I went to church today

[PurpleLilac]

As I generally do,with my family. I was in good spirits and the elder who saw me and looked down only dampened them temporarily. 

My husband and I hold our school age children during the worship time and I tried to think about other things while the music played as I usually do. I’m not sure what the pastor said after them but I remember thinking “I hope my kids aren’t paying attention to this.” Then there was this baptism testimony thing and the woman said she was broken and could put all her sins on jesus and be clean. The terrible memories rose up to find me and my husband leaned over to whisper that my nervous foot kicking was shaking the pew. I didn’t take communion (I haven’t  in months) and for the first time,today the whole idea of blood and body just felt gross to me and extremely creepy and wrong. The children went to Sunday school. The sermon started. My heart was pounding and I told my husband I was going out to the lobby. I’ve spent a lot of hours there since April of last year. I wonder if my body knows it’s been nearly a year? Like a woman who grieves a miscarriage a year later. I sat in the lobby for a few minutes and then....couldn’t breathe. Stood up and stumbled out the door,gasping for air,air,air. The world spun,I sat under a tree. The outside worship music blared. “You have been so,so kind to me.”

I called my best friend,walked back to a picnic table where teens had scrawled verses and declarations about being pro life. 

Its time to take another long break from that place. I just can’t manage it any longer. 

[RealityCheck]

I went to church a few weeks ago (did it for a new friend I met).  The same old insecurities and negative emotions suddenly boiled to the surface.  I was especially disgusted when they had young children reciting bible verses by memory as they've effectively filled young developing minds with bullshit.  This friend ghosted when I quoted Jordan Peterson on my FB though.  I don't see it as a total negative experience though because sometimes I need to be reminded why I left religion in the first place.  I also needed to see that those typed of individuals can't be reasoned with.  I needed a.......reality check........

[nontheistpilgrim]

I went to church yesterday - to play the organ because I believe in people having a good time when they get together and music is an important part of that and I think I can make a contribution. (Whether they have an enjoyable time is perhaps debatable!)

This exercise of mine is getting more difficult as I reject almost all of what is said 'at the front'.

On the other hand, I have to say that the members of the church have respect for my views and that is important to me. This is shown most of all in the fact that I am not offered the bread and wine during communion - that really pleases me because they know I won't take it and do not wish to offend. Not all Christians are bad people - but what they believe is bad rubbish.

[older]

I rarely have to go but when there is no way out I just view it as some sort of theatrical performance. A comedy, farce, melodrama, Greek tragedy, whatever. Yeah, it bugs me to see the kids that get sucked into it, including some in my own family, but I can't control all that. But I can control how I interpret the show. More often than not it's just an absurd play with boring scenery and bad music.

[Insightful]

I'm so sorry PL.  Our family therapist talks about "traumaversary" being a real phenomenon.

 

I'm in a somewhat similar (but less intense) situation in which I attend to be with my believing wife.  But I have to be in a good place emotionally to be up for sitting through a sermon.  Like you, I try to not pay attention - accept for the funny illustrations/stories!  I skip communion.  On days when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed or discouraged, I skip service and hang out at the church's coffee shop (which has great coffee!)

 

I think that with time, the intensity of those PTSD type experiences should hopefully diminish.  Good for you to declare a break from church for now.  I'm glad you have sufficient voice and self-care!

 

 

[Derek]

I haven't attended a regular Sunday service in many years. The last time I went, I was still quite young, and someone in the congregation singled me out during their testimony. They turned the attention of the entire audience to me. That's not good for an introvert like me.  That sealed it ... I haven't attended a Sunday service anywhere since. That particular church has since closed down due to poor attendance...I wonder why lol....idiots. 

[Myrkhoos]

I wanted to say something similar, but this is just a great thread. I tried to go to church today, as I try and this priest, commenting on the parable of the paralytic near Bethesda who did not have anyone to thow him in the miracle water commented that he was just trying to find excuses and not accept his own responsability and blame. I just got out. What in the name of...blaming a paralytic because he cannot walk to the holy water that just heals one guy and one guy only from time to time? And today, a friend suggested going to a monastery I wanted to go for a long time and ask some honest questions. Even now I can feel the anxiety. Before, I thought these were the devils attacking and not letting me go to church. Guess what, even with all the prayer, communion and repetence and confession and excorcism rituals, those devils did not go away!  They were traumatised parts of myself. The level of anxiety and confusion is heart wrenching! Such cruelty as in the church of love and compassion I have seldom seen, such brainwashing and stupidiity in the church of the wise have I rarely experienced! And with such hipocrisy and pretensiousness! The absurdity, that feeling of a bad show and people just barely trying to hold it together on the promise of some future happiness...talk about phooey..The God that loves people with suffering! Take that, mister and figure that out! Such pain! Buddhists and atheists have been nicer to me. The guilting, the shaming, the scaring, the broken promises, the cognitive dissonance and bullshit, the getting everything you want from the bible, it is just astounding! I have developped such a radar and mistrust of ideology wherever it may rear its ugly head, from politics to lgbt, to muslims, to christians, to therapy, to everywhere. Stop deceiving me! I want to cry in front of the world, stop deceiving me, stop pressuring me , stop forcing me, stop making me believe aburd things, stop thought policing me, stop loving me like a rapist loves his victim and an abusive husband loves his wife! Christianity may be true, but this image of God, as an insecure abusive psycho seems the dream of a traumatised infant who later became an abusive narcissist. He commands you to love him for crying out loud! Commands you! And if you do not, he sends you to Hell. I cannot even stand this God, this criminal who is supposed to have created me just to please him...Zeus seems to be a good guy, and he also had a half man half god son, Hercules. 

 

I am so afraid, than when I see a priest, I flinch. I have been so abused and misued and even exploited by some priests, no wonder. I cam in the Church confided and afraid and alone, hoping to escape from a dreary and hyocritical consumerist society and family issues, and got more confused, more afraid, more alone, more close to hypocrisy and personal issues. My problems deepened and worsened exponentially, the did no heal.  When I hear Christianity or Christian I just get nervous, like my body reacting automatically. It seems a lot of modern christianity has nothing to do with the weak and the sick, and a whole lot with empty talk  and petty illusion and gratifications. Like giving some orphans some cake on Christimas. Good, now you can go back to your pretty comfortable family while the other people are taken care of by God...but those orphans can fight over those cakes right then. Such lack of reality.  Dissapointed and hurt from the core of my being! Just cannot take the obvious stupidity! Like a priest hailing a miracle, when another priest after an accident that left him paralyzed for six months and with pain and a lot of depression, got magically healed , almost totally, during a service! Where was that God BEFORE? he let him torment himself and then acted? That is a sign of a mercy? He could have done anything, and waited six months? What the fuck? This is supposed to convince me?My God....the sheeple. Is it innocence or just plain self delusion? hard to tell.