Anonymous deconversion story I find it hard to believe that so many of you have pleasant memories of Christianity - I have none. I can't recall ever looking forward to going to church. I did once at least feel safe knowing that god was on my side looking out for me - but that misconception turned out to be one of the most damaging to me. In fact, one thing I have always found incomprehensible is the people who continue to attend the church I was raised in. Didn't they hear the same sermons that I did? Didn't they witness all the same crap? I don't understand how they could rationalize all of that. On the other hand, not everyone has gone on as if nothing ever happened. For example, one guy very near my age who "grew up" in that church with me recently committed suicide… I am very lucky to have avoided that fate!
I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. My family went to church every Sunday (morning and evening) and Wednesday. When I was seven years old I asked Jesus to come into my heart. I prayed it over and over; I didn't feel any different and I wanted to make sure that I was saved because I didn't want to go to hell. I can remember when I was very young I used to try to keep "bad thoughts" from coming into my head. I remember specifically that thoughts like "I give my soul to the devil" and "goddamn" would pop into my mind because I was so terrified of going to hell for thinking them. The more I tried to stop it, the more I thought of them (for reasons that are obvious now).
Anyhow, as you've probably deduced by now, my church was full of hellfire, judgement, and damnation. And of course, everyone there - especially the pastor - was as screwed up as they come! No saints among them; there was hardly a semi-normal person in the congregation. I think my parents were among the most decent, at least. They did try to do what they thought was right, and still do. They were never obvious hypocrites like the rest - drinking, smoking, and committing adultery and every other thing they were condemning everyone else for. Meanwhile, every time I thought I had found someone that I could look up to, everyone else would start badmouthing him or her. No one was ever good enough in their eyes. What a crock!
So one bright and shiny Sunday morning we went to church as usual, sat through the usual hymns and prayers (and offering), and the pastor stepped up to the podium to deliver his sermon. Only instead he calmly read his resignation. Now this was a huge shock to me, (the first of MANY) having heard nothing about it beforehand. So that night my parents left my brother and I at home while they went to church. They called at some point to inform us that the church was burning down - my brother took the call and didn't get any more details than that! So I spent a terrifying night waiting for my parents to return, which they did several hours later. The next few years all the adults tried to pretend like everything was normal around us kids. We slowly found out what was really going on through overhearing hushed conversations and telephone calls. My parents eventually came clean and told me most of what they remember – I think I was in college by then. As it turns out, it's some really juicy stuff! Apparently the pastor had been doing some really nasty stuff. He had been stealing money from the church, for one. I heard he had been making passes at the gardener. Also that he got caught having sex with a parishioner in the church van (and yes, he was married at the time). There was some other stuff too, like drinking beer and who knows what else, but I was only a little kid at the time and I'm still not sure how much of it is true, but I'm quite sure he was not a nice upstanding guy. Anyway the church council (or whatever they call themselves) finally had enough and forced him to resign. That night he was seen entering the building where the fire started a few minutes before the flames were spotted (no one else was in that wing). The investigators decided that it was definitely arson, the fire was started with gasoline, but the investigation was mysteriously called off. I guess he had friends in high places, and I don't mean god!
So I tried to make sense of all this crap while they terrified me with hell and the apocalypse. I can remember one Sunday school teacher describing hell: "…do you know how it feels to get burned?" (I sure did, melted my fingers on the hot stove when I was 5) "Well imagine that burning sensation over every part of your body. Then imagine how long eternity is…" etc. I also had to watch a terrifying movie, Like a Thief in the Night. It's the usual rapture movie with all the x-tians disappearing, cars abandoned on the freeway, etc. It ends with the government threatening people with a guillotine if they don't get 666 stamped on their forehead or hand; a little girl gets the 666 and tells the adult couple (main characters of the film) how easy it is, etc. Then to top it all off, at some point during these years, the pastor had said, “if you have any doubt in your mind that you're saved, then you're not!” Now how can you not have any doubt after hearing all that crap?!! [As a side note, I'm using that term a lot because I feel that the expletives I would normally use would take something away from the story] And keep in mind that I was very young at the time - probably no older than 10 for anything I've described yet.
