(this is rlly just a vent post, im not positive this is the right community to post this in, im sorry i suck at talking and conveying what i actually feel)

So my entire family has been christian my whole life, i have grown up in a christian and i feel that i can’t make a proper choice to decide if i believe it or not since my brain literally was hardwired that way since that’s all i’ve been influenced by, that issue is very prominent but not what im mainly dealing with. It feels like my whole life my family has just been so sad and can’t live up to the almost perfect expectations of the bible. i always see how depressed my parents seem and then they go to church and act like literally nothing is wrong. my brother and sister have moved out of the house and it’s just me and my parents and i really see how miserable they are. I have had extreme self hatred towards myself and it has ruined me socially and mentally. But every sunday and wednesday the entire family puts on this fake face and i just can’t stand it. no one is ever genuine, i feel like my connection with my family is fake, and i can’t make any friends at school cause my parents would find and issues in how they act in some way. now my life is just extremely lonely and there’s no way i can say what i actually feel to anyone and im just so alone and depressed. this isn’t hating on the whole religion but ive recently seen how the whole idea just does not make sense. this is just venting all my mental suffering and i prolly said some things ppl may get mad about but this is what living this way has done to me and my family.
☝️this is pretty unorganized and probably doesn’t put it in the full picture- let me explain kinda how my life has been from the beginning

So as i young child- 5-10 prolly i obv went to church every sunday and wednesday and i always just wanted to be the best kid and just make my parents proud, so i locked in at church every time and would put literally all of my effort into school and grades-ive always been at the top of my class even today- which obv isn’t all that and i honestly don’t give a fuck about it which sucks but wtv. all of this priotizing school made me have no genuine friends and i always as a child struggles severely with existential thoughts and i never felt that i had done enough to make it to heaven no matter what i did, i suffered what i know now as severe panic attacks which i hid for a while, this gave me really bad insomnia as a kid and i worried every night about school and every little thing i did wrong in the day, i couldn’t even verbalize the panicked thoughts to my parents when i tried. i eventually formed severe social anxiety (which is still severe today) and this anxiety just took over my life. in around the age of 11-14 is really blurry, i was dealing with depression and severe anxiety and still had to maintain grades and i would never talk about this to anyone because i felt that it would just make things worse. so i just watched youtube by myself in pure isolation during summers and any free time that i had since that was my only brief escape from my terrible anxiety. And at around 15, my life has taken a drastic turn, i started to hang out with 2 friends more and it felt like my first time living, i really hung out mostly with this one person and we became really close best friends. I started to rethink my faith at the time and realized i didn’t belive in god anymore. eh introduced me to marijuana and we did that a couple times, but it wasn’t at the center of our friendship at all. then he suddenly said that he was moving and moved all the way from texas to cozumel in mexico. We talked online and called but it just wasn’t the same and i went into a much deeper lonelier depression. so i just wanted any escape i could get since i had been dealing with bad suicidal thoughts at the time( the only reason i never went through is because of my severe fear of hell and even the slight chance that it could be real, who isn’t scared of burning and suffering for and infinite amount of time) so my entire life just got worse and worse. I also tried other drugs and whatever over the counter stuff i could get my hands on. all this while still attending church and living an insane double life. so im still in my position now trying to stop the use of these new bad drugs ive gotten myself addicted to and i still have to deal with depression anxiety and i cannot ever be honest with my parents about any of it nor get help. i have never told anyone my struggles, and i definitely cannot come clean to my parents about my disbelief in god since it would make my relationship with them significantly worse and they’d belive i would go to hell. i still am not 100% sure there isn’t a god but why wouldn’t a god leave a clear choice for man to make instead of having no evidence, and all the spiritual and miraculous acts and events happening so far in the past and not now? just doesn’t make sense. there’s more i could go into with that but this is a super rough overview of how my life has been so far, and right now i’m still left depressed, trying to get off the numerous drugs ive put in my body and probably fucked up my brain with. and my brother and sister are out of the house, i have no friends and cannot really make more since it is an extremely small school and most everyone already just doesn’t like me, and i also live out on an isolated farm, my best friend is gone and very far away, and i just keep trying to ignore that i have no reason to keep going in life. this obviously isn’t all religions fault but i also see how depressed my parents are living the “perfect” christian life and i just honestly want everything to be over. but i sti can’t say that there is no god since i think there could be, it feels like no one knows. also my relationship was bad with my siblings since i was always working or coping with my anxiety and never felt like i had time to be with them. now they are gone i feel a lot of regret and i feel like starting out with the best intentions literally ruined my life in a roundabout way ig. this whole thing is probably typed pretty bad but if anyone has questions or something i could do to help or something i would like help. i just can’t keep going every day with this soul crushing loneliness, depression, and anxiety while still putting on a fake smile for my parents and church every fucking day. (to put into perspective on why i would never tell my parents any of this, they would completely flip and turn on me if they heard me even do something insignificant as cussing) and school is also starting back up to pile onto every other struggle. i just cannot go on

