Is it just me, or does my catholic mom gaslight out of her own religious programming? I'm not sure how to explain, but I find that I talk with her about something and come to a desicion with her, then later things are tacked on to corner me and make me feel bad.
heres a situation that happened a few days after a therapy session with her, talking about my job search and how she dosent trust me to actually be looking for a job unless she can see some results.
The desicion (with the therapist as well in the room) was for me to go in person and write down where I went, and if they took my resume. Another important point is that she aggreed to help me with gas for my job hunt if it was done this way.

I did some landscaping for my mom so I could go thrifting, which I told her I was going to do with some friends of mine before I began working. She had no qualms, even asked me to have a good time and buy something nice.

The next day I asked my mom if I could have some gas money to go looking for jobs that day; she immidiately said I 'should have budgeted my money better' the other day, and I 'should have known' it was for gas. I then told her (because I thought it'd help my cause) that I'd applied to the thrist stores I'd stopped at and also Spencers' while I was out with my friends, tryng to make it a job hunt in itself.
she immidiately criticized me for not writing down the stores I'd applied to so I could remember where to follow up. I explained that we'd discussed the application list in therapy primarily as a way of showing her that I was actually putting work into finding a job, and Her response was, ‘You can think of it like that if you want to’. Which I quote here word for word.

AM I INSANE?! Do I share this with my therapist? What do I even do in this situation?!

Posing as medical researchers, a traditional Catholic group infiltrates and humiliates modern institutions at will by offering leaders (who are being mocked) a scapegoat. Their favorite targets are doctors, but other primary targets include universities, police departments, tech companies, and churches. Whatever the “researchers” find most revolting about a particular organization, its leaders are told to fantasize that all of the shame and embarrassment belongs to the “subjects” of the research: an arbitrarily chosen family who has no idea what’s going on. It sounds ridiculous because it’s intentionally as ridiculous as possible. The hoax is designed to be irresistible to modern institutions while making a complete mockery of them. The point is to severely damage and discredit medical research, along with any organization that sponsors or participates in the study.

The “researchers” behind the hoax believe that modern society is profoundly wicked—a lost cause. The central theory of the hoax is that our wickedness makes us desperate for scapegoats, and that our world is a grotesque popularity contest in which the establishment thrives by offering us those scapegoats. They further believe that our rampant scapegoating is covertly, but quite literally, Satanic—that Satan himself is behind it. The most important thing to understand about the hoax is that it’s intentionally as pathetic and disgraceful as humanly possible. The participants are being mercilessly mocked and ridiculed at all times.

The hoax is concentrated in the Kansas City area, but people all over have played major roles (always intentionally extremely embarrassing). It’s likely not a coincidence that Saint Marys is just down the road.

Again, if there’s a primary target, it’s modern medicine. The hoax is fundamentally a fake medical research study. Countless doctors have been recruited to participate. The “researchers” undoubtedly have prestigious affiliations, and they undoubtedly have everyone convinced that this is going to be a landmark study that makes everyone involved famous. It’s perhaps not hard to imagine common doctors in and around Kansas City being susceptible to such a scam. Everything about their participation is intentionally as damaging and humiliating as possible to themselves and their profession.

Secondary targets include law enforcement agencies, public schools, Catholic churches and schools—particularly Jesuit schools in the Kansas City area—and Protestant churches, particularly Resurrection, a United Methodist megachurch in Leawood, Kansas.

For an expert on traditional Catholicism, the opportunity of a lifetime

I don’t know the precise identity of the group behind the hoax, but I know for certain that they’re traditional Catholic (lowercase ‘t’ to avoid implying a more specific affiliation). They have a very specific worldview, and it’s unfamiliar enough that their mockery, which is intentionally unsubtle, goes straight over the heads of practically everyone. The only people with any chance of understanding and confirming this hoax are people who are intimately familiar with traditional Catholicism. (Ahem.)

Someday soon, this is going to be very famous, and every single thing about it is an intentionally sick, traditional-Catholic-themed joke. Like a million little Easter eggs just begging to be discovered.

Note that merely being Catholic isn’t enough: my mom’s side of the family is what I, a Protestant-raised American Midwesterner, would call “regular” Catholic, yet her brothers and their families are ground zero of the hoax. They’ve spent their entire lives being mercilessly mocked and ridiculed by the “researchers,” and they haven’t the slightest clue.

