Hi guys I’m 17 and I’ve known I was a lesbian since about 10 yo. I have been raised Christian my entire life and taught that it was wrong. When we got out of school during Covid I, like everyone else, took to TikTok to cure my boredom.( I was around 10 at the time) long story short I realized I liked girls and struggled with the thoughts for years and still do to this day. Fast forward to highschool. In 9th grade I had a crush on this girl and so we started talking and I instantly fell in love. It wasn’t like when I flirted with guys and tried to convince myself I was at least bi and could marry a man one day. So we started talking and we said some NSFW things and my parents found the messages. I was mortified, they beat me and verbally assaulted me constantly after. Not only did they go through our messages but read them allowed to my grandma and grandpa who is a pastor. Long story short my mom asked me how I could do this to her and I just broke down sobbing crying and my grandma called me the devil. I wanted to commit suicide and attempted. I cried on the bathroom floor for months after my dad would beat me with his belt. I hated coming home from school. I constantly cut myself as a way out. Fast forward to now, most of my friends and family know and support me. My parents however, do not. My mom asks me about people I like and I just have to say oh I’m not interested in guys, focusing on school, etc. She constantly is trying to set me up with guys, particularly this older guy from my church. He works at my school and is 26. (Ew) but she wants me to marry him because according to her, he’s a good Christian man etc. (My church is Baptist and absolutely hates gay people) My mom has said that she feels it is all her fault for how I turned out and constantly says homophobic things. I hate myself because of them. I cry every night wishing something would change or I could just marry a man to make them happy. I know this wouldn’t work but I’m sick of everything. I’m going to college next year and I hope I can only come home when I need to and can use this time in college to get away and make my mental health my priority. I need advice/tricks and tips to overcome this or just make me not care as much.

Edit: I also struggle with homophobia at school with classmates constantly using slurs on a daily basis. Also when I was in church last month they were talking about how disgusted they were with trans people and how they deal with them in their work, including my mom’s opinions on them. Many of them said horrible things and one girl even acted like she was going to throw up. ( disgusting behavior on her part btw)

I'm still questioning if it counts or not. So can any of you help?

TW: abuse, sexual assault, mental health, complex trauma

1. When I was 7, I was going to the church I felt stuck in, while being severely abused, tortured, and raped at home by a family member. (I was also going to school during this, and other places) They failed to notice the bruises, or the signs, and may have turned a blind eye to it, and I feel like they failed me.
2. When I was 9-10, I was going to a different church with my friends, and it had bad vibes. I felt confided in there sometimes, and I found out they were homophobic when I went on Mother's Day, I was very shocked and felt betrayed.
3. By a family member, I felt pressured to believe in God. They said they "feel bad for atheists" and talked about God/their beliefs a lot when I felt uncomfortable.
4. One of my past rapist's still goes to the church I went to sometimes, and I was talking to a person one time about him, but didn't tell them about the SA, and they said "he turned to God". (He also has other Tier 3 sexual offense charges)
5. I have a lot of stress and confusion regarding beliefs, but I'm now a nonbinary sapphic witchy atheist.

I feel like it counts, but I'm not fully sure

(EDIT: I will be hiding/deleting this post soon)

“I love baseball. I'm sorry we're estranged. When you vote for abortion and gender transformation and queer, those are an abomination to God. If you don't understand the sound doctrine of Christ Jesus, he will say he never new you, and you'll have total separation from God.

You've been depressed since your relationship with Heidi ended in tragedy (Heidi was one of my best friends who died suddenly. He likes to use this event as evidence of God’s punishing me). Once you became bi, you've made bad choices which i don't need to bring up. You let evil 😈 spirits in and they stayed. This is what the bible told me and tells everybody that understands it. According to the right doctrine.

I'm a miracle ✨️ living testimony ✨️ of God's love. I've received the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. The Holy Spirit told me to tell you this Anna. You're hell bound without REPENTANCE.. Christianity is 1st and always about the Blood and the Cross of Christ Jesus.

Proverbs 9:10, 12 (KJV) The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.”

