I Feel Like Guilt And Fear Are Ripping Me In Two.

[JoeCoastie]

The guilt is shaking off me. This site has helped a lot.

[Crow]

We've been busy the last couple of days and I haven't had time to post.

 

2Honest- thanks for the video links, I plan to check them out later this coming weekend.

 

 

Yes, quite right Blue. Thank you for offering that clarification in my absence.

 

Yes Crow, what I mean to say is... I take my oaths fairly seriously. And among the things which kept me unduly bound to Christianity was a feeling that I was betraying an oath to God and my community by learning. But the cosmos is not what I thought it was as a child, and therefore many childhood oaths no longer apply. I no longer feel guilt for outgrowing old clothes.

 

See, that's the thing. Rationally, I agree. However, gut intstinct says otherwise. That's the awful part, I have to distrust my intstincts; as they were instilled into me by others. I guess it will just take time.

 

I find myself thinking about the release from this old way of thought then the guilt and fear sneak up and I find myself worried about hell. Lifelong thought processes are hard to break. I doubt I'll ever be completely free of them, and maybe my children won't, but surely if I have grandchildren one day, they won't have to deal with this.

 

I guess that's what makes this so pernicous, it's multi-generational and difficult to break the chain.

 

This swinging back and forth, cognitive dissonance, really is uncomfortable. I don't really see a way out of it other than time and discussion.

 

Welcome, Crow, and welcome to Luna as well when she gets here

 

I don't even know what to say except that I'm so glad you're breaking free of the bondage of control, guilt, and fear to find a new way of existing. A big problem for me too was learning that morality exists entirely separate from religion--which we can see by just reading the Bible itself and seeing how immoral the Judeo-Christian god really is! Anybody who advocates slavery and genocide, kills almost everybody on earth because they're not kowtowing to him, and designs a cosmology around blood sacrifice is the enemy of humankind, not its loving parent. Ick!

 

Also, it's mega-shitty to blame a kid for someone's heart attack. That's emotional blackmail and manipulation of the lowest order. Unless you stood over the old fella with a Tens unit and shocked him till he had the attack, you are 100% not responsible for it. You know that, right?

 

Yes, I know. However, even though it's not my fault, if he knew about this it very well could kill him. My wife and I think we're not going to tell my family about this. At least until the kids are out of the house. We've been trying to gradually distance ourselves from my family anyways, they're a real pain to deal with.

 

I think my wife would be happier if I told them to go hang, but I've been unable to do that. It is a weakness of mine, and I need to give thought to cutting all contact with them. This crap is just twisted. It's hard to master yourself when you're not in control of all of your thoughts and emotions.

[LuNa81]

Ok, I'm here. Apologies. I've been extremely busy the past few days. Will work on a full profile later. I'm not going to go back and quote anything because you guys have done 2 pages of supportive conversation and I'll never find all that . He's right in that I am dealing with a lot more anger over everything. We've been dealing with an inordinate amount of B.S. for an entire decade. Only recently have I completely lifted the veil and decided "I'm done". Done with fake niceties, definately done with trying to be somebody I'm not, and compltely done with allowing my family to be used as pawns against each other in the name of the Lord AMEN. You can imagine I've created a bit of a stir as if that didn't happen the moment I stepped in, but I'll tell more on that. Crow would say I'm a bit of a "hothead" and I'm sure he's right. I'm relived that he understands it and by the time I've exhausted true stories it will become appearant that the fact that we're still together and friends after the past 10 years is nothing short of a miracle. It hasn't always been this way. I actually used to be gentle. Since I've been dealing with his family I've really become jaded and I'm not sure how to get back.

 

Those people are insane and that's putting it mildly! I'm actually pretty dissapointed in myself for going along with all this crap for as long as I did. Anyway, before I digress too much further I'll start another thread. I just wanted to say hello on this thread and thankyou for all the imput and support Hey honey!!

[mcdaddy]

Welcome, Crow and Luna81! I'm really glad you found this place.

 

Like jblueep said, our family recently deconverted and things could not be better for us now. It's actually brought us closer as a family. Our kids are more comfortable talking to us about stuff and they even get along better with each other. It's crazy, we were SO worried about raising them as Christians and wanting them to have a "real relationship" with god. Even though we weren't really strict or in-your-face about it, it was driving them away from us.

 

I agree w/J about the cognitive dissonance. That was the most crazy-making part of the process for me, too. I lived in that frustrated/confused state for months. It was horrible. Once I allowed myself to settle on what I really believed to be true (that there is no Bible-god), the clouds parted. It was SO freeing not to have to try to make it all fit and make sense anymore.

 

 

 

Here are some resources that might be of help to you:

 

Jerry DeWitt, former preacher from Louisiana who came out just in the past 6 months or so as an unbeliever.

 

evid3nc3: He's got great videos featuring the story of his deconversion and what he learned regarding the truth about the bible, evolution, etc.

 

The Thinking Atheist: All of his videos are great (fyi- the satirical ones might be a little difficult for you to watch right now). He's also got an awesome podcast on iTunes.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheThinkingAtheist/videos

 

Marlene Winell: She's a counselor, speaker, and author of the book "Leaving the Fold". When I read her stuff I felt like she'd been inside my head reading my mind! I think her writing could really be of help to you and your wife right now. She helps you to understand why you feel the way you do and how to fully recover from the damage done by religion. You can read some sample chapters of her book on her site.

http://www.marlenewinell.net/

 

 

Please stick around and let us know how we can be of help to you!

