than small, miserable, and pathetic. My life is an anomaly to everything they've been taught about The Way Things Should Be. The only conclusion a lot of them can come to is that I'm only superficially happy because I'm spending my life living in a hedonistic whirlwind of selfish wickedness - the yoke that I'm somehow deluded into thinking is light, but really they know better that it isn't. Yeah. Right. What-the-fuckever. I was dead when I was a Xian. I'm alive now. There's no comparison. I'll never go back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted May 29, 2006 Share Posted May 29, 2006 What's wrong with living in a hedonistic whirlwind of selfish wickedness? Heh! Nothing, really. It's sure a helluva lot more fun! A lot of Xians don't seem to like it when other people live that way tho'. I figure it's probably jealousy. Some people just need to be miserable, and need everybody else to be that way too... I'm glad your anxiety stuff calmed down when you left too. It just amazes me how easily Xianity seems to exacerbate or encourage unhealthy mental states. Like it doesn't want people to be well and healthy and happy... which I guess makes sense, if the product you're selling is supposed to be a cure for people's misery - I suppose you'd have to keep convincing them that they're miserable for them to think that they need your product. Anyway. Wahoo to being happy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evergreen Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Am I happier now that I am no longer Christian? Hmm. Let's see. I deconverted sometime during 2002, around the summer months. I was just finishing up high school. I had a wonderful family life, and have no childhood scars I can think of. My life as a Christian was great. As I said, the family was great. I had support, I had plans for the future, I had good friends (few were Christian, actually). My deconversion was sudden. I'd been researching Wicca out of curiosity and came across a list one Wiccan had of problems and questions about the Christian religion. Since I had no satisfactory response to them, my faith was basically shattered right then and there and it never recovered. Then I started university. I became indecicive. I got depressed due to my lack of faith. I started a romantic relationship with my closest friend and when I got on the Pill I think the hormones made me even more susceptable to depression. I developed all sorts of insecurities, etc, etc, etc. I was (am) completely in love with my friend, but we broke up last September, which created even more depression. There were times the only thing keeping me from suicide was the thought of how I couldn't hurt my family and friends like that. Aside from relationship problems, I'd been having school problems. Hated what I was doing. This year, I finally decided not to finish my BA. I'm now on a waitlist at a community college for the medical sciences program, and will either choose Medical Radiography or Medical Lab Sciences after my first year there. I'm single and ok with it, even though I still have feelings for my ex. I have great friends and my family is still wonderful. (The family doesn't know about the ex-Christianity though) So, I have plans again. I have people who love me. I have things I like to do - my brother gave me my first guitar lesson tonight! And I no longer feel that life is pointless if there is no god. (As it is, I still haven't decided whether or not I think there is, but I have decided that it doesn't matter either way.) So, four years after my deconversion, and through lots of confusion and heartache, I can say I am happy. I can't say I am more or less happy than I was as a Christian. I was happy then, and now that a lot of emotional pain has dulled, I am happy now. Sorry for such a long post. I was thinking through the major events of the past few years to decide what I thought. Heh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Now that you're an excer, are you enjoying life more or less? Considering what a "liberal wimp of a christian" I was before, there's not that much of a difference... but yeah, I do have more fun now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurari Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 Very much so. My faith is more solid than ever and I have no more religious responsibilities or baggage blocking my spirituality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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