Were You Happy Or Miserable As A Christian?

[Inqui]

Why would you think this? For many people there was nothing at all redeeming about Christianity, and it really was a miserable experience. Especially when you don't seek it out or choose it on your own, but rather have it crammed down your throat as a child by your parents.

 

Well, I guess you had to be there. That's pretty offensive. I'm glad you had a good time. Tell your story about why, that's the point.

 

But don't you dare tell the rest of us how wonderful it really was for us. That's completely out of line.

I was responding to merck's statement that I bolded. I didn't mean to imply that everyone had a great time in Christianity, but my point was to make an observation on another good reason why people keep making statements like "glad I don't have to think like that".

 

That said, going back over what I said and how anyone would read it, it was a stupid thing to say. I can't redact the original post and while I didn't mean to offend, I will take accountability for what I said. If you guys or anyone else wants to take it up with me over PM, I encourage you to do so.

 

I know you didn't mean to offend, and I probably didn't have to be quite so, uh, forceful? I apologize too

 

Cheers

Nah, I think you were within your rights. It was a stupid thing of me to say (as I have a knack for doing) and I can see how you would have read it.

[Vigile]

I was miserable. I think that xianity is psychologically damaging. I don't even know where to start. The restriction and vilification of human sexuality. The unrealistic expectations. My mom used to tell me as a child that if you loved something too much God would get jealous and take it away from you. She also believes that God will cause bad things to happen to you to "bring you to your knees" and bring you closer to him. If I did something terrible to my child, I fail to see how that would make us have a closer relationship. If we parented our children the way God supposedly parents us, we would all have our children removed by social services. I remember living in fear as a child that something would happen to one of my stuffed animals or one of my pets because I loved it more than God. Then there is the whole Abraham being told to murder his son thing. How many kids lived in fear of their parents coming in to murder them in the middle of the night because God told them to, the way he told Abraham to kill Isaac?

 

Oh man oh man - do I ever hear you. I was afraid to want anything good. I was afraid to express how overwhelming my feelings were for my wife or my children, afraid I was committing idolatry. I was afraid to want more success. I was afraid to pursue my artistic endeavors without them being about Christ. I felt I was hiding from god, disobeying him. And I was afraid I was going to lose things - I was going to be taught a lesson. What kind of love keeps you on the knife-edge of fear?

 

No kind of love.

 

You poor guys really got the shit end of the stick. I was, fortunately, never taught this particular doctrine. It was certainly ok and even expected to love and enjoy that love with my xian upbringing.

[Inqui]

I note that the gentleman here, Inqui, is from New Zealand. That is one cool place! Anyway, perhaps the churches there are not as oppressive as they are in the USA, especially the south?

 

Southern religion in the USA, especially evangelicals and Baptists, is everywhere. And of you are not one of them--or at least a Catholic or Methodist--you are shunned. You keep your non beliefs to yourself. I read somewhere that being an atheist in the south is similar to being in the closet for the gays who were cruelly put there for years. Non Xians are talked about as very evil.

 

Does anyone else feel your location helped destroy your attitude toward religion? And the person who said religion forced on children makes them miserable, and is abusive is 100% correct. Nothing is scarier to a kid than thinking you are going to burn forever. That gave me nightmares for years because our home had been burned down when I was four. So hell was real, very real and terrifying. What happiness could I have drawn from church is beyond me. People were so nice in church, but could be very cruel to poor people. It hurt, because we were poor. I got out, but my sibling family members are still there. I don't understand that at all. Of course, the could be as much in the closet about athesim in the south as I was.

That's an excellent point, but I think you could go even more specific and talk about the people. One thing that put me off xtianity (and almost did two years before I actually left) was how smug the bretheren I knew were about saying that good people will be going to hell and how they deserve it without God.

