Hello everyone,
It has been 3 years now since I posted the original post under my banned username. I have returned now to explain the after-effects of deconversion.
Deconversion from a religious cult such as fundamentalism is extremely dangerous. The past 3 years for me have been the most confusing and painful of my life thus far. I didn't even understand what was going on. But I have come here to tell of my story, my journey.
When I deconverted I had no idea what that would mean for my life. I thought that I would just be able to make a few changes and carry on with life as usual. But it was nothing like that.
While living in the fundie bubble, I was self-confident, mentally and emotionally stable, carefree and fun-loving, but only as long as the lies of fundamentalism were in place. If challenged, all that would change. And it was challenged, and it did change.
For as long as a year out from my deconversion, I was still emotionally and mentally stable, because I was able to control how fast new ideas and concepts came into my world. But then I met and fell in love with my current boyfriend, and he introduced me to a whole new world--his world. It broke me. I ceased to be the self-confident, mentally and emotionally stable person that I was, and I lost interest in many things I used to enjoy--including self-improvement, trying new things, and exploration in general.
The woman he fell in love with was a stable, happy, self-confident person who loved to explore. When I ceased to be that person, things started going downhill. He and I have been in counseling for the past 6 months or so.
And only just this morning, my boyfriend and I put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out that he fell in love with my ghost--the woman who was stable, fun-loving, self-confident, loved to explore, but only inside of the very thin bubble that was left of my fundamentalism. When he came into my world, he popped the bubble and I collapsed onto the floor and ceased to be that woman that he fell in love with.
Instead, I was stressed all the time, as well as depressed, and I gained weight. I developed chronic stress, and mental, emotional, and physical signs of depression and stress. My daily functioning was impaired. I became a person that lived based on fear and not love.
All these new things that were happening to me caused me more stress. Anything that was negative was a huge, huge stressor. I didn't know how to cope--I had no coping mechanisms. So I just got more stressed and depressed. I was so confused; all the rules I once knew no longer applied, but my need for rules remained. All the assumptions I had were wrong. I didn't fit in reality. But I didn't know that I needed to start over, so I just kept applying what I knew to reality, and it kept not working. I saw myself as a failure, and was more confused than I had ever been before. I didn't understand or know why I was so stressed and confused and worried and depressed and angry.
And for the past 8 months, my boyfriend and I have been on the edge of breakup. The man whom I fell in love with and thought would never leave--the man that I shared my every thought, every dream--the man that I was so intimate with, might be gone out of my life because of the unstable person that I became due to deconversion.
Deconversion will allow you to live in reality, instead of living life based on lies, but the truth really does hurt. Deconversion will uproot the foundations of your life--everything you once knew, not just about science--is wrong. And you must start over again, you must begin anew, as a baby who just entered the world. You must leave behind all your assumptions and stereotypes and attitudes, because they are all based on fallacy. Everything you know and everything you are will change.
And it will cause you great pain.