In regards to “saving the world,” I’ve thought a lot about how the most important part we all play is in our own small community of family/friends. When you think about how much of Christianity is about child sacrifice, if I break that cycle and raise my child to know she’s loved unconditionally and isn’t broken or condemned, or needing to be saved.. I’ve changed the world as far as my personal responsibility goes. That’s the kind of love that’s really good news. <3
There are so many moments in this essay that struck me, I can’t decide what to respond to!
I’ll start with a word from a fellow autistic: There are other communities that will appreciate your muchness 💖 In my experience, they can be hard to find, but Substack and writing in general have been great ways to connect with those right people.
Second, just thank you for sharing your experience. I’ve had a complex relationship with the effects of Christian supremacy in a rural community throughout my life (in addition to the cPTSD of being autistic, a woman and queer in such a society), and reading your words has given me language to describe the insidious harm that’s so hard to recognize. That simple gift is so vital for fighting the gaslighting these institutions do to our communities.
Congrats on celebrating one year, and I look forward to reading more!
I love you so much. All of you. Every bit. I don’t know how you find all these great words to describe everything. 😍 People tell me “how do you write big thoughts so succinctly in a poem?” and I’m thinking “25 words was literally all I could come up with.” 🤣 I hope you continue to find so much healing and hope and happiness. And thanks for bringing so much of that to us. (Please don’t stop.) (unless you need to) 😘
Your atheism has been such a nourishing force for me this year. When you said you wish you could be a cool agnostic, into tarot and Jesus, I felt kinship there. I often wish I could be a cool atheist--because what is actually sacred seems to come into such clear focus for atheists. And I wish i could be more radically witchy, because it is so hard for me access my power. And I wish I could be not into Jesus at all, because I don’t know what to do with the pieces that remain or how to identify myself, and sometimes wonder if I’m just being cowardly. But we each get to land where we land, and the cool thing is, when we honor our own autonomy and the autonomy of each other, we get to be nourished by where each other lands as well. So I get to be nourished by your atheism, and the way your thank-yous extends to the actual people and creatures in your life. And by witchy practices that give me access to my voice--and I get to be who I am, want what I want, and take up the space that I take up.
“So I learned to say thank you to my physical body. To the ocean and its beauty. To my partner, for all his sweetness. To my kids, for all the ways they teach me and bring me joy. To the gigantic pine trees in my neighborhood. To my dog, and my cat. To my legs, my shoulders, my hips, my head—for the bones and muscles and veins carrying me through this life. I learned to feel grief and anger and fear in my physical body too, to ground myself in my one precious corporeal form.” This part about grieving the “comfort” you found in god - that was actually just bypassing hit me straight in the gut.
My kids have been struggling A LOT recently and a small voice in my head keeps saying “it’s because you haven’t given them god and the Bible and solidity and faith” and of course another small part of me believes it. But hearing you call it bypassing reminds me that I’m helping my kids FEEL their feelings - just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we are doing anything wrong!
helping our kids feel their feelings is truly the hardest, partly because it is so triggering to me! I never got to do that, and god was invoked/used as a way to get me to behave/conform. But struggling is so normal, and such a part of being human, and we get to be with each other during those times! I'm so grateful so many of us are doing the exact opposite of how we are raised and giving our kids the gift of emotional intelligence.
The insidious promise of evangelicalism to save you from the experience of being human--it’s what gives the faith so many psychic barriers to human connection, and what haunts us whenever being human feels too hard. I really relate to this
Oh gosh, that last paragraph absolutely. Anytime anything happens that is scary or stressful I want to go to a creator to not feel the feelings and then want to put blame on myself for not having the “correct” beliefs to prevent this.
Can't agree enough about kind of stuff being a kind of way to receive comfort- I used to have strong feelings of connection in prayer- I now recognize this as a way of dissociating away from situations and using my strong imagination to fill in for what I was not actually getting IRL or just being avoidant, essentially.
People in this mindset also definitely use silence and disappearing as a major aspect of dealing with this stuff- as I have been deconstructing it I have realized that avoidance of serious conversation of this stuff is a hallmark.
I really relate to your words about prayer. It used to be the only way I felt connection--the only way I felt knowable. But it was just me retreating into a psychic space where I don’t need to be knowable; in prayer I was dissociating from my social needs and practicing a socially acceptable way for females to be avoidant.
thank you, this makes me feel less alone. I used all of that stuff to disassociate through life, but I never hear other people talk about it in those terms!
