One of the main reasons I feel anxious. Thanks Obama.

I almost posted this in Religion Faith and Theology Forum but after reading the rules i was worried this would come across too much like religion bashing and it didnt seem like that was allowed in there.

Ive been thinking about it lately. Self reflecting. On why I have such bad anxiety and where it started.
Aside from some childhood issues, and possible heredity sources (all of which i wont go into in this thread) I'm POSITIVE that one of the main origins of my Anxiety is from being brought up in a pretty fundamentalist religion.
For the purpose of this thread Im just going to focus on how religion impacted me and my anxiety.
Ill make a thread at a later time going into the other avenues of my anxiety disorder but to get my point across about I will stick to this one area.

I was bought up Seventh Day Adventist
For those of you that dont know much about that sect of Christianity, its very old testament based. Full of lots of rules like you essentially have to be a vegetarian. no caffeine, or alcohol. From sun down Friday night till sun down Saturday night, you must not work or do anything un god related. Not huge fans of modern medicine. dinosaurs arent real and put here to test us. These kinds of fun things.

I truly did believe there was a man in the sky who cared about me and cared about my life and all the small things. I was nervous as a child about going to hell and doing the wrong thing. I would cry about it sometimes convinced I had already ruined my chance for an eternal life.

When I was around 12 years old I came to the realization that nothing was as it seemed.
This theory that someone cared about me and was always with me came with a lot of holes. I stopped believing and this became a full on crisis for me. Suddenly my life had no real meaning like I had been lead to believe. Suddenly bad things werent part of any will. Humans are just gross and there is no real saving them.

Very severe panic attacks started occurring around this time.
I would have to leave church and hide in the bathroom trying to breath. I suddenly felt very alone.
As a teen I started researching into evolution and science, and all of this while believable, made my anxiety so much worse. At night I use to avoid looking up at the sky because it made me realise how big the world was, and how alone i was. I use to look up and think someone was looking after me, but now that I knew the truth, it was all very daunting.
I couldn't even discuss evolution until about 5 years ago, because the thought of it was so far from what I had been bought up with, and the reality of it would cause me to panic.

I have been on and off medication to treat it. And Ive also had some therapy.

Im not sure if I had been brought up without religion, whether I would have developed anxiety around why we are here and our purpose at all. I think i would have anxiety regardless due to other factors though.

I still suffer anxiety but Im no longer triggered around religion or when i think about the meaning of life. I can discuss theories around why we are here. I do though still feel very alone. Im not sure that feeling will ever go away.

Im curious as to whether anyone else has similar experiences to me around religion and anxiety. Or anything similar.
Or am I a special little snowflake

a reply to: IvyNeptune

I have been on and off medication to treat it. And Ive also had some therapy.

That's good to hear!
I'm more than likely going to get flamed from the many religious folks on this site for saying this, but religious indoctrination is a form of child abuse and your experience growing up with religion is further proof of this.
Fearing for your life that if you fail your deities commands that you'll be punished with eternal damnation...? That cannot be something beneficial to think about for the mind of a young developing child.

I haven't had any experiences with anxiety myself in regards to religion but I can empathize with the feeling that life may seem meaningless once you start to look at the bigger picture so to speak.

a reply to: NateTheAnimator

I agree with it being a (often passive) form of child abuse, and you are right. My 'side effects' from religion is evidence towards it.

What it does do is build a person's moral character. Something that is NON-EXISTENT (nearly) in this world today. Look around . Read some threads right here on ATS.Watch the news.
And that goes for most religions. Not just Christianity

Many years ago I also suffered with anxiety issues.

Things like going to public places alone with large crowds, like shopping malls for example, were terrifying for me sometimes.

I used to be terrified of people, but eventually I got free of this stuff completely as I began to spend more and more time in God's presence.

I began to discover that when God shows up, things begin to change.

One of the things I have learned is that religion and God are opposed to one another.

God is NOT religious, nor is He the one behind religion.

All religion does is drive people AWAY from God which is exactly what it was designed to do.

