Your description of how it feels to be trapped in Christianity at the beginning of this sounds exactly like you are describing my 35-year marriage to a narcissist. It's interesting to me now, as I am almost a year out from his passing, I am deconstructing the faith that I thought carried me through those hard times, and realizing that it just made it all worse, causing me so often to believe the issues were my fault and keeping me trapped in the marriage with the dogma of divorce grieving God. The truth was, I was really trapped in two narc relationships. Thanks for all you do Tim!
I feel so isolated in leaving the community (sounds cultish to me now) normal people don't understand the damage it's done and those evangelics think I'm going to hell for trying to be myself and get fysically and mentally better. I need to be away from triggers and those family and friends who act so loving with their hateful Bible verses. So many times I almost selfexited but even that I wasn't aloud because that would be a sin and I'd go to hell. 😂 the mindfuckery and despair. I wish I found people with the same struggles sooner. We're not alone.
@@distracted5767 I've heard a number of people say that, even if they were involved in a very abusive cult, they miss the sense of community and belonging. Church communities are instant, built-in communities where everyone is there and all you have to do is turn up and voila! I miss the good old days in the very beginning when I was still high and euphoric from my discovery of God.
Could never let loose and have real fun. I'll never forget being at a party in college and this other Christian kid I was with said everyone at the party was sinning, including us. It wasn't like a wild frat party or anything. Yes there was some drinking but the crowd was tame by college party standards. I was floored. A red flag went off in the back of my brain somewhere. Some years later, after many more red flags, my deconstruction started.
I was trapped by the fear of loving or enjoying anything too much. Don't you dare have any other gods before him. Don't dare pour your whole heart into anything other than him. You might piss off your ever loving father. I have major ADHD and hyperfixating for periods of time is the only way I can navigate life with any kind of joy. An ADHD kid believing that hyperfixating is a sin is cruel, suffocating, and debilitating.
Oh darling. If you can cope with higs, i am sending you a big one. From an audhd. I hear you. The false guilt out on us by unthinking, superficial spiritual bullies was cruel. Yeah. Hyperfixatipn is not idolatry, but they dont mind how much we suffer with the undeserved guilt they pushed onto us. Another hug. If you can cope with a hug. Not if you dont. I dont want to overwhelm you.
Now that I have been out of Christianity for a long time and have some perspective on it, I am slowly finding it easier to forgive the Christians who were abusive to me. They were not only perpetrators but victims as well.
I remember how everyone else becomes so impressed with what the preacher preaches and I felt nothing. Secondly most religions are based on their particular prophet/s dogmas. Finally I learned that critical thinking and faith cannot exist together.
Being who i am, is supposedly a sin, wanting boundaries against toxic people is not respecting, feeling you dont feel safe or dont want something is forced to be supressed, speaking up or questioning rocks the boat, emotions are of the devil, your broken and sinfull and never anough, youre not worthy of insert any act of selfcare, dont believe in yourself but only god and his contradictions. Forgive who actively abuses you so they can do it over and over again, and get blamed for not forgiving good enough when you get fysically and mentally ill from supressing the truth. Hyperventilating, shaking, guilt, crossing your own boundaries. And thats supposed to be love. The more you read the bible and the more you pray the more you realise he's either a sociopathic monster or hes simply a manmade tool for manipulating people. No normal friends because were not of thos world. Then what are we. Aliens? Someone else would swear and i would duck scared of god and start praying for them. Loving god my ass . Satan is made by god, and used as an excuse and god forgiving too. All toxic manipulations. It doesnt matter what you say theyre is always a contradictory text to use and throw your way from the bible. Its a constant gaslighting. Good daughter, good christian, good wife, meanwhile you're miserable till you get a burnout and you have to change to survive
Some of this is mysterious in a way. I found some interesting things in my life. One was reading a lot of systematic theology (I enjoyed it a lot - but it meant focusing on things behind my eye balls like the distinction between prelapsarianism and infralapsariansim). my inner pain and struggles were neglected. Sexuality was an issue because in having encounters that I'd both want and then turn away from, hurtting myself and probably the other person at the same time (I'm sure I did hurt others but I certainly hirt myself). This, needless to say, is not normal behaviour and doesn't lead to self acceptance. You can't accept yourself or develop your identity if you can't engage in the sexual contact that both peeople want to happen (obviously evangelicals are both against premarital sex but against marriage for same sex couples). I'm not saying this as if sex is important. In some ways it isn't, but for evangelicals sex becomes everything. At my time as an evangelcal every second word was about what the gays were doing or trying to do (I am exaggerating a little). For me there were a number of leavings. Leaving the charismatic milieu, leaving the evangelical milieu was the most important breathrough. The most important leaving was to leave the evangelical movement.