[raoul]

I was miserable. I think that xianity is psychologically damaging. I don't even know where to start. The restriction and vilification of human sexuality. The unrealistic expectations. My mom used to tell me as a child that if you loved something too much God would get jealous and take it away from you. She also believes that God will cause bad things to happen to you to "bring you to your knees" and bring you closer to him. If I did something terrible to my child, I fail to see how that would make us have a closer relationship. If we parented our children the way God supposedly parents us, we would all have our children removed by social services. I remember living in fear as a child that something would happen to one of my stuffed animals or one of my pets because I loved it more than God. Then there is the whole Abraham being told to murder his son thing. How many kids lived in fear of their parents coming in to murder them in the middle of the night because God told them to, the way he told Abraham to kill Isaac?

 

Oh man oh man - do I ever hear you. I was afraid to want anything good. I was afraid to express how overwhelming my feelings were for my wife or my children, afraid I was committing idolatry. I was afraid to want more success. I was afraid to pursue my artistic endeavors without them being about Christ. I felt I was hiding from god, disobeying him. And I was afraid I was going to lose things - I was going to be taught a lesson. What kind of love keeps you on the knife-edge of fear?

 

No kind of love.

Both of these quotes from Rait. and Toon (abbreviations of names) are SSSOOOO on the mark! When Rait. says about god bringing you to your knees - I've lost count of the times I've heard that, many times in more subtle but still destructive ways. The phrase 'god chastens those he loves' comes to mind. My answer to that is 'well then, don't love me so much okay?'

 

And when Toon talks about the fear of pursuing one's endeavers, that also brings to mind the verses they brow beat people with like 'being dead in Christ' or 'he must increase while we must decrease', and so on. And the followers actually try to behave like this - putting everything behind their so called spirituality. I remember listening to this xtian radio program which is hosted by a guy I've been following off and on for over 20 years because I've been fascinated in his decline from what was a very good counseling ministry at one time to now just bible thumping, threatening, emphasis on hell, etc.

 

Anyway a guy called in to say how much he wished his wife was 'saved' like he was and how hard it is for him living with her being 'unsaved'. He ended his tale of woe by crying out "I love her almost as much as I just Jesus". I screamed out at the radio, while driving, "Oh what an idiot! I love my wife a hell of a lot more than I could love Jesus (I was still a believer at the time) because I KNOW my wife a hell of a lot better than him and I KNOW I can depend on my wife more than I could him".

 

I guess 'they' would call that idolatry right?

[Voice]

I was miserable. I think that xianity is psychologically damaging. I don't even know where to start. The restriction and vilification of human sexuality. The unrealistic expectations. My mom used to tell me as a child that if you loved something too much God would get jealous and take it away from you. She also believes that God will cause bad things to happen to you to "bring you to your knees" and bring you closer to him. If I did something terrible to my child, I fail to see how that would make us have a closer relationship. If we parented our children the way God supposedly parents us, we would all have our children removed by social services. I remember living in fear as a child that something would happen to one of my stuffed animals or one of my pets because I loved it more than God. Then there is the whole Abraham being told to murder his son thing. How many kids lived in fear of their parents coming in to murder them in the middle of the night because God told them to, the way he told Abraham to kill Isaac?

 

Dude, I still worry about that. My dad has an Abraham complex and I'm the oldest. He's made attempts.

[ToonForever]

I remember listening to this xtian radio program which is hosted by a guy I've been following off and on for over 20 years because I've been fascinated in his decline from what was a very good counseling ministry at one time to now just bible thumping, threatening, emphasis on hell, etc.

 

Okay, I have to ask who that is?

 

[thesadclown]

there were times when it made me miserable, but on the whole I was pretty happy with christianity. I was extremely miserable in the transitional period before and after losing my faith, but I'm getting better now.

[Suzy]

I was miserable. I think that xianity is psychologically damaging. I don't even know where to start. The restriction and vilification of human sexuality. The unrealistic expectations. My mom used to tell me as a child that if you loved something too much God would get jealous and take it away from you. She also believes that God will cause bad things to happen to you to "bring you to your knees" and bring you closer to him. If I did something terrible to my child, I fail to see how that would make us have a closer relationship. If we parented our children the way God supposedly parents us, we would all have our children removed by social services. I remember living in fear as a child that something would happen to one of my stuffed animals or one of my pets because I loved it more than God. Then there is the whole Abraham being told to murder his son thing. How many kids lived in fear of their parents coming in to murder them in the middle of the night because God told them to, the way he told Abraham to kill Isaac?