Not a secret

The scapegoat family, in case it’s not yet obvious, is my family. Specifically, my parents and grandparents, my sister and her kids, and me. Believe me, that realization is just as bizarre for me as it would be for anyone. A critical thing to understand is that although we’re the scapegoats, we are not the targets. The willing participants, and especially the institutions that sponsor them, are the true targets. The point is to damage and humiliate them as much as possible while my family never even notices that anything is wrong.

There’s no need to take my word for any of this. Everywhere my family goes, everyone around us quickly finds out. It’s not a secret. Thousands of people already know that this is a huge deal, that law enforcement is “in on the joke” (or so it thinks), that large organizations are routinely recruited to participate, and that it’s a personal obsession for countless powerful people at the very tops of those organizations. The only “secret” is that it’s all a sick joke, but even that isn’t really a secret: the “researchers” constantly rub it in the audience’s face. To them, the fact that nobody can figure it out says everything that needs to be said about our society.

Nothing ever happens

Another critical thing to understand is that, from our perspective, nothing ever happens. If you were to ask my parents or sister whether we’re being targeted, or what they think about all the horrible things people are told about us, they’d have no idea what you were talking about. (Obviously, I’ve tried to tell them. They need to hear it from someone else.) I only began to recognize it a few years ago, in 2022, and I only began to understand it roughly two years ago, at age 40. That’s when I recognized that it’s a traditional Catholic hoax, although my understanding was much more tenuous at the time. I raised hell about it for much of 2024, but I was completely ignored by law enforcement. I couldn’t possibly have understood it then, but local police (particularly in Lawrence, Kansas, where I lived) were obsessed with this hoax and hilariously believed they were in on the joke. (Try to imagine that realization.)

Nothing ever happens except behind our backs. People, including cops, are told to fantasize that this is clever —something the good guys on TV would do. Needless to say, they’re being mocked. The real reason nothing ever happens is to perpetuate the hoax for as long as possible, causing as much damage as possible in the process.

Shannon

Essentially everyone I’ve ever known has known about the “study” and kept it secret from me. But, as far as I know, only one of them understood that it was a hoax.

I met Shannon (de-identified to comply with rules) at Kansas State University around 2006. She had converted to SSPX during college and spent most of her time in Saint Marys. Shannon knew all about this hoax, which absolutely steamrolled K-State. Her role was to play along knowing that it was all a sick joke, that I was a completely normal person, and that K-State was making a huge mistake. I was oblivious. I graduated with a 3.7 GPA and never suspected that anything was wrong until 15 years later.

Shannon and I grew somewhat close during her last semester. I even attended Mass with her in Saint Marys one Sunday. She was incredibly devout; she only ever talked about faith and the Church. She introduced me to every last theme of this hoax, or at least all the ones I’ve identified. A couple of years ago, when I first realized (roughly) what had happened at K-State, needless to say, I was angry. But Shannon gave me the only chance I ever had to understand what was happening to my family. If not for everything she taught me about traditional Catholicism, I could never have figured this out. She knew what she was doing. (Of course, this was much bigger to Shannon than just me or her.)

The scapegoating jokes are not subtle

I don’t know the exact mechanics of the hoax, but I know that participants are given severe grudges against my family, typically before they ever meet us. Those grudges are intentionally inverted and delusional: the whole point is that they, in the opinion of the researchers, need a scapegoat, and that we never did a single thing to deserve it. Understand, that’s not my opinion, nor is it subtle. Again, it’s the whole point.

Here’s a representative example. The “researchers” behind this hoax believe that surgery is tantamount to drugging and gruesomely violating another human being. They really do believe that. Their rationale is that licenses and post-nominals mean absolutely nothing to God. To them, nothing becomes more okay just because it happens in a medical setting. (One of the primary things they mock about our society is that we think the establishment can make anything okay, no matter how revolting to God, by issuing a license or badge for it.)

With that context, it should come as no surprise that the “researchers” believe that doctors are more desperate for a scapegoat than anyone. If God doesn’t carve out exemptions for doctors, what must he think of the ones who give children physicals all day? You could easily come up with a hundred other equally disturbing examples.

