Wetting the Bed For God

[Wrenn]

I wet the bed as a kid. Actually, I wet the bed until I was 16. It was frustrating and became more so as I got older. We tried all kinds of things, doctors, psychologists, no drinking after 6pm, alarms in the night, hypnotherapy. Nothing seemed to work but as a catholic I beleived that God would cure me. That's what I was told by my mother and grand mother and the nuns and the teachers and the catholic doctors.

So I prayed. I prayed myself to sleep every night, and woke in a wet bed every morning. I felt a bit guilty that I was praying for myself so much. The priests in confessional didn't think that was a sin though and confirmed that God would cure me if I kept at it.

I thought that maybe my faith wasn't strong enough, so I read the bible a lot. In hindsight those serious about my catholic upbringing should have prevented me from doing that. Catholics aren't really encouraged to read the bible and their exposure to it is through heavily filtered quote mining. The nuns didnt like my questions about the terrible things that I read. They explained that that bit about God killing children was just a fable, but these bits over here were the real deal and I should just focus on those passages. But as my general education increased I started to think about things with a more mature and logical mind. These nuns couldn't answer my questions and their responses to them seemed dishonest and made me suspicious.

This made me more frustrated and angry. I became the troubled kid who misbehaved. I stole things and vandalized and punched the other kids. But salvation was near at hand. Shortly after my 16th birthday I was miraculously cured! Hallelujah, praise the Lord!

I woke up with dry sheets and slept in for the first time ever. This might have confirmed and strengthened my faith but luckily for me god was a bit too late with his cure. Three months earilier I had decided that the whole religion thing wasn't for me. I could no longer reconcile the radical differences between my own internal moral system and that of the bible. I could no longer ignore the increasingly mounting lack of evidence for any of the things I had learnt as a Catholic. None of my prayers were ever answered and god never spoke to me.

In the end, I just didn't have faith. So I tossed out my bible and stopped going to church and stopped praying and stopped wetting the bed.

Sleeping in is my new religion.

[rayne]

Hi Wrenn

Glad to see your problem sorted itself out. I never realized Catholics were discouraged from reading the bible. I hope you enjoy the forums.

[Aldaron]

Hi Wrenn, welcome.

Originally Posted by rayne

Hi Wrenn

Glad to see your problem sorted itself out. I never realized Catholics were discouraged from reading the bible. I hope you enjoy the forums.

Absolutely, Rayne. Possibly not so much today (I haven't moved in Catholic circles for close to twenty years, now), but in my and my parents' days, it was very much: "No, don't read the Bible, you'll just get confused. Just listen and do as you're told by the priests, brothers and nuns and you'll be okay."

[Logic]

You prayