My Journey and Recovery from Religion

To anyone hoping to find some solace here:

I hope you find it.

This is a welcoming place to help those get through difficult times.

This post will explain how I got here and where I’m headed in the future.

To the hundreds of thousands of you that I’ve helped, welcome.

To those who just don’t understand, I’m glad you’re here.

This is my own personal experience and I’m not attempting to attack anyone’s personal beliefs.

Growing up different.

It was no secret that I was an oddball.

Quirky clothes, alternative art style, easy to get along with, a total weeb.

But I was hurting.

My dad was emotionally, physically, and verbally abusive.

My mom was in pain and she neglected us.

My four siblings and I were all homeschooled and stuck at home.

Isolated.

Scared.

I was pressured into a toxic environment of purity culture.

As a young woman (read: child) I was being sexualized and it was my fault.

I didn’t know why everything was my fault, but I felt that burden on me.

I didn’t know where to turn.

I had no control.

I began to spiral into a difficult battle with self harm.

It was the only thing I felt I had any control over.

I felt alone.

And my home church didn’t help.

Toxicity in the church.

My mom was a preacher’s kid and my dad was an elder.

Naturally, there was going to be some drama.

But nothing like what I saw at Forest Dale Church of Christ in Springdale, Ohio.

Community groups aren’t perfect, and that’s okay.

But the pursuit of control, the demand for obedience, the scrutiny of every decision, the total involvement, the thought policing, the male-dominated hierarchy, the complete disregard for people who were different, and the underlying narcissism was next to none.

It was a toxic place for toxic people.

I’ve never seen a church quite like it.

As the oddball of course I liked to challenge my beliefs.

I enjoyed the apologetics and debates.

But I was only ever exposed to one side of the story.

Why was everyone outside these walls so hostile to my faith?

Again, I was scared.

Not only did I feel marginalized, but I was being gaslighted all along the way.

Let’s talk about fear.

It’s a handy dandy tool in anyone’s toolbox who wishes to weaponize religion.

I was scared out of my wits from the abuse and neglect at home to the ever-loving fear that my god would send me to hell for masturbating.

From the mouths of my youth group pastors to the church leaders surrounding me, I was destined for eternal torment from a god who I assumed was all loving unless I was baptized and changed my evil ways of touching myself for relief.

I was afraid and under incredible pressure so I agreed.

Let’s talk about skepticism.

In my book skepticism and doubt are healthy and good things.

As a preteen I questioned how people knew what Jesus looked like to paint such a detailed portrait.

(Maybe that’s why I like Keanu Reeves so much, but I digress.)

To my family I was so smart for pointing that out!

No, cameras didn’t exist back then, and as far as we know Jesus never had his portrait painted.

What a smart cookie!

But this skepticism stopped being cute as I got older.

In 10-12th grade Sunday school I would ask if Jesus had a wife or ever had sex.

I hadn’t read the whole thing by then and I was curious who Mary Madelyn was to my lord and savior.

But I soon discovered that good and faithful Christians don’t ask questions like that.

So I was asked to stop.

I soon discovered that faith was used to fill in my gaps.

It’s what everyone did.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1, ESV

It’s what I used in place of evidence for questions no one could answer.

This satisfied me for a while.

Until I started looking for real evidence outside the Bible.

I’d hear, “Cat, faith is evidence.”

I’d respond, “Then why can’t we just use actual evidence?”

“Because God wants us to trust Him.”

This line of logic didn’t work with anything outside the Bible so why was it good enough here?

Surely a Muslim’s faith could convict him just as much as a Christian’s faith.

Right?

An abusive god.

I’ve been in abusive relationships and I can spot the red flags.

Naturally, these inventions came from people, but let’s take a look at the god character that I grew up with:

1. “Look what you’re making me do.”
2. Is jealous of anyone who might have your attention.
3. Pressure for commitment.
4. You’re at fault for everything that goes wrong in the relationship.
5. “You’re hurting me by not doing what I ask.”
6. Insensitive to pain and suffering.
7. Punishes cruelly.
8. High expectations of people beyond their abilities.
9. Women are inferior to men.
10. Easily insulted.
11. Love-bombing in the beginning of the relationship.
12. Require you to defend them at all times.
13. Is never at fault, or too perfect.
14. Has an opinion about everything you do and say.

I could go on.

If you’re in a relationship with a partner who acts like this I encourage you to seek out thehotline.org

This kind of behavior is unacceptable.

So why was I accepting it?

For a potential reward?

So I wouldn’t be punished infinitely for temporal crimes?

That’s some American Horror Story nonsense.

My escape:

This came in the form of gradually realizing in high school that I was a deist.

If this god does exist then he cannot be all loving, all powerful, all knowing, and all present at the same time.

Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he can’t help us. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he’s too far away.

