A letter to my 16 year old self

[Eugene39]

Dear Eugene,

 

I'm now 47, and saw that someone had written a letter to their 16 year old self. It seems like a good idea, so here goes.

 

When you were 16, your sexuality had been spun as a possible pathway that could be the complete undoing of you, and you would burn in hell for eternity. You were taught that masturbation was a pathway to eternal damnation. You had been subjected to repeated sermons about hell during your formative years. The terrors you faced had never gone away. Then, your creator made you with feelings that by simply expressing them, they could send you to hell. You really internalized this, and after so many defeats with the battle against masturbation, you felt like the best solution was to end your life, since you were going to hell anyway. Might as well kill yourself and get there sooner than later. In fact, why not kill yourself like Judas did, because in your very depressed state, you believed that you had also failed the Lord and would never be able to be pure enough to make it to heaven. You would fail sometime, and God would kill you, and in such a manner as to ensure that everyone would know that the power of sexuality had won, and everyone would know that you were in hell. So you looked for something that could serve as a gallows, and noticed that the barn next door had a wooden beam across it, and there was a rope in the attic. You would be able to kill yourself at a moment's notice. Interestingly enough, the knowledge that there was a way out would be what would keep you alive.

 

So thirty-one years later, what would I tell myself?

 

Delve into the doubts that you are having about God, namely why would a loving God give someone a desire that could take them to hell. This was an desire that welled up from within yourself, with seemingly no satisfying it without expressing it. So Eugene, make a special note of this next sentence. Doubts about things that you are being told, are your friends. Cherish your new friend Doubt, keep him alive and treat him well. Doubt will lead you out of this situation. You will come to realize that your God that is treating you so horribly is nonexistent. With the realization that this God isn't there, this will lead you to understand that his threats of hell are also nonexistent. You will eventually understand that yes, your sexuality can be an enemy if you use it incorrectly. Casual, unprotected sex with strangers is a bad idea, but the sexual union that occurs between two people who deeply love and respect each other is almost, sorry for the pun, heavenly! You will eventually understand that you don't have to be married to express your sexuality. And by following doubt, you can eventually understand that maybe there never even was a Judas, or even...a Jesus? It's just a made up story so that a new religion would have stories of its origins.

 

Everything that I have mentioned up to this point has been completely intellectual. What about your 16 year old emotions? You are damaged...badly. You have been living in a world of completely conditional love. A God who loves you, but due to bad choices on your part, has to burn you in hell forever. I think you should understand the emotional damage done because when you weren't being beat over the head with hell, then it was about the rapture, and you would be an abandoned child in a wicked world while Armageddon approached, and then be cast into the lake of fire at the end of it all. Learn to love yourself as a person because you've never been allowed to experience that. Be with people who love themselves, people who are nonjudgmental and while realizing that we all make mistakes, it doesn't mean that you are a bad person that deserves to go to hell. It means you are human. And being human is good enough. You are not born desperately wicked. God didn't have to sacrifice his son for you. There isn't any God who has to do something to you in order to make you good enough. OMG, it's been 9 years since I deconverted, and I am literally sitting here crying like a baby because for truly the first time, I have realized that I am good enough without God. I can finally, finally let this go. I remember that I used to cry like this sometimes when I would come back to Jesus. It's weird that I'm crying when I finally let him go.

 

And now you are free.

 

Free only because you trusted to, and listened to your old friend Doubt. In fact, listen to him as hard as you listened to God. Just remember, that some people think that Doubt comes from the Devil, and is the enemy of God. Doubt is the enemy of God, but it doesn't come from the Devil. Turns out that God created the Devil to keep you believing in God. So 16 year Eugene, follow those doubts. They will lead you out of the foggy maze of darkness to a life of happiness and sunshine. Life won't always be good, but life can be good. Give yourself a long hug, followed by a quick squeeze. And an hand on your arm, telling you that everything will be alright. You are safe to be following your doubts. Scripture is best thought of as a bunch of stories that tell the origins of a religion. It isn't a bully pulpit. Are there truths in it? Certainly. There's a lot about the struggles of living life. Occasionally, there is even people who are wondering why there are no good answers to the unanswerable questions of life. It's a book of opinions. It's just like any editorial you could read in a paper, or someone's blog post. You don't believe every one of those that you read. The Bible is the same way. Just because something is written, doesn't mean that you have to agree with it.

 

And while you're at it, go ahead and masturbate tonight. Do it twice if the first time didn't rid you of all your sex drive. If there is a God who is cognitive of the fact that you masturbate, he would be pleased to know that you are expressing your natural sexuality in a wholesome way that doesn't harm anyone. And if God is watching you masturbate, he is one sick individual!

 

Sincerely,

 

Your now 47 year old self is looking back, his eyes filled with pain, at his old 16 year old self, loving him, even though knowing that he would not follow his doubts, and would end up living 23 more years of “Dark Ages”. But, in the end, he would make it out. Not unscathed, but he would make it. Not without scars, but he would make it. He would make it because he finally chose to follow his doubts after reading the book through in its entirety that this God supposedly wrote. The book is a completely tangled mess that one can never undo if you try to view it as the coherent thought of one person - a scary guy who lives in the sky. Seriously, that's all it is. A story of a big, loving yet scary guy living in the sky. Instead of looking for a scary guy in the sky, you can look into the sky and be amazed at the wonders that are visible there. Worlds that we'll never understand. Why is there a world...in the first place? Does it matter? Not really. Our consciousness is a gift that we can use to explore this world. We'll never understand our universe or our consciousness - either one. All we need to do is to want the best for everyone else and ourselves, and also treat each other that way. Just love yourself, and also your fellow travelers of consciousness. Loving our fellow travelers also means that we can't be waiting for magical beings to come out of the sky and fix everything. If it gets fixed, it's because we did it.

 

One last, long hug from your 47 year old self, finished with a quick squeeze. And he flashes a smile, then turns away, and disappears.

[YakRider]

On 11/18/2019 at 10:33 PM, Eugene39 said:

Dear Eugene,

 

I'm now 47, and saw that someone had written a letter to their 16 year old self. It seems like a good idea, so here goes.

 

When you were 16, your sexuality had been spun as a possible pathway that could be the complete undoing of you, and you would burn in hell for eternity. You were taught that masturbation was a pathway to eternal damnation. You had been subjected to repeated sermons about hell during your formative years. The terrors you faced had never gone away. Then, your creator made you with feelings that by simply expressing them, they could send you to hell. You really internalized this, and after so many defeats with the battle against masturbation, you felt like the best solution was to end your life, since you were going to hell anyway. Might as well kill yourself and get there sooner than later. In fact, why not kill yourself like Judas did, because in your very depressed state, you believed that you had also failed the Lord and would never be able to be pure enough to make it to heaven. You would fail sometime, and God would kill you, and in such a manner as to ensure that everyone would know that the power of sexuality had won, and everyone would know that you were in hell. So you looked for something that could serve as a gallows, and noticed that the barn next door had a wooden beam across it, and there was a rope in the attic. You would be able to kill yourself at a moment's notice. Interestingly enough, the knowledge that there was a way out would be what would keep you alive.

 

So thirty-one years later, what would I tell myself?

 

Delve into the doubts that you are having about God, namely why would a loving God give someone a desire that could take them to hell. This was an desire that welled up from within yourself, with seemingly no satisfying it without expressing it. So Eugene, make a special note of this next sentence. Doubts about things that you are being told, are your friends. Cherish your new friend Doubt, keep him alive and treat him well. Doubt will lead you out of this situation. You will come to realize that your God that is treating you so horribly is nonexistent. With the realization that this God isn't there, this will lead you to understand that his threats of hell are also nonexistent. You will eventually understand that yes, your sexuality can be an enemy if you use it incorrectly. Casual, unprotected sex with strangers is a bad idea, but the sexual union that occurs between two people who deeply love and respect each other is almost, sorry for the pun, heavenly! You will eventually understand that you don't have to be married to express your sexuality. And by following doubt, you can eventually understand that maybe there never even was a Judas, or even...a Jesus? It's just a made up story so that a new religion would have stories of its origins.

 

Everything that I have mentioned up to this point has been completely intellectual. What about your 16 year old emotions? You are damaged...badly. You have been living in a world of completely conditional love. A God who loves you, but due to bad choices on your part, has to burn you in hell forever. I think you should understand the emotional damage done because when you weren't being beat over the head with hell, then it was about the rapture, and you would be an abandoned child in a wicked world while Armageddon approached, and then be cast into the lake of fire at the end of it all. Learn to love yourself as a person because you've never been allowed to experience that. Be with people who love themselves, people who are nonjudgmental and while realizing that we all make mistakes, it doesn't mean that you are a bad person that deserves to go to hell. It means you are human. And being human is good enough. You are not born desperately wicked. God didn't have to sacrifice his son for you. There isn't any God who has to do something to you in order to make you good enough. OMG, it's been 9 years since I deconverted, and I am literally sitting here crying like a baby because for truly the first time, I have realized that I am good enough without God. I can finally, finally let this go. I remember that I used to cry like this sometimes when I would come back to Jesus. It's weird that I'm crying when I finally let him go.

