(Warning: content related to suicide, self-harm and depression)
Background:
I was about 5 years old when I said "The Sinner's Prayer." I was sitting
in the car heading out on some trip with at least one of my siblings. While we talked, somehow it came to light that I had never
officially accepted Jesus into my heart. My sibling (who it was eludes me) was astonished
and informed me that I needed to ask Jesus to forgive my sins in
order to go to heaven. I already felt like a Christian, so I was
mildly offended that I still needed to be “saved” in this way,
but I said the prayer. I don’t remember if I said it in my head or
aloud. I was hurt at the implication that I wasn’t a
Christian, so instead of a happy feeling I was just satisfied that it
was over with and now nobody could question my faith.
I
was raised in a fundamentalist/evangelical Christian hippie-esque homeschooling
household in the Midwest US. My five siblings and I were raised by parents who believed
strongly in the infallibility of the Bible and the next best thing: Keith Green’s Last Days Newsletters. My parents were involved
in extremist pro-life organizations and were, along with 2 of my
older siblings, arrested multiple times for blocking access to
abortion clinics. Some of my earliest memories are of picketing
against abortion with pro-life groups. The household consensus was
that evolution was a lie, abortion was evil, gay people were going to
hell, and environmentalists and feminists were delusional. I grew up thinking these
views were quite ironclad. There was an environment of ridicule
towards people who didn’t think the way we did. While my father was
a gregarious person, my mother preferred to be a recluse and didn’t
seem to get along with a lot of people. As a result, we didn’t have
much contact with people outside the family and small social
group of other homeschoolers.
God: "Don't lust, or else"
Strangely enough, even within this very Christian environment, and lip service to the idea that it's your relationship with God, not your point of view, that matters, our spiritual lives were private. We rarely prayed as a family and did not often inquire as to how any other family member's walk with God was going. I got a vibe of embarrassment about prayer and kept many of my spiritual thoughts to myself.
Sex was a highly taboo topic. Going through puberty basically sucked for me, since I didn't have anyone to turn to with my questions. I was very disturbed by how often I thought about sex. I felt disgusting physically (since I was a greasy, pimply teenager) and spiritually (because I couldn't seem to stop "lusting" a.k.a. fantasizing).
One night, while I was earnestly praying, I felt as though I heard God's voice. I don't remember the exact words of what I heard, but it basically boiled down to "Stop having lustful thoughts or else." I panicked and cried. It was so, so hard not to have those thoughts. I turned off the lights and cried myself to sleep. The next morning, one of my pet gerbils was dead. I heard God's voice again. I felt him warning me that next time, it might not just be a pet. It might be one of my family members.
I was completely traumatized. I effectively shut down my own sexuality because I was terrified of God's judgment. I cried seemingly non-stop and self-harmed. Whenever I would linger too long on a sexual thought, I would think of my family members and how horrible I would feel if they died as a result of my own lust.
Due to the hush-hush nature of both spirituality and sex in our house, I never told anyone in my family about this. I didn't see how that would help, anyway, since no one would be able to talk me out of my situation. You weren't allowed to say someone's personal revelation wasn't from God, and lust was not acceptable in any case; Jesus himself forbade "adulterous thoughts." I felt trapped and I resented God. I didn't start to recover from this until I passed through puberty and my hormones calmed down. My sexual thoughts at least started to feel like they were under my control again, if not God's.
A stalemate
I
had always been a depressed child and would run away from home often,
fully intending to never come back, though I rarely got far. If I had understood what suicide was, I think I would have attempted to kill myself. When
I was about 13 years old I had my first full-fledged depressive
episode, triggered after losing a $10 bill at a waterpark. I sat in
my room, feeling completely empty and worthless in a way I had never
known before. My siblings took me out for ice cream to cheer me up
and their kindness and material comfort helped a little, but it was
obviously not enough to stave off the recurring depression and
suicidal ideation that would ail me for the next 10 or more years of
my life. My parents never sought help or treatment for me; my mother
was horrendously depressed herself and I suppose she just thought
that was a normal way to live.
For
many years I had kept up a pretty solid habit of daily Bible reading
and prayer. When I was about 17, I was stricken by another bad bout
of depression, and it was during this time that I began to realize
that praying was making my depression worse.
I could be having a fairly happy day, but as soon as I began to open
my heart to God, as I had been doing for years, I would collapse into
a depressive suicidal fit. My survival instincts swiftly kicked in;
as soon as I detected this pattern I stopped trying to listen to God
and switched to simply reading the Bible and occasionally making
emotionless requests to God in times of crisis. Interestingly, my mental health
stabilized after I stopped my prayer habit. Then afterward, when the worst of the depression had passed, I tried to pick up the habit again, but it didn't feel the same as it once had. When before I had felt “God” talking
to me, it had turned to feeling like just me talking to me. I was
slightly bewildered by this and secretly wondered if all the times
I’d thought I’d heard God, I was basically just making it all up.
God and I entered a stalemate: If he wouldn't talk to me, I wouldn't try to listen for him anymore.
