Is It Normal To Still Have Fear?

[Falloutdude]

I"m just wondering, recently, as many of you may know, i've been struggling with fears of the "what ifs" based on a single story. Obviously this doesn't substantiate the claims christianity makes, not sufficiently or even at all depending on perspective. That's not what i'm talking about in this post though, at least not the story specifically, rather the emotions that are left over from it

 

What i am talking about it whether or not the it is natural to STILL have fear with me even though i'm trying to just let go and accept i don't know, and can't accept hearsay as evidence? I mean like basically i'm trying to just let go, and say i can't go off of hearsay, but i still have a tinge of fear. I've had times where i had almost no fear, so i'm wondering if just letting go will work. If i do, is this fear part of the process still after all this time? Just accept it and don't try to fight it so hard? I'm not saying live in fear, but just go on and don't stress too much, will it go away?

 

Like playing my game/the depth of it's story, i enjoyed it before, when i absolutely wasn't scared of christianity/thinking about it, however now these thoughts are kind of in the back of my head. I feel....ok, but at the same time i was just wondering if this would get better, so it's kind of just...inhibiting to releasing fully.

 

This goes the same with learning and reading, my desire to read and enjoyment of learning is hindered by these fears.

 

Will these fears dissipate if i just don't feed the fear/obsess?

[chosendarkness]

Will these fears dissipate if i just don't feed the fear/obsess?

Yes, if you get away from everything Christian it will go away. It's garbage in, garbage out. That's also how I stopped having 'demonic' attacks at night, I just refused to think about evil spirits. I had to because it was getting out of control.

 

But I don't think the deeply ingrained belief goes away easy. It may take a long time, heck it took me around 4 years before the belief left. I guess I just had to get to the place where I was ready to let it go. I had to work it all out in my thoughts and keep doubting it all the time.

[stryper]

Sometimes the best thing to do fallout is to cut all ties with anything religious.

 

Get your head straight.

 

Then maybe reconnect with people if you can.

 

 

The first part before all of that is the realization of the truth. Part of you probably "enjoys", for lack of a better term, the fear. If every time you feel the fear happening, you just tell yourself to stop, then that would be a start.

 

It takes time to unlearn what you have learned. Imprinting sucks.

[Foxy Methoxy]

No. It's not normal. You're displaying OCD symptoms and using this site as an outlet for your compulsive fears. Get your mind together, man! You are only making yourself miserable. It is not normal to live in terror.

[midniterider]

I"m just wondering, recently, as many of you may know, i've been struggling with fears of the "what ifs" based on a single story. Obviously this doesn't substantiate the claims christianity makes, not sufficiently or even at all depending on perspective. That's not what i'm talking about in this post though, at least not the story specifically, rather the emotions that are left over from it

 

What i am talking about it whether or not the it is natural to STILL have fear with me even though i'm trying to just let go and accept i don't know, and can't accept hearsay as evidence? I mean like basically i'm trying to just let go, and say i can't go off of hearsay, but i still have a tinge of fear. I've had times where i had almost no fear, so i'm wondering if just letting go will work. If i do, is this fear part of the process still after all this time? Just accept it and don't try to fight it so hard? I'm not saying live in fear, but just go on and don't stress too much, will it go away?

 

Like playing my game/the depth of it's story, i enjoyed it before, when i absolutely wasn't scared of christianity/thinking about it, however now these thoughts are kind of in the back of my head. I feel....ok, but at the same time i was just wondering if this would get better, so it's kind of just...inhibiting to releasing fully.

 

This goes the same with learning and reading, my desire to read and enjoyment of learning is hindered by these fears.

 

Will these fears dissipate if i just don't feed the fear/obsess?

 

Everyone has fears. Whether it is "What if I am really denying God" or fear of losing your job, your house, your spouse, whatever. Christianity is an infection of the mind. Before I was a believer I considered the whole thing about Jesus to be baloney and with absolutely no fear at all. Then I allowed myself to be infected. People have a penchant for believing in imaginary beings anyway which could be likened to a naturally weak spiritual immune system. Christianity is like injecting fear directly into your mind and it may be difficult to get rid of. I still have fear now and then about God smiting me but I also have fears about other things in daily life as well. These thoughts like all thoughts come and then they go. My case against Christianity though, was not so much whether God or the whole religious ball of wax was real or fake, but mostly Christianity's pathological structure was interfering with how I wanted to live my life. I finally decided 'guilt and fear do not control me.' Fear might raise it's ugly head now and then, but it is a very tiny ugly head. I refuse to live under constant pressure of the fear of God. Christianity is a spiritual/mental/emotional disease engineered by mean people.

