When people feel vulnerable, they often express it as hostility. I doubt the X-tians around you were working hard to make the transition emotionally easy for you.

Forgive others, but also forgive yourself for your own weaknesses. You had a sincere response to a stressful time in your life. If someone else was in that situation, would you hate them forever? No. You'd understand that people are people. Now flip that mirror around and accept that you can't always do in real-time what you would do in retrospect.

(November 23, 2014 at 11:26 pm)bennyboy Wrote: When people feel vulnerable, they often express it as hostility. I doubt the X-tians around you were working hard to make the transition emotionally easy for you.

Forgive others, but also forgive yourself for your own weaknesses. You had a sincere response to a stressful time in your life. If someone else was in that situation, would you hate them forever? No. You'd understand that people are people. Now flip that mirror around and accept that you can't always do in real-time what you would do in retrospect.

Thank you for that incredible insight. You're so right. This is a tool that I need to learn, one I have struggled with for a long time.

I've even started to notice I project a lot. I assert others have hurt me but really it's the asshole in my brain that hurts me most of the time these days.

Self acceptance has got to be one of the most important personal development tools.

When I left the Pentecostal church many years ago I harbored a lot of anger. I didn't really lash out at anyone because my mother didn't hold it against me, but instead just said that she was disappointed that I left the church and wished I would come back. My father didn't really say much. A whole backstory there I don't want to get into. There was a time or two when I snapped a little. One I remember specifically where my mother gave credit for something I had accomplished to God instead of me, but it was minor.

I did find, though, that for years to come I harbored a lot of anger toward religion in general. I saw all religions as the Pentecostal religion, a cult without a compound. Of course, I didn't have a support network in those days. I was completely ignorant of the damage that had been done to be both mentally and emotionally; that I had been emotionally crippled and turned into a weirdo in such a way that I could only really relate to other weirdos and really wasn't prepared to function socially in the outside world. There was also a deep-seated shame for "being a sinner" which lasted for years after I actually stopped believing in God. I actually had the fear of committing the "unforgivable sin" long after I decided that I was sure there were no gods.

Also, I once worked with a Catholic who said something I found to be very telling in a conversation one time. He was a Catholic and obviously had been his entire life. He was a good man, too. But he told me if he ever stopped believing in God he would have no problem just killing people and taking what he wanted. Of course, that wasn't true. He would have done nothing of the sort. But he really thought that he would. It boils down to being religious all his life, so the closest he can come to imagining being an atheist is to imagine "rejecting the God he still knew to exist", which for a deeply religious person is a very scary thing. But the point is that he had been conditioned to believe that he, himself, would turn into a monster if he ever left the church and he did believe it. He knew he was a good man. He knew he didn't have a mean bone in his body as well as I did. But he also knew that this goodness in him came from God and without God he would be a vile, despicable person. Maybe even a liberal!

Religious institutions can do terrible things to your mind that are hard to reconcile with reality when the fantasy falls away. It can make you frustrated and angry. But what are you angry at? You just came to the conclusion that there is no God with whom to get angry. So where do you direct this anger? At yourself and at those around you, especially those still in the religion you left and VERY especially those people, once your friends, family and peers in the church, who cast judgement on you for leaving the church. Because you know what goes on behind those doors. You know how they talk about people who leave the church. You know how they're talking about you, and it hurts. These were your friends. If you "fell out of grace" over a period of time, likely you've actually hear them talking about you directly, or at least the were not oblivious to the talk and the rumors. All of that makes for a very traumatic experience. In my case, at least, there were things going on in my brain that I wouldn't realize were happening for a decade or better. Essentially your mind was conditioned to cause a slew of negative emotions including depression, anger, fear, shame and a profound sense of loss should you ever reject the conditioning and that's exactly what happened. It's not your fault, but there is certainly no harm in trying to understand what is going on in your head so that you have a better grasp on it in the future.