Anger At Myself.

[Nutter]

They do say it takes two to believe a lie, and a part of me is still angry that I was taken in for most of my teenage life (I believed for MYSELF at 14 I deconverted at 19, just a few months short of 20 actually).

 

Everytime I see someone 'preaching' on the internet I get really angry. I can control myself more or less in real life (I'm more or less 'in the closet' about being an ex-c, but I strongly suspect my parents know anyway).

 

But online, if I see anything remotely positive about christianity said by someone, then next thing I know, I'm challenging people for little reason than saying 'Jesus loves you.' and 'God bless' at the end of their posts, even though it might be completely off-topic. And most on-line fights liek that are retarded! Seeing 'signatures' on other forums about such beliefs also ticks me off (but I haven't 'attacked' anyone for THEM, at least not yet).

 

I think a part of me still angry about having been tricked, but also because I used to BE those people who 'preached' online like that. I was an introvert, and still am in real life. I preached, sometimes 'subtly' sometimes not and I even 'emotionally blackmailed' with it, I've BEEN on the other side of it and all.

 

I think a part of me has to forgive myself for being so deluded like that, but does helping get rid of the anger at yourself also help with the anger you have at other people too?

 

I keep seeing my past self in so many of these people and I hate it.

[Nutter]

I think with the net- the conversion mEthods were like memes- they got repeated over and over.

 

I got 'emotionally blackmailed' to a degree myself in my conversion, and then used it on people ONLINE.

 

I feel disgusted with myself, I didn't even realise what I'd really done until I deconverted. I even apologised on a few boards about it, but I can't remember ALL of them, plus most of the people wouldn't remember me anyway. I only did it for a few months in my teens.

 

I feel like I've done damage. And I fear I might have even damaged someone online at some point, but I don't KNOW. I was mostly the whimpy one- I didn't preach 'hell-fire'. I had other methods of emotional blackmail though.

 

UGGGGH.

[TheYoYo]

They do say it takes two to believe a lie, and a part of me is still angry that I was taken in for most of my teenage life (I believed for MYSELF at 14 I deconverted at 19, just a few months short of 20 actually).

 

Everytime I see someone 'preaching' on the internet I get really angry. I can control myself more or less in real life (I'm more or less 'in the closet' about being an ex-c, but I strongly suspect my parents know anyway).

 

But online, if I see anything remotely positive about christianity said by someone, then next thing I know, I'm challenging people for little reason than saying 'Jesus loves you.' and 'God bless' at the end of their posts, even though it might be completely off-topic. And most on-line fights liek that are retarded! Seeing 'signatures' on other forums about such beliefs also ticks me off (but I haven't 'attacked' anyone for THEM, at least not yet).

 

I think a part of me still angry about having been tricked, but also because I used to BE those people who 'preached' online like that. I was an introvert, and still am in real life. I preached, sometimes 'subtly' sometimes not and I even 'emotionally blackmailed' with it, I've BEEN on the other side of it and all.

 

I think a part of me has to forgive myself for being so deluded like that, but does helping get rid of the anger at yourself also help with the anger you have at other people too?

 

I keep seeing my past self in so many of these people and I hate it.

 

 

Hell yeah

 

Looking back, I literally do not understand how I became a Christian. I look back at the evidence I was given, and see how insufficient it was, and I am angry with myself for being taken in.

I'm even more angry for the way I clung to it. I started to realise that some of the arguments weren't really that convincing, pretty early on in my time as a Christian, but kept believing anyway. I kept having to completely screw with my mind in order to make it make sense, to keep convincing myself it was true.

I'm angry with myself for all the times when I had questions, and tried to find answers, but they never fully satisfied me. I'm angry for the way that when this happened, I just went to church/cell group/Bible study/evangelistic stuff/you name it, and buried my doubts. I was completely dishonest with myself.

I'm angry for the way I ended up viewing other people, not just as friends, but as targets for conversion.

 

I guess it's because I don't really have anyone else to be angry with. I wasn't brought up a Christian or forced into it in any way. I was taken in by it myself, and chose to let it take over my life, just like that.

[ClaraOlive]

I've found that I've had more empathy and less anger for Christians after learning to accept my past.

 

I used to be ashamed of giving into religious pressure over some big decisions. I still have regrets. But it makes me realize that people who are currently Christians are also facing religious pressure.

 

Don't become the opposite counterpart of the Christian- seeing unsaved people as un-people, just targets for evangelism. When you see Christians as un-people, just brainwashed manipulators, you're not being any different than they are. You were a person when you were a Christian- a person who needed friends and help, even when you were being obnoxious, and they are people too.