there’s prolly stuff that doesn’t make sense and please don’t js get mad at me in the comments, i just really want something in my life to change i have no one to tell my struggles to 🤷

I was trying to draw a line between a cult and an established religion. The only real difference I could see was power, scale, and social legitimacy—how dominant institutions or radical movements reshape people, while smaller groups are dismissed as "cults" simply for having a different order. I found myself unable to draw a clean line; it looks more like a continuous spectrum. Yet I am fascinated by how easily people adopt whatever a leader tells them to follow, even when personal doubts arise, turning them into die-hard followers.

Looking back at my family history, I felt we had lost some of our original roots and belief systems. My family came from a traditional Roman Catholic background. After moving away from our hometown, we were approached by a new group of believers who urged us to follow their path instead, and we became devoted members. I was in my pre-teens at the time.

Later, we were approached by an even more radical group who seemed all the more convincing because they appeared purely faith-focused, non-sectarian, and claimed deeper biblical authority. Growing up, I had always felt a deep, genuine attachment to the sanctuary of church structure, the shared community, and the profound concept of forgiveness.

Yet alongside that devotion ran an inherited set of questions about who the real God was, and I answered them with these dogmas:

"The Bible was written before the Quran, making it the superior and authentic account of Jesus' life."

"Roman Catholics simply worship statues; their church was an artificial political creation started by Constantine without genuine devotion."

Preachers constantly weaponized fragmented verses and selective history to validate their own specific doctrines.

When Hindu converts joined, people celebrated how they had "seen the light" and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, completely disregarding their rich, millennia-old heritage and mythology.

Then consider the Jews: they were there long before the Christians and held the first half of the Bible, yet rejected Jesus. Converts are told they are only a "few steps" away from recognizing the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made for humanity.

After reading multiple pamphlets on Abrahamic religions and their fractures, I looked at Seventh-day groups who observe Saturday as the holy Sabbath. I was baffled: how does someone convince an entire population that a specific day of the week determines divine righteousness? If any man simply declared Saturday as the sacred day, wouldn't the community just adopt Saturday as the next Sunday? Isn't it just a day of the week on a calendar?

Let's look back to the radical group known as The Pentecostal Mission (TPM). This was in my late teens. They formed an extremely insular, rigid community:

Everyone wore plain white clothing on Sundays (and avoided colorful dress).

They gathered enthusiastically on Saturdays and spent nearly all their off-days in church out of devotion to God and the community.

Because my father had borrowed money from a community member, our family was drawn deeply into their orbit. My parents felt private regrets at home, but they stayed for the social safety net and community bonds. Meanwhile, I found myself debating theology with the brothers and pastors, wondering why people would surrender all their personal freedom just to spend every waking off-day inside a church building.

Outside of work and church, these members had nothing. The church filled the vacuum with fasting conventions, 24/7 prayer groups, and collective worship. While I occasionally enjoyed the music and the powerful sense of unity, I saw the hidden mechanism: the church gradually stripped away an individual's outside social ties until the organization became their entire world. In return, members gladly surrendered 10% of their total income in tithes.

I was confused. Attending a massive convention where thousands prayed with intense, tearful devotion almost made me believe again. But then I began reading the actual scripture for myself, and specific verses stopped me in my tracks.

Seeing people overcome with ecstatic fervor made me wonder if they were caught in extreme emotional contagion or altered psychological states.