 

And now you are free.

 

Free only because you trusted to, and listened to your old friend Doubt. In fact, listen to him as hard as you listened to God. Just remember, that some people think that Doubt comes from the Devil, and is the enemy of God. Doubt is the enemy of God, but it doesn't come from the Devil. Turns out that God created the Devil to keep you believing in God. So 16 year Eugene, follow those doubts. They will lead you out of the foggy maze of darkness to a life of happiness and sunshine. Life won't always be good, but life can be good. Give yourself a long hug, followed by a quick squeeze. And an hand on your arm, telling you that everything will be alright. You are safe to be following your doubts. Scripture is best thought of as a bunch of stories that tell the origins of a religion. It isn't a bully pulpit. Are there truths in it? Certainly. There's a lot about the struggles of living life. Occasionally, there is even people who are wondering why there are no good answers to the unanswerable questions of life. It's a book of opinions. It's just like any editorial you could read in a paper, or someone's blog post. You don't believe every one of those that you read. The Bible is the same way. Just because something is written, doesn't mean that you have to agree with it.

 

And while you're at it, go ahead and masturbate tonight. Do it twice if the first time didn't rid you of all your sex drive. If there is a God who is cognitive of the fact that you masturbate, he would be pleased to know that you are expressing your natural sexuality in a wholesome way that doesn't harm anyone. And if God is watching you masturbate, he is one sick individual!

 

Sincerely,

 

Your now 47 year old self is looking back, his eyes filled with pain, at his old 16 year old self, loving him, even though knowing that he would not follow his doubts, and would end up living 23 more years of “Dark Ages”. But, in the end, he would make it out. Not unscathed, but he would make it. Not without scars, but he would make it. He would make it because he finally chose to follow his doubts after reading the book through in its entirety that this God supposedly wrote. The book is a completely tangled mess that one can never undo if you try to view it as the coherent thought of one person - a scary guy who lives in the sky. Seriously, that's all it is. A story of a big, loving yet scary guy living in the sky. Instead of looking for a scary guy in the sky, you can look into the sky and be amazed at the wonders that are visible there. Worlds that we'll never understand. Why is there a world...in the first place? Does it matter? Not really. Our consciousness is a gift that we can use to explore this world. We'll never understand our universe or our consciousness - either one. All we need to do is to want the best for everyone else and ourselves, and also treat each other that way. Just love yourself, and also your fellow travelers of consciousness. Loving our fellow travelers also means that we can't be waiting for magical beings to come out of the sky and fix everything. If it gets fixed, it's because we did it.

 

One last, long hug from your 47 year old self, finished with a quick squeeze. And he flashes a smile, then turns away, and disappears.

 

That was brilliant. You've clearly been doing a lot of work to recover from ravages of sick and worn out christianity. I see You expressing compassion for yourself that no christian or their "god" could or would ever give you.  They succeeded in creating a very familiar and deep pain and confusion in you that they did in me and in countless others. But you've found the way out and you have walked it. Bravo! Keep telling your story. Many need to see that there is hope for their otherwise similarly confused and hurt lives.

 

I wrote a similar letter to my young self 7 years ago and found myself in tears, partly from the connection that I had with that hurting youngster and partly from the open grieving I was finally able to do, because that young me did not deserve the abuses and abandonment given me by those terribly troubled people. Finally, the tears came from recognizing that I have finally become free.

 

We know a freedom that christians cannot and will not understand until they make the choice to get free. I know that you know that they're taught to eschew freedom, to lash out at anyone professes to have it and to do whatever they can to avoid it. Their teaching around this reminds me of the Japanese during WWII who told their people to kill their own families and themselves because the Allies were devils and they would do unspeakable things to them. Horribly, there's a lot of documentary footage of people throwing their children and then themselves to their deaths --all because they were told a grand lie. Just like the People of The Lie, christians.

 

You and me and many others who have become free are the voices of true hope.

 

Cheers and thank you again.

~Yak

 

 

 

 

[Insightful]

Well written!  Sorry you didn't receive any replies back in November.  Thx for sharing

[YakRider]

On 5/19/2020 at 7:06 PM, Insightful said:

Well written!  Sorry you didn't receive any replies back in November.  Thx for sharing

You bet. I'm grateful to have found what you wrote, so no worries!