Something didn’t add up, and I knew it was time to reevaluate what I believed.

And if this god did care AND wanted me to know him AND had the power to convince me then why didn’t he?

Honestly that part would be truly on him if he existed.

Not my parents, not my church, and certainly not me.

An in-person explanation was good enough for Paul.

So I sat in this place for a while.

College.

My mom was insanely worried my professors at my private Christian college would lead me astray.

If I was exposed to alternative theories then things would get too scrambled in my head.

That’s why I was homeschooled.

But now I could engage with other Christians that were not quite like me.

It was refreshing and fun and I learned a lot about logical reasoning and world religions.

Then my parents uprooted because of a private matter and moved away without me.

I was about to be homeless and I felt completely abandoned.

Until a friend offered to let me stay with her.

I was already studying full time and I met my partner who had a degree in church history.

He planned to get his PhD and we didn’t have two nickels to rub together.

So I put my senior semester on hold in consultation with my amazing advisor.

And I didn’t move away.

The Grind.

I was immediately offered a near full-time job where I was already working as a student associate.

There I learned basic necessary skills that would serve me well later on.

But now I had time to think.

Now I was out on my own, I didn’t have to stress over my next paper, I was making money, and I could figure out who I really wanted to be.

But the whole god question was put on the back burner. Pun intended!

I knew I wanted to marry the love of my life.

I knew I wanted independence (both socially and financially).

I also knew helping my partner get his PhD would be on me to find us a sustainable life.

And after searching and researching and running the numbers I knew we needed help getting started.

Uprooting.

We were met with open arms to return to the family and start a life with our little nest egg.

My partner was in the year-long comprehensive portion of his degree and I was flexible enough to get a job anywhere.

But my presence was a dark reminder to my dad that he was an abuser.

And in my observation about an abusive god I also saw those same traits in my dad.

He was a deeply broken person who fled from accountability.

I became his boogeyman and his scape goat.

He made sure we didn’t feel welcome.

My reality check.

I knew people were flawed, even Christians.

In my mind at the time the god of the bible may use flawed people to carry his message.

But I knew weaponized Christianity when I saw it.

I recognized the abusive behaviors.

And the Jesus I knew would never condone how my dad treated people.

Malicious, guarded, controlling, sneaky, wearing a mask to anyone but those closest to him.

And my mother:

Trapped, critical, manipulative, using emotions to control everyone in her world.

And there, in my first year after being away from family for so long, I knew one thing about Christianity:

It enabled good people to be good, and manipulative people to be manipulative.

It had nothing to do with goodness or salvation.

It had everything to do with the status quo.

Questioning and second guessing myself soon followed.

Was I being too critical?

Was I the one in the wrong?

Did all that abuse actually happen to me?

Did I deserve or instigate it?

Was I just making things worse?

Am I a bad daughter?

I was being gaslighted.

My parents refused to acknowledge the past.

And why would they? They created a whole new reality for themselves.

A reality that didn’t involve me or my healing even though we all went through the sludge of Forest Dale together.

Then came the exit plan.

My partner and I both knew that we were no longer welcome.

My dad asked us several times to leave despite my mom’s desire to keep family together.

He attempted to throw money at his problem as usual.

When I told mom about his behavior his action plan went from trying to pay us to leave to harassing my partner about his job.

This was when I found secular humanism.

Something crucial was missing from the actions of the Christians I knew:

Genuinely caring and taking ownership for other people.

With the help of Recovering from Religion (recoveringfromreligion.org) and The Secular Therapy Project (seculartherapy.org/) I was able to find a group of people in recovery and remission from the religion they grew up with.

And many of the people in this community were… witches?

What does that have to do with anything?

I was not alone.

These secular humanists and witches were more Christian than any other group I had experienced.

They came from abuse, broken homes, prejudice, injustice.

They had a call to action:

Humanity is capable of morality and self-fulfillment without belief in a god.

I took this and ran with it.

I soon discovered that this community focused on equality, accountability, justice, and ethical behavior.

I also discovered that this community had reclaimed the practice of witchcraft to maintain ritualism without the burden of organized religion.

In early 2017 I started calling myself a secular humanist and a witch.

I had my own altar, sacred space, and a mindset dedicated to knowing the most true things as possible and rejecting the most false things as possible.

Uprooting (Part 2).

After realizing there was no way to stay with my parents without there being overwhelming anxiety, fear, and judgment, my partner and I started over.

It’s been two years and we’ve found so much healing together.

I hadn’t found healing or compassion in the church.

I was dismissed.

I just wanted honesty, acceptance.

While the church I knew was a place that failed me, I found true belonging in secular communities.

I’m genuinely curious if the church was even good at belonging in the first place.

But now I know I can be my best and genuine self as a secular humanist and practicing witch.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.