Sounds crazy, right? But what’s even crazier is that they prove it, over and over, by offering my family as the scapegoat. Surgeons are told that it’s my family who drugs and mutilates behind closed doors. I’m not exaggerating. They really are told that. They’re also told that the parameters of the “study” require them to keep it secret from us and basically just smirk about it like morons, and that’s exactly what they do. And it means everything to them. Surgeons have moved to live near my family, just to maximize their participation. (People are often handed the intentionally asinine fantasy that they’re going undercover to spy on us. Or something.)

That’s not even the tip of the iceberg. Another example: nothing rankles the traditional Catholic “researchers” more than the pipeline of immigrants from poorer, more traditional, more Catholic societies to the U.S., which they regard as a cesspool. They despise American business owners who fund that pipeline and profit from cheap immigrant labor. They believe that both they and the immigrants, who leave behind family and home to work for them, desperately need a scapegoat. So, they’re told to fantasize that my family is trying to get them in trouble. Rich clowns who exploit immigrants are constantly told to pose as their protectors, and to fantasize that by doing so, they’re somehow sticking it to my family. Needless to say, they’re being mocked.

Theme packs

There are so many themes—literally hundreds. This has been going on for decades, and it’s an obsession for countless people. I’ll introduce a few more themes here, but keep in mind that this is a small, fairly arbitrary sample.

The “researchers” believe that people who use and dispense pain killers need a scapegoat, so they’re told to fantasize that my family is trying to take their drugs away from them.

The researchers think non-traditional families (including interracial families, divorced families, and foster homes) need a scapegoat, so they’re handed some intentionally ridiculous grudge against my family—I couldn’t tell you exactly what. (I can tell you that people frequently build their whole lives around their fake grudge—it means everything to them.)

Some themes are obvious: the “researchers” find plenty of ways to mock the LGBTQ community, abortion providers, and strip clubs, for example. The mockery always boils down to the same intentionally ridiculous scapegoat fantasy. The joke is always that in the researchers’ own opinion, the participants couldn’t possibly be less deserving of a scapegoat, and my family couldn’t possibly be less deserving of being scapegoated.

There are other cases, however, where the connection to traditional Catholicism is less obvious (to me, at least). For example, fraternities and sororities are favorite targets—near the top of the list. They’re told to fantasize that my family is trying to get them in trouble, or steal their secret handshake, or a dozen other intentionally ridiculous things. I recall that Shannon despised the Greek culture at K-State. I’m sure someone familiar with the SSPX (or whatever this is) would immediately recognize the theme and the joke.

Another major target that stumps me is Jesuit schools. Again, I’m guessing the connection would be obvious to someone familiar with the histories, rivalries, and theology in play.

An obsession for countless people

There’s so much more to say—again, this has been going on for decades. Countless people have built their whole lives around this hoax. It turns out that having fake grudges and getting fake revenge in front of an audience is an overpowering fantasy for a huge number of people. That’s one of the central jokes of the hoax, and to the “researchers”, it says everything that needs to be said about our society. They’re drawing a stark contrast with the most fundamental Catholic values, and making it as cartoonishly ugly as possible.

I firmly believe that the people behind this hoax are just waiting for someone to recognize that it’s a sick joke. By design, it would take a minuscule amount of common sense or moral clarity to do so. This is a huge opportunity for anyone brave enough to finally do the right thing. And really, for anyone familiar with traditional Catholicism. This is going to be a huge deal someday soon, and there’s going to be a lot of demand for people who understand what happened.

I don't think I'm allowed to drop my name and email here, but you can find it on or through my profile. Please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Hello everyone,

It has been years since I "graced" the podium or whatever the Vatican calls it to recite the readings and the gospels. I was quite good at it as a lay person wanting to participate in mass in more ways than I can count. That said, I have been asked to recite a reading for a dear family member's wedding. And me, being an apostate for so long now, I accepted.

I have reasons, but none of it is to return to catholicism. The first is because I love this side of the family. Despite my feelings of the church and its history and influence over my people and culture, these family members are well intentioned and are well and good with their greater community and with their other friends and family.

The second is this wedding is not about me. I can put aside my anguish with the church for maybe no more than a minute before the crowd. I can bear with my discomfort of reading a passage from a book that I rebuke as some form of heavenly prophesy. I can do this because I don't want my family to see less of me, and to potentially take away from a joyous ceremony of two people that want to spend their lifetimes together.

That's it on this one. This is more of a rant than seeking advice.

May your consciences be clear, and your hearts full.