 

2H

 

While we're suggesting things to help you see through the veil.....

 

Maybe you already know about these, but when you get some larger blocks of time you should go to YouTube and check out nonstampcollector and darkmatter2525's videos. They're satirical- basically point out the absurdity and ridiculousness of the whole thing, but they are soooooo funny! I'm sure you have to be at a place where you don't mind others poking fun at your (ex) religion, but these guys KNOW their ****. It's done in a way that's humorous and very "enlightening". There's a bit of language, just to give you a heads up. But it helped me see just how crazy my beliefs were as I was

 

Edit: the reason I said "large blocks of time" isn't because they're long vids, usually less than 10 minutes, it's because they're so addictive.

[2Honest]

Crow,

 

I just read through LuNa's thread and had some stuff to share with you.

 

I haven't had to deal with a super-controlling religious family. But my mom has been known to go off her rocker from time to time. There were several years where she was abusing codeine and alcohol and was being manipulative and controlling. My husband finally had to take a stand and cut her off from our family for a period of time. I was too much of a wreck to do it myself at the time. I knew her behavior was wrong and it was hurting me, but she's my mom and I didn't want to hurt her. I knew she wouldn't understand. But I also knew that for my own good I had to cut off contact. It was a HUGE relief to not have to deal with her phone calls and manipulation anymore. I had no idea how much it was stressing me out until it stopped. After that, whenever she would go through a period of craziness I was able to stand up for myself with her.

 

I think it would really help if you could take the emotion out of all this for a moment and take a look at this situation objectively, if you can. Think about how much time and energy you and your wife are expending on this situation. Think about how much you two talk about it. Think about how much time you spend simply thinking about this situation and feeling anxious about it. Think about how all of that effects you as a parent and husband. When you have a constant stressor like this in your life, it effects how you relate to everyone, that's just inevitable. Not only that, but it even effects your health! Now imagine that stressor being removed from your life, from your mind, and from your relationship with your wife and kids. Think about going about your day, work, etc without worrying about this. Think about sitting around with your family and enjoying each other without this crap in the back of your mind...spending time with your wife talking about stuff other than your crazy-ass parents. YOU have the power to make that happen!

 

I'm really not trying to sound like a cheesy motivational speaker here. haha I'm just speaking from experience. We've had several different extremely stressful relationship situations over our 20 years of marriage. Each time we've had to make the decision to walk away from an abusive church, family member or friend, it has been so difficult. But I can tell you we have NO regrets. And I can tell you that every single time, I was totally amazed by how much more clearly I could see what was going on once I got distance from the situation. And every time I looked back at that situation I couldn't believe how long I/we put up with it!

 

Life is just too short, man. It is too short to live like that and put up with that kind of pain and bullshit. And it's too short to waste any time you could spend being happy and enjoying your wife and kids. I'm a very non-confrontational person and it's SO hard for me to stand up to people. But I've learned that I'm worth it and my family is worth it. None of us can afford to give other people that kind of power in our lives.

 

I really think that it's time for you to end this. Unfortunately, even though you are the victim here, it is on you to end the abuse.

[2Honest]

Crow,

 

I just read through LuNa's thread and had some stuff to share with you.

 

I haven't had to deal with a super-controlling religious family. But my mom has been known to go off her rocker from time to time. There were several years where she was abusing codeine and alcohol and was being manipulative and controlling. My husband finally had to take a stand and cut her off from our family for a period of time. I was too much of a wreck to do it myself at the time. I knew her behavior was wrong and it was hurting me, but she's my mom and I didn't want to hurt her. I knew she wouldn't understand. But I also knew that for my own good I had to cut off contact. It was a HUGE relief to not have to deal with her phone calls and manipulation anymore. I had no idea how much it was stressing me out until it stopped. After that, whenever she would go through a period of craziness I was able to stand up for myself with her.

 

I think it would really help if you could take the emotion out of all this for a moment and take a look at this situation objectively, if you can. Think about how much time and energy you and your wife are expending on this situation. Think about how much you two talk about it. Think about how much time you spend simply thinking about this situation and feeling anxious about it. Think about how all of that effects you as a parent and husband. When you have a constant stressor like this in your life, it effects how you relate to everyone, that's just inevitable. Not only that, but it even effects your health! Now imagine that stressor being removed from your life, from your mind, and from your relationship with your wife and kids. Think about going about your day, work, etc without worrying about this. Think about sitting around with your family and enjoying each other without this crap in the back of your mind...spending time with your wife talking about stuff other than your crazy-ass parents. YOU have the power to make that happen!

 

I'm really not trying to sound like a cheesy motivational speaker here. haha I'm just speaking from experience. We've had several different extremely stressful relationship situations over our 20 years of marriage. Each time we've had to make the decision to walk away from an abusive church, family member or friend, it has been so difficult. But I can tell you we have NO regrets. And I can tell you that every single time, I was totally amazed by how much more clearly I could see what was going on once I got distance from the situation. And every time I looked back at that situation I couldn't believe how long I/we put up with it!

 

Life is just too short, man. It is too short to live like that and put up with that kind of pain and bullshit. And it's too short to waste any time you could spend being happy and enjoying your wife and kids. I'm a very non-confrontational person and it's SO hard for me to stand up to people. But I've learned that I'm worth it and my family is worth it. None of us can afford to give other people that kind of power in our lives.

 

I really think that it's time for you to end this. Unfortunately, even though you are the victim here, it is on you to end the abuse. You deserve so much more than living this way.