You might wonder "How on earth God could hate religion? Ridiculous! God loves religion. GOD IS RELIGION! Or at least He's completely in favour of it... surely? Saying that 'God hates religion' seems like talk of 'Peace keeping Missiles' or 'Cold heat'. Impressive contradictions designed to catch our attention.

But its true, God does hate religion. And the reason is that religion is not relationship. Religion is all about us trying to impress God with large buildings, sacrifices, good works and inspirational cultural achievements. But, and this may be hard to hear, God's just not interested in us impressing him.

You see, Religion is like washing your hands to clean your heart - hopeless window dressing. You may as well put a band aid on cancer! And God hates that we do it. He hates that we pretend that religion is the answer. In the Bible God says, "They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men."

What God wants is relationship. Not on our terms with our rules and rituals. He doesn't want us to do something to establish relationship with him. No, He's done what needs to be done. You could say, God's already done the religious thing. He sent his son Jesus to die on the cross to pay for our sin so that we can have friendship with him. Jesus' death is the only offering that pleases God. It is the only religious sacrifice that God accepts. One way of thinking about this is that Religion is what we try to do to please God whereas Jesus' death and resurrection is what God has already done that saves us.

It's true, God hates religion!

Almost everything man has put his hand to he has ruined the sea, the land, and the very air we breathe. We just must be in control. Even the Almighty has not been safe from smudged human fingerprints. Religion became the container we put God into. We took something pure and simple and complicated it; then we made up rules and regulations and called them holy. Every Sunday we visit a building we call church and follow a rite we call religion. Everyone thinks that God and religion are synonymous, but they are actually opposites.

God has a much better plan for us. He never wanted to be perceived as distant, judging, or overshadowing. He wanted to be part of us and every moment of our lives. But man decided that wasn't right for the Creator of the universe, so they made him big, unreachable and surrounded him with traditions, laws and rituals.

...all he ever wanted was to love us and to be our Father, to throw off the heavy armor of religion and don the velvet cloak of relationship. Most importantly she directs us to where we can embrace who we were always meant to be by getting to know God, who he is and what he likes and dislikes. And one thing is for sure God Hates Religion!

God Hates Religion!

Drop religion like a hot potato. It makes people crazy. You can establish a personal relationship with the Creator. No books or preachers required.

Absolutely, one simple act of faith can change a persons destiny forever...

God is very picky as to who He reveals Himself to.

"The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward Him."

The term "perfect" in the above quote means sincere.

"...stop believing that anything on this earth will bring you more pleasure than knowing God intimately and be so convinced of that you pursue Him more than anything."

Francis Chan - Intimacy with God (excerpt)

"God told Norvel Hayes the church is sadly lacking. We do not worship Him enough. You have to get alone in the privacy of your home and get on your knees and just worship Jesus, telling Him how much you love Him and appreciate Him. So I did. And after a few weeks, suddenly, God began to speak. After a while, Jesus began to appear to me. He would just walk in my room like an ordinary person and sit and talk to me."

Unleashing the Supernatural Power of God in Your Life

"...spend much time in private worship. God is calling you into His Presence, for that is the only place you will find fullness of joy–His joy–which will be your strength." Transformation of the Soul

In the last fifteen years the Lord has manifested Himself three times to me concerning the importance of people worshiping Him. The third time He did was when I started writing my book on worship. God showed me that the number one covenant was worshiping Him. I asked the Lord what I could do to help people so they can get things from Him easily. (It isn't hard to get God to do things for you.) He said, "Son, take them back to the beginning; put first things first"

But the Lord told me, "Take them back to the beginning and show them in the Scriptures what kind of people I picked and how they treated Jesus when they first saw Him. The Church is supposed to be treating Jesus like that now. That is why it is in there—to teach them to put first things first."

HOW TO BECOME A WISE MAN IN GOD'S EYES

a reply to: IvyNeptune

My experiences with religion are mixed. I am a believer in Christ, but I also have a deep appreciation for the importance of science.

