Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer
The choice to leave my religion behind several years ago makes me feel good. Powerful, strong, insightful, awake, more intelligent adult and less naïve child. It also every now and then makes me feel disappointed, sad and confused. I don’t want it back (fuck no) but there are some things I miss. It’s removal from my life has left some small but significant spaces. Sometimes when I have run out of answers to the shit bits of life I want to pray, out of habit I guess, but who am I praying to? Leaving the church has thrown into chaos all my beliefs about the whole god thing. It was prayer that once gave me comfort. When all other options were exhausted, when I had no idea what to do about something that was distressing me, prayer was my answer. Not formal Hail Mary full of grace type prayer but just a chat with with god. Well a desperate plea for help really. I was handing it over, saying here god, can you take this and do something with it? Because I have no fucking idea.
During a particularly revolting period of my life when I was in a marriage I knew I didn’t want to be in, I would do this weird thing where I would recite, mantra like “Dear god please help me not to have any bad thoughts today”. Somehow this was meant to protect myself from the onslaught of terror my mind was feeding me on a regular basis. I now know that was a manifestation of my anxiety at that time. My GP would some months later describe me as having “an anxiety disorder with a dash of obsessive compulsive tendencies brought about by post natal depression” Lovely. The prayers slash mantras were my wonky brain’s way of helping me feel safe. Due to my strict Catholic upbringing and my tendency to be anxious and fearful as a child it is now not surprising to me that my anxiety took on a weird and bitter tasting Catholic Guilt flavor.
It makes me shudder now thinking of that scared, secretive weirdo I was back then when I thought my life was falling apart. I don’t solely blame my religious upbringing. A large part of my anxiety was because I know I have a predisposition to being depressed and anxious. I have no doubt however that the indoctrination of fear and shame as a child really messed with my already anxious and impressionable mind. The flipside of this however is that the ritual of attending Mass every Sunday was incredibly calming to me. Mindlessly reciting the prayers, standing up, sitting down, more standing up, more sitting down, kneeling down, more standing up and repeat and repeat every Sunday for entire childhood. To me this was a dull but calming and predictable hour a week that was a balm against the anxiety and confusion I often felt as a child. I didn’t understand much of it except that we were all sinners and god was somehow saving us. I did know however, even as an eight year old, that having to confess your sins to the priest was pointless when you couldn’t think of anything bad you had done. We were eight for fuck’s sake! So I would make stuff up. Yes, lie about my so-called sins. I knew that it was mental that the sacrament of confession required us to make shit up. But I didn’t dare tell anyone I felt that way.
There are many reasons I left the Catholic church, none of which will really be a surprise to anyone. The whole disgusting-beyond-belief abuse of children and the church’s ruthless efforts to ensure their organization was protected makes me sick to my stomach. Their stance on homosexuality – the patronizing and offensive viewpoint that homosexuality is wrong but god still loves gays, even though they are… well gay… and unnatural and sinners. But god loves them. Fuck you Catholic church. I often think if there is a god (and the jury is still out on that one for me) he is up there wherever he hangs out shouting “I never fucking said that!”
I think many people who were not indoctrinated with a religious belief to the extent that I was have difficulty understanding what a big deal it is to say this is not for me. I’m done. This is bullshit. It seems so obvious that of course as an adult you give up and outgrow the myths of childhood, just as you would do with santa and the easter bunny. But it is more complex than that. My childhood was Catholic Catholic Catholic. I was baptized nine days after I was born, attended Catholic schools, my mum taught religion in a Catholic school, priests were regular guests in our home and missing Sunday mass was just unheard of. In the end it was a simple choice in many ways to leave the church and to me it was like ending a very toxic relationship. However even leaving a toxic relationship can leave you with a sense of loss amidst the triumph.