I am getting serious flashbacks and terrors

[yunea]

Hi all,

 

It's beginning to look a lot like the season when I began to lose my faith, some years ago. What was it, four years? Yes, four years, and a very lonely year from the first days, I joined Ex-C.

 

It had nothing to do with the season itself, Christmas and New Year. I really wouldn't care to remember it, but there's been this and that, random triggers and whatnot. A general anxiety had been building up for two weeks, and this chain of events finally left me in my recliner last night, quivering from head to toe, hearing myself cry out in my thoughts "Jesus come back to me RIGHT NOW, I am dying without you!" and another thought responding, "He won't, he can't, he never will because he's not real". It hurt like hell. I was in pain from head to toe and I was full of the very terror I felt the day I realised things regarding my religion were not what I had thought. 

 

I did all I could to not wake up anyone else and tip toed to the kitchen with my phone, and sat in the Ex-C Chat until the quivering and panicking slowly stopped thanks to the reassurances of people who were around. No rush of peace and light in my heart, no comforting visions, not even the old familiar sensation of big hands landing over me that I now know is a nice little hallucination I used to get. Just some understanding people who sat with me for as long as I needed it most, and a bad attempt at sleeping afterwards, but the new day did eventually dawn. Today I pampered myself with yet another new pet snail and dinner with my boyfriend. Both were amazing distractions and I laughed a lot, momentarily forgetting the feeling that someone is sitting down on my chest, pressing it down, making it hard to breathe.

 

But really, it's four years on, and now I get terrors like that. I didn't get much anxiety about my deconversion for a long time after the initial turmoils and the catastrophic events last year with one single more visit to a Pente church, but now it looks like there might be a lot more to come.

 

It's just, uh, it seems embarrassing! Like I should be over it already.  

 

Then again my dissociative tendencies have made me effectively not deal with everything. I have separated a lot of this anxiety from the version of me who goes about the daily life, but it can't stay bottled up forever, no matter how much I wish it would just go away and be over and done with. 

 

You might remember another earlier thread or two where I let my alter, Nora, speak. For those not familiar with dissociation, alters are like different versions of me with thought processes of their own, and they can take over my body and act out. Sometimes it's by permission, sometimes they just force it.

She was the last one who was explicitly Christian when the rest of me was already agnostic or atheist, and now she is the one who my mind has assigned to take this pain from me and hide it because it's still so hard to admit that it really was me making all those terrible choices and then facing the horror of losing the faith, but the hiding is not working anymore/right now. She actually disappeared for months after she last wrote here, but she is back at my surface, filling my mind with images from before and after the house of cards came tumbling down, and hitting herself over still missing the bliss of having the Creator of the Universe look out for her despite knowing it's a lie. I was contemplating letting her type here instead but she really is too embarrassed to. 

 

I think she spoke out loud last night, though, right before the anxiety attack. I was talking with my boyfriend, and I heard myself say these things, surprised that they came out this strongly:

 "Nothing has taken the place in my life that religion had"

"Guidance was always the most important thing to me. That there is someone looking out for me."

To the latter, my bf said, "Ain't it sad though, that there was no one human around to give you the good advice you needed?"

Again I heard myself say, "Yeah... I was thinking that since my god knew everything about me already, I didn't have to truly open up to anyone human."

 

I've been learning what real honesty and intimacy with other people is. It's been a terrifying but also rewarding ride. But it's true, I see it now, now that I said it out loud and listened to myself. Nothing is as important to me as religion was. And I avoided intimacy with people by focusing on my (perceived) intimacy with my god.

 

I can see a whole lot of good changes in myself since deconverting. In general I'm much happier and much more honest with myself. My therapy wouldn't be as effective if I still held on to the belief that the presences I feel in my mind are Jesus and angels. But right now I'm scared of getting more of the anxiety attacks, they're even physically exhausting.

I don't know what I'm looking for with this thread, but I advocate being open about the quirks and troubles of the mind so I guess there's that.

 

Maybe it's depressing for someone to hear that this can take years. If so, I can only say that everyone's path is individual and no one can tell you exactly how yours will be like.  

