This will be my first personal post here.
I've been suicidal already for recent 6 years, with ups and downs. First time the possibility of suicide appeared in my mind when I was 13/14 year old. But it was not so serious back then, it was mainly the reaction to the unrequited teenage love.
However, things turned more serious when I approached around 20.
I was brought up in a very religious environment by orthodox Catholics. I used to be one too, but am now an atheist. However, to become an atheist in such an environment is very difficult. My family abused me by forcing this horrible religion upon me and my mind. The most terrible thing was the confession. It was not a private matter in my family, but a very public affair. I knew that it was damaging my psyche and I didn't want to go there, to the priest. But I was forced to by my family. And I treated all these things with sins and hell very seriously. The imagination of hell led me to constant anxiety and fear. You can commit sins not only through your actions, but also by your thoughts. So I started observing my own thoughts, whether they are not sinful. It was a nightmare. There was especially one passage from the Bible, which damaged me beyond repair. Through this mechanism of confession I developed neurosis.
During my uni years I read, or rather listened to, the essay by Bertrand Russell called Why I Am Not a Christian. Then everything in my mind clicked. Russell is describing there this exact passage from the Bible that scared me so much. And he notices that many people had to suffer immeasurably because of this. I was one them. After I finished listening to the essay I heard a loud, hissing voice in my mind. I guess it was a stress reaction to the fact that I read something FORBIDDEN in my home.
That day I found the answer. It was not me who was the problem. However, my journey to atheism was gradual. Overcoming so much fear imprinted on my mind from the early childhood by this religion was a nightmare. At first I stopped attending confessions. Then I stopped going to the church. Dismantling all these absurd constructions in my mind, however, took me years.
Due to all of this I ended up in the psychiatric ward, because I wanted to kill myself.
Here I am now, after already two therapies, long hospitalisations, personality disorder and psychosis diagnosis, still madly miserable. I feel like I cannot escape this constant feeling of being watched and judged by higher being, which was imprinted on my psyche.
So deeply wounded, I am still suffering.
I've been suicidal already for recent 6 years, with ups and downs. First time the possibility of suicide appeared in my mind when I was 13/14 year old. But it was not so serious back then, it was mainly the reaction to the unrequited teenage love.
However, things turned more serious when I approached around 20.
I was brought up in a very religious environment by orthodox Catholics. I used to be one too, but am now an atheist. However, to become an atheist in such an environment is very difficult. My family abused me by forcing this horrible religion upon me and my mind. The most terrible thing was the confession. It was not a private matter in my family, but a very public affair. I knew that it was damaging my psyche and I didn't want to go there, to the priest. But I was forced to by my family. And I treated all these things with sins and hell very seriously. The imagination of hell led me to constant anxiety and fear. You can commit sins not only through your actions, but also by your thoughts. So I started observing my own thoughts, whether they are not sinful. It was a nightmare. There was especially one passage from the Bible, which damaged me beyond repair. Through this mechanism of confession I developed neurosis.
During my uni years I read, or rather listened to, the essay by Bertrand Russell called Why I Am Not a Christian. Then everything in my mind clicked. Russell is describing there this exact passage from the Bible that scared me so much. And he notices that many people had to suffer immeasurably because of this. I was one them. After I finished listening to the essay I heard a loud, hissing voice in my mind. I guess it was a stress reaction to the fact that I read something FORBIDDEN in my home.
That day I found the answer. It was not me who was the problem. However, my journey to atheism was gradual. Overcoming so much fear imprinted on my mind from the early childhood by this religion was a nightmare. At first I stopped attending confessions. Then I stopped going to the church. Dismantling all these absurd constructions in my mind, however, took me years.
Due to all of this I ended up in the psychiatric ward, because I wanted to kill myself.
Here I am now, after already two therapies, long hospitalisations, personality disorder and psychosis diagnosis, still madly miserable. I feel like I cannot escape this constant feeling of being watched and judged by higher being, which was imprinted on my psyche.
So deeply wounded, I am still suffering.