Every thing I did was with "God". He saw everything and knew every thought. I woke up out of sleep praying before I even opened my eyes. I had a conversation going non-stop with bible verses entering my mind believing it was the spirit of god and a lot of times it seemed like he was talking to me like "I talk to myself." All day, every day nearly non-stop convos.
@user-qg9ck9de8d pray at all times, watch and pray, so that you won't enter into temptation. I never really knew what entering into temptation really even was BTW. Then Paul saying to pray unceasingly. I felt like I might sin if I wasnt praying all the time.
Not even my thoughts were private.
Your description of how it feels to be trapped in Christianity at the beginning of this sounds exactly like you are describing my 35-year marriage to a narcissist. It's interesting to me now, as I am almost a year out from his passing, I am deconstructing the faith that I thought carried me through those hard times, and realizing that it just made it all worse, causing me so often to believe the issues were my fault and keeping me trapped in the marriage with the dogma of divorce grieving God. The truth was, I was really trapped in two narc relationships. Thanks for all you do Tim!
It is so affirming to hear that other people feel the same way I do.
I feel so isolated in leaving the community (sounds cultish to me now) normal people don't understand the damage it's done and those evangelics think I'm going to hell for trying to be myself and get fysically and mentally better. I need to be away from triggers and those family and friends who act so loving with their hateful Bible verses. So many times I almost selfexited but even that I wasn't aloud because that would be a sin and I'd go to hell. 😂 the mindfuckery and despair. I wish I found people with the same struggles sooner. We're not alone.
@@distracted5767 I've heard a number of people say that, even if they were involved in a very abusive cult, they miss the sense of community and belonging.
Church communities are instant, built-in communities where everyone is there and all you have to do is turn up and voila!
I miss the good old days in the very beginning when I was still high and euphoric from my discovery of God.
Could never let loose and have real fun. I'll never forget being at a party in college and this other Christian kid I was with said everyone at the party was sinning, including us. It wasn't like a wild frat party or anything. Yes there was some drinking but the crowd was tame by college party standards. I was floored. A red flag went off in the back of my brain somewhere. Some years later, after many more red flags, my deconstruction started.
I was trapped by the fear of loving or enjoying anything too much.
Don't you dare have any other gods before him. Don't dare pour your whole heart into anything other than him. You might piss off your ever loving father.
I have major ADHD and hyperfixating for periods of time is the only way I can navigate life with any kind of joy.
An ADHD kid believing that hyperfixating is a sin is cruel, suffocating, and debilitating.
Oh darling. If you can cope with higs, i am sending you a big one. From an audhd. I hear you. The false guilt out on us by unthinking, superficial spiritual bullies was cruel.
Yeah. Hyperfixatipn is not idolatry, but they dont mind how much we suffer with the undeserved guilt they pushed onto us.
Another hug. If you can cope with a hug. Not if you dont. I dont want to overwhelm you.
@Plethorality I'll take a hug and give one too. ❤️
@@user-qg9ck9de8dthank you!