 

Dude, I still worry about that. My dad has an Abraham complex and I'm the oldest. He's made attempts.

 

WHAT????

[raoul]

I remember listening to this xtian radio program which is hosted by a guy I've been following off and on for over 20 years because I've been fascinated in his decline from what was a very good counseling ministry at one time to now just bible thumping, threatening, emphasis on hell, etc.

 

Okay, I have to ask who that is?

 

Wayne Monbleau - out of Sparta NJ. The show airs on WFIL radio from 11:30-12:30.

[expat674]

As I can look back on my time as a Xtian, I can see that I was very unhappy. The whole church/ xtianity thing in the UK is very, very class based, so if you do fit into the middle classes, then you never really feel as though you fit in. This was not just me, but my ex-wife also felt the same.

 

Add to this the immense guilt I used to feel after I felt or did anything sexual, and you have a recipe for depression and self-loathing.

[Chikirin]

I was very happy with Christianity when I was a child because it helped me deal with getting bullied by my dad and other people. I became less happy with it as I got older.

[Akheia]

I think I was very happy at first, when it was just the Boyfriend Jesus experience that fundies feed to sweet little teenaged girls. I really thought I'd found the angle, the magic answer that would fix everything going wrong in life--that all we had to do to fix the world was get on our knees and pray sincerely and God would come running to hug us and make us happy with presents. Sometimes nonbelievers threw me curveballs, but I genuinely thought that even if I didn't know the evidence they demanded, that it had to exist, or else how could anybody explain how deeply connected I felt to my new boyfriend? As time went on, Boyfriend Jesus got more and more demanding. He demanded I stop cutting my hair, told me I looked like a whore with makeup on, and informed me that proper ladies wore skirts and not jeans. He demanded I spend so much time with him that my parents got alarmed and friends slowly cut ties--I can't blame them; he was all I could really talk about and likely they got a little tired of hearing about it when they could see that he wasn't actually that good to me. I began to wonder if maybe I was trying to convince myself more than them in how I constantly tried to "sell" my boyfriend to them.

 

But the abuse only escalated. My formerly attentive Boyfriend Jesus ignored me constantly, and when he did communicate with me, it felt like a constant stream of abuse. He didn't shower me with his presence anymore, but instead had me leaping through hoops to try to get even a glimpse of him. Every so often he'd apologize and hug me again and all would be awesome until the next round of punishment and ignoring began. I lived for those honeymoon moments, and my life became this topsy-turvy roiling sea of self-doubt and indecision. He always spent time with that other girl--what was she doing differently? He never seemed to yell at that one--how was she currying this special treatment? He gave me a husband who everybody said was just wonderful, but he really, REALLY wasn't; was it a message? Was I supposed to fix him? Or was I supposed to simply endure? And he demanded, of course, that I not love this abusive, controlling husband more than him, because he was the most important thing ever in my life. That wasn't so hard, but it seemed pretty unreasonable as a demand. Was Boyfriend Jesus really that totally insecure that he couldn't hear of his various lovers having other important things in their lives? And I began to pay more attention to the threats he made regarding those who didn't love him, and wondered why Boyfriend Jesus had to make such crazy threats. I'd thought he was loving--so why was he acting so unloving?

 

Finally I realized that I'd become a ghost of my former self in trying to please this tin-god of a tyrant, and that all the promises he'd made at the beginning of our relationship were false. The evidence I thought would eventually materialize proved impossibly elusive; the curveballs had finally hit home. I finally began to see just how cruel and controlling Boyfriend Jesus really was. One fine Sunday I woke up from a sound sleep and realized that I didn't have to go to church. I could just say "no" and let my abusive husband go without me. Nobody could make me. And I didn't give a rat's ass anymore what anybody, even the husband, thought about my absence. I haven't looked back or had second thoughts since dumping Boyfriend Jesus.