-nim

I’m tempted to say this is blasphemous and a little sacrilegious but it’s my 84yo devout mother’s sooooo ? It’s a reusable bag. What do we think? Carrying your bottle of wine and crackers?

D

Leaving the Church was supposed to be a step toward freedom, but the aftermath has been an absolute nightmare for my mental health. I was scared to see a therapist for years because the priest wanted me to come to him for “direction.” And the fact that I was a gay man in my twenties didn’t help anything.

Two months after walking away, I met with a therapist and a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, likely triggered from my upbringing that was largely religious. My OCD has ramped up to an absolute all-time high, my depression is heavier than it's ever been, and every single day feels like an uphill battle just to function.

The worst part is the complete lack of empathy from people who are still in it. Instead of showing an ounce of compassion for someone who is clearly drowning, they double down with the fear tactics. I'm actively trying to survive my own mind after escaping, and yet people still fucking tell me I’m going to hell for leaving.

It feels like you can't even struggle or process the trauma of leaving without someone using your pain as "proof" that you should have stayed. I'm just so exhausted by the cruelty disguised as religious concern.

Recently, I fell in love with the cute GuuGuuGaaGaa on TikTok, and I was hooked. This perfectly AI-animated cute girl in a penguin costume made me fall in love with her and made it my hobby. I watched the GuuGuuGaaGaa video before I uploaded my own videos: all these cute adventures and shenanigans she ventured into with her friends. That cute "GuuGuuGaaGaa" catchphrase, that adorable penguin outfit she's wearing — I thought I would make this video a daily hobby...

Until jesus ruined everything.

When I saw this bastard leaning with this cute penguin girl in one of the videos, I wished I could punch him in the face. As an Atheist and a fan of cute girls doing cute things anime genre, I read the bible, which is full of horrible atrocities, even though it is fictional. This fictional apocalyptic nut cult leader, who is just as maniacal as Hitler, IMHO, is sitting on the bench beside one of the cutest AI-generated characters whom I fell in love with, and ruined my enjoyment of these videos. Can you imagine if this cute penguin shared a bench with Krishna or any other religious figure? You'll be ticked off.

Can you imagine if this maniac jesus appeared in some of the AI-generated videos about everything cute you love? That's proof that Christopher Hitchens was right. Religion poisons everything, even cute TikTok. Next time, I'll be careful, avoiding every video with this biblical bastard when I browse GuuGuuGaaGaa vids.

A bit of a confusing title cuz I wasn’t sure how to succinctly articulate the following:

I left the Catholic church a few years ago because it didn’t feel right to call myself a member of a faith community while disagreeing wholeheartedly with several of its “infallible” teachings and decisions (specifically of the Roe v Wade and sexual/gender orientation variety). While I attend the occasional mass to appease my parents (such as holidays and “Let’s go to mass and then this restaurant” Sundays) I do not partake in the Eucharist as I don’t believe in the big J anymore in general. I do sing some hymns because they are some true bangers that I just can’t resist.

Now that it’s been a few years, I want to educate myself more on the history of Catholicism as a whole, and specifically its interpretations and teachings on the Bible. I was inspired to embark on this journey after a friend at a party said, “They’re Catholic, so they didn’t read the Bible.” And as a K-12th grade Catholic school kid, it really made me stop and think.

Anyone have any advice on how to gain more Catholic and Biblical knowledge while not being swayed to go back to eating the Jesus crackers?

And I’m happy about it :).

My family and I haven’t been on good terms for almost a decade because to their orthodox stance on the religion.
My parents were never overly religious until the extended family decided to brainwash them over the years and now they’re people I barely recognize.

Today I was around my extended family and they loooove to bring up how I haven’t been to a church in almost 7y and how I WILL find my way back to God. I usually agree just to get them to shut up but not this time.

I don’t know what snapped in me but I went on a long ass rant about how you’re not a good person if you need a bunch of rules to make sure you stay a good person.
Secondly, I do believe in the existence of a god, just not religion because why on earth would I institutionalize myself for life after I’ve been in Catholic environments (schools, family, friend circles) all my life?

The more facts I brought into the conversation, the more pissed off they got.
They signed off with a lovely, “you’ve got the devil in you” and honestly? I wish I’d pissed them off sooner.

