Tale of an Aspie's apostasy, thus far...

[ZenPaladin]

Hello fellow heretics! This post will basically be a generalized story of my life and how it led to me being a Christian and my eventual deconversion. It's a bit of a read, so snack and drink recommended. I hope you are all safe and healthy during these times as well!

Trigger warning: Mentions of verbal and physical abuse, sexual assault and suicde

I wasn't raised in a Fundamentalist home. Christian yes but nowhere near that level of control, purity culture, etc. My family being African American being religious was mostly a given, but church going wasn't too much of a thing in my earlier to mid childhood until I started being involved with youth group and such in middle school-early high school. But I can relate to alot of you on these 3 things: the religious dependency, dysfunctional family, and being hurt by those who preached that they would be the last to do so.

As some of you may know, I was born with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. To be clear, I'm not severely mentally retarded or anything close, but I have just always been very socially awkward, had lots of trouble with social cues and boundaries, understanding when I made people uncomfortable, etc. This is no excuse for poor actions, but socialization has been ALOT more of a learning process for me than others. And in middle school(and it really cringes to admit this) but I walked around alot by myself or did Legos and stuff with the younger kids alot which my dad called me out on before.

What didn't help was that my parents had some pretty fucked up problems. Now sure, even the best families will have conflict, and I am not of a low socioeconomic background or have lived in the hood(mom works in healthcare, fwiw), but that doesn't change the fact that from my years as a baby to age 5 or 6, and especially middle school to now dysfunction really ramped up in my family.

My mom is definitely not as bad as my father, but she has her issues. She can be somewhat hypocritical at times, a bit nagging, and she can have a bit of a temper but alot of it can be due to the stress with my father. I definitely get a feeling she to one extent or another enabled alot of my father's shitty behavior given he is the worst of the two. My father is definitely someone with whom my field of fucks is borderline barren. As for why, well...

-For one thing, he had to be escorted out of the ICU when I was born (I was a premie) because he was being argumentative with my exhausted mother.

-When I was a bit older but still a baby or toddler, my mom ended up calling the police since he took me without her permission to the warehouse he worked at(dirty warehouse, perfect place to have a small child)

-He and my mom argued alot even back then. He even shoved her over a couch when she was pregnant with my sister.

-I recall me and my sister crying in our rooms when I was 5/6 when they were fighting. My dad can also be a hot head even when it comes to being a parent as when I was having a little birthday party where I had cousins coming over and such, my mom wanted him to help tiddy up but it got him all pissy. She found a poisonous spider in our closet that could've bitten us while we were playing but he was still irritated.

-From what I can remember age 7-11 wasn't too bad. Dad was laid off from work during the recession so he was a stay at home dad. He also has no college degree, he's the typical ''star basketball player in high school who got a scholarship, hurt his knee and dropped out'' kind of guy. He's actually a textbook example of ''peaking in high school.'' Anyway, not too much happened but there was some beef between me and him a couple of times. One time when he was mocking me(I didn't like basketball or wasn't alot like other boys) I got so mad I scratched his legs so hard as to draw blood, I ran outside, he yelled at me to get back, begins spanking me with a belt(no bruises or welts, but again black family) and my mom did pull him away tearing his shirt a bit since he was so mad. 

When we moved from where we had lived when I was 7-11, this was where the dysfunctional train really hit steam from that point on. Parents argued alot more, dad was in and out of the house living in his car alot subsisting on energy drinks and fast food. Mom despite working in nursing(she told me recently she makes ALOT more than I thought) struggled with making ends meet since we live in a higher cost state(California) and my dad didn't do much to help her what with being an asshole and having his own trouble with bad credit, not paying the IRS, etc.  Throw in him shoving my mom into the couch and the wall hard enough to crack it, her scratching him a couple of times, my dad allegedly cheating on her, my paternal uncle staying over but my dad throwing him out 3 times over some beef(uncle wasn't much of a good guy himself), and even me and my sister having our own confrontations which mirrored my parents, which still happens sometimes and I'm not proud of it.

I kinda got really into religion on my own. As a kid I was really into reading Bible storybooks in the kids section of Burlington. And eventually in my earlier adolescence I started getting into youth group activities, my mom had me in the choir, etc. And I had my moments where I was a bit of a Jesus freak(in 10th grade I did what was essentially a mini-sermon which caused some whispers to go around to say the least) and it had it's moments where it did NOT help the already awkward and inappropriate way I interacted with people. And due to how lonely I often was, that was a big part of why I got so into being Christian as there was the feeling of some bigger plan that I was an important player in, and a sense of complacency(which didn't help my socialization efforts) that things would eventually work out. 

And the youth group was pretty alright. No purity culture or the like(it was a predominantly black chucrch as well) and we did have trips and stuff and the youth pastor was good to me, even showing sympathy for my home life. In fact, my dad once took me out of youth group to accuse my mom of having ''condoms in her car'' and that she was cheating on him, and I just walked away from him and I told my mom who was also told by the youth pastor's wife. I could go on, but basically I got used to more than a few of these other instances for years.

