Indoctrination and how it has severly effected me.

[robvalue]

Welcome to the forum

I'm very sorry to hear about what you've gone through. You've clearly been heavily indoctrinated, and this has left pockets of resistance in your brain. It's natural for the brain to try and defend deeply ingrained belief by throwing up any defence mechanism it thinks will help.

For what it's worth, Christinaity is just another made up story along with every other religion. They thrive on people's thirst for easy answers and people's discomfort with death. If you hadn't been told about this religion, you'd never know anything about it. Nothing in it is actually evident from what we see.

Of course, Satan is the perfect "get out of jail free" card for them. Whatever doubts you have, it's Satan. Evidence? Satan. Other people talking sense? Satan. And so on. It's simple and childish, but coupled with your indoctrination it is powerful. Hopefully you'll see it's nothing but a cheap trick, in time.

My biggest piece of advice is to learn to trust the logical part of your brain to work out what is true and what is not. The emotional part is not realiable. It's been shown time and again that it gives all sorts of incorrect conclusions. Emotions help you do the right thing, but they don't work very well when investigating reality objectively.

I'm not sure if this will help or not, but I think it's worth a try. This is a video series I absolutely love, with a couple of very funny guys analysing and laughing at the bible. It's highly entertaining, and they provide interesting insights too. I'm hoping it could help break the spell that somewhat remains over you by highlighting how utterly stupid the bible is. I mean, it's really stupid. I can't stress that enough. So just reading it yourself will show that, but this is a fun way of doing it and it may dislodge some of those feelings.

I hope you stick around, and that we can help you through Don't worry, it's normal to feel distressed once you first get out of religion, especially when those around you are trying to drag you back in. In time, you'll see it's a bunch of nonsense. Your emotions are trying to catch up with the rational part of your brain. Regarding your parents, my advice would be to tow the line and just fake it until you can move out, unless doing so causes you to feel even worse. They clearly won't respect your decision and are beyond reason regarding this subject.

So here's the first in the video series I mentioned, along with a video I made to help people in your kind of situation.

http://youtu.be/ZQ8tMApaEK0

http://youtu.be/4W0mJ7svsKk