Been thinking about how much religion has done to my life. [View all]

Now that I have had the time to really look at my life, I hate to say it. But religion really did damage and I could have done something but out of fear I didn't.

I thought I had to bend to my father's demands and do things a certain way or god would punish me. I could have call CPS and got help but to do that would have been dishonoring my parents. Or that was what I thought. I could have reached out to mom's side but once again that dishonoring thing.

I had to bottle up a lot of myself because it was not "godly". And I did take a lot of punishment for what I did show.

I was raised in a way that made me feel responsible for the well being of the family. I was a kid, a young kid. Cleaning the house, making meals, taking care of my siblings at age 8 all because I was raised to believe it was my responsibility demanded by god. I was 10 years old when I had to take up this role.

Granted that was the time my mother became terribly ill, but I was just a kid. But my preacher father said that since I was a girl it was born into me to be able to do that stuff and I needed to take up the housekeeping duties because that was how god designed it.

Instead of being a teenager, I had to help homeschool my siblings since it was my fault I was physically beat up in school. And when I did get a job, instead of saving my money for college I had to give it to my father to pay bill. Because again, it was to "honor" the parents that gave me life.

I had to rebel to go to college. Dad hated it. He did not make going to college easy either.

And I took it because I thought I would be sent to hell for all eternity if I didn't. Believing in something that there was no physical, provable and testable evidence in. It took me so long to see it.

Just thinking about how my life could have been if I wasn't tied down to religion is heartbreaking. But I guess a number of Atheists have a similar story.