Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Why I cannot be a Christian

I have dealt with depression and suicidal ideation for as long as I can remember. And although I wasn't diagnosed until I was 19, looking back at my younger years I definitely had traces of the schizophrenia as well. I was fortunate that my mother recognized depression and got me treatment at the age of 11. That helped for a long time, but the darkness never fully went away.

When I was young, being a Christian is what kept me alive. If I thought about killing myself, I would also think that suicide was a sin and that I was put here on Earth for a reason. I was still young enough that those thoughts were enough to keep me going. I also didn't have the physical disabilities I have now. Still, there were a lot of times when my connection with God kept me here.

Then, as I got older, I started to question. I started in High School when I was taking seminary classes for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (if you go to high school in Utah, it's pretty much a given; seminary is part of the regular class schedules). It was during seminary that my logical mind got me into trouble and shook my faith. I was told that I just needed to have faith that God knew what he was doing when I would go to my seminary teacher with conflicting scriptures. I was told to have faith the God was still blessing us when the young man blessing our sacrament was a boy I knew for a fact had gotten at least 3 girls at school pregnant. I was always told to just have faith and everything would be fine.

When I moved to Los Angeles at age 19 I had the first of what I was sure was a psychotic episode. I was hospitalized and medicated. And the member of the LDS clergy they dug up was horrible. I actually had more in common with the Catholic priest that the LDS one, which was a sad state of affairs. I had given up a while before that on "just have faith" and that was my first suicide attempt.

Fortunately, several of my new friends were Wiccan, and they taught me a new way to look at the Earth, the Universe, and Divinity. With their help, I was able to integrate my schizophrenia into the religion and help me deal with it using meditation. I did well for several years, then the friend I had followed to LA abandoned me and went back to being LDS, saying that all that had happened over past several years was a hoax and she had been lying about everything. I had to find God again or I was going to hell. Cue my second suicide attempt.

I fell in with another group of pagans, who unfortunately weren't very stable or peaceful. I also became engaged to a man I thought really loved me, even though he cheated on me - I even caught him in the act a couple of times. I convinced myself that I had to become a warrior for the Goddess in the very real sense and joined the Army. By the way, if you are even half intelligent, it is really easy to fake those psych exams. This coincided with the beginnings of my autoimmune disorders attacking my joints and muscles and I washed out of  boot camp with busted knees and ankles. I returned to a cheating fiance who was still there for me anyway and a feeling of being a complete and utter failure at my purpose in life. You guessed it: suicide attempt number 3.

I guess it's a good thing I really suck at killing myself. I found new friends - some of whom were Wiccan, started college, and threw myself into scientific study. My physical pain was bad, but bearable. I was afraid to tell doctors that I was schizophrenic so I told them I had depression and the anti-depressants kept me functional. Long story short, after 6 years my "fiance" finally left with another girl, I couldn't handle the stress of college and working 3 jobs, and I ended up moving back to Utah. And the LDS Church came back into my life.

I won't go into the next 16 years of ups and downs. I never attempted suicide again, but I came close. I have been hospitalized, I have crashed and burned, I am now on disability, I have come out of the schizophrenia closet, and I live with my very LDS mother. She struggles with depression and physical disabilities and I don't know how she does it. You see, to be LDS, or a Christian in general, is to believe that everything you are is dictated by God. The Book of Job is often quoted "be patient in adversity" and all that rot. Well, I can't do that. I can't believe that. There is no way I can be patient with the utter shit I have to deal with.

If I were to believe like a Christian does that God has seen fit to give me schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, OCD, chronic nerve pain, severe body-wide arthritis, chronic hives, the list goes on - well, there would be absolutely nothing for me to live for. You see, if I believed that, I would have to believe that he hates me and is punishing me for something I have done or that I am supposed to be some sort of Job whom he tortures just to see if I'll break. I can't believe either of those.

It is still hard, but I believe the Goddess has my back. You see, in my beliefs, the divine doesn't act to give people cancer or send a hurricane to destroy a city. Instead, they work within the constraints of nature and science (as much of it that we know). Basically, I am tortured by some really fucked up genetics, but I have the Goddess and other spiritual beings there to help me, guide me, and give me strength. They do not cause my pain, but are part of what relieves it.

My mom has tried to tell me that this is what God really does, but then she reads the Bible and listens to the Church authorities and they preach the all-knowing God who controls everything. And my soul just won't let me pray to a God who would let millions die in earthquakes and hurricanes and floods - guilty and innocent - when he could stop it. I cannot follow a God who gives a small child a horrible disease and lets a murderer live until he is 90. This is not a loving God in my eyes, but a capricious one. I might as well pray to Zeus.

I will take my Goddess and my God and all my other spiritual guides that choose to tread lightly and let the Earth be herself. They are there for me. The Christian God isn't.

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