I think my worst problem was that I thought about that stuff too much. I didn't have any logical reason in my mind that I could be sure of avoiding the torments of hell, so I worried about it - a lot. I didn’t believe in x-tianity because I thought it was right and good. I believed because that was what I was told from birth, and it never occurred to me that it could all be a lie. I remember thinking "I'm so glad I was born into the right religion." I realized that people of other faiths believed as strongly as I did, and I didn't understand why they had to go to hell for that, especially if they had never even been introduced to x-tianity. But I was told that is why we're supposed to try so hard to witness to others. Excuse me, I have to go throw up… HUUUURGH!!! OK I'm better now. I also remember listening to so many tales from missionaries where they would say how much they had to learn about god, and how much more they needed to do to please him. I thought, "how much do I have to do? That sounds impossible!" I guess he's pretty hard to please.
Well, that's enough about my childhood. On to the really bad stuff! When I was 14 my house burned down. The phrase, "good things come to those who love the lord", apparently didn't mean what I had thought it did. I never again felt that my wonderful god was watching out for me, keeping bad things from happening to me. This event alone (although quite traumatic) probably wouldn't have been so devastating, but it was only one of a series of events. Also that year my grandfather died, our brand new car was stolen, and the following summer my uncle died. I thought that it would never end - that from then on, horrible things would continue to happen to us. Everyone at our church always compared us to Job. I got so sick of hearing about Job! This was supposedly a test of our faith. I thought, "if this is a test, I've already failed, so you can stop torturing me now!" I began to think that god hated me. I had this notion that he got some twisted kick out of watching me suffer.
By this time I was thoroughly convinced that I was going to hell, so I really began to lose interest in church. I continued to attend, because my parents never gave me a choice, but the whole time I was there, I couldn't wait to leave. I started going through this teenage-rebellion thing. I figured that if I was going to hell anyway, I might as well enjoy all the things that were off-limits. I also started to slip into a deep depression. For years I went through this wanting-to-die-but-being-terrified-of-hell thing. I was to afraid to kill myself, but at the same time thought that life was just too painful to bear. I sometimes asked myself, “How bad can hell be? I’m already IN hell!” As a result I did a lot of crazy, stupid things. I've come close to death many times, but somehow I'm still alive!
When I was 16 I started drinking heavily. My senior year of high school I would get drunk 3 or 4 times a week. Of course I was always at church bright and early (and hungover) every Sunday morning! I actually thought that there was something wrong with me, that I just needed to "get right with god." I always thought that some day I would get back into church and everything would be all right. So I ended up going to a Southern Baptist university hoping to "find god." Instead it turned me completely against x-tians. The majority of students there were incredibly obnoxious, self-righteous, and hypocritical. I couldn't believe it! All that time I had thought that it was just my church that was screwed up. I began to despise x-tians, although I still believed in god and parts of the bible (I no longer believed that it was being properly interpreted by baptists, anyway). The fact of the matter is that I was so psychologically damaged from all of this that I didn't ever really try to find out what the truth was. I just wanted to get as far away from any x-tian influence as I could and try to forget about it. Meanwhile I still lived in a fog of depression and had serious suicidal thoughts on a daily basis. I drank a lot and did a lot of drugs for the next few years.
After 2 years (and about 4 majors) I transferred to a secular school. I loved that school immediately. I made as many friends in one day there as I did the entire time I was at the x-tian school. Everyone had a laid-back, accepting attitude. Practically no one talked about god or church. I took several psychology and philosophy courses and was feeling somewhat better about myself.
