The words caught in your throat are your freedom song.

I lost god and found the fullness of life.

Some housekeeping I (unfortunately) have to put ahead of every post I make about religion:

Not only do I have a degree in Religious Studies, but I have an intimate and personal relationship to it. I grew up in a conservative evangelical home and my faith and relationship with god defined my whole existence for 33 years of my life. When I write about it, it comes from both academic knowledge and lived experience.
I have left this faith behind six years ago after a long, intense and thorough time of study and deconstruction. My life is marked by deep seated religious trauma and I am not sharing about it in order to hear advice or antagonising opinions, but in order to help others like me.

If you are not traumatised by religion like me, then this essay is not for you.
My writing about religion is not an invitation for religious and/or ‘spiritual’ people to argue with me in the comments, tell me why they disagree with me or try to convince me why their god is different from what I have known, experienced and studied for over three decades. And when I say studied, I mean it: If you have not read the Bible back to back multiple times and don’t have a degree in theology and can’t read it in the context of its original language, all which I have done for years - do not try me.
I do not care what religion you belong to - if you disagree with me, kindly keep it to yourself, there is absolutely no need to tell me. There is no debating my personal religious trauma. Do not try to tell me how I ‘misunderstood’ it or that I should try to ‘xyz’ - I have no interest in returning to faith, to any kind of god and spirituality. I repeat: do not leave any ‘spiritual advice’ in the comments.
I do not belief god is separate from dogma. The idea of god is never a free one. It’s one of hierarchy - always linked to something people made up.

This piece is for people who have also experienced religious trauma and need to be seen and heard.

I am happy to discuss religion with people I meet in person, but never with strangers on the internet. This is incredibly traumatising to me and not something I am willing to argue about in this space that is mine.

These are my boundaries and I ask you respect them. If you don’t, you will be blocked. Thank you.

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I didn’t choose to become an atheist. I didn’t intend to lose my faith. If you had told me ten years ago that one day I’d be here now - godless, free, fully awake - I would have laughed in your face. Never in a million years did I want that to be the outcome.
Becoming an atheist was a progression. It was simply the natural consequence of asking questions. The result of being endlessly inquisitive and refusing to settle for answers that don’t satisfy me.

God belief was given to me, wrapped tight around my small hands, woven into lullabies, whispered in prayers. I didn’t ask for it. I was given the answers before I even had the questions. I was indoctrinated with it, as most people are. We believe in god because someone tells us to. Not because we seek, or study, not because we truly know. We believe because we hope this could be true.

When I actually started seeking - digging deeper, when I held god up to scrutiny - I saw the cracks. The contradictions. The holes in the holy fabric: god was nothing more than a reflection of men’s desires, men’s fears, men’s cruelty. Men wasn’t made in god’s image (Genesis 1:27) - but god was made in men’s image (And I actually do mean men here).

I grew up very conservative, taking the ‘Word of god’ literally and following the whole Christian career: adult baptism, Bible college, saving myself for marriage, working in ministry, volunteering in ministry, teaching, church four times a week for different events, praying every day, having ‘quiet time’ dates with god, reading the Bible every day - and so on.
This shit was real for me. god wasn’t just a part of my life, it was my life. Which is why letting it go felt like dying. And then, ironically, being born again. Again. Christian pun intended.

Not everyone experiences religious trauma like this because for so many, god is a mascot - something to rally behind, to wear on a T-shirt, to put in an Instagram bio. But it’ not something that really affects how they move through the world? It doesn’t affect their day to day. It doesn’t make people more just, more kind, more accountable. Cherry picking whatever works for their story. god is a cute label. It’s culture, it’s cool, it’s makes for a good look. god is a badge of belonging, a convenient way to claim righteousness without real transformation.
I honestly can’t say which kind of Christian annoys me more. :)

People don’t find god because he’s true. god is handed to them. Oftentimes when they’re vulnerable. Desperate for comfort, for certainty, for meaning, for community. Because they’ve been told that when they are weak, he is strong. A well-designed trap to keep people clinging to something outside themselves instead of realising their own power.

As we know from the infamous apple-eating story: this god doesn’t want us to know our power.