[mcdaddy]

I think I was very happy at first, when it was just the Boyfriend Jesus experience that fundies feed to sweet little teenaged girls. I really thought I'd found the angle, the magic answer that would fix everything going wrong in life--that all we had to do to fix the world was get on our knees and pray sincerely and God would come running to hug us and make us happy with presents. Sometimes nonbelievers threw me curveballs, but I genuinely thought that even if I didn't know the evidence they demanded, that it had to exist, or else how could anybody explain how deeply connected I felt to my new boyfriend? As time went on, Boyfriend Jesus got more and more demanding. He demanded I stop cutting my hair, told me I looked like a whore with makeup on, and informed me that proper ladies wore skirts and not jeans. He demanded I spend so much time with him that my parents got alarmed and friends slowly cut ties--I can't blame them; he was all I could really talk about and likely they got a little tired of hearing about it when they could see that he wasn't actually that good to me. I began to wonder if maybe I was trying to convince myself more than them in how I constantly tried to "sell" my boyfriend to them.

 

But the abuse only escalated. My formerly attentive Boyfriend Jesus ignored me constantly, and when he did communicate with me, it felt like a constant stream of abuse. He didn't shower me with his presence anymore, but instead had me leaping through hoops to try to get even a glimpse of him. Every so often he'd apologize and hug me again and all would be awesome until the next round of punishment and ignoring began. I lived for those honeymoon moments, and my life became this topsy-turvy roiling sea of self-doubt and indecision. He always spent time with that other girl--what was she doing differently? He never seemed to yell at that one--how was she currying this special treatment? He gave me a husband who everybody said was just wonderful, but he really, REALLY wasn't; was it a message? Was I supposed to fix him? Or was I supposed to simply endure? And he demanded, of course, that I not love this abusive, controlling husband more than him, because he was the most important thing ever in my life. That wasn't so hard, but it seemed pretty unreasonable as a demand. Was Boyfriend Jesus really that totally insecure that he couldn't hear of his various lovers having other important things in their lives? And I began to pay more attention to the threats he made regarding those who didn't love him, and wondered why Boyfriend Jesus had to make such crazy threats. I'd thought he was loving--so why was he acting so unloving?

 

Finally I realized that I'd become a ghost of my former self in trying to please this tin-god of a tyrant, and that all the promises he'd made at the beginning of our relationship were false. The evidence I thought would eventually materialize proved impossibly elusive; the curveballs had finally hit home. I finally began to see just how cruel and controlling Boyfriend Jesus really was. One fine Sunday I woke up from a sound sleep and realized that I didn't have to go to church. I could just say "no" and let my abusive husband go without me. Nobody could make me. And I didn't give a rat's ass anymore what anybody, even the husband, thought about my absence. I haven't looked back or had second thoughts since dumping Boyfriend Jesus.

 

Wow. That's insightful, Ak. Thanks for sharing.

 

I hope bf Jesus never copped a feel.

[raoul]

I think I was very happy at first, when it was just the Boyfriend Jesus experience that fundies feed to sweet little teenaged girls. I really thought I'd found the angle, the magic answer that would fix everything going wrong in life--that all we had to do to fix the world was get on our knees and pray sincerely and God would come running to hug us and make us happy with presents. Sometimes nonbelievers threw me curveballs, but I genuinely thought that even if I didn't know the evidence they demanded, that it had to exist, or else how could anybody explain how deeply connected I felt to my new boyfriend? As time went on, Boyfriend Jesus got more and more demanding. He demanded I stop cutting my hair, told me I looked like a whore with makeup on, and informed me that proper ladies wore skirts and not jeans. He demanded I spend so much time with him that my parents got alarmed and friends slowly cut ties--I can't blame them; he was all I could really talk about and likely they got a little tired of hearing about it when they could see that he wasn't actually that good to me. I began to wonder if maybe I was trying to convince myself more than them in how I constantly tried to "sell" my boyfriend to them.

 

But the abuse only escalated. My formerly attentive Boyfriend Jesus ignored me constantly, and when he did communicate with me, it felt like a constant stream of abuse. He didn't shower me with his presence anymore, but instead had me leaping through hoops to try to get even a glimpse of him. Every so often he'd apologize and hug me again and all would be awesome until the next round of punishment and ignoring began. I lived for those honeymoon moments, and my life became this topsy-turvy roiling sea of self-doubt and indecision. He always spent time with that other girl--what was she doing differently? He never seemed to yell at that one--how was she currying this special treatment? He gave me a husband who everybody said was just wonderful, but he really, REALLY wasn't; was it a message? Was I supposed to fix him? Or was I supposed to simply endure? And he demanded, of course, that I not love this abusive, controlling husband more than him, because he was the most important thing ever in my life. That wasn't so hard, but it seemed pretty unreasonable as a demand. Was Boyfriend Jesus really that totally insecure that he couldn't hear of his various lovers having other important things in their lives? And I began to pay more attention to the threats he made regarding those who didn't love him, and wondered why Boyfriend Jesus had to make such crazy threats. I'd thought he was loving--so why was he acting so unloving?

 

Finally I realized that I'd become a ghost of my former self in trying to please this tin-god of a tyrant, and that all the promises he'd made at the beginning of our relationship were false. The evidence I thought would eventually materialize proved impossibly elusive; the curveballs had finally hit home. I finally began to see just how cruel and controlling Boyfriend Jesus really was. One fine Sunday I woke up from a sound sleep and realized that I didn't have to go to church. I could just say "no" and let my abusive husband go without me. Nobody could make me. And I didn't give a rat's ass anymore what anybody, even the husband, thought about my absence. I haven't looked back or had second thoughts since dumping Boyfriend Jesus.

What you just described is applicable for many of us including males like me! Thanks for sharing. Quick question which you don't have to answer if you're uncomfortable but, did you get rid of the abusive husband? I only ask because I hope you no longer have that horrific problem.

[blackpudd1n]

It's kind of difficult for me to say whether I was happy or not at the time.

 

Christianity was all I'd ever known. It was what I considered normal. I had never known or experienced anything else, so I had nothing else to compare it to. However, I will say that I bought into the whole idea that anyone who didn't have the christian god in their lives was miserable. Whatever I felt in christianity, I thought it was better than what anyone who was outside of christianity was feeling. I couldn't comprehend how anyone who was not a christian could not be happy. As far as I was concerned, they knew they needed god. That's why they were unhappy. Realistically, I had no concept of what happiness actually was as a christian.

 

Now that I am an atheist, I have had the opportunity to experience real contentment, happiness, and joy. I am definitely happier now than I was when I was a christian. But when I was a christian, I didn't know any different. So it's not really a question that I can actually answer.

[Carolorado]

Oh, wow. I luckily escaped the 'Jesus as your boyfriend' thing because he wasn't nice to me, I had to take his stuff from day one. However, it really sounds like god does abuse people emotionally as much as a human partner. I hurt for those of you who went through that.

 

What is very interesting is the themes running through here, let me see if I can capture them, and one or more seem to apply to all:

1) Jesus is boyfriend

2) people are were nice in church but indifferent to mean outside of church

3) Think differently and speak about it, and sooner or later you will be gone from the church or conform

4) every Sunday, perhaps millions of people are miserable, but most do nothing about it

5) class matters in church, it sounds that everyone is separated by their own kind, and/ or you are looked down on for not being wealthy enough

6) The ultimate sinner is an atheist or pagan or doubter. Worse than other religions. Doesn't matter if you are the kindest, most giving person alive, if you are not a xian, you are going to hell.

7) No matter how much you pray, witness or tithe, it always fails in the eyes of biblegod. So you are still going to hell.

8) different areas have different 'churchyness' but not any of them live up to what is expected of us.