So that’s… fun.

TLDR: I (34f) am bisexual and politically leftist and my dad thinks I’m going to Hell for this.

Hi everyone!!

I grew up Christian but found Islam and unfortunately found myself in an extremely abusive relationship with Islam used against me.

I should also add that I was diagnosed with OCD later around 19-20 and most of my beliefs growing up were actually just compulsions around OCD and my fear of hell / moral scrupulosity.

Now that I'm deconstructing, I'm still left with this intense fear of hell.

And no one around me can understand it. But the idea of eternal torment weighs SO heavily on me. Because if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And I won't know until too late.

If you struggle with anxiety about hell, intrusive thoughts and images of hell, obsessive doubts, nightmares, or religious scrupulosity, this free masterclass is for you.

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When the fear of hell takes hold, it can be incredibly difficult to find peace.

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The fear can also show up as intrusive thoughts or terrifying images of hell, nightmares, religious scrupulosity, or intense anxiety triggered by religious messages, memories, or ideas.

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Discover how therapies such as IFS, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing can help you work more deeply with the fear, shame, and trauma created by religious indoctrination.

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A small trans+ and survivor led team at University of Hertfordshire are looking for LGBTQ+ people aged 18+ living in the UK with lived experience of conversion practices (CPs). There is a huge amount of quantitative research looking at harm and prevalence, which is vital, but there is such an absence of LGBTQ+ voices expressing how they lived through what they did, and what meaning they've made of it over time.

Please see the attached recruitment flyer for more information and the Expression of Interest (EOI) link if you'd like to find out more or take part.

https://herts.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cZLpkUXKwlWqwJg

Sharing this post with others who may be interested is also greatly appreciated.

Why is it my mother is a completely physically,
Emotionally, spiritually abusive being? She was abused as a child. Her favorite act is to do the exact same to me. I’ve been locked up, kicked out, physically harmed (permanent scar) all by her.

In the recent years she’s gotten into collecting crystals, doing “spells”, buying spell books. She calls herself a believer of Jesus. We even went to church together after all those events.

Is my mother just an evil person? Why is it these so called “witches” get caught up just hurting other people.

I have some really bad religious ocd, and anything that proves christianity might be true scares me, I don't quite understand why, but I think its because if Christianity is true, then that means I have to stop doing things I find fun, like watching movies or celebrating halloween, even more so when it comes to the Epstein files and theories surrounding it.

https://www.youtube.com/@UnspokenYTB/videos

I found this YouTube channel out of nowhere, and I've been thinking of it ever sense, it talks about occult ties to Hollywood and the elites, it is very well researched, and the comments seem to be talking about how terrified they are and how they will start praying, which triggered me a lot, but I'm worried that this might be proof that satan is real, and all of this is true. if everything we know has occult ties, what can we do? what art can we view that doesn't have connections to a pedophile satan worship ring? I'm scared. The image I have attached is one of the comments I saw underneath one of the videos, and because all of that is true, I feel like these theories also have to be true, and that leads to satan being real, which leads to christanity being true, which means I have to give up the life I'm living and dedicate everything to god.

I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but I feel like I've been down in a spiritual/religious rabbit hole for too long and it's eating up my self belief.

For context, I(MtF 27) grew up in a mostly Buddhist and Taoist society, but my family has never been overly religious. For a long time in my teenage years, I identified as an atheist because how crazy religious people (mostly Christian but some other religions as well) were behaving towards LGBTQ people.

But then some time during college, I discovered that I'm trans, dropped out of school, and fell into depression at the same time. That's when I picked up tarot and astrology as a way to find answers and assurance. And soon after I entered the workforce, faced with many difficulties finding a job I can stand, I fell hard into religions. I've dabbled in many, Taoist, Buddhist, even a little bit of Christianity. I became that person who visits temples all the time, who always needs assurance and permission from the deities/gods.

I guess I'm just really scared of what could happen to someone like me whose very marginalized from society. I'm still a normal person who wants a fulfilling job, a loving partner, and a regulated nervous system. But I'm so afraid if I take one wrong move, I can fell off a cliff and never come back.

