Concepts of sin are ingrained in me, even though I don't believe it anymore!

[Faeryn]

Hi all, 

 

Bit apprehensive about this, but eh, I need to start somewhere.

 

I'm in psychotherapy and going though my (attempt at the...) deconversion process. 

 

It isn't going well so far, but to be fair I'm only just realizing the sheer extent of how Christianity messed with my development as a child-teen, so I guess it could be worse: I could not be in therapy at all, and I could still be a Christian, but I'm not. Although, I feel as though I've had Christian views and morals barcoded into my psyche, and it's like I can't get them out no matter how much I intellectually know otherwise. These "views" and "morals" have significantly impacted me, my relationships, and my life for the worse. 

 

One of the biggest things I remember being taught as a child  - "If you even think of something sinful, in god's eyes, that is JUST AS punishable with Hell as if you actually carried that action out in real life".

 

As a result, I near-obsessively repented as a teenager, for experiencing "impure thoughts", and come to the realization that I am bisexual. I experienced maddening shame, fear, humiliation and loss of love from my mother alone because of it. I felt that my own family hated me, and that I couldn't even have love from god because of how sinful I was. I also started to believe that if my boyfriend so much as LOOKED at a woman and found her attractive, not only has he cheated on me just the same as if he had sex with her in real life, (if god himself thinks he has cheated, why should I believe any differently?), but that he displeased god. 

 

I'm 30 now, and I STILL experience severe jealousy if I even suspect that my boyfriend finds another woman attractive. Fortunately, I'm completely aware of how messed up this is, and how unrealistic and unhealthy it is, so I've just been fighting this issue for over a decade. For some reason it's taken me so long to even realize that Christianity is not only to blame for this, but for an enormous amount of my psychological issues. If you're taught that you're going to a place called hell for eternity because you looked at someone and thought they were attractive, how is that not going to affect a developing person? 

 

I'm uncomfortable with my own sexuality, and I'm uncomfortable with the sexuality of my partner. 

I don't want to be. I KNOW what's natural and what isn't. I know there's nothing wrong with being bisexual, straight, or whatever, but there's it's like there is just NO shifting this nonsense from my mind. 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

8 hours ago, Faeryn said:

Hi all, 

 

Bit apprehensive about this, but eh, I need to start somewhere.

 

Hi Faeryn

 

Its good that you are able to start. I wonder how many people stay trapped in religion because they cannot quite bring themselves to "start somewhere". It takes courage.

 

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It isn't going well so far, but to be fair I'm only just realizing the sheer extent of how Christianity messed with my development as a child-teen,

 

I forget how long you've been devonverting... but I've been what I'd describe as devonverted for over a year and I am still realising how much of an impact fundamental Christian upbringing has on me, my thought processes etc. As I become aware of them I attempt to correct them. So I think it takes much longer than we'd think, or like, for this deconversion process to come to completion... if it ever does. But hang in there and in time things should get easier for you.

 

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One of the biggest things I remember being taught as a child  - "If you even think of something sinful, in god's eyes, that is JUST AS punishable with Hell as if you actually carried that action out in real life".

 

One of the horrors of New Testament Christianity - that thoughts, your most private and precious inner sanctum, where no person or government can intrude are subject to the judgement of God. Happily once you get to the point that you realise its all BS you feel much better.

 

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I don't want to be. I KNOW what's natural and what isn't. I know there's nothing wrong with being bisexual, straight, or whatever, but there's it's like there is just NO shifting this nonsense from my mind. 

 

Give it time. 30 years of indoctrination isn't going away overnight. You know there is nothing wrong, keep reminding yourself of this and in time it will replace the guilt as the go to thought.  (Basically what True Scotsman CBT does)

 

All the best and wishing you well

[Guest Ann]

Hi Faeryn,

 

The fear the "church" instilled in me lasted a long time. For years, I knew religion was BS but couldn't shake illogical feelings.  The fear of god the almighty was a biggie. I remember saying out loud (while I was alone;) many times "I don't believe in god, Jesus isn't real" and ultimately, "Fuck Jesus!"....then waited for god to strike me dead because I didn't believe it could happen, but felt it might. I'm still here..... Even today, I sometimes struggle with connecting my feelings to a "normal" or logical emotional response (I guess there is no such thing as a logical emotion, but I hope you get the gist...). I see myself as having two "sides." The "Vulcan" (logical) side and emotional side and sometimes ask myself if what I am feeling is logical and/or a healthy emotion. Humor also helps in the struggle as I laugh at myself because I don't ask "WWJD" but "WWSD" (what would Spock do).

Keep healing yourself...it gets better and you can break the cycle of jealousy along with the other feelings you don't want and know are unhealthy.

[ConsiderTheSource]

"Sin" is separation from ___________ (fill in your god/gods/great spaghetti monster here)

 

_______________ does not exist (well. Maybe GSM does).  And neither does any out of the world "hell" place.

 

So, "Sin" is meaningless.  

 

Yet, you are still a living caring person.  You get to decide what rules substitutes for "sin".  Some possibilities to consider:

 

Do no harm.

 

Give back.

 

Facts > ANY belief set.

 

It is good to express empathy.

 

Do anything and everything you want that does not DIRECTLY take away from or harm another.

 

Live.  Really live.  Everyday.  You only have a limited number of days to do so.  Make the most of them.

 

 

[bruisermel]

I very much feel for you with these struggles, please know you're not alone.  It sounds like you are on the right track. I want to offer encouragement to you and a few thoughts:

 

1) Take it easy on yourself. Have compassion for your young self and your self now and the difficulties and injustices you've been through to get to this point.  Be gentle with yourself through this process, not beating yourself up if you haven't gotten it quite right yet or aren't where you want to be.  

 

2) If you haven't already met with a psychiatrist I would consider it.  I know everyone is different and this could be way off base for your scenario, but some people who struggle for extensive periods of time with repetitive obsessive and obtrusive thoughts may have something else going on. For me it was ADHD and treatment has been pretty life changing. For others it may be OCD, anxiety, bipolar...   

[R_Collins]

Faeryn:

 

I was a 30 year old, confused ex-Christian not so long ago. Every person is different, but I believe that I understand some of the things that you are feeling. I would like to share with you some things that worked for me. 

 

First, Christianity appeals to a person's emotions, not their intellect. I'm sure this comes as no surprise to you, because you are feeling the cognitive dissonance that results from your rational mind telling you some things and your emotions telling you the exact opposite. That is actually a sign of progress. When you were a Christian, your emotions were in charge and your Christian leaders were constantly trying to deactivate the part of your mind that can actually think. 

 

Your emotional brain and rational brain are actually associated with structures that evolved at different times, millions of years apart. Emotions are more associated with the limbic system, which could be called your "dog brain" because it pretty much runs things in lower mammals. Your rational mind is more closely associated with your cerebrum. (This is an over-simplification, I know. If there are any neuroscientists watching, please understand that this over-simplification is due to space limitations.)

 

The point is that these two brain functions are very different. I used that knowledge to devise an effective treatment that worked for me. More on that in a minute. 

 

Second, you are experiencing classic symptoms of "hypervigilance", which is the state of being always afraid that some little detail is going to have catastrophic consequences. Hypervigilance often afflicts children who grow up in dysfunctional families (e.g., chemically dependent parents), because any little excuse can make the parent explode into an irrational and often violent rage of emotions. 

 

Based on your statements, your dysfunctional parent was Jesus Christ, who monitored your every thought and action, and threatened horrible consequences if you were not perfect in every way. 

 

My solution for both of these (rational vs dog brain, and hypervigilance) was conceptually very simple, but a lot of hard work to implement. I could see it start working almost immediately, but it took years for it to scrub all of the Christian dysfunction from my dog brain. 

 

I found out that I just had to slow down and make a conscious effort to keep my rational brain in gear at all times. The "slow down" part was very difficult because, after all, I was very hypervigilant. But it was essential to slow down, otherwise, I did not have time for the next step. 

 

The next step was to keep my rational mind consciously watching over my emotions. I found that the easiest way to do this was to be hypervigilant about rationally watching my emotions. Whenever my dog brain started replaying any of my old Christian dysfunctional thought processes, I'd mentally take a step back, tell myself "that's my dog brain at work", and then have a little mental dialogue between my dog brain and my rational brain about what I was feeling. 

 

I always made sure to try to determine how much of each individual dog brain thought was caused by my old dysfunctional Christian programming. That was an important data point in my mental dialogue. 

 

Sometimes the feelings were valid and my rational mind let my dog brain express itself. Sometimes the feelings were invalid and I let my rational mind ignore the feelings. Sometimes, there was give and take on both sides and my emotions ended up somewhere in the middle. 

 

The important thing was to slow myself down so that I could look at my thoughts, continually, all day every day. It was a LOT of work at first, and it was not always effective. But it is important to be gentle with yourself when things don't work, and just keep trying. Pretty soon, it got to be a habit and so it got a lot easier. 

 

As I said, I started to notice small improvements almost immediately, but the whole process took years before I had scraped all of that Christian dysfunctional thinking out of my dog brain. It was well worth the effort. 

 

One more thing. You said that your psychotherapy "isn't going well so far". It is very important for you to understand that good therapists/counselors are rare. After a month or two you should see at least a little progress. If not, find another counselor.

 

The only exception is if your therapist has any religious beliefs (even if they are not Christian). If so, find another counselor NOW. Religion caused the problems you are having. You don't want to trade one set of religious baggage for another. 

 

I hope this helps!!!

[midniterider]

On 11/21/2017 at 4:35 AM, Faeryn said:

One of the biggest things I remember being taught as a child  - "If you even think of something sinful, in god's eyes, that is JUST AS punishable with Hell as if you actually carried that action out in real life".

 

Yes, thought crime is total baloney. I eventually decided that if God really felt that Matthew 5:28 was legit then God must be an idiot. That's when I dumped Christianity.