IF you deconverted in midlife, can you help?

[Belacqua]

So far I haven't been able to deliberately erase the fears of hell and move on with my life

I very much agree with VulcanLogic and others who recognize that a person may remain frightened of hell even if they no longer believe in it. People are complicated, and you don't have to be all Freudian to see that we can contradict ourselves. There's a lot going on subconsciously. For some people, hell will remain a strong image, or emotional complex, or archetype, (or whatever name is good) even if they never did believe in it. 

Probably you are doing the best things already. Counseling and group work may help a lot, though it takes time. 

Let me suggest something else, and if it seems ridiculous to you I won't be offended. 

Since you recognize that hell doesn't exist, but it remains a frightening image for you anyway, why not look at fictional but non-frightening images? For example, a number of people in the Platonic tradition (Plotinus, William Blake, etc. etc.) say that we are currently in hell. This is the low point, as far down as things get. (There is a non-mainstream but old tradition in Christianity which looks at things this way.) It may be that in your current mood this image makes sense to you. The cool thing is that these people described how to rise back up out of our current hell. This is done through overcoming division. Division is overcome by loving more things. 

I am also one of those people who didn't have to deconvert from Christianity. I did spend a lot of my life in melancholy, though, and I have found that these images help me. I imagine the process a lot. Knock wood, I feel a whole lot better than I did at 50. 

There is also an image in Dante that I like a lot. For him, God is the Good. The Good shines into the world. Bonum Est Diffusivum Sui -- it is the nature of goodness to spread itself; if it didn't spread itself, it wouldn't be good. The Good is not something that diminishes through division, the way pizza does. (More pieces doesn't mean less for each person.) It works the opposite way -- each of us is a mirror, and by reflecting as much of that light as we can we increase the total amount of goodness in the world. 

I don't believe these things in the way that I believe in evolution, or that the earth is round. But loving these images has helped me. 

Again, this may seem silly to you. I wish you well, though. 50 sounds young to me, and there's a good chance you'll find your way through this.