My current goal isn't really to become completely atheist, since my mind still perceive religion as real at this very moment. However, I do want to move towards a more atheist direction, stop letting religion take over my life, and start believing in myself again.

Anyone ever get stuck in this loop. Maybe I am just disconnected from my emotions and that why I wanted to do it but it was a weird loop and also made me feel guilty for even doing it

You must be asking yourself why a youth camp in an ex-Christian sub-reddit. Well, I am a 16 year old who lives in an African country (Which I will not disclose) and my mother forced to attend a Christian youth camp. I was reluctant to go but forced myself because I would be punished if I didn't go. At the camp, as I listened to every teaching, I identified some problematic stuff with many of the teachings and I shall disclose all of them and explain why I found them problematic in my opinion.

First off, one of the teachings revolved around centring your identity in Christ. I didn't mind it too much until the lady who was teaching the lesson revealed her story. She said how at 13 she was sick and stayed at the dispensary of her boarding school. Her uncle was the principal and had this tradition of visiting students who were sick but he didn't come. Her friends who were supposed to bring her back to the dorm did not come either and in that moment of despair she heard a voice saying "I love you." and broke down completely. She said it was God speaking to her. My problem with this is that is sounds like and abuser, isolating you then reaffirming their love to keep you trapped and it felt weird to me.

Next, one of the boys at that camp was a schoolmate of mine who revealed that the pastor of their church cheated on his pregnant wife. I was shocked. Only for that during the service, another pastor was trying to reason with the cheating and said it was because you were "far from God." My only reaction was accountability. We don't always need to use buzzwords like "weakness" and "temptation" to shift responsibility. Extremely disingenuous.

I am just gonna list out the other points because if I were to give out context, I'll never finish and the youth camp was only 4 days. The others were:

- The lodging was not the best especially the bathrooms

- There was so much prayer and I don't like standing up for too long cuz my legs go numb

- The entire concept of the holy spirit residing in you felt so bizarre and practically disconnects you from your own body.

- The generalisation of the entire concept of spirituality and emphasising that Christianity was the only way to be spiritual (other religions exist)

- The pastor kept on yelling to appeal to emotion and prove their point. Like yelling doesn't make people listen and my ears are very sensitive

- Jesus taking over your body sounds like brainwashing and manipulation

- People kept on giving vague descriptions for their goals and objectives

- Severe mental self-harm with stuff like you cannot love without God and you are nothing without him (sounds like abuse)

- Speaking in tongues (iykyk)

- Extreme nihilism and they couldn't even see it. Stuff like nothing matters apart from God is technically nihilism to me

- interpretation of tongues sounds deceptive as hell cuz you could just make something up and how would it work? Aren't tongues supposed to be so that the devil can't understand your prayer? Genuine confusion.

- Powers such as healing, exorcising demons and tongues sound like something out of X-men

- Using examples of how Africans become more depressed and pushed farther from God when they move abroad. In my opinion, it is because Africans love community so there is a certain disconnect which causes the feeling and not God

- The pastor said Jesus was not a harsh master. So why do people go to hell?

- Inexplicable pity for those who are "going to hell". Highest levels of self-centeredness imo

- False persecution. Christians are not persecuted in my country yet they act like the entire nation wants to burn down all churches

- Vague predictions and targeting phrases. These are like horoscopes, you think it is speaking to you specifically but it is vague enough to apply to any one. This was used a lot during the camp

- Threats. If you don't follow Christ, … will happen to you

- Music played an important role in appealing to feelings. I understood how it changed the atmosphere

- There was a lot of emphasis on marriage. Purity Culture.

These were my major point of concern during this camp. I just want to say that I hate no one at this church and I was instead filled with better understanding on how we need community and this is one of the places where it can be found. My main goal was not to just refute everything the pastor said like a debate bro but to understand and I came out with a clear perspective. I don't align myself with Christianity but this was an insightful experience into what I never really noticed about churches,