Things continue to surface that I didn’t think would. Like how I hate saying no to the people I love because I think they’ll interpret it as not loving them. I say no, coupled with I love you, but it comes out like a pretty weird I love you lol.
As I was reflecting, I realized with God we were always supposed to say yes, no matter or wants or needs or feelings (he said empty your bank account but you value stability? Oh well! Gotta obey) , and if we didn’t it meant we didn’t love God enough. I think that’s why I tack on the I love you because it feels so bad to say no and to disappoint, and I don’t want them to think I don’t love them. So anyways thanks evangelicalism!
i actually think i'd appreciate this immensely, if someone reminded me not to spiral by saying they love me and care about me and then getting to the response to the question. it separates the task/favor/request from the relationship overall.
but i know what you mean about the "supposed to say yes". one of my huge childhood fears was that god would "call me" to be a missionary, and then i felt so guilty because i knew i wouldn't do it, and then i'd be "outside of god's will".
Thank you for putting all these thoughts out there. I relate really deeply. I’m in the throws of not knowing what I believe while navigating OCD. Something really stressful happened the other night and my immediate thought was that I needed to be a Christian. I think this happened for a couple reasons. One is that I wanted comfort. I wanted something to pray to and ask for help, and I wanted the promise that even if this situation isn’t okay that eventually it will all be okay. Also, it is deeply ingrained in me that if bad things happen to me it’s because I don’t have the correct beliefs, or am doing the wrong things. It’s so hard to untangle all that and it would be sweet to have a stressful situation in life not send me into existential panic, lol.
I also find it harder to believe in an intervening god, but the way my brain is wired is that I never trust my feelings, so I have to try to work out if thats what is “true” I believe in some sort of a creator and have the hardest time understanding why a creator would put all this into motion and then not have anything to do with us. Do you have any thoughts on that? Or suggestions on how to think about it differently?
I think if you have existential thoughts often that lead to rumination loops/stress and anxiety it's probably good to take a step back from focusing on answering those questions. Sometimes trying to figure out what's true/what you "truly" believe is just a sneaky OCD cycle and has to be treated as such! I think just allowing yourself to be a human being who is just as confused as anyone else can be a helpful antidote to evangelical narratives.
The hard part about OCD is that I feel like I’m never going to be able to have a worldview because all the questions lead to an OCD cycle. The idea of always being like, “I don’t know” and never having a soft place to land feels so scary, but maybe eventually could become freeing.
I can relate to how much it sucks to have to leave OCD’s questions unanswered, but, in my experience, you don’t have to stay there forever. Now that I am (mostly) out of the OCD cycle thanks to evidence-based therapy and meds, I can reexamine my religious and existential questions without triggering the looping thoughts and intense anxiety spirals. Sending you so much love as you work through the tedious recovery process.
i don't know if this will help because i don't have OCD, but i try to focus on what i do believe in and my values and principles and leave the rest alone for a while. like, "i believe in loving, caring, nurturing, pacifism, equality, generosity, Music..." and then how can i try to practice those things out in the world?
You always amaze me with your well-written essays about your life & experience, and in which I see a lot of my own experience too. Thanks for doing this writing work and sharing it with us.
I realized this year just how much I love saying “I don’t know”. What does a belief in god look like for me? Do I want to believe in god today? Etc etc After having to always give an answer-the right answer-for years, I get to toss my hair and say I don’t know. I can say I reject a bunch of beliefs. Pretty sure I have OCD and I do know that ruminating on theology sucks for my mental health. Mostly I get so much joy out of writing whatever I want and being in nature.
ALL OF THIS! It's been said but seriously thank you for writing about your experience! Like Dana said there were so many moments in this essay that struck me!
It does take immense courage to deconvert and so many Christians see it as a flippant choice. I gave up all my community and possible rejection from family and friends because I could just NOT agree with any of it anymore. That is a huge sacrifice to being free.
The whole "good news' thing, ugh makes me cringe!
My niece is 3 1/2 and the other day I heard her mom say "she figured out what sin is". I thought to myself "she is a 3 year old! She is curious and it is age appropriate to explore and try things!" Ugh that really triggered me.
