Losing My Religion

By Jennifer ~

I just recently had a complete mind shift with regards to God and Religion and Heaven and Hell and eternal life... everything I guess. It was like something just 'snapped' inside my brain. Suddenly I just saw it all completely different.

Image by COCOMARIPOSA via Flickr

At first I was kind of blown away at such a massive revelation, I mean, talk about shaking someone at their very foundation of who they are (or who they thought they were).

I instantly had this hunger to find out if others were in this situation, and sure enough, there were.

But that only sustained me for about a week... now I have been stuck in this sort of stage where I can't stop thinking of how much this is going to change. I know there will be friends and family who will shun me if I tell them the truth. It truly is comparable (I assume) to a gay person coming out of the closet. You cannot predict the ramifications and the thought of that alone is driving me insane. I KNOW first hand how atheists are thought of and treated because I used to be one of those people! Talk about hypocrisy. My God loved everyone except atheists (seriously, this is how I was raised).

At this point, I have nearly completely isolated myself (at the expense of my husband and children) out of this irrational fear? Please tell me this will pass and that I will be able to come to full terms with it because I know my retreat can't be healthy. I know I am not the person I can be and want to be... but I just feel stuck right now.

I am hoping that losing my religion is comparable with the stages of grief and that eventually, in my own time, I can move forward.

I have never in my life experienced depression and honestly used to think most people used it as an excuse of sorts but now of course I am understanding what it's like to get into a mindset and not be able to just 'snap out of it'. That of course compounds feelings of guilt I have for not having the empathy certain people in my past needed and I could not give it to them because I didn't understand.

I have never felt so alone in my life and obviously the ones I would have normally turned to in the past for support and guidance are the very ones who molded my religious delusions in the first place.

I want to be true to myself. No more pretending. I'm just not sure how to take the first step.

Comments

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