Then I took the mother of all classes - Philosophy of Religion. As you can imagine, this was the single most influential class I took in college. The first lecture on x-tianity blew me away. The professor had outlined several of the topics that are most debated. In one column he had the problems, in another column he had a list of explanations for the problems. He then proceeded to explain how x-tians jump from one explanation to another depending on which problem is being addressed, but that if you looked at any two explanations together they completely contradicted each other. Every example he mentioned was something I had heard many times. All of the things that had been thrown at me one piece at a time, when seen all laid out together, were obviously ludicrous! This was the first time that I ever really thought that it could all be a lie, and it scared the hell out of me (not literally). I left the class physically shaken. I still wonder to this day why that scared me so much - it should have been a relief. I guess that realizing that everything I once thought was real may be only an illusion would be quite a shock no matter what the circumstance. I can't imagine how this knowledge would affect someone who actually liked his or her beliefs and enjoyed being an x-tian.
At some point during college my anxiety began to outpace my depression, and I had a new problem on my hands. I began to hyperventilate regularly. I was safest at home; there I would only hyperventilate occasionally. If I ever ventured away from home, though, look out! I had panic attacks where I literally thought I was dying. I knew that it could be psychological, but at first couldn’t rule out asthma or some problem with my heart. After a while, when it kept happening and doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me, I knew it was all in my head. So I just tried to go on with my business and ignore the constant terror I felt. I used to tell my friends: "Oh, I’m just hyperventilating. I’ll be fine in a minute." And I would be.
After college, I began to feel calmer and my anxiety was much more manageable. I began to forget the torment that I had gone through; I started to think that maybe there could be a god – and that he/she didn’t hate me. I still didn’t believe a word of the bible, but thought that perhaps there was some kind of harmony in the universe.
Then I met the man who is now my husband. Some time after we were married I became pregnant. For some reason, soon after this my husband decided to start going to church again (I new that he had once attended church and been somewhat fanatical, but he had said it would take a miracle for him to go again), and I agreed to go with him. What on earth possessed me to do that I will never know! The only thing I can think of is that at the time I had no concept of raising a child outside of church. You have to admit they have some pretty easy answers to many of the tough questions every child is bound to ask! (“We can’t possibly understand that, we have to trust in god,” etc.)
What happened next is for me the most excruciating part of my story, because my husband - when he is religious - is Pentecostal. Now at the time I didn’t know anything about the Pentecostal church. Boy did I find out! That church was crazy! People running around, speaking in tongues – it really freaked me out. They didn’t believe in television; women were to only wear dresses and never cut their hair. I honestly tried to be a part of that and tried to believe - with more than a little skepticism about their interpretation of the bible. But the more I tried, the more was demanded of me. I felt like I was 8 years old all over again. Then came the hell sermon, my favorite line from it is, “…when you go to heaven, you’ll weep for your loved ones in hell, but then god will wipe the tears from your eyes.” Gee, thanks! This pretty much brought back the entire psychological trauma of my past.
I stopped going after that, but my husband continued to go for months. I would get letters from the church asking for donations, "give until it hurts" (this after the pastor had taken his family on a skiing trip). The whole thing still makes me sick to my stomach!
After I had the baby, my husband calmed down quickly, and finally stopped going to church altogether. He told me that he would never go back unless he and I both saw some kind of sign from god (for me – fat chance). At any rate, I’m not ever going to be stupid enough to get back into that mess again. My position is very firm now: I don’t now, and never will, believe in any god of any organized religion.
I feel so stupid for having gone through that last ordeal. I should have known better! I almost feel like the whole thing is my fault (fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me). I never thought of myself as an atheist until recently, but each ordeal has turned me more and more against the religious faction as a whole.
It’s been about 2 ½ years since I’ve been in church, and I don’t intend to ever go back. I don’t think I will ever be able to rid myself of my former faith completely, though, it is connected to / entangled with everything I ever learned from birth until college. To wipe it out I would have to wipe out my memory and start over. At least now I have a rationality that I can run to for comfort when those dreadful thoughts return. Now on most days I don’t worry about hell at all. I don’t have any more suicidal thoughts; although sometimes I feel pretty bad, usually I have a pretty good outlook on life. As for my anxiety, I have tried many medications (mostly legal), and haven’t found anything that really helps without making me too groggy to get anything done. I still have panic attacks, and still become paralyzed with fear at times, but I just try to swallow that terror and go on with my life. It’s the only one I’ve got and I’m determined to enjoy it, damn-it!
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