[Falloutdude]

No. It's not normal. You're displaying OCD symptoms and using this site as an outlet for your compulsive fears. Get your mind together, man! You are only making yourself miserable. It is not normal to live in terror.

 

Again i ask how i do this? It's not like i can just snap my fingers and make it go away, that is what this post was about. Asking whether or not just letting things slip away without paying attention to the fear or worries about god or christian "miracles" would result in them dissipating or just coming back to bite me later. Preferably from someone who knows what this is like.

 

 

Well when i say "normal" i'm asking if it'll get better by itself/if i just try to move on, not so much if it's normal in that everyone has these fears. I know it's not "normal" to live in terror, then again normal is more an ideal than a reality. But that's beside the point.

 

 

 

 

 

[Falloutdude]

Everyone has fears. Whether it is "What if I am really denying God" or fear of losing your job, your house, your spouse, whatever. Christianity is an infection of the mind. Before I was a believer I considered the whole thing about Jesus to be baloney and with absolutely no fear at all. Then I allowed myself to be infected. People have a penchant for believing in imaginary beings anyway which could be likened to a naturally weak spiritual immune system. Christianity is like injecting fear directly into your mind and it may be difficult to get rid of. I still have fear now and then about God smiting me but I also have fears about other things in daily life as well. These thoughts like all thoughts come and then they go. My case against Christianity though, was not so much whether God or the whole religious ball of wax was real or fake, but mostly Christianity's pathological structure was interfering with how I wanted to live my life. I finally decided 'guilt and fear do not control me.' Fear might raise it's ugly head now and then, but it is a very tiny ugly head. I refuse to live under constant pressure of the fear of God. Christianity is a spiritual/mental/emotional disease engineered by mean people.

 

Agreed, either that or god is one sick, fucked up bastard. As i've said before, sometimes it seems like life is a sick joke, and despite my morbid sense of humor, even i am not laughing. The joke being, you can't be happy as a christian, but if you don't be a christian you burn for eternity, even if you are a christian you are forced to be someone you're not, and worship someone for eternity, whom you fear. If you don't like it but are scared, you can't be happy anyways. The only way to live any kind of life is to not believe in anything to do with christianity.

 

I've heard many people say they ended up saying "fuck it" because they didn't want to live in fear. The only problem i have is when i try to say that i still worry about doing "bad things"

[Falloutdude]

Yes, if you get away from everything Christian it will go away. It's garbage in, garbage out. That's also how I stopped having 'demonic' attacks at night, I just refused to think about evil spirits. I had to because it was getting out of control.

 

But I don't think the deeply ingrained belief goes away easy. It may take a long time, heck it took me around 4 years before the belief left. I guess I just had to get to the place where I was ready to let it go. I had to work it all out in my thoughts and keep doubting it all the time.

 

Yeah i've been away from things that are christian for awhile, well, except from that story from an ex-C

[chosendarkness]

Yes, if you get away from everything Christian it will go away. It's garbage in, garbage out. That's also how I stopped having 'demonic' attacks at night, I just refused to think about evil spirits. I had to because it was getting out of control.

 

But I don't think the deeply ingrained belief goes away easy. It may take a long time, heck it took me around 4 years before the belief left. I guess I just had to get to the place where I was ready to let it go. I had to work it all out in my thoughts and keep doubting it all the time.

 

Yeah i've been away from things that are christian for awhile, well, except from that story from an ex-C

 

To be honest, I stayed away from it because I was mad as hell at it. Really I was mad at myself for how I treated people while I was a Christian, and wanted nothing to do with it. But even though I stopped going to church and being around Christians, the belief was still there. I found a place to vent my doubts and anger at Christianity, and I think that was the main factor in helping me deconvert, that along with time.

[Falloutdude]

To be honest, I stayed away from it because I was mad as hell at it. Really I was mad at myself for how I treated people while I was a Christian, and wanted nothing to do with it. But even though I stopped going to church and being around Christians, the belief was still there. I found a place to vent my doubts and anger at Christianity, and I think that was the main factor in helping me deconvert, that along with time.