Totally relate to fear of loving or enjoying anything too much. Even having ice cream was a questionable activity bc I was "feeding my flesh."
"Christianity is a hostage situation"
A lot if it can be.
The whole thing is a hostage situation.
I believed it would be a sin to divorce my abuser
Sorry you went through this .
Hugs
Me too.
Me too. I stayed for 3 extra years waiting for God to tell me to leave because of fear of Gods wrath for divorce. I wanted to leave much earlier.
I quickly learnt not to be too happy, frivolous or light hearted around other Christians, lest they judge me for that.
Now that I have been out of Christianity for a long time and have some perspective on it, I am slowly finding it easier to forgive the Christians who were abusive to me.
They were not only perpetrators but victims as well.
I remember how everyone else becomes so impressed with what the preacher preaches and I felt nothing. Secondly most religions are based on their particular prophet/s dogmas. Finally I learned that critical thinking and faith cannot exist together.
True!
❤❤❤💪💪💪
Being who i am, is supposedly a sin, wanting boundaries against toxic people is not respecting, feeling you dont feel safe or dont want something is forced to be supressed, speaking up or questioning rocks the boat, emotions are of the devil, your broken and sinfull and never anough, youre not worthy of insert any act of selfcare, dont believe in yourself but only god and his contradictions. Forgive who actively abuses you so they can do it over and over again, and get blamed for not forgiving good enough when you get fysically and mentally ill from supressing the truth. Hyperventilating, shaking, guilt, crossing your own boundaries. And thats supposed to be love. The more you read the bible and the more you pray the more you realise he's either a sociopathic monster or hes simply a manmade tool for manipulating people. No normal friends because were not of thos world. Then what are we. Aliens? Someone else would swear and i would duck scared of god and start praying for them. Loving god my ass . Satan is made by god, and used as an excuse and god forgiving too. All toxic manipulations. It doesnt matter what you say theyre is always a contradictory text to use and throw your way from the bible. Its a constant gaslighting. Good daughter, good christian, good wife, meanwhile you're miserable till you get a burnout and you have to change to survive
Our heterosexuality gets denied, too.
Some of this is mysterious in a way. I found some interesting things in my life. One was reading a lot of systematic theology (I enjoyed it a lot - but it meant focusing on things behind my eye balls like the distinction between prelapsarianism and infralapsariansim). my inner pain and struggles were neglected. Sexuality was an issue because in having encounters that I'd both want and then turn away from, hurtting myself and probably the other person at the same time (I'm sure I did hurt others but I certainly hirt myself).
This, needless to say, is not normal behaviour and doesn't lead to self acceptance. You can't accept yourself or develop your identity if you can't engage in the sexual contact that both peeople want to happen (obviously evangelicals are both against premarital sex but against marriage for same sex couples). I'm not saying this as if sex is important. In some ways it isn't, but for evangelicals sex becomes everything. At my time as an evangelcal every second word was about what the gays were doing or trying to do (I am exaggerating a little).
For me there were a number of leavings. Leaving the charismatic milieu, leaving the evangelical milieu was the most important breathrough. The most important leaving was to leave the evangelical movement.
Bible jail .....😅
Every good deed in Christianity is a sin. There’s no winning.
Can feel like that.
Every thing I did was with "God". He saw everything and knew every thought. I woke up out of sleep praying before I even opened my eyes. I had a conversation going non-stop with bible verses entering my mind believing it was the spirit of god and a lot of times it seemed like he was talking to me like "I talk to myself." All day, every day nearly non-stop convos.
@chacabra The whole "pray continually" thing was literally driving me crazy. Total mental enslavement and obedience.
@user-qg9ck9de8d pray at all times, watch and pray, so that you won't enter into temptation. I never really knew what entering into temptation really even was BTW. Then Paul saying to pray unceasingly. I felt like I might sin if I wasnt praying all the time.
Literally would be sinning if I wasn't staying in prayer according to those commands.