For me, believing in god was the opposite of knowing. It was the equivalent of gaslighting myself. Constantly bypassing my intuition because I had to find an answer that held up my god belief. I had to keep making excuses for an abusive, neglectful figure. A god who supposedly helps my friend land a job, achieve a goal—but can’t cure childhood cancer, can’t stop wars, can’t do a damn thing that actually matters? Oh, but, it’s free will? But it’s gods mysterious ways? But it’s people’s responsibility? But, but, but. How convenient that god can only act through people, never directly. How convenient that he gets credit for the good but never blame for the evil. Why did I not hold god accountable? Why did I not expect more from him? Oh right—because of the stupid fairy tale of Job. Because I was taught to never question. To just trust. To accept suffering as some grand divine plan. To make excuses I would never tolerate in real life. If I were in a human relationship like that, I’d run. So why did I stay? How convenient that there is always an excuse for this gods lack.

Being a Christian meant I had learned how to negotiate with reality. I had been conditioned to see faith as noble, as ‘deep’ - blindness as a virtue. What a brutal awakening when I found that it’s actually a superficial way to move through life. Always bypassing pain. Reality. Myself. In order to make the story of god’s sovereignty fit into what I was experiencing. Like every other system of oppression, god belief is a cage, is a hierarchy, is built to keep me small, obedient and quiet.

This is the twisted part of religion and god belief:
it tells you, you find yourself in god - but you lose yourself along the way. It tells you only god will make you free- and yet you are in a prison of fear, shame and guilt. It tells you you are unconditionally loved - and yet you will burn if you don’t believe in the figure that claims to love you. It tells you you are worthy of love - and yet you are also born a sinner who doesn’t deserve god’s love. It tells you that god is all knowing and all powerful and all good - and yet it is impossible to be all three of these at the same time while leaving the world broken and bleeding. It tells you that god takes away your fear - yet fear is the underlying driving force of the relationship. It tells you who you are - a child of god - at the expense of ever getting to know yourself.

Looking back at my life as a Christian now, it feels so confusing. So lost. So fake and like that person wasn’t truly me. Of course, another explanation for this is the fact that I was younger too. Which is an interesting connection between religion and growth (not just growth in years!) that I think about a lot. Is religion something one needs in a child-state?

You can listen to this episode I recorded with Phil Drysdale on the stages of evolution in our life:

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”I don’t believe in god. I am not a Christian anymore.”

It felt dangerous to speak the words after 33 years of being so zealous, so invested in my ‘relationship with god’, so earnest about it. I remember sitting at dinner with my parents, my grandma and my aunt. I remember their faces. Their heavy silence (followed by tears and questions).
I remember how all the fear was gone after speaking the words out loud. Like opening the windows in a dark, closed room. I inhaled fresh air.


Now, I am truly free. Life is in colour now. In 3D. It has depth, weight and texture. Life feels real. I love deeper. More unconditionally. Not because of a commandment, not because I fear punishment, but because I choose to. I am more present in the now instead of hoping for a some future relief. I can finally savour being connected to myself and every living thing around me, the way it has always felt right, but was never acceptable. I can’t say if I was a ‘good person’ when I believed in god. Was it real kindness or was it the result of fearing punishment? Fulfilling a duty? Did I do good because I believed it was the right thing to do? Or because Jesus said I should? Now I can say, I am a real person. My relationships are richer. My joy is fuller. My pain is fuller too. It’s my own, not something to be justified or dismissed with empty christian platitudes. I no longer wait for heaven. I live here now.

“The truth will set you free” Jesus allegedly said when telling a crowd of people that following his words will set them free.
The truth did indeed set me free - but not the one I was taught. Not his truth. Mine. Ironically, unfollowing him really set me free.

Being a Christian was like having a lick of identity painted on. A glossy, noble facade of faith, hiding a small scared self. It’s not that I didn’t have enough faith. it’s that faith erased me. Who was the soul underneath all the heavy layers of dogma, expectations, teachings, voices and the passed down beliefs?

This was the moment when silence became the enemy, and speaking my truth became my liberation.

I didn’t believe in him anymore. If he was indeed real, then he wasn’t a god I wanted to worship. I didn’t like him. his ways are abusive. This god is not worthy of my love. he is not a figure of compassion but a shadow of fear. he is a tyrant, not a saviour. he is not a path to peace, but a journey into self-denial. god is an attempt to reconcile an incoherent story. he is a creation of human need.

The words caught in my throat became my freedom song. The truth that felt dangerous to speak was the very thing that set me free. I stopped swallowing myself, stopped being silent. I lost god. And I didn’t just find me - I found everything. The fullness of life, the richness of my own experience and my unashamed voice.