 

I don't know, near the end, i was one of those christians who was more focused on empathy, listening, and trying to heal others. I really believed in compassion and treating others as you wish to be treated, at the same time there was always somewhat of a barrier to really connecting, because i mean, you can't sin, you can't experience the full spectrum of emotion. The thing is right now....right now i'm having more doubts about whether or not i'll be able to remain a non-christian. It's not fair....i just want the happiness and freedom everyone else here has had, that i once had, but now that seems like it will never happen...It's like....it's like i can't have what i want.....i can't be who i want and it literally makes me cry.

[chosendarkness]

To be honest, I stayed away from it because I was mad as hell at it. Really I was mad at myself for how I treated people while I was a Christian, and wanted nothing to do with it. But even though I stopped going to church and being around Christians, the belief was still there. I found a place to vent my doubts and anger at Christianity, and I think that was the main factor in helping me deconvert, that along with time.

 

I don't know, near the end, i was one of those christians who was more focused on empathy, listening, and trying to heal others. I really believed in compassion and treating others as you wish to be treated, at the same time there was always somewhat of a barrier to really connecting, because i mean, you can't sin, you can't experience the full spectrum of emotion. The thing is right now....right now i'm having more doubts about whether or not i'll be able to remain a non-christian. It's not fair....i just want the happiness and freedom everyone else here has had, that i once had, but now that seems like it will never happen...It's like....it's like i can't have what i want.....i can't be who i want and it literally makes me cry.

 

I would say just totally reject bible God and Jesus, be blasphemous and prove that you are an enemy of God. In other words, do something unpardonable that you can never come back from, so you could never return to Christianity even if you wanted to. I'm not saying to do something illegal or anything like that, but just 'cross the line'. Piss on the cross, wipe your ass with the bible, tell the holy spirit it's a fucking joke and to blow you. Tell satan you love him. Get an upside down cross tattoo. Pledge allegiance to satan and his demons. Whatever, just make a stand for yourself against your own brainwashing. It might freak you out at fist, feeling like you're in darkness away from god, but that will pass.

[DesertBob]

What i am talking about it whether or not the it is natural to STILL have fear with me even though i'm trying to just let go and accept i don't know, and can't accept hearsay as evidence? I mean like basically i'm trying to just let go, and say i can't go off of hearsay, but i still have a tinge of fear.

Fear of what, hell, I take it?

 

I think the staying power of that sort of fear is heavily dependent on your personal experience. Christianity has different hooks for different people. For whatever reason I seemed immune to the fear of hellfire but my need was to have everything explained and tied up in a nice tidy little package that guaranteed my life would be safe, stable, and happy if I did some simple things like not cuss, not chew, and not go with girls that do. I wanted a free pass on the pain and annoyance of living, essentially, and that is something Christianity (or at least my brand) promises very explicitly. So the pain I felt initially was not the doubt that maybe they just might be even partially right about my eternal destiny; it was the pain that the universe doesn't give two shits about me or my life or my needs and certainly not my wants. As infantile as that sounds, that was my issue.

 

Other people have other primary losses -- the loss of the sense of community or meeting of their social needs, an attachment to ritual or music, or what have you.

 

At any rate, I guess what I'm saying is my need for life to be a rational proposition and your need to be reassured that you won't be punished are reflections of our personal vulnerability that the church was able to hook into, not anything to do with the church itself as such. We were like that from a very young age, likely, if not from birth, and that's not going to change just because we leave the church. What we need to do is find healthier, better adjusted, more reality-based ways to deal with our needs. The only issue with the church is to extricate ourselves from the ways the church reinforced our dependency on it for its faux comforts, but really, the root of everything is to own our personal problems as our own maladjustments rather than seeing ourselves as helpless victims of the church with no role in our own issues. That is the first step towards healing. If we're not helpless victims then we have the ability to rise above it, to do something about it.

 

It would be helpful to have yourself evaluated and get an objective medical diagnosis. Then you can deal with OCD or generalized anxiety disorder or some neutral label in a systematic way rather than this nebulous hand-wringing fear of burning in hell which is just a manifestation of the real problem rather than the problem itself. Perhaps you had shaming, blaming parenting who withheld approval and never affirmed you, for instance. That is the stuff you have to sort out, and the religious hooks will release of their own accord.

 

In my case I've mostly handled it by manning up and letting life be what it is and quit force-fitting into something it refuses to be. I had wasted an awful lot of energy on trying to modify the story arc of my life. If only my first wife weren't a raving lunatic. If only my second wife could get physically well. If only this, that and the other thing beyond my control. Screw it. There is very little within my control and what I can control is actually about all I can really handle anyway. You have to find this kind of aha moment for yourself, or else you have to get help from someone else to get you un-stuck.