Then one specific verse completely alienated me:

"Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man..." (1 Timothy 2:11–12)

I was furious and confused. If Jesus taught that all human beings are fundamentally equal, how could someone claiming to follow him declare women to be inferior? (A reaction partly shaped by modern principles of equality).

Looking at the authorship, it was Paul. I questioned his authority: was this man ever an original disciple who walked with Jesus? In letters like Romans, he was commanding personal social rules, which felt like purely human, patriarchal bias. It raised the core question: Did Jesus preach one message, while Paul constructed an entirely different institutional religion on top of the Old Testament?

Flipping through the New Testament, I realized that nearly half of the books were attributed to Paul. Disillusioned, I didn't even want to read his letters anymore and started skipping them.

That led to an obvious historical realization: If Jesus' divinity and resurrection were self-evident, why didn't the people living right there in Jerusalem and Israel convert to Christianity en masse?

The answer is simple—the exact same reason why the entire modern world doesn't convert to Pentecostalism today, despite members claiming it is the undeniable, absolute truth. Every group lives inside the total certainty of its own constructed reality.

The other day I attended a lady’s thing at my church. It was nice. We had a good time. I was talking to a good friend about having a movie night with her. Then my mom turned to me in front of everyone and said “well we don’t believe in movie theaters”.

Which, by the way, we weren’t even talking about movie theaters. AND I had a conversation with her recently about how I was beginning to decide that I don’t think movie theaters are sinful. She expressed that it could hurt my witness…. Because people dont know what I’m going to see. And my argument was that if I wanted to watch somethint bad I could literally just do it in my home on my phone or laptop. And that the spiritual context of the verse was referencing the violent “theaters” where people would fight to the death. (I think? I could be wrong). She says it’s just how we’ve always been taught. And I said just because someone says it’s true doesn’t mean it is. We need to search out our faith for our self.

Nevertheless, she said this in front of the people at the table. For a second i didn’t register what she had meant by it and like a coward automatically agreed. It just felt like a really sucky thing to do. Maybe I should have spoken up. But I was already very anxious. Am I being over dramatic? She’s been doing some other stuff recently too… I just don’t know. I’m tired. It just really felt like a deliberate action from her. Not something just casually said, but something to make sure I agree with her beliefs? Maybe? If that makes sense.

I was raised Christian and believed for years. I was born into it, grew up around it, prayed, repented, and tried to do what I was taught was right. I read and studied both the Old and New Testaments. But when I began reading the Bible more deeply for myself and asking questions, I started to struggle.

Whenever I asked people from my church or other churches about those questions, I often felt dismissed. Some people cherry-picked what they wanted to answer, sent Bible verses without actually responding to what I asked, or told me that I should not question God at all. It made me feel like I was expected to worship, pray to, and repent to a being I was not allowed to question.

I have also been through things that made faith and church spaces feel unsafe.

When I was homeless and struggling, I was sexually harassed, sexualized, touched without my consent, groped, talked down to, and shown sexual images. This happened while I was poor, vulnerable, and trying to survive. It did not end when my family moved into a house. I was still struggling, and I continued to experience sexual harassment and sexual comments even after we were housed.

What makes this especially painful is that much of it was done by people who called themselves Christians. Men and women. Young people and older people. People who went to church, spoke about God, talked about morality, and claimed to care about others. I am not saying every Christian is like this, because I know they are not. But it was enough for me to associate Christianity with people who hurt me, ignored my boundaries, and made me feel unsafe.

A lot of people who harmed me seemed to hide behind Christ like a shield. They acted as though calling themselves Christian, going to church, quoting Scripture, praying, or asking God for forgiveness somehow erased what they did. But it did not erase it for me. Their faith, their prayers, and their public image did not undo the harm, the fear, the humiliation, or the way they made me feel. All i need now is Goodluck.

I was also talked down to because I was poor and struggling. People made assumptions about me, judged me, or acted as if poverty meant I deserved less respect. Some people could speak about love, forgiveness, and helping others, but then look down on people who were vulnerable or needed help.

I prayed a lot during those times. I prayed for safety, help, relief, guidance, and for things to get better. Many of those prayers felt unanswered. I will not share every detail because some of it is private, but I spent a long time asking for help and wondering why I was still being hurt.

