(Untitled)

[questionstar]

Everyone in my community is veeeery religious and... I'm not. It makes me feel uncomfortable and alienated sometimes, it's just once in a while I'll be at a meeting or a local event and somebody starts talking about God and everyone chimes in about Him and attributing good fortune and such to belief and faith god this god that... and I smile

Comments

[nbrhd_story]

Half of my FAMILY is religious, so I can relate to the O_O feeling. Although they're very aware of how I feel as well, and thankfully haven't decided to try and convert me =P

[questionstar]

I was raised by two heathensscientists in a 100% secular household, so even though I do have some very religious people in my extended family, it was totally in the background and I just can't relate to the religious/christian worldview at all :< When I was really little, I figured the idea of going to heaven after you die sounded pretty nice, but it was too confusing and strange to actually be comforting D: And now I.. well I don't really believe *anything* spirituality-wise, which I find is even more confusing to religious people than "believing" there isn't a god. Heh!

I have an evangelical friend who is *extremely* religious and she's invited me to her church a couple of times, but other than that I don't think I'm a project, though in her case I'd take it as a compliment, it is actually a way to express compassion/caring, even if I don't get it lol

[gryphart]

Heh, I thankfully haven't run into one of those conversations in a while (though the last one with the boss's dad thundering on about how not believing in God violates physics was... uh, special.)

Maybe try some drugs short-term, if you think you need them? Several people I know have much, much healthier lives because of them + a good therapist.

[questionstar]

HAHAHahahaha omg I would love to hear more of *that* argument! Awesome! I'd like to think that I'd have the guts to stand up for myself if someone used a discussion about their faith to start railing against athiests, but thankfully everyone I know is more maturethan that.

I'm actually really against drugs at this point. I took meds in my first year at college and I felt they were a) expensive and b) unhelpful and I'm thankfully not THAT depressed, and I'm hoping that with the right therapist I will never get to the point where I am that desperate for help again. I reeeeeeally don't know how to phrase that in a way that is not hurtful to people who are ON medication though, if it works for them :| But it was a very unpleasant and unhelpful experience for me and I want to avoid it. My goal is to learn how to cope with sadness and anxiety so that one day I won't need any outside help to do so.

[gryphart]

...dude, it was RIDICULOUS. I know he explicitly asked something like "So all of you believe in God, right?" (As he'd already started a mild political fight but no one really wanted to play any more, he was bored, I guess? Neither one of his kids were very impressed with his behavior.) After I politely said no, his argument boiled down to - matter cannot be created or destroyed, ergo God must exist and had to put it all in motion. The response of all the atheists/agnostics at the table, naturally, was "But then something had to make God..." so he yelled the original statement some more. After that, I pretended I couldn't hear him and talked about the food being tasty

tl;dr

[questionstar]

Oh geez so he just felt like arguing with people. Not even a debate but a chance to be noisy and self-righteous... sounds like a fun guy!

Yeah, there's that point where I was so sad all the time I was willing to try it to feel better. My mom was against meds and the therapist I was seeing at the time really seemed to just be biding her time until I turned 18 (a few months) so I could make the decision for myself instead of, I dunno, coming up with an alternative treatment? I just felt like drugs weren't going to solve my problem and maybe it was a self-fullfilling prophecy, but they didn't. I was thankful to be rid of the sadness but it got replaced with I-don't-give-a-shit, dude it was so weird to feel so empty and uncaring about everything, and then of course I would be feeling less miserable and I'd forget to take the pill one morning and I'd have a spectacular sobbing-under-my-desk breakdown at the end of the day, no reason necessary! Meds just put this weird hollowness in my emotions so I didn't have to learn how to actually

[rosynose]

*big hugs* I wish you all the best with finding a decent therapist. I'm nearly as cynical as you and I only tried a couple, heh, but no doubt there are good ones out there.
[And sorry I haven't been online at all; the Xmas circus and hordes of family to entertain and whatnot D: Hopefully I will be able to catch up soon <3 Take care]

[sweet_gardenia]

Eh quite frankly what you do or don't believe in, is not anyone's damn business :)

Also the best of luck finding a good therapist to help you out. I can sympathize somewhat. I deal with ADD and was taking meds for it but the meds caused anxiety and completely tapped out my creativity which was more than I could stand. On top of that you also have to deal with mild depression on the side though I dunno if that was from ADD or the meds who knows. At any rate one day I was like " Ok there has to be another way " So now I manage myself as carefully as I can, take notes, repeat back what is said to me to make sure I don't miss anything, take vitamins etc. So yeah...if meds help go for it but knowing what works for you as well and knowing how you process daily stress and learning coping stratagies for such...that's important too.

hugs and more hugs :) ILL PRAY 4U (sorry I couldn't resist ;D)

[flinkmaster]

Ugh. I hope you feel better (long-term) on the depressive stuff...as someone who deals with a mood disorder and can never feel better "long-term" I am not being patronizing or pretending when I seriously say that "I know how you feel."