I love this journey for you! And I fucking love your conception of a witch. I resonate with that so much and have lost many friends because of my witchy faith transition. Cheers to celebrating not bowing down to high-control religion!
Kandi. I'm looking forward to how you got where you are.. I'm exploring another form of spirituality. I don't know what I'm looking for. I hope I'll know when I find it.
I can't NOT read the footnotes (neurodivergent trait maybe? I have to read e v e r y single word?). My fav is when the footnotes are fun rambling rants or jokes from the author (like yours!)
Forgot to say, I so relate to your attachment panic, as you describe it. Those are so painful. I still get them sometimes but I do know I’m done trying to be humble or miserable enough to warrant gods attention. How fucked up is that kind of relationship dynamic anyway??
your thoughts are such a healing balm, in this post and in everything you've shared...so glad i found you and this community. you've all given me so much of a solidarity feeling, understanding, and so many creative suggestions about how to deal with religious trauma. thank you!
Your sharing in the past year of deconverting has been so helpful for me. I never read your work before this newsletter but I was aware of your name in the progressive xian circles and had heard of at least one of your books. Reading personal essays from a very public xian who has deconverted has been healing.
I don’t know if I would call myself an atheist or agnostic. I know I am not a christian anymore. Once I stopped going to church and got bored of all the religion, then I realised I wasn’t into jesus either, whoever he is, so it was like opening up a box that used to be full and realising there was nothing left in there.
This is such a clear essay; your personal definitely speaks of the political -- and the systems and the underpinning white Christian supremacy which is so important to reveal.
In regards to “saving the world,” I’ve thought a lot about how the most important part we all play is in our own small community of family/friends. When you think about how much of Christianity is about child sacrifice, if I break that cycle and raise my child to know she’s loved unconditionally and isn’t broken or condemned, or needing to be saved.. I’ve changed the world as far as my personal responsibility goes. That’s the kind of love that’s really good news. <3
exactly this! I really feel like my kids have saved me from a cult, but it's hard to explain that to people . . .
This! ❤️
Amen!❤️
There are so many moments in this essay that struck me, I can’t decide what to respond to!
I’ll start with a word from a fellow autistic: There are other communities that will appreciate your muchness 💖 In my experience, they can be hard to find, but Substack and writing in general have been great ways to connect with those right people.
Second, just thank you for sharing your experience. I’ve had a complex relationship with the effects of Christian supremacy in a rural community throughout my life (in addition to the cPTSD of being autistic, a woman and queer in such a society), and reading your words has given me language to describe the insidious harm that’s so hard to recognize. That simple gift is so vital for fighting the gaslighting these institutions do to our communities.
Congrats on celebrating one year, and I look forward to reading more!
I love you so much. All of you. Every bit. I don’t know how you find all these great words to describe everything. 😍 People tell me “how do you write big thoughts so succinctly in a poem?” and I’m thinking “25 words was literally all I could come up with.” 🤣 I hope you continue to find so much healing and hope and happiness. And thanks for bringing so much of that to us. (Please don’t stop.) (unless you need to) 😘
Your atheism has been such a nourishing force for me this year. When you said you wish you could be a cool agnostic, into tarot and Jesus, I felt kinship there. I often wish I could be a cool atheist--because what is actually sacred seems to come into such clear focus for atheists. And I wish i could be more radically witchy, because it is so hard for me access my power. And I wish I could be not into Jesus at all, because I don’t know what to do with the pieces that remain or how to identify myself, and sometimes wonder if I’m just being cowardly. But we each get to land where we land, and the cool thing is, when we honor our own autonomy and the autonomy of each other, we get to be nourished by where each other lands as well. So I get to be nourished by your atheism, and the way your thank-yous extends to the actual people and creatures in your life. And by witchy practices that give me access to my voice--and I get to be who I am, want what I want, and take up the space that I take up.
this is so healing for me to read! I'm going to try and let it all soak in.
High fucking fives to all of this!
Cheers to not being on a mission!!! 🍻
“So I learned to say thank you to my physical body. To the ocean and its beauty. To my partner, for all his sweetness. To my kids, for all the ways they teach me and bring me joy. To the gigantic pine trees in my neighborhood. To my dog, and my cat. To my legs, my shoulders, my hips, my head—for the bones and muscles and veins carrying me through this life. I learned to feel grief and anger and fear in my physical body too, to ground myself in my one precious corporeal form.” This part about grieving the “comfort” you found in god - that was actually just bypassing hit me straight in the gut.