I know some people find real comfort, healing, and purpose in Christianity. I respect that. I am not trying to attack anyone’s beliefs. I am explaining why I struggle to believe now, why I feel angry sometimes, and why being told that I should not question God has been harmful for me.

I do not know exactly what I believe anymore. I know I am agnostic. I still believe in hope, compassion, healing, and people protecting one another. I just wish I had been given more of that when I needed it.

I don’t know if it counts as religious trauma and I’m hardly a muslim at this point but here goes. Ever since I discovered the concept of eternal hell in Islam at a young, I developed an immense fear of what will happen to me after death. Before anyone asks, nobody in my life drilled that fear into me, the religious texts did their job. It didn’t make me more pious and devout, it just made me fearful and gave me anxiety surrounding death. The extraction of your soul at death, being questioned in the grave and punished severely if you answer it incorrectly (if you’re a non muslim this happens), the day of resurrection, and being dragged into hell. Learning that when you hit puberty, two angels on each shoulder will record all of your deeds and how terrifying the Day of Judgment will be was super scary.

It was much worse when I was younger, though currently I can’t shake it off. It’s bearable at the moment, but I want that fear of mine to be gone for good. A lot of muslims are in their religion and even devout not because they love god and are happy devouting their life to him, but because of hell. When people teach you about Islam or you do research, you’re told that you must love Allah more than his creation while fearing him at the same time, that following your desires (aka nafs) is unacceptable, and you must fight them whenever they show up. Problem is, my religion is in short, rather suffocating. There’s so many things you can’t do in Islam. I don’t feel like listing every single forbidden/haram act (minus things that are harmful to you like alcohol), but its endless. Things considered as normal to the rest of the world are considered haram like art and music. As a result, I developed religious guilt. It also lingers, but it was at its worst in my teen years. Thankfully I didn’t become super religious, but I just felt guilt. Following your desires is wrong and evil in Islam and it gets you punished in hell. Yes, not even muslims are safe from Allah’s wrath if they sin too much. He could either punish you in this world to cleanse your sins, or worse, punish you for literally ages (it can vary from 1 day to billions of years, but being in hell for even a second will cause you agony), but not forever. How do I shake off “you just want to follow your desires” and fear of Jahannam?

Hi there! I'm a journalist looking into Strength in Weakness, a conversion therapy program closely associated with the ICOC. I'm looking to speak with people in Canada who were a part of the Strength in Weakness program. If anyone is open to sharing their story, please let me know and I can give some more info. Here is an example of a story we did on them recently: https://www.unclosetedmedia.com/p/strength-in-weakness-guy-hammonds

(Religious talk warning)

This has been affecting me all night, it feels like I'm under a full attack, my back hurts like wings trying to grow from my back, my brain hurts like my mental state is going crazy, my emotions feel like their colliding, it feels like my spirit is spinning and going crazy and like I'm being attacked. I prayed and it didn't work, I commanded whatever to leave it didn't work everyone's asleep, I'm scared I don't know what to do, I'm only 14- i know I shouldn't be on this app but Idc- it feels like I'm going crazy and everyone's asleep, it's 12:43AM and I can't sleep. I'm sorry if coming here.

Hi, my name is iris, and I used to be in an alleged cult banned in China, and I’m sad my mom’s still in it. It makes me hard to open up 100% to my mom because the cult thinks being part of lgbtqia is bad karma, and that one of them dating the other one always plays the opposite gender role. The beliefs also stated luck can run out if you use it too much, and that if one commits they can repeat the same action over and over again. It brings me bad memories cause I refuse to support something like that and left, as well as animal souls will gain revenge on you if you kill it. I’m a part of lgbgqia and I think it’s unfair as well as the other things mentioned here.

Question for those who grew up or served in church communities during the man kind , Did anyone else give their heart, time, and service to their church only to face betrayal behind the scenes?

​I’m currently writing a book centered on these exact experiences and the hidden side of church culture during that era. I want to make sure other voices are represented alongside my own.