 

I also find that it helps to not separate mistakes or mistreatment into religious and non-religious. Going through bad things and making bad choices is part of life, and if it hadn't been religion, it would have been something else. It's easy to think that without being such a boring, preachy prude who was stuck in church all the time, you'd have been easy going, fun, and romantic- gotten involved in something exciting. But for all you know, you'd have become a furry and gotten an STD, and now you'd have that baggage instead of the religious baggage.

[GraphicsGuy]

I actually had to separate my "old self" from my "new self" so I didn't direct my anger internally. Literally had to treat myself as two different people. Maybe not entirely healthy, but better than self-abusing.

 

I have been slowly coming to grips with my past and that "old self". Slowly allowing myself to reintegrate certain aspects of my personality and such.

 

It's a process.

[ShallowByThyGame]

Since I was taught from birth I simply felt pleased at myself for getting out of it...perhaps those who consciously convert take deconversion a lot harder, since it means admitting fault. I just get to blame my parents, who can blame their parents, and so on, and so on.

 

I certainly lost a lot of faith in humanity's supposed greatness, since at sixteen I seemed to be making more sense in my head then most of the planet was. I do have hope for the future though, a lot of progress is being made in Western culture. I used to get into flame wars but they just made angry so I stopped...wasn't worth pulling out my hair over someone being wrong on the internet.

[Legion]

Nutter please accept yourself. We live. We make mistakes. Hopefully we learn from them.

 

Welcome to ex-C.

 

Edit to add a bit more to this...

 

I think when we are angry with ourselves this can often result in depression. And I think excessive anger at anything can cloud our judgement.

[Deva]

Welcome to the forums, Nutter.

 

I am much less angry than just a few years ago, but I still sometimes struggle with a low self-image. I was raised Baptist and was not given any options as to whether or not I went to Church. It hard to apportion out the fault - my buying into it and my parents forcing it on me.

 

The difficulty I face now is in fully giving myself permission to go my own way. There is still this little preacher (or my parents) in my brain saying "you are hellbound if you don't believe, Jesus is the only way" - all that other crap.

 

At least I have made progress to the point that I understand the problem much more clearly.

 

I hope this forum helps you as much as it has me.

[Legion]

There is still this little preacher (or my parents) in my brain saying "you are hellbound if you don't believe, Jesus is the only way" - all that other crap.

Deva I think the phantom communities in our minds can be a real pain in the ass. I sometimes think that my life is an effort to resolve the many discordant “voices” in my mind.

[dB-Paradox]

They do say it takes two to believe a lie, and a part of me is still angry that I was taken in for most of my teenage life (I believed for MYSELF at 14 I deconverted at 19, just a few months short of 20 actually).

Try living 30 years in Christianity.

[Nutter]

Thanks for the posts everyone and the welcome.

 

And I do get the point about becoming that which I hate... again only on the different 'side'. I think a large part of me is angry due to playing lipservice to the lie and possibly spreading it further so I feel like I have to recify any potential damage. Thankfully, I don't think I was THAT convincing... all the same. It's a problem I have, but I hope to get through it. I should probably learn to pick my (on-line) battles. If I ever met the fifteen year old me, I'd want to punch her in the face, but that wouldn't help at all. I mean, who responds well to that kind of agression? I was never as outspoken in real life, but honestly, I did miss out on some friendships during my school days because of my beliefs.

 

Oddly though, almost all of my friends have eventually stepped away from religion. The first one in our old group to do it was my best friend at 16, oh hell how I was horrified at that. Kept trying to convert her at random moments for the last year and a bit of school.

 

Then I go to uni, and after SIX months, after some searching I finally admitted I no longer believed to myself:

 

"Umm.... yeah. Sorry about all that crap mate." (More or less what I said.)

 

People I guess come out of it at different times in their life. It just might take that 'spark'.

 

For me it was increased awareness of the fact other religions actually existed. I mean, I always KNEW they existed but... do you get what I'm saying? My friend more or less didn't ARGUE with me when she dropped it- and I guess I could say I'm grateful for that. But a part of me was wanting to say: Why didn't you argue with me? Might have done some good.

 

Then again, it might have made me push her away from fear. And that bothers me. She's a great friend and we're still in contact and if she HAD been more pushy, I could have lost her perhaps.

 

I'd feared the god of the OT to a degree even when I believed, and of course the belief of hell.

 

I eventually couldn't get how a just person could do that. Throw people in hell or kill them just for the crime of not believing. So I started reading the bible more, my biology study also helped.

 

I heard ALOT of students who drop christianity either do science courses... or theology alternatively. And I can see why. Nothing could make an ex-c faster than actually reading the entire book rather than simply listening to the preacher.