Like most people, I was indoctrinated at a very young age, pushed into Christianity by my mother and grandparents. Note that my parents were divorced, and my father is agnostic/atheist. I became a believer only in the fact that I was told that if I did not believe I was a terrible person and was going to go to hell. Around age 11 however, things started to not add up as I watched my mother be an abusive alcoholic, yet play the role of perfect Christian persevering mother to the general public. Then I started noticing that the church kind of did the same thing that she did. And so did my grandparents. Hiding behind avail of being perfect upstanding Christians whenever anyone was looking, that is. Behind closed doors it was a very different story. When I turned 12, where I attended a Catholic grade school and went to an evangelical church with my mother on Sundays.

I started refusing at this age to enter the church when we had a mass during school hours. This was met with distain by the administration as well as my grandfather who was a deacon at the church. It was very difficult and challenging for me to push through this but at this point nothing could convince me to go back into the faith and I persisted. Eventually as long as I was well behaved I did not have to participate in the mass. By eighth grade I was openly challenging my evangelical mother and catholic grandparents when they would start to preach to me about what I was wearing or how I conducted myself or what music I listen to.

By eighth grade/age 14 I was openly an atheist. The biggest challenge for me, and what a lot of people don't realize, is that when you were raised Christian from a very young age, toxic dynamics and behaviors that exist within the church in print on you and become how you conduct yourself in public and it took me many yearsto observe and undo this.

I am now 40 years old and could not be in a better state of mental health. I've conquered toxic religion, mental illness, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, all of it. And God in Jesus had literally not a single fucking thing to do with it !

It probably took me 10 to 15 years to undo all of the shit that you pick up being a member of the church.