My kids have been struggling A LOT recently and a small voice in my head keeps saying “it’s because you haven’t given them god and the Bible and solidity and faith” and of course another small part of me believes it. But hearing you call it bypassing reminds me that I’m helping my kids FEEL their feelings - just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we are doing anything wrong!
helping our kids feel their feelings is truly the hardest, partly because it is so triggering to me! I never got to do that, and god was invoked/used as a way to get me to behave/conform. But struggling is so normal, and such a part of being human, and we get to be with each other during those times! I'm so grateful so many of us are doing the exact opposite of how we are raised and giving our kids the gift of emotional intelligence.
The insidious promise of evangelicalism to save you from the experience of being human--it’s what gives the faith so many psychic barriers to human connection, and what haunts us whenever being human feels too hard. I really relate to this
Oh gosh, that last paragraph absolutely. Anytime anything happens that is scary or stressful I want to go to a creator to not feel the feelings and then want to put blame on myself for not having the “correct” beliefs to prevent this.
Oof I relate to your last paragraph. ❤️
Can't agree enough about kind of stuff being a kind of way to receive comfort- I used to have strong feelings of connection in prayer- I now recognize this as a way of dissociating away from situations and using my strong imagination to fill in for what I was not actually getting IRL or just being avoidant, essentially.
People in this mindset also definitely use silence and disappearing as a major aspect of dealing with this stuff- as I have been deconstructing it I have realized that avoidance of serious conversation of this stuff is a hallmark.
I really relate to your words about prayer. It used to be the only way I felt connection--the only way I felt knowable. But it was just me retreating into a psychic space where I don’t need to be knowable; in prayer I was dissociating from my social needs and practicing a socially acceptable way for females to be avoidant.
Dissociating from my social needs and being avoidant 💔💔💔💔 holy shit. This was worship music for me too!
I just love this space DL has cultivated. Look at us all connecting the dots 😂
thank you, this makes me feel less alone. I used all of that stuff to disassociate through life, but I never hear other people talk about it in those terms!
Things continue to surface that I didn’t think would. Like how I hate saying no to the people I love because I think they’ll interpret it as not loving them. I say no, coupled with I love you, but it comes out like a pretty weird I love you lol.
As I was reflecting, I realized with God we were always supposed to say yes, no matter or wants or needs or feelings (he said empty your bank account but you value stability? Oh well! Gotta obey) , and if we didn’t it meant we didn’t love God enough. I think that’s why I tack on the I love you because it feels so bad to say no and to disappoint, and I don’t want them to think I don’t love them. So anyways thanks evangelicalism!
i actually think i'd appreciate this immensely, if someone reminded me not to spiral by saying they love me and care about me and then getting to the response to the question. it separates the task/favor/request from the relationship overall.
but i know what you mean about the "supposed to say yes". one of my huge childhood fears was that god would "call me" to be a missionary, and then i felt so guilty because i knew i wouldn't do it, and then i'd be "outside of god's will".
Thank you for putting all these thoughts out there. I relate really deeply. I’m in the throws of not knowing what I believe while navigating OCD. Something really stressful happened the other night and my immediate thought was that I needed to be a Christian. I think this happened for a couple reasons. One is that I wanted comfort. I wanted something to pray to and ask for help, and I wanted the promise that even if this situation isn’t okay that eventually it will all be okay. Also, it is deeply ingrained in me that if bad things happen to me it’s because I don’t have the correct beliefs, or am doing the wrong things. It’s so hard to untangle all that and it would be sweet to have a stressful situation in life not send me into existential panic, lol.
I also find it harder to believe in an intervening god, but the way my brain is wired is that I never trust my feelings, so I have to try to work out if thats what is “true” I believe in some sort of a creator and have the hardest time understanding why a creator would put all this into motion and then not have anything to do with us. Do you have any thoughts on that? Or suggestions on how to think about it differently?
I think if you have existential thoughts often that lead to rumination loops/stress and anxiety it's probably good to take a step back from focusing on answering those questions. Sometimes trying to figure out what's true/what you "truly" believe is just a sneaky OCD cycle and has to be treated as such! I think just allowing yourself to be a human being who is just as confused as anyone else can be a helpful antidote to evangelical narratives.