My issues with organised religion started when I was very young. My family were poor as dirt, and we were uniformly looked down upon, and I particularly was frowned upon, because I had questions that no one wanted to answer, like why sermons would be so condemnatory and judgemental, when Jesus told us that it is not our right to do so. It was clear to me by age eleven or so, that the love Jesus spoke of, was given only lip service, that nearly all that was done by the church was done out of a misguided and judgemental mindset, not one of pure love.

And so, when I was sixteen, I totally distanced myself from congregational religion, and started on my own path. You see, all my young life, I was an avid reader of all things scientific. Pathology text books, astronomy, anything I could lay hands upon. I would watch documentaries the same way many children were watching Seasame Street, with rapt attention and delight. I knew that there was a functional disconnect between the two parts of my life, the spiritual and the physical, from about age six onwards.

So when it came time to disconnect myself from the indoctrinating influence of a corrupt mortal hierarchy, the church, and to follow Christ my own way, I developed a duality of reason that still provides me balance and even headedness today.

The rules are simple.

For affairs of the soul, Christ is my guide, ever present, providing love, and bidding me to spread it always in his name. For the physical world there is science. These things in tandem, strong faith and logical mind, have allowed me passage through life which, although hard like any life can be, has not shattered my resolve, despite some very trying times indeed.

I believe that it is probable that the Big Bang or whatever one wishes to call the beginning of the universe, probably occurred very much as scientists claim it did. I also believe that it was the will of God that it happened at all. I believe Genesis is full to the eyesockets with allegory, and that there would have been no way to communicate the concepts involved with a detailed description of the beginning of time, that could have been written down in the language of the time. Simply put, when the Bible was written, there were no words for millions of years, nor terminology adequate to describe the methodology by which the cosmic billiards game that lead to the creation of this planet, came about.

If anything, science allows those of faith to peer out from behind Gods vestments, and see his sculpture in new light, to appreciate His awesome power ever more, and to do great things with that information if we can. And so, I have found a happy balance between faith and science, two toolkits for entirely different mental mechanisms, which compliment one another in my view, although that might seem strange to some.

However, I must point out that the manner by which I came to these conclusions about my way forward through the gamut of life, was not one of peace and harmony, not born of contemplative quiet and meditation. My thinking arose from total chaos at home, school, and from being denied the sanctuary that congregational religion touts as offering. Empty platitudes are rarely helpful, especially when the micro expressions on a persons face read that they have better things to do. No one who can see galaxies turning in his minds eye, is going to fail to spot the obvious, even if that person is very young.

It was terrifying to step outside the lines on one level, but at the same time an entirely positive experience. Since then, I have gathered about myself persons who, though perhaps not Christian by admission of it themselves, behave in a Christian fashion, with love toward people. I have not known fear for a very long time, not because there is nothing to fear, but because nothing has the power to make me feel it. I know what I am here for, I know where the lies are, and how to avoid repeating them, or being distracted by them.

Anxiety is understandable, but it is not logical. Through the eye of faith, I know that things are shaping up badly, with the churches all corrupted by clergy, mortal leaders with no right to speak on behalf of Christ, and yet preach either venom or ignorance and little else, with government utterly bent on punishing the weak for the excesses of the strong. But my logical mind and my faith combined show me that time must not be wasted in terror, because better work is done by those who are not part way through a myocardial infarction.

Duality, leading to a balanced, healthy whole. That is what I have found, and I am happier for it.

originally posted by: IvyNeptune
For those of you that dont know much about that sect of Christianity, its very old testament based. Full of lots of rules like you essentially have to be a vegetarian. no caffeine, or alcohol.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: IvyNeptune
For those of you that dont know much about that sect of Christianity, its very old testament based. Full of lots of rules like you essentially have to be a vegetarian. no caffeine, or alcohol.

Truly inspiring.

originally posted by: IvyNeptune
Truly inspiring.

