Anxious Ginger

Christianity sent my sister to the back room, hiding panic attacks, every week on Sunday worship.

Christianity brought her to me in tears, saying she wants to die, because Dad won’t be with her in Paradise.

Christianity made me hate myself violently that day too, because how do I break it to her that I won’t be there either?

Christianity worked my mother to the bone, and I watched her break herself and make herself be so much less in order to fit into the mold of the perfect wife.

Christianity told my parents that mental issues were Satan’s work, to be ignored and repressed and not talked about, the dirty family secret that would shame us all.

Christianity taught me to lie and isolate and judge, no one can be trusted to not contaminate the moral purity I encased myself with, not even my own thoughts were safe.

Christianity told me I was vile and disgusting and deserving of death, then told me to defend it when accused of “homophobia.”

You will get through this because You are strong. You are brave. You are powerful. You are a survivor.

Why? Because you have challenged what you were taught from birth. You are standing up and saying I don’t believe. So whenever you feel lonely, terrified depressed, etc. I want you to say:

the majority of other religious people were raised knowing that their parents would love them no matter what belief system they chose to follow. They didn’t have to think a certain way to have access to their family, they didn’t have to do anything to earn their family’s love– for them, it was unconditional. It was never so fragile that a single conversation could end it. Chances are, the concept of shunning is so distant and so unreal to them that they have no idea what psychological damage it could inflict. Everyone’s parents disapprove of them at one point or another, right? Isn’t that the same thing?

A Jehovah’s Witness decides they no longer want to be a witness. They’re immediately shunned by their family. They are most likely kicked out of the house. They are at a statistically higher risk for suicide. Everything they believed about the world comes crumbling down before their eyes and the moral foundation they’ve lived their entire life by shatters. They’ve been so completely isolated from the world that they have trouble adjusting to mainstream culture, what is supposed to be their own culture. They’re a de facto orphan who just escaped a cult

Please share this! I can’t stress how important this is.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I just put on a few pounds. Holiday snacks, you know.”

“Of course I’m not pregnant. I haven’t missed a period.” (Don’t mention the date of your last period. If pressed, “I don’t remember exactly.”)

“Ugh, really? Nooo! I do not want to look pregnant!”