 

Maybe someone out there , someone who's also already thought they're over it but turns out they aren't, feels a little less lonely knowing they're not the only one. 

 

(For the record, I have tranquilizers. But those are only temporary relief. I could call a helpline but I don't think any are open at nights here for those recovering from religion. I have a very good therapist who is an expert in what exactly I have (dissociative disorder, a lot like DID but without bad blackouts) but currently I really cannot afford to see her but once for the rest of the year, and she won't help for free in any way, not in writing or phonecalls, and I'm not allowed to call her at nights anyway. I do live almost next door to a hospital though and I know I can get myself admitted in there if I can't handle this.)

[Positivist]

Hi yunea!

 

Wow that’s brutal!!! For me I find the grief associated with loss comes in waves. I’ve been out of Koolaid Land for a decade now and I still get smacked upside the head now and then with flashbacks. 

 

I think religion is like an illicit drug—flashbacks can persist for years after the drug was last consumed. 

 

Do you have a good therapist?

 

(((Hugs)))

[yunea]

Thanks Positivist! Though I'm sorry that you too are dealing with flashbacks. I saw in another thread how you compared deconversion to still finding old dust bunnies despite having been cleaning up for so long, and while that's a brilliantly funny comparison, it's also so clear about the frustration. 

 

Yeah my therapist is good, her specialty is complex trauma and dissociation. Though for now I can't financially afford to see her.  She also had not dealt with religious trauma just like mine before, but months ago, I brought her Youtube videos that were a lot like the stuff I saw in Pente circles, and she worked with that. 

 

(((Hugs))) back!! 

[Positivist]

8 hours ago, yunea said:

...like the stuff I saw in Pente circles...

Pentecostalism fucked me up so bad. I rue the day I got sucked into it!!!!!

[Geezer]

5 hours ago, Positivist said:

Pentecostalism fucked me up so bad. I rue the day I got sucked into it!!!!!

 

That is one of the groups I think is a rung or two above the Church of Christ when it comes the legalism and just plain crazy beliefs and traditions. 

[LogicalFallacy]

Hey Yunea, sorry about you getting flashbacks and anxiety. I don't feel there's much I can do to help other than offer support.

 

Despite my long indoctrination with some fairly shitty doctrines I've come out of it ok... I guess we are all affected, but certainly not to the same degree.

 

Wishing you the best, and hope these attacks will stop in time.

 

LF

[Margee]

Hun, I'm so sorry you are facing some triggers. They will come and go. It gets a bit better with time. I'm at least 10 years into it and I can still get triggered. Right now, when I'm out in a store shopping and I hear songs like, ''Away in The Manger'' I can literally start crying. I calmly make my way to the washroom so no one will know about my sadness. Even the new worldviews that are discussed here on Ex-c can trigger me because in many ways I still think a lot like a christian would and can barely accept what some people believe now as a non-beliver. But I must keep open-minded, so I go away for awhile and think about it. I find ''new worldviews'' sometimes hard to accept. For instance, let me give you an example. I still don't know what I believe about abortion??? I can see 2 sides of that issue but I still don't know how I really feel? See what I mean? There's more to deconversion than just letting go of old beliefs. It forming new worldviews. That's hard to do when you've been indoctrinated by the church with only following ''gods ways''..

 

So old stuff and new stuff can still trigger me. You are so not alone! Keep posting sweetheart!

 

Big ((hug))

[Lost]

yunea and Margee...You both are girls to whom I can relate on this forum. You both are filled with complicated feelings and thoughts like me. LOVE You both  HUGS

 

 

[yunea]

I want to once more give my sincere thanks for the replies and I'm sorry for replying slow myself. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed I can't put anything to words, and I just sit here reading your comforting words, wishing I could say something back. 

 

Anyway, after returning home from seeing some relatives over Xmas, I am again finding myself wishing I had the Rock of Ages to fall back on. I am jealous of the joy unspeakable and peace that passes understanding that they speak about. 

 

At least my therapy is officially continuing this week. That should help a lot with my feelings of insecurity.