When I was religious,
I could pray to God and feel a sense of peace that things would ultimately turn out fine.
Like I had a constant safety net.
I didn’t worry near as much because I truly felt secure and that the creator of life was watching over me.
After my last break,
I had to give up religion altogether,
It was/is for the best.
Now I just miss the comfort of it all.
I feel truly alone and up to chance because I can’t afford to believe my God is real.
Can anyone relate?
How did you cope?
I mean in AA they teach us it’s not as important to believe in god but a power greater than yourself.
I think whatever way that statement helps you best is the best interpretation, so there is multiple forms.
I believe in god but if I didn’t I’d still have great comfort in nature.
I could never give up my religion and I never would. It provides me with too much security, solace and guidance. It even seems like He protects me. Really.
I can’t logically give up religion, my metaphysical experiences absolutely convinced me that God is real.
I’m pretty angry on Abilify though, so it’s hard to pray with a clear mind, I’m kind of blaspheming here and there.
You could try to take a generic view of god (or higher power or whatever, and that everything will work out in time. And leave all the religion out?
Kinda like AA and the higher power stuff. Give your troubles to it
It’s more of a mental relief of burdens technique
During my psychosis I thought I had found god and I would pray to him and feel like you did. Safe, loved, and like I had purpose. It gave me confidence.
After the psychosis ended, those thoughts and feelings went away. When I was psychotic I knew with all my heart there was a god, but when I came back down I felt nothing again.
It was kind of devastating.
POSSIBLE TRIGGERS…
Without getting too detailed (to bring down the banhammer), I was raised in a popular monotheistic belief system. Then, due to quite a few horrible things happening, turned my back on the G__ of that belief system. I was planning to go into the ministry and had already spent several summers with child-evangelism groups. I went full Ath___. Had posters of Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins up in my room (big ones!), bought DVDs of Ath___ conferences and, generally speaking, was so nihilistic that I had a psychotic break. This lasted for 15 years (Ath___), with the former belief system starting when I was five years old.
Evolution is cold, if you think about its brutal method of selection by death. Beautiful, but cold. Even Sagan succinctly said: “The secrets to evolution are time and death.” …and that beat in my head like a constant drum until I was so depressed that I almost committed suicide.
Honestly, I found something that both Dawkins and any religious person could appreciate. After nearly two decades of ath___, I turned back to G__, but the G__ I turned to was a completely different one – the one of pantheism.
I would recommend it if you’re looking for comfort. Einstein was a pantheist…
Of course, Ath___, Agnost___ and any traditional Monothe___ are fine, but if you’re looking for something that takes everything into account, place your cards down on pantheism.
before i ever developed a sort of skepticism about religion and still believed (i was about 12 or so) i had this delusional fear of demons coming for me in my dreams and stuff. once i let go i never had those thoughts again. i dont really consider myself atheist though, more agnostic than anything
You might like a more modern religion. I’m a Bahai. That religion came out at the time of the industrial revolution and one of the things it does is that it makes no argument with scientific facts that have been discovered…
I’m not sure how I feel about this.
I have never felt secure and protected by a God or religion. I have never had that feeling.
I felt grandiose and powerful, it always worked out as if I had to be there for people in my life and never asked for help from others.
In the end, if you think about the world and how things work, I do not recall anytime, there has been anything done fairly. With justice in our point of view.
An airplane crashes, 200 people die, one survives. Did god favour that person because they were religious?
I have learnt to depend on myself in my capability and help those whenever I can.
This was an interesting post because I recently decided to be without religion again. I’m not sure I’d call myself an atheist, but I’m 90% there.
I have been all over the map religiously. I’ve been Catholic to atheist, everything in between and back again. Most recently, I was Unitarian Universalist, a religion that pretty much lets you believe what you want. But the corruption and abuse I saw in Catholicism are in that church, too.
I have had bad experiences with narcissists and narcissism and I kept finding it in church. I recently saw a YouTube video that said that’s because narcissism is at the core of religion. I was skeptical of the premise, but by the end of the video, I completely agreed with it. It validates everything I’ve experienced in religion and why I can’t go back to it.
I hope this post doesn’t upset anyone. It’s only my opinion, and I don’t want to shake anyone’s faith. People cope with the world in various ways, and religion helps a lot of people do just that. I am not angry at God and I will respect anyone’s decision regarding belief in a god.
I identify most closely with Taoism. Lao tzu was no narcissist. Neither was Buddha. Religion isn’t so all or nothing imo. You can believe in god without believing in religion and vise versa.
Well, this went surprisingly well, but a rule is a rule.