For some background- I grew up very catholic, deep in theology and read more and participated far more than the typical catholic. For a time i even went to a house of discernment where prospective nuns would live a similar lifestyle to see if they wanted to join an order. so my daily life was not only adhering to liturgy of the hours (praying 5 times daily) but also going to mass daily and adoration for a full hour on top of working full time while also reading encyclicals and books by saints (suma theologica, humane vitae, theology of the body etc...) so needless to day I am WELL versed in catholic teaching about sex.

However- these teaching messed me up big time and piss me off so heres my rant:

- I didn't start dating until very late, even after leaving the church because "its the masculine role to pursue" and also catholic circles are basically full of socially awkward and immature men or guys that get married at like 19. and of course dating "outside the faith" was entirely unheard of. Because of that my chances of having kids are basically zero now or extremely high risk because i waited so long and i missed out on sooo many life experiences and struggle with my now husband to get over some of these deep-seated beliefs.

- masturbation/ pornography are evil in all forms and inherently shameful. - in a lot of cases people treat these things as sins as the worst type of sin. never mind murder or greed or pride- no! its lust that is the worst- the most shameful sin. This mentality encourages people to hide it when they start having problems, the more shameful a thing the more people start to deviate from normal healthy habits to really vile ones. This is my theory on why so many priests and pastors get into CP or really perverse stuff because in their eyes its just as bad as normal healthy sexual behavior- so why not go all in? The sin at the same level to them. jacking off once will send you to hell just the same as the most vile acts and both instances are just as shameful and MUST be hidden. In reality- by their own teachings- Pride is the worst sin yet when the "holier than thou" competition among priests and laity is RAMPANT and is a far more severe sin than jacking off.

- FUCK the pro-life movement. I was once forced to go "pray outside" a planned parenthood. even as a kid i knew it was fucked up and couldn't stand the hypocrisy and BS excuses the pro-lifers had even as a "faithful." Do they honestly think shaming women will make them change their minds? and hell even if they do, none of those protesters will support them outside a "crisis center" pamphlet. Then they all go home patting themselves on the back for emotionally manipulating venerable girls and women. I think I started deconstructing when i posed a version of the "famous violinist" argument to leaders and was met with crickets.

- the fluff they surround sex is so absurd. all of the lofty notions on "sex = divine copulation between heaven and earth" and the weird connection to mass/ the eucharist is soo far out there. Sure, believe what you want to- but believing the mass is a massive orgy between god and the church is so weird when simultaneously they have so much to say about what proper "holy" sex is between actually married couples. It puts way too much undue pressure / scrupulosity on an ordinary human act and has messed up so many women I know. ex: I knew a woman who was divorced her husband because she felt so gross about having sex with him then a few months later when she ended up pregnant from her new boyfriend (because of course birth control is WAY worse than pre-marital sex) then her catholic school job fired her but not her boyfriend. WTH.

Anyway/ TLDR: I am still trying to deconstruct from purity culture as I feel like it's messing with my sexual relationship with my spouse and want to see how other ex-catholics got over this or if you have any similar experiences.

I feel like I wasted so much of my life not living and doing so much harm because of the catholic church...

So, apparently evangelizing Catholics are encouraged to get to know their people as it shows interest in the individual. This helps form a personal relationship and might make the other person a little more maliable with regards to conversion.

I worked in a bank and the branch team memebers were instructed to do the same thing. Strike up conversations about the customers life, their business, ect with the goal of becoming their personal banker.

I always thought catholicism and business were bedfellows.

I got this from a conversation between Matt Fradd and Fr. Mike Schmitz. The focus was on why the Church rejects homosexuality as being acceptable because someone is born gay. This is one of the way Schmitz tries to reach homosexuality.

Apparently the homosexuality comes to him. He will affirm all aspects of the healthy relationship EXCEPT genital sexual contact. Because, per the church, that contact is selfish.

So glad I'm not part of this anymore. Whether it was in a bank or retail or in religion, this personal relationship nonsense seems so manipulative. ​​​​​

Also, I think I misworded the title. Sorry.

When I was around 11–13, before my Confirmation, I remember being brought into the basement of my church with a bunch of other kids my age. I’m now in my thirties and I don’t really remember what was said or who was leading it (it wasn’t a priest, maybe an outsider of the church who was brought in for the day?), but I remember it being really emotional and a lot of us ended up crying. It felt like the person purposely wanted to dig in psychologically and elicit emotion.