At that time however, I also befriended a neighbor kid a year older than called Simba. We had more than a few common interest, his family was the conservative Christian types with more rules than I had but still not full fundamentalist(but were creationist, no HP, etc). I went over to his house and spent lots of time with him and his brothers, his mom dropped me off and picked me up from school at times), we went to each others youth groups at times and letting him come over when my folks weren't home , as looking back he definitely used emotional manipulation and blackmail more than a few times, like getting a bit at my insecurities and he and his younger brothers would make jokes at my expense often.

When I started high school as a freshman, we moved to a different town far from there, and me and Simba didn't really talk much anymore as his parents found out I had once again lent him my cell phone relating to some shenanigans with girls(long story, but just stupid adolescent stuff). The house we moved to(we later moved to one down the road once it was built) was close to my new high school, but had no transportation nearby and was removed a bit from town so it put more stress on my mom since dad was still in and out/being an asshole and it was disappointing since it made doing martial arts and getting out in general harder, especially since I got my license late, which didn't matter much since the second car my mom bought broke down and she couldn't afford to get it fixed for quite awhile.

I also didn't go to church as much. I tried another youth group for a bit but gradually over time when I was into my phase of being into reading apologetics and such, I eventually started to gradually question things more, and despite not really being pushed to much into being religious I do recall feeling some shame over masturbation(nothing I was taught, but read about being a sin online) and when reading fanfiction for my favorite fandoms(big nerdy type) I found myself feeling very conflicted about the same sex pairings. It wasn't anything NSFW, just a typical romance or relationship between characters of the same gender. I'm straight, but I found that eventually it felt hard to see that as wrong.

 By 17, I had deconverted secretly, and having been a fan of Star Wars and Nickeloedon's Avatar I began to read up on Buddhism and Eastern philosophy along with some skeptic content. Eventually when I was almost 18 I came out after hearing a homophobic rant from my mom due to some beef between my sister and a bisexual boy she was seeing. Mom got into Jesus mode talking about the devil being in the house but my father(they divorced eventually) accepted it more if not begrudgingly. And I began to find how much I forced myself to read the Bible and praying alot, even to the point of it being like wishing since it would be even for more minor things or just convenience

 Despite trying some clubs, tried wrestling(never competed) and tried to interact I still didn't do very well socially in high school. I was never bullied but past freshman year everyone already seems to have their friends picked out so their wasn't the same openness. It made me bitter towards the end of senior year since my parents commented on me being a loner and missing the high school experience. They really pushed me to do prom and while I had some fun it still felt forced deep down and I didn't dance with a girl or anything like that. When I was 16 there was a clusterfuck involving a classmate in a potentially dangerous situation but that's a whole other story, and I've come far in feeling better about it anyway. But suffice to say I hung out a bit with a few classmates in senior year but overall still felt like I missed out especially at graduation seeing kids who were more popular having friends give them extra applause and calling their names. 

And during the summer afterwards when I was getting ready for community college, after a confrontation with my sister who had another one of her outbursts(she's had increasing suicide/runaway attempts and mood swings over the years) she broke down saying Simba had assaulted her during one of the times I had him over. I broke down eventually over this as he was the closest to a best friend I ever had, but that turned out to be another disappointment in my life and of course my sister being hurt like that. And confronting him over text messages and how he responded(denial, threats, blackmail, then love bombing and calls for forgiveness when I backed down) really showed me the type of person he was, as he had sometimes made comments about my sister's mature development for her age which at the time I mistook as just typical adolescent talk(''Dude, your sister's hot!'')

I fucked around in community college for about a year(got financial aid from Department of Rehabilitation due to condition) but my mom did point me to doing EMT training since my desired career is being a game warden/park ranger. I did the first semester and am in the second but due to current events training is on hold till the shelter order is lifted. Family tensions do still happen unfortunately, as even this past summer the cops/paramedics were at our house 4 times, the fourth for my sister overdosing on pills and my dad trying to fight me in her hospital room just because I told him and my mom not to argue in there. And like with past incidents there is they cycle of bad shit happening, apologies and love bombing, then him saying he's sorry and how he didn't have a proper father figure growing up, etc and my mom trying to get me being open to forgiveness, even though this same cycle has occured for YEARS.

So at this point, I am in therapy, which has been helping but I'm hoping to move out within a few months, especially if I can pass for my EMT certification. While I do find myself wanting to move forward with my life not worrying about my family dysfunction, I still can't help but feel conflicted. But I do know that my mom has gotten a bit more religious over time, given me rants about converting back from Buddhism(I was inspired by the Jedi and Nickelodeon's Avatar) and I don't have much hope for my dad changing. But as things are, I will just have to be patient, and keep hoping while taking it one step at a time.

[Insightful]

Welcome ZP!  Thanks for sharing your story.  Glad that you are finding your way - sounds like you have a strong, clear mind.