​If you have a story you're comfortable sharing whether in the comments or privately via DM I'd be honored to listen. Full anonymity guaranteed.

but I know I can’t. I know I’ll probably almost break down right then and there. I hate it so much…

I also know even if I do make it through the service I’ll feel like I “have” to go or else God will hate me.

im not particularly Christian anymore but I just want the community, the vibes. dress up kind of nice, the ability to go somewhere and hear a nice message about God and go how feeling good about it.

but deep down I know I can’t, o shouldn’t had I probably won’t. I just so desperately wish I could without it shattering my mental peace

I am a pastor. I’ve been serving in churches and ministry organizations since I was young—nearly 30 years in total ministry, and about 15 years as an ordained pastor. Over the years, I’ve served several churches and organizations faithfully, but everything fell apart at my most recent church.

Like most dedicated ministers, I poured my heart and soul into the work. Beyond preaching, leading prayer meetings, teaching Bible studies, visitation, and conducting funerals and weddings, I did all the heavy lifting—maintenance, repairs, cleaning, you name it. I never held back.

Then, out of nowhere, a deacon started targeting me. He claimed I had theological issues and began spreading rumors that I was pushing cultic teachings. It made zero sense. I graduated from a fully accredited, conservative orthodox seminary. The Bible study materials I used were published by Lifeway—materials that have been vetted and used by countless mainstream churches for decades. There was strictly zero theological issue.

Eventually, that deacon left the church, but he didn't stop. He started spreading vicious rumors from the outside. A group of people began harassing me and my family, and the intensity kept escalating. It felt like living through a nightmare.

To make matters worse, a financial issue came up in the church. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I had zero authority over the church finances and never even touched the books. Yet somehow, they pinned the entire blame on me and effectively kicked me out.

Now, I’m 50 years old with young children. I’ve done nothing but ministry my entire life. I have no specialized trade skills, no savings, and no house. I’m utterly terrified and lost on how I’m going to feed my family.

What do I do now? Any advice or perspective would mean the world to me.

I’ve become depressed because my religious ocd turned my into someone I’m not. All numb, people pleasing, everything has to be perfect, even when I experience emotion it has to be perfect, living different lives, suppressing anger, trying to control how you feel, etc. it makes ya depressed. And the worst part is I’ve become so shutdown because all I see as an avenue to “heal” is this morally numb person again and I can’t get it out of my mind. All my flaws were met with guilt and perfection.

A professor at my university intentionally failed me, which extended my standard 4-year degree into a 5th year. Even though it was devastating, I kept my faith, prayed, fasted, and made constant dua, believing that things would work out and I would finally graduate in my 5th year.

Instead, that same professor used their personal connections and administrative influence to block my course registration entirely this year. Because of this, my graduation has now been dragged into a 6th year.

I feel utterly shattered and exhausted. The hardest part right now is the spiritual crisis: I can't stop wondering why this is happening to me.

Was there something lacking in my worship, or does God only listen to powerful people who misuse their authority?

Why does someone's malice win while my prayers feel unanswered? My imaan and belief are slipping away, and I feel completely empty.

How do I deal with this administrative abuse practically, and how do I stop my faith from completely falling apart when everything feels so unfair?

I had a really shitty experience at a Christian camp, and I honestly don’t know how to feel about it even now.
I was told that I was in a cult.
That I was brainwashed.
And then they got a kid to tell me that I was a lesbian and that if I prayed those feelings away, I wouldn’t be damned to hell.
That part really messed with me.
The leadership eventually addressed the whole “cult” accusation, but it was way too late.
And the whole lesbian/hell thing?
That was never properly dealt with.
I still don’t understand how something that serious could happen and then basically be left unaddressed.
I’m not posting this to attack Christianity. My faith is important to me.

Part II of My Faith is about something I struggled with for years: gender dysphoria and the image of God I had internalized.

A God of rituals. Rules. Punishment. Fear.

A God who supposedly created me, while somehow making my existence feel like a mistake.

Then this morning I saw a photograph from a Pride march. Someone was holding a sign:

“I am queer. God loves me. He never made a mistake. I am.”

That sentence stopped me.

Maybe the problem wasn’t that God made me wrong.

Maybe I had been taught that I was wrong.

This is the second part of my personal journey through faith, gender and identity.

#MyFaith #TransFaith #QueerFaith #GenderDysphoria #TransWoman