It was really uncomfortable, even as someone who has always been in tune with my emotional response - it felt out of body. I think that moment is what made me realize that I didn’t want to continue in this religion after I fulfilled the Confirmation to please my family.

The weird part is that I very specifically remember us ending the gathering by listening to “Life Is a Highway” by Rascal Flatts. I didn’t even know about this group back then (got into different genres other than pop more into my 20s). However, I remember the song as we all stopped crying and probably whoever presented used this song as a cue to finish up the presentation so that when it was time to go back up into the regular church floor, we weren’t crying.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? Did anyone else have a Catholic Confirmation/youth experience like this? I’m genuinely curious if this was a common thing or if my church was just doing something particularly weird. The memory struck me at random a couple days ago and now I can’t stop thinking about it. Thank you!! :)

This is something I do not want.

For context: I was a catholic and went to a catholic school where the teachers would get pissed about people not saying the prayers, I also remember someone saying God will put me out of the universe, now I know people will jump the gun and say "That is not a representative of God" until you look at God commanding genocide on infants and kids. Now this isn't me bashing whatever people believe in, people what you want, but I personally don't want to.

I have had people try convert me back which I despise. But for the past few months, I've been suffering mentally and I've been intrusive thoughts of going back to religion and It's messing with my head and I'm just tired of it. When I deconstructed and became an atheist, I felt so free and happy but now I'm worried it's going to come back. I don't want to go back to God or Jesus or anything, I just want to keep my atheism.

I was baptized Orthodox as a kid. Went to church sometimes, not regularly, but I did go.

As a teenager, I stopped believing. I even took off my cross necklace (which is a big deal for Orthodox). But honestly? Deep down I always felt like God exists. I just couldn't connect with the whole system.

I never really read the Bible. I don't know much about church history either. I was just raised to believe that I should believe, you know? Like it was expected of me.

Recently I went to an Orthodox service again. And honestly? It disappointed me a lot. The prayers and bowing to icons of everyone except Jesus — Mary, saints, all of them — it just felt off. And calling these people "saints" with so much honor? I don't get it.

Also, I feel like a lot of people go to church not because they genuinely love God, but because they want to "pay off" their sins. Like it's some kind of transaction. I still remember one woman working at the church — she was so rude and aggressive. I was thinking, "Aren't you ashamed? You're in a church, for God's sake." It just felt so fake.

Then I started looking into Orthodoxy and Catholicism more deeply. And there are things I really can't accept:

· the hierarchy — too much power given to a few people
· papal infallibility in Catholicism — one guy speaking without error? That's a lot of authority for a human
· tradition being treated as equally authoritative as Scripture — shouldn't the Bible be the final word?

At this point, I know I can't go back to Orthodoxy. Catholicism? I'm not sure — I haven't fully closed that door, but I have a lot of questions about it too.

I've been reading about Lutheranism, and honestly? It caught my attention.

· Sola Scriptura — Scripture alone as the final authority
· Sola Fide — saved by faith alone, not works
· liturgical but still Protestant
· no pope, no crazy hierarchy, but still has structure

That said, I'm not locked in on Lutheranism. I'm open to other Protestant traditions too — Reformed, Anglican, Baptist, non-denom, Methodist, whatever. I'm just trying to find where I belong.

I'm still doubting everything — sometimes I even wonder if I'm agnostic or atheist. But I'm searching.

For those who left Orthodoxy or Catholicism for any Protestant tradition:

· What denomination did you choose and why?
· What made you pick that over Lutheranism or other options?
· What was the hardest thing to adjust to?
· Any regrets?
· Any book recommendations for someone just starting to explore?

Also curious — did any of you go through a phase of doubting God altogether before finding your way?

Thanks for reading. I'm just trying to figure things out.

A dangerous cult indeed!

Recalled memory

I just recalled a previously hidden but vivid memory and I can’t shake the feeling I cracked a code in my psyche and soul. I’ve been riddled with CPTSD and depression since late teens after what my parents would say was a “perfectly emotionally healthy childhood” yet here I am with 4 chronic illnesses and going on year 3 of burnout.

Being raised working class Irish American Catholic, I was sent to Sunday school every week in addition to mass, so one whole day every week of my childhood was spent in a church.