 

I hope that you tell your story every chance you get. People need to hear your clear story of identifying and doing the hard word getting free!

 

Cheers!

~Yak

[Casualfanboy16]

I know this post is a few years old and I'm not sure you'll read my comment, but thank you, thank you for making this. My experiences may be a bit different than yours, but reading this was just incredible. It made me feel seen. It gives me hope that one day I can look back and smile knowing that I made it this far wwith accepting myself completely. When I was in Christianity, it felt like a prison. I hated myself, wanted to die or just disappear because I was too much of a chicken to actually kill myself, just in general despised my own sexuality and tried DIY conversion therapying myself to fit into the painfully rigid religious and societal expectations for relationships and sexuality.

 

I'm still a long way from fully accepting myself. I still can't pick up a Bible to study my way through the bullshit I was put through and I still have issues that I'm working out. Being gay in a Christian household that more or less carries the attitude of "love the sinner, hate the sin" and in general the entire area I live in is pretty Conservative Christian.  Even non-religious folk hold rather horrible views towards people like me. I'm getting better than where I originally was with just going through all this, but it's still gonna take a while.

 

Again, thank you for making this. Reading it, I felt very much seen despite some of the differences in events. I'm grateful there are people like me out here and knowing you persevered through all this gives me so much hope!

 

-Casual

[Casualfanboy16]

On 11/18/2019 at 10:33 PM, Eugene39 said:

Learn to love yourself as a person because you've never been allowed to experience that. Be with people who love themselves, people who are nonjudgmental and while realizing that we all make mistakes, it doesn't mean that you are a bad person that deserves to go to hell. It means you are human. And being human is good enough. You are not born desperately wicked. God didn't have to sacrifice his son for you. There isn't any God who has to do something to you in order to make you good enough. OMG, it's been 9 years since I deconverted, and I am literally sitting here crying like a baby because for truly the first time, I have realized that I am good enough without God. I can finally, finally let this go. I remember that I used to cry like this sometimes when I would come back to Jesus. It's weird that I'm crying when I finally let him go.

 

And now you are free.

I'm coming back to this post again.  Rereading this segment in particular just makes feel so happy. Words cannot express how much this entire post means to me; but this part especially makes me smile. I am free! I can learn to love myself again. After these past few days, I've been kind of doing that. It's getting somewhere, at least. I still don't know if you'll ever see my replies; but I just want you to know how deeply grateful I am that you wrote this.

 

I actually am going to save this post just to look back on it whenever I'm feeling down (I was going to copy the link and put it in my notes app when I first read it, but forgot to do that. Oops). Again, thank you so much for making this.

 

-Casual

[◊ Weezer ◊]

This is a great thread!  It is sad that it didn't get more traffic and replies. 

[Casualfanboy16]

10 hours ago, Weezer said:

This is a great thread!  It is sad that it didn't get more traffic and replies. 

I know right. This thread is a great read. Hopefully the guy who posted this sees all these newer comments one day. It's a shame there's like a 3-year gap in between comments. This post deserves all the attention it can get. Reading this post meant the world to me and seeing it just gives me so much hope that I can live a normal, happy life despite all those years that were robbed from me that I could've spent loving myself instead of wanting to die because coming to the realization I was gay in a Christian home didn't work wonders for my mental health.

 

Now that I'm beginning to heal from my religious trauma, this post just keeps meaning a whole lot more to me because I'm finally able to start actually loving myself for real. I may still live under my parents' roof, but I can feel years of the oppressive shackles of Christianity start to cut loose more and more. I'm never going back. I'm never going to erase all these years of progress. Even the years where all I wanted to do was disappear or just straight up die. I'm never coming back to this again for as long as I'm alive. Christianity did such a number on me for several years; it'd be foolish to come back after all the shit it put me through. I'm finally, truly able to be free. And I'm never going back.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

6 hours ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

 

Christianity did such a number on me for several years; it'd be foolish to come back after all the shit it put me through. I'm finally, truly able to be free. And I'm never going back.

 

Some groups of christianity are not as toxic as what you and I, and others belonged to, but they are all based on a giganic myth.  It was a "liberal" minister at a christian college that explained to me that masturbation was not a sin.  

[Casualfanboy16]

3 hours ago, Weezer said:

Some groups of christianity are not as toxic as what you and I, and others belonged to, but they are all based on a giganic myth.  It was a "liberal" minister at a christian college that explained to me that masturbation was not a sin.  