The hard part about OCD is that I feel like I’m never going to be able to have a worldview because all the questions lead to an OCD cycle. The idea of always being like, “I don’t know” and never having a soft place to land feels so scary, but maybe eventually could become freeing.
I can relate to how much it sucks to have to leave OCD’s questions unanswered, but, in my experience, you don’t have to stay there forever. Now that I am (mostly) out of the OCD cycle thanks to evidence-based therapy and meds, I can reexamine my religious and existential questions without triggering the looping thoughts and intense anxiety spirals. Sending you so much love as you work through the tedious recovery process.
i don't know if this will help because i don't have OCD, but i try to focus on what i do believe in and my values and principles and leave the rest alone for a while. like, "i believe in loving, caring, nurturing, pacifism, equality, generosity, Music..." and then how can i try to practice those things out in the world?
The existential panic part is soooo relatable. ❤️🩹
Thanks for sharing! I so relate! <3
You always amaze me with your well-written essays about your life & experience, and in which I see a lot of my own experience too. Thanks for doing this writing work and sharing it with us.
I realized this year just how much I love saying “I don’t know”. What does a belief in god look like for me? Do I want to believe in god today? Etc etc After having to always give an answer-the right answer-for years, I get to toss my hair and say I don’t know. I can say I reject a bunch of beliefs. Pretty sure I have OCD and I do know that ruminating on theology sucks for my mental health. Mostly I get so much joy out of writing whatever I want and being in nature.
That angry atheist emu cracks me up.
Toss my hair and say I don’t know! Yes!! So playful and light.
And the emu!!!😂
ALL OF THIS! It's been said but seriously thank you for writing about your experience! Like Dana said there were so many moments in this essay that struck me!
It does take immense courage to deconvert and so many Christians see it as a flippant choice. I gave up all my community and possible rejection from family and friends because I could just NOT agree with any of it anymore. That is a huge sacrifice to being free.
The whole "good news' thing, ugh makes me cringe!
My niece is 3 1/2 and the other day I heard her mom say "she figured out what sin is". I thought to myself "she is a 3 year old! She is curious and it is age appropriate to explore and try things!" Ugh that really triggered me.
So much courage!
And saying kids are sinners is the biggggest trigger for me. And yes, “good news” as loaded cult language spoke to me too.
Ugh..your niece. So sorry
I love this journey for you! And I fucking love your conception of a witch. I resonate with that so much and have lost many friends because of my witchy faith transition. Cheers to celebrating not bowing down to high-control religion!
Kandi. I'm looking forward to how you got where you are.. I'm exploring another form of spirituality. I don't know what I'm looking for. I hope I'll know when I find it.
All 👏 your 👏 foot 👏 notes 👏 yassss 👏
yay I LOVE it when people read the footnotes!!!!!
I can't NOT read the footnotes (neurodivergent trait maybe? I have to read e v e r y single word?). My fav is when the footnotes are fun rambling rants or jokes from the author (like yours!)
always! a special treat!
Forgot to say, I so relate to your attachment panic, as you describe it. Those are so painful. I still get them sometimes but I do know I’m done trying to be humble or miserable enough to warrant gods attention. How fucked up is that kind of relationship dynamic anyway??
it's sooooooo fucked up. and re-iterated constantly if your parents disciplined you using Dobson methods.
Attachment panic was such helpful terminology. It’s so helpful when something is called exactly what it is.
your thoughts are such a healing balm, in this post and in everything you've shared...so glad i found you and this community. you've all given me so much of a solidarity feeling, understanding, and so many creative suggestions about how to deal with religious trauma. thank you!
Your sharing in the past year of deconverting has been so helpful for me. I never read your work before this newsletter but I was aware of your name in the progressive xian circles and had heard of at least one of your books. Reading personal essays from a very public xian who has deconverted has been healing.
I don’t know if I would call myself an atheist or agnostic. I know I am not a christian anymore. Once I stopped going to church and got bored of all the religion, then I realised I wasn’t into jesus either, whoever he is, so it was like opening up a box that used to be full and realising there was nothing left in there.
❤️❤️
This is such a clear essay; your personal definitely speaks of the political -- and the systems and the underpinning white Christian supremacy which is so important to reveal.