A couple of days after posting that song… maybe even the day after… I sat down and attempted to write about why …or at least… how this …and almost anything connected to god or Christianity affects me… but …maybe due to my own spontaneous …or even… involuntary reactions I hit a wrong button on my computer and all was lost…
I want to give it another try…
I want to give it another try because lately I keep finding myself having to explain as for some reason people won’t stop to a simple no… or to the extreme… send me messages attempting to explain how wrong I am for “denying their god” …or the classic… “You are going to hell” remark… I hope most of you get the picture…
I do have my reasons for having to avoid this subject… reasons that I cannot yet fully write or share without jeopardizing my mental stability… or without pushing myself off the edge of an already weak mental state…
When I tell someone… especially if that someone has strong religious believes him/herself that you don’t believe in God or that you have different opinions about the Bible …they often automatically assume you are somehow a bad person… or they will try to ‘save’ you …even attempt to scare you into believing in their version of god…
…so here I am again… attempting to write about the very one thing that will usually bring up unwanted emotions… a strong collection of emotions where my brain runs off into the darkest corners of my childhood memories… Where I can hear the voice of my mother talking to her god… and where I can physically feel the pain on my 51 year old body… the same pain I felt as a child …while being tortured…
People who truly know me… family mostly… know that I try to avoid the subject of religion and anything that has to do with believing in god… or a higher power… They are also the people that respect my opinions on the subject and if… on that rare occasion… it comes up in a conversation or in life …like a christening or even a church wedding… or something of that sort… I am able to ask to be excused if I feel so… and they also know that a funeral isn’t in the picture either…
Holidays like Christmas or Easter is a mental struggle as well but my wife and close family has helped me by making new traditions and turning these holidays into non religious family time…
They know that everything I have ever accomplished or survived through was done with my sheer determination of getting through it… I won’t say this determination has always led to the best results in every situation… but …it is what it is… and it is indeed what has kept me alive… multiple times in my lifetime… and so far it is what works for me…
With that said… I do have my own personal spiritual beliefs… but without a god or a higher power… or a power that is higher or more powerful than exists in me… In many cases I don’t feel a need to find a solution to everything… I don’t really feel the need to wonder about where I will be going after this life… I don’t need to know why I have had to go through all of what I have been through… and I don’t need to know why my mother and my children had to die in that fire 24 years ago…
I try to use the phrase “I want to believe…” rather than “I believe…”
Yes I do want to believe my children are together… I want to believe that “souls” are connected… not just through this life but in other unknown dimensions as well… I want to believe I have known my wife for a very long time… much longer than those almost 32 years we’ve known each other in this lifetime… And I know we will continue to know each other when we leave here… That is one thing that makes me feel at peace… It helps me to accept the fact that neither of us will live forever… I don’t fear my own death… never have… but I do fear the death of my wife… any of my children… or anyone close to me… or … maybe in a selfish way… I fear my potential reactions… if any one of them should go before I do…
…and yes I want to believe that my loved ones are somewhere where I can join them one day… and sometimes I do truly believe that… but it’s not “heaven” or anything in that sense… However those kind of thoughts are not something that I want to spend hours wondering about as I know there is no real physical evidence of that anyway… There is no solid proof… and maybe the only way for me to find out is to kick the bucket and check it out… and that’s not on my list of plans …for now at least…
When I think about it this is what has helped me with the hallucinations… the need to be able to have a solid proof for everything… I know very well there are things in life you cannot find an explanation for… and that’s where most people turn to religion… Where knowledge ends religion takes over… but for me… I don’t know… It feels like a waste of time to try to figure out an explanation of everything… I don’t know why I had to go through my childhood the way I did… I don’t know why my children had to die…
Yes sure… in the past I have spent time trying to find a “reason”… and used the most obvious one to me at the time… it being what I was taught as a child… that it was because I was evil and I wasn’t in enough physical pain to control it…
Many people jump to the conclusion that my disbelief was brought on by the death of my children… In a way that’s understandable as it’s not uncommon for those who believe in god question their faith when a child dies…
But in my case it’s not really about my children dying… but it goes much further than that… most…if not all of it to my childhood… While I know now that my mother was wrong in what she believed about me… Some things are just not that easy to shake…
There is a lot that I have accomplished through therapy over the years… I have learned ways to deal with my mind… How to keep my “inner demons” from destroying me… Some I’ve managed to get rid of for good… but some I have locked in a cage inside of me… Sometimes they can break the lock so to speak and poison my thoughts…
I know I can’t fully explain how this… religion or god… affects me… I don’t think I can fully understand it myself… but if I did… I’m sure I probably wouldn’t be struggling with it the way I do sometimes…
Although I know people mean well when they tell me they are praying for me… I sometimes struggle with the very thought of it… Sometimes I struggle with a simple word someone puts down as a comment on my writing… or a comment on a status on my Facebook page… I can just ignore it on a good day…or at least my trigger threshold is higher…
Some days I have to stay away from those while I get myself to calm down from my out of control short circuiting brain… but I know I cannot hide inside a bubble to avoid this to ‘get to me’… and I don’t expect people to give up what they believe in… for me however… I find myself scroll away from that kind of posts… even with the smallest reference…
Yes… It’s a childhood/abuse thing … has to do with my mother… things she said… and did… to me… It triggers …not just memories… but more like feeling or emotions… something that I can not control… It triggers fear to a point of an anxiety attack… even visions of being a child again… being tortured by her… and when the vision is gone… a very strong need for me to hurt myself…
I grew up with both parents believing in god and reading from the bible… and making me reading from the bible… I had an ugly childhood… and yes… their religion… or their fear of their god… especially my mother’s was a large part of that ugliness… and while she physically tortured me …in the name of her god… quoting the bible…
The very simple explanation is… evil versus good… and her words… evil must suffer so it can be controlled…
…but of course there is a LOT more to it than that… yeah PTSD… and probably a bit of brainwashing too… and maybe a fear of a higher power ruling me… controlling me… I don’t want a higher power or something more powerful than the power I have in me…
She believed I was evil…she made me believe I was evil… Son of Satan… She prayed…she said God told her to torture me… to control my “evil mind”… Yes I know this was her mental illness… maybe even a part of my own mental illness…
Almost every day of my life until 10 years ago I wanted to die… and that feeling grew worse and worse… Although I did believe my mother about the ‘curse’ and that it would only go to someone else if I’d died… I didn’t care about that anymore… I wanted it to end for me… I struggled with the thought of it for almost two years though… of course I’d had thoughts like that before… even made a few “spur of the moment” attempts… This was different… and needed a careful planning… But when it was “too late”… I changed my mind… I only needed one second… or a part of a second to change my mind… Of wanting to live… and to be able to see my children grow up and have children of their own… and that split second… Just before passing out… the will to live took over…
I don‘t know if any of you are familiar with the word „trigger“ or „flashback“… but I sure am… And religion, especially when it is directed at me directly it is a trigger for me… as I mentioned earlier… I can actually physically feel and hear my mother torturing me…
I have my reasons for not wanting or needing a god… I hate the fact that people cannot seem to accept that… I can accept that other people believe… but please… when I specifically ask for no „prayers“ it’s NOT because I hate your religion or anything of that sort… and if you for any reason feel offended by the fact that I dare to say that out loud to protect my own well being… then I’d rather you’d just keep it to yourself and stay out of my way…
I know this is long… I know I’m going in circles… If you have read through the whole thing… If you read through this and I have in some way offended you… then by all mean feel free to silently walk away… Either way… I appreciate you taking the time…
