I found jesus

[Rhondazvous]

and let me tell you, he ain't pretty

So sit back and grab a beer or six, cos I have lots of important shit I need to get done by the end of the week, so I'm going to do something else instead and share the miraculous (not really) story of my deconversion
fear not, punctuation included

So I've been on and off religious since I can remember. I didn't pay much thought to it, at least not any more than my deeply devout environment forced me to. I was raised religious, but I bounced on the verge of atheism from time to time, though the topic never was too important to me and generally it wasn't discussed often.

But with time, religion became my obssession. It wasn't exactly what I've been brought up to believe, it was an eclectic mix of christianity and islam; both were appealing, but neither was fully satisfying, so I kinda sorta merged the two into a fanatic, hateful ideology/delusion, based on condemning the things I hated most about myself. Over time it kept building up in me, all the self-loathing and guilt instilled in me by the initial indoctrination until one night my mind was completely broken and I found myself completely unable to disbelieve. All I remember is a lot of compulsive praying and sobbing. Ever since then it was like my brain was fried. Even the most implausible story sounded rational to me. By this point I was pretty fucking mental. Much more suicidal than I am now, and real delusional, too. I was convinced not only that there was a god, but also that he had a plan for me, a pretty fucked up plan that I'd like to forget I considered fullfiling. I was miserable and I hated everything about myself. God was the voice in my head that haunted me at night. I was more afraid of him than I ever was of satan or hell. He was like a brain tumor and I felt like I was losing myself to it.

I don't know how I made it out alive. I guess I got tired of living under a dictator in my head and slowly started to fight back against him. I realised I needed to take back control over my own mind. I started using logic to dispel my delusions. Hitch helped a lot. I relapsed multiple times and the vision of going back still scares me. I'm still dealing with the aftermath. It left me with a lot of anxiety and self-hate and paranoid ideas. I'm hoping to get all that out of my head with time.
Thanks for bearing with me. I never told anyone the full story before.

He is to pretty. With his olive skin and hazel eyes, aquiline nose, luscious lips and Three Musketeers hair cut. He's the most gorgeous guy god's got.

 God was the voice in my head that haunted me at night.

Sounds like an incubus. Are you sure that wasn't an incuvys?

Your story is so deep.  Glad you overcame that crap. Welcome to the club.

[lunafreespirit]

Sorry you went through such horrible mental torture!
So glad you survived!
I can relate to much of what you shared. The darkest times in my life happened while and because of the religion I used to believe in. Reason also saved my life!