9) many, many churches are very cruel and many more abuse children. Some of those kids feel power from God allows them to be mean to those who believe different

10) we all know good people who go to church, and there are some positive churches. But these seem to be for either comfort or company and even the most caring ministers are using a book that, when read, makes a thinking human want to run from their god. These few people tend not to be so judgmental.

 

Did I miss anything? Kind of interesting to me to see the different reasons we all got out of there.

[Akheia]

McD, there was this one time when I was going to sleep and heard an honest to dog voice in my head that said, "You are the bride of Christ." This was pretty early on in my fundiehood so it freaked me the fuck OUT. I talked to the pastor and he said that all Christians were the bride of Christ. I'd been envisioning being the woman in Revelations or something. It was genuinely worrisome. Being the physical honest to goodness wife of Jesus was an unnerving idea. I thought I was going to have to dump my RL boyfriend! Sorry honey, I've met someone else... Now I realize I probably heard the phrase somewhere and it'd stuck in my subconscious.

 

Raoul, absolutely I did get rid of the abusive husband. He stalked and physically threatened me for a year or two but finally got married to a nice Southern Baptist girl, which ended his fixation on me at least. Last I saw, he is still a preacher and is often invited to "share his (totally fucking fake) testimony" with unwitting churches. (I keep a bit of an eye on him because I live in an area he'd once spoken of moving to, but so far he's stayed in the Deep South in a tiny town most notable for being where an abortion-clinic terrorist holed up for some time... and yes, I do wonder if my Evil Ex helped him out.)

[Voice]

I was miserable. I think that xianity is psychologically damaging. I don't even know where to start. The restriction and vilification of human sexuality. The unrealistic expectations. My mom used to tell me as a child that if you loved something too much God would get jealous and take it away from you. She also believes that God will cause bad things to happen to you to "bring you to your knees" and bring you closer to him. If I did something terrible to my child, I fail to see how that would make us have a closer relationship. If we parented our children the way God supposedly parents us, we would all have our children removed by social services. I remember living in fear as a child that something would happen to one of my stuffed animals or one of my pets because I loved it more than God. Then there is the whole Abraham being told to murder his son thing. How many kids lived in fear of their parents coming in to murder them in the middle of the night because God told them to, the way he told Abraham to kill Isaac?

 

Dude, I still worry about that. My dad has an Abraham complex and I'm the oldest. He's made attempts.

 

WHAT????

 

Yes. It keeps me on guard. I'm faster than he is, and sharper. Just have to watch my back. I'd take him out if he tried again. He's flipped 3 times, I was the target one of those times. Another brother was one of the other times.

[ToonForever]

I was miserable. I think that xianity is psychologically damaging. I don't even know where to start. The restriction and vilification of human sexuality. The unrealistic expectations. My mom used to tell me as a child that if you loved something too much God would get jealous and take it away from you. She also believes that God will cause bad things to happen to you to "bring you to your knees" and bring you closer to him. If I did something terrible to my child, I fail to see how that would make us have a closer relationship. If we parented our children the way God supposedly parents us, we would all have our children removed by social services. I remember living in fear as a child that something would happen to one of my stuffed animals or one of my pets because I loved it more than God. Then there is the whole Abraham being told to murder his son thing. How many kids lived in fear of their parents coming in to murder them in the middle of the night because God told them to, the way he told Abraham to kill Isaac?

 

Dude, I still worry about that. My dad has an Abraham complex and I'm the oldest. He's made attempts.

 

WHAT????

 

Yes. It keeps me on guard. I'm faster than he is, and sharper. Just have to watch my back. I'd take him out if he tried again. He's flipped 3 times, I was the target one of those times. Another brother was one of the other times.

 

Sounds like the man needs to be institutionalized.

[norton65ca]

fuckin' 'ell, that's a bit much.

[hereticzero]

I was miserable, depressed, and considered suicide. My life now is much more fun. Outwardly, everything looked like things were going great, but inside my head and heart, nothing but depression.

[Reprobate]

I had some good times while on the pentecostal high, but when the crash comes it comes hard. Overall I was miserable and insecure.