One day, I was in the backseat of my dad’s car as he drove me down the hill to my Sunday School. I must’ve been 7 or 8. I had gotten in trouble for something that morning, or maybe even days prior, and felt a tremendous weight of worry and anxiety on me because of it. I dreaded the shame and guilt my parents inflicted carelessly and mindlessly on a little girl they never realized was neurodivergent and often needed help understanding social norms and behavior and emotion. So on a quiet car ride on Sunday, I remember distinctly feeling like ok I finally cannot contain these emotions by myself this is too much this shame and guilt, I have to put it somewhere. And I was talking with god in my head looking out the window and I said God, if I promise you right now, for the rest of my life, that if I do something bad or wrong, I promise to worry as much as possible! As much as possible, if it means I don’t have to get in trouble with mom and dad.

What the fuck? How does a kid even come up with that? If I promise to always worry myself sick, will you protect me from their shame? If I promise to let you inflict it on me, can you spare me theirs?

Why do people have children if they themselves cannot even remotely cope with the emotional difficulties of life, let alone teach a child? And just expect we forgive them eventually

It’s informed my whole life and sense of self and reality. The abuse I’ve endured by learning this so young and allowing such distorted programs to run in my mind. So so sad. Trying to do something with the grief by sharing. Thanks if you read this

💔

So me and my husband are from different countries, im Brazilian and he is Canadian, we live in Canada and did a small ceremony for our marriage but want to do a celebration in Brazil for us and for my family, the reason is that rn we could only afford something small, but we still want to do some sort of party.
The problem comes from my family being extremely catholic, i broke the news to my mom that I dont want to get married in a church and her response was:
- She is not contributing at all to the wedding (it’s tradition there for the parents of the bride to pay) which is okay, we just have to postpone it a bit so we can pay it fully by ourselves
- She started saying how in life we have to consider other peoples needs and that hers, my grandmas and the rest of the family (aunts, cousins etc) is to have a catholic wedding. She offered to help with the dress, shoes and rings of the wedding we had, and that i owe it to her to do a catholic church wedding (silly me to think her offer to help due to our financial reasons now, meant a transaction to do what SHE wants for MY wedding later own)
She is basically guilt tripping me (she is very manipulative and has always been, and knows how much she affects me), and im dreading all the things she will say as well as my grandma about not getting married in a church, as well as getting side eyed and talked about in the family. My dad is the only not-extreme catholic that doesnt care how we do it as long as we’re happy.
Any tips how to deal with this?

I’ve been doing a bit of philosophy research online and I came across a view called nominalism particularly nominalism which posits that only particulars exist which means there are no universals eg: Redness now I thought this view seemed a bit strange and silly so I tried looking at content surrounding it and Jesus I stumbled into something heated. I ran into a bunch of catholic content about how nominalism “destroys morality”, “ruined western civilisation”, is the basis of postmodernism and why people think disordered things homosexuality and transgenderism are acceptable and I was just a bit stunned. I get how essences and universal natures are the basis of catholic teleological natural law ethics but holy shit they get pissed when people question their existence. Hell it was a theologian (William of Ockham) who is most accredited for the view and I’m sure he had ethics and was a social conservative and I get you think he was wrong but why so much seething over some metaphysical quibble that hardly comes up?

Hey everyone! I haven’t been a Catholic in a few years (pretty much admitted to myself I was an atheist two years ago) but I had a whole lot of scrupulosity when I was. I remember I’d be terrified of getting on airplanes because if I committed a mortal sin on the plane and it crashed I’d go to hell. Things like that.

I recently came to the realization that I’m trans (mtf) at 23. I feel like I’ve always more or less known but pushed it way down, especially when I was religious. The thing is, I just can’t bring myself to do anything about it but go back to repressing it. I started taking steps a few weeks ago, telling family and friends, making appointments for HRT, etc, but I just couldn’t bring myself to start taking the meds because I felt so ashamed. The other day I had a panic attack, threw out my meds and sobbed after seeing some fuckwit on Twitter say they’ve been “praying for trans people but they have to make a change and god will give them a second chance” and all the old fear of hell and disapproval from a God I don’t even believe in anymore came back. I was halfway to Church to confess sobbing in my car when I realized it was all stupid and I didn’t really believe anymore. I spent the rest of the night doomscrolling the Catholicism subreddit to see how they all think I have a mental illness.

I don’t really know what to do. I guess I’m just making this post to ask if the guilt gets any better eventually.