Even with the more "liberal" sects, I don't see myself ever coming back. After all that I've been through, it's not worth going back no matter how much certain sects'll do their best to make it seem more palatable to the modern world. I think too, that since I was raised up to think a certain way about the Bible in a more fundamentalist Christian lens for a majority of my life because of my Christian school education and church and all that junk. Even with other interpretations, they don't seem or feel as "real" to me if that makes sense (Authentic? Whatever the word is). I'm still not coming back to it no matter how many interpretations of this crap I read up on. It's brought me so much suffering. Why would or should I go back? Why erase years of progress made learning to love myself for some dumb etErNaL rEwArd that'll never come? Oops. I'm rambling. Oh well.

 

Anyway, I'm curious. How exactly did he explain that masturbation wasn't a sin? Do you have to do a one-handed prayer while choking the chicken lmfao. Or with mutual masturbation, does one person pray for the state of both of your eternal souls while the other one jerks you off? Lmao.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

6 hours ago, Casualfanboy16 said:

 

Anyway, I'm curious. How exactly did he explain that masturbation wasn't a sin? 

 

It is kinda complicated.  Our church didn't believe we were under the old testament anymore.  And the scripture about "spilling your seed" (where all that stuff about masturbation came from) was in the OT.  Evidently you were not supposed to "waste" your "seed".  Your ejaculation was to be used for producing babies.    But there is nothing about that in the new testament, which is the church's guide under christ. And he reasoned that the world was actually on the verge of being overpopulated in this age, and so sex just for making babies was no longer necessary.  He was good at rationalizing away the whole thing, including birth control.  He did believe sex by penetration outside marriage was a sin, and masturbation was a healthy substitute.

[Casualfanboy16]

1 hour ago, Weezer said:

It is kinda complicated.  Our church didn't believe we were under the old testament anymore.  And the scripture about "spilling your seed" (where all that stuff about masturbation came from) was in the OT.  Evidently you were not supposed to "waste" your "seed".  Your ejaculation was to be used for producing babies.    But there is nothing about that in the new testament, which is the church's guide under christ. And he reasoned that the world was actually on the verge of being overpopulated in this age, and so sex wasn't just for making babies.  He was good at rationalizing away the whole thing, including birth control.  He did believe sex by penetration outside marriage was a sin, and masturbation was a healthy substitute.

Oh okay. Well, I guess that answers that. That's a bit strange. I mean I guess I find it strange because I got that abstinence only sex-ed in health class in school. Well, there was discussion of condoms and stuff. We also had a Bible class on the subject of sex. I still remember the day I came home from school and my Mom asked me why she received an email titled "BIBLE SEX" in the subject line. I guess they emailed parents about it.

 

Oh god, it was the wooooorst. In the Bible class sex-ed they split us up into guys and girls, took us to separate rooms and explained us some stuff that had little to do with sex and more to do with avoiding the lustful temptations. Such a pain too because it's not like I even cared about girls.

 

Our school had typical bullshit Christian rules and regulations like the stupid dress code and the fact that on field trips a guy and a girl couldn't be left alone together and had to have a third person because something scandalous might happen. Like, oh no! A girl's showing her shoulder!! The horror!!! Okay, but honestly it's so funny. Everyone else had to have a third person tag along with them if they were in a straight relationship, which was even funnier because gay couples could  get away with making out or something because it's not like they need supervised lmao.

 

Although there wasn't really any openly gay people, I mean, obviously. It would be hell. Also, in the school rulebook, being lgbt is obviously not tolerated and is of course "not of God's design for sexuality and marriage" and I'm pretty sure it was an offense worthy of expulsion or something. I'd have to double check on that. It's so ridiculous, but what do you expect in a place like that?

 

Edit: Well, it didn't say it was worthy of expulsion, but I re-read the Sexuality and Marriage section of my school's rulebook and they really go like full fundie Christian with lumping in homosexuality, bisexuality and trans people with things like beastiality and incest. The line that get me the most reading this is the one at the very end that goes "Sympathy must be extended to those who struggle with unwanted same-sex attractions, and every effort should be made to assist such persons to overcome those attractions, as many already have".

 

Jesus fuck. I'm not even affected too much by this because I read it before a bunch just to make fun of it, but that statement at the end just gives me this icky feeling, like fuck my Christian education. That last sentence is just so vile. It's not like I struggle with same-sex attraction, I'm actually quite good at it. Also "unwanted" is totally not true. I definitely want this lol.