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If you are formerly religious, how did you leave your religion and what made you do it?
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this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
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It's very interesting honestly. I swapped from Catholic to evangelicalism at 14 (just me not my family, tho they supported it) and stuck with it till I was 20. It was super about it. Youth group 2 days a week plus 3 hour mass on Sundays, God was ALWAYS on my mind, every decision, every action, every goal. Then my friends went to college, and I didn't, I stuck around now forced to interact with the older crowd. They weren't just hypocrites, they were cruel and controlling and pointlessly manipulative. It became clear that the church I was at wasn't the place It was for me for years so one day I decided to just stop showing.
It was the first addiction I ever quit. The anxiety I felt was.... Immense. It took two weeks for me to start thinking clearly about it, and it was wild how easily I recognized I was literally brainwashed. I no longer needed the mental gymnastics to justify myself.
My life didn't improve or anything after that, and funnily enough I only ever saw one of my, off to college, friends again, many years later. He did try and get me back in but I was way past that stiff by that point. Surreal experience in hindsight