My story, the tl;dr version

My answer to an askReddit thread which was along the lines of "what was your lowest point in life?":

I was madly in love, but broke up with my girlfriend because I felt God was calling me to be a missionary on the other side of the planet. Dumped her as well as the career I wanted to start, and tried to start a new life with next to nothing. Because, you know, living on faith, God will provide, etc.

Worked for a church and charity populated with the most evil people I've ever met in my lifetime who psychologically abused and exploited me (and others) daily. I could literally write a book on this alone. I put up with it because I felt I needed to prove to God that I was serious about serving Him. Essentially, this was textbook Stockholm Syndrome: No matter how much worse things kept getting, I kept using mental gymnastics to make it not God's fault, not the church's fault, but somehow my failings as a Christian. Like I said, textbook.

Eventually came to my senses and left after two years of that bullshit. Tried to track down my ex girlfriend because I realized I had never gotten over her. Found out she had been killed in a car accident a year before and I had no idea. All of my closest friends at the time didn't seem to think it was a big deal and wondered why I was being such a melodramatic whiner at the time.

Started questioning why God would send my life down this path, and also couldn't help that I had serious doubts and questions about God. Eventually realized there is no God, that I had essentially been ruining my own life trying to prove something to what was essentially an imaginary friend. I mean, seriously, could I be any stupider? Developed serious insomnia, because all I could do when I lay down in bed was think about this stuff and try to figure it out, which usually resulted in a severe headache. If I was lucky, I'd cry myself to sleep, but I was usually too angry at myself for being so stupid. I started drinking a little too much.

Then one night I got drunk and executed a "test run" and sliced up my arms with dozens of deep cuts. It wasn't emo cutting or a cry for help - I was testing the theory that being very drunk meant I would feel less pain if I slashed my wrists open. Turns out that theory was false and I was too chickenshit to go through with the pain of it.

Managed to go to work the day after and was told I was fired. Which was fair, coz I'd been drinking a lot by this point and was either showing up to work late and visibly hung over, or skipping work like two or three times a week, every week. And the job sucked ass anyway, but at the time it was just one more thing to push me towards suicide.

That was one incredibly shitty year, which was a slow build-up from many years before that. I'm doing much better now, but that was arguably my rock bottom.

Despite all that, I'm not necessarily happier as an atheist. I point out that quote, "That a religious man is happier than an atheist is no more to the point than a drunk man is happier than a sober one." It's like coming off of some really horrible drug that occasionally gave you spectacular highs. Once you get clean and sober you're miserable because you'll never feel that high again. But the highs were fake, based on lies and illusion, and came at great cost to the addict.

I don't know why I'm sharing this. Perhaps it resonates with someone else here so you don't feel alone and/or insane. Or maybe so I don't feel alone and/or insane. When you've been a Christian and leave that world, you find that most people just don't get what the big deal was - either because they're Christians and think you're a backsliding sinner, or they were never that religious in the first place and therefore they don't get what the whole experience was like, they have no idea. Which is why, while r/atheism is a great resource, you often meet atheists who simply don't comprehend how paradigm-annihilating the experience of losing your faith really is, because they were never religious in their life and cannot relate.

Whelp, back to work for me. I hope this helps even one person reading this and I'm always up for a sympathetic chat if you need someone to talk to.

Regards,

Stateless and Faithless