I came a long way

I've been a Catholic for 17 days now, but before that, I was also an atheist, an edgy one at that. Now I didn't start off atheist, I grew up with a non-denominational fundamentalist dad who is also anti-Catholic. But around 2016 in my freshman year of high school, something just happened where I questioned my faith and became an atheist. At first, it was very liberating. I thought that I didn't need religion and that religion itself was stupid. I would say a lot of terrible things like say people who do follow religion (especially Christianity) were idiots with false hope. So yeah, I was a typical "new atheism" type of atheist where the world would be better off without it.

I don't want to make this too long as I have already talked about this on another post I made on r/exatheist, but in 2023, life started to take a toll on me, I was getting existential, depressed, and just fell into nihilistic mindset. It would get worse in early 2024, as my mental health was at its lowest. I had suicidal thoughts, but never attempt it, as I was scared of death. Then around March or April of that year, I got a DM on Reddit which was an invite to a discord server full of gamers, and given my mental health at the time, I accepted it almost immediately. It did improve my mental health somewhat, but not fully.

Then around December 2024, I became philosophical and as well as started to get into science. I saw the world and how convenient it is that we have things like the sun, food, water, being able to breathe, and even procreating. And I also begin to realize that everything has a creator both naturally and man-made, which made me come to the conclusion that if everything has a creator, then something or someone created us and by extension the universe. This would initially lead me into deism, so now I believe in a God, but an impersonal, deistic one, and I still didn't believe in religion. Even then, my mental health improved a lot.

In the summer of 2025, something felt missing, I wasn't depressed, but there were things off with deism, such as how deists have varying beliefs on a lot of things to the point where it doesn't feel like deism. I know Christianity itself also has varying beliefs among denominations, but what we do have things in common like upholding the Nicene Creed. So now I decided to read the Bible, and now it started to all make sense. Now I was convinced, and then I became a non-denominational Christian again, but not fundamentalist. And then later that year, I developed an interest in Catholicism, and was interested in converting. So I called a Catholic Church close to where I live and said that I want to be a Catholic.

Now in the current year of January, I took the RCIA classes and learned more about Catholicism. And finally on April 4th, I went to the Easter Vigil for my baptism and other sacraments and officially became a Catholic at that point. Ever since I started to believe in God, especially now as Jesus as my lord and Savior, my mental health has been a lot better. I'm a lot more optimistic, confident, and so on. And ever since, I regret all of the things I've said as an atheist. I know I shouldn't beat myself too much because I was young, even though I was also the age where it's kinda pathetic for me to act like that.