[Edie]

In many ways, I was happy. The rules for living were clear, I was cosseted from the big scary world, any unhappiness seemed insignificant in the scale of an eternity in heaven, my life was all planned out, I was to marry young and produce many children. I was told I had a special faith, I was surrounded by people who respected me and wanted to spend time with me.

 

But there was a heavy burden of guilt and a fear that I would be outed as having unfaithful, sinful thoughts. But I didn't realise there were other options at the time. I thought it was only natural and right to feel this way.

 

Overall I'm happier now, but it hasn't been plain sailing and there are things I miss.

[openpalm45]

Its interesting... In some ways I was happy, because I was so convinced that what I believed was the truth, and that seeking God would bring me freedom and joy. But yet I continued to struggle with depression, and felt incredibly unfulfilled. I was working so hard towards something that I believed would get me somewhere, but felt l was going absolutely nowhere. If anything, I was digging myself a hole. I was allowing myself to be brainwashed, and it was so psychologically damaging. It wasn't until the end that I realized Christianity was doing me more harm than good, which is what caused me to really doubt, for the first time in my life (and shortly thereafter, deconvert). I had read so many Christian books, and desired to be the woman God had created me to be. But instead I was damaged. Damaged by shame. Damaged because I felt like I could never really be myself. I was trying so hard to change myself into the "perfect Christian woman", and over time, I faded away. I was only allowed to keep some of myself, but anything that didn't seem godly enough was obviously wrong and not who God wanted me to be, so I changed it, completely convinced I was becoming more of who I was meant to be. Its been a difficult journey to get myself back. To create my own identity, and decide who I really am. To decide what I want to do, instead of trying to figure out God's will (which I was always waiting to find).

Christianity also kept me from establishing healthy boundaries with other people, namely my father. I thought I was supposed to be a light and a minister to him and my step mother, despite them putting me in dangerous and abusive situations. It wasnt until after 4 years of abuse, guilt, and manipulation that I could not emotionally handle it anymore and I was able to say "Dad, I cant be there for you like this anymore. Its too hurtful for me. I cant handle it..." (while crying). And then he proceeded to yell at me and tell me that I was being selfish and that I had a poor idea of what family should be.

So yeah.. I would say in Christianity, while I was happy sometimes, because I was so convinced it was the truth and I was striving for something worthwhile, it only hurt me and made me unhappy.

Christianity does offer answers to existential questions, all prepackaged and ready to go, which can take some anxiety away and is nice for some people, but I think that we need to struggle through those questions ourselves. Having them already answered for us takes away a great opportunity to grow, and learn about life and ourselves.

 

I have been deconverted for about a year now. And even though this last year has been incredibly difficult, at least I know I am really living my life and I am learning about who I am. I am making decisions. I am making changes. I am deciding who I want to be. This new freedom can be incredibly scary, but it gets easier, and it is so worth it.

[TrueFreedom]

Christianity also kept me from establishing healthy boundaries with other people, namely my father. I thought I was supposed to be a light and a minister to him and my step mother, despite them putting me in dangerous and abusive situations. It wasnt until after 4 years of abuse, guilt, and manipulation that I could not emotionally handle it anymore and I was able to say "Dad, I cant be there for you like this anymore. Its too hurtful for me. I cant handle it..." (while crying). And then he proceeded to yell at me and tell me that I was being selfish and that I had a poor idea of what family should be.

 

I'm so sorry to hear that, OP. The guilt, fear, and entitlement of that paradigm is really messed up. Unfortunately, this type of child/parent relationship is not unique to Christianity, but people find ways to reinforce it with scripture.

 

So, was Christianity my happy place? I don't remember whether or not I had responded on this thread, so I'll just say a definitive, "no." I had my ups and downs, which I am sure that I would have had even without supernatural belief, but the cognitive dissonance kept me in a perpetually traumatic state. We need time to recover from stressful situations. I rarely caught my breath as a Christian. Too much was always too wrong, either in "the world" or in my "belief system."

 

I'm still working toward a more peaceful existence, and I wish the same for all of you.