The man knew what religious nuttery could do to a person.

a reply to: IvyNeptune


You learned early as this subject might go! Took me till my 40's to have the strength and courage to finally say, "Lord. Not to be disrespectful, but I just can't believe in your existence based upon the behavior of your churches. I may be disastrously wrong, but I am using the brain you gave me to critically think and make a logical decision.".

I think you haven't accepted your decision and allowing those ingrained "What Ifs" trigger your anxiety. Have faith in your decision! If God is a loving God? Then I am sure he/she/it will understand.

a reply to: IvyNeptune

Am I the only one missing something here? What does any of this have to do with Obama? It's in your thread title, but it doesn't seem like anything you wrote has any relationship to Obama whatsoever. I read the thread because I was curious how a person external to yourself could be blamed for your feeling anxiety. It doesn't seem that is actually what the thread is about though - maybe just an attention-grabber for your thread?

I don't understand why people use ATS to spill their guts about psychological problems. Such things should be kept private.

However, there is an appropriate website for this purpose. It is a comprehensive site for psych issues.

www.psychcentral.com

They have a huge forum there and are better able to help those in need in this area.

a reply to: IvyNeptune

When I was around 12 years old I came to the realization that nothing was as it seemed.

...but now that I knew the truth...

You know the truth? The whole truth and nothing but the truth? So at the tender age of 12 years you decided that you are somehow all-knowing and all-seeing and can definitively say that there is no "God?" Or.. rather... have you replaced your parents' "God" with your own ego???

People are imperfect. Religion is made for people by people based upon their very limited understanding of a higher power. If a doctor makes a mistake in diagnosing an illness, does that mean the patient was never sick to begin with? Or does it mean that a human doctor's human failings misunderstood the true nature of the condition?

I would suggest that your anxiety is not caused by religion, but by your own limited understanding of the matter. I think your first clue is that your anxiety became a problem when you rejected any force greater than yourself and decided you are omnipotent and omniscient. I'd be pretty darn anxious too if I thought I was the highest power in the universe. What a scary thought!!!

I was raised Southern Baptist. I have studied many other religions. This one is the most fun I have discovered.
I am an ordianed minister.
This church has the best parties.
Praise "Bob."

originally posted by: skunkape23
I was raised Southern Baptist. I have studied many other religions. This one is the most fun I have discovered.
I am an ordianed minister.
This church has the best parties.
Praise "Bob."

Aren't you glad you choose the right religion?

a reply to: Lurker1

You have been here since 2013, and yet you have not grasped that this here is a community, not just a discussion and debate arena?

Where the hell have you been this entire time? Under a table? Members here share things with one another, hopes, dreams, ambitions, desires, problems and solutions, their favourite things, and their pet peeves. Thats why you will regularly see someone welcomed in their introduction thread, upon joining, with words similar to "welcome to the ATS family".

There's love in them thar boards, if you are prepared to access it.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Self-appointed moderator?

This is no place for psychological help. No one here is a psych expert. The website I cited, on the other hand, is overseen by a psychiatrist.

originally posted by: Lurker1
a reply to: TrueBrit

Self-appointed moderator?

Nope, and if I were asked, I would refuse on the grounds that I have not got nearly as much time to devote to the site as I would need if I was going to be put forward for such a position.

Why? Is it not ok to love this place now? Have I broken an unwritten rule or something?

This is no place for psychological help. No one here is a psych expert. The website I cited, on the other hand, is overseen by a psychiatrist.

The member was not asking for help in the same way that one would when approaching a professional psychomedical doctor. The member was, if I read the situation right, looking for folks with experiences relevant to their own, in order to see if others had an insights from their personal lives, which have resonance with, or useful data pertaining to, their own. These are different things.

The member has already pointed out that they have involved themselves with therapy and the like, so they obviously know about what is available in terms of professional assistance, and elected to attempt to reach out for community as an alternative, for their own reasons. The member strikes me as being an intelligent, thoughtful individual, and is unlikely to have made this choice in ignorance, but instead to have made it because they know where they are right now, and do not believe professional assistance is the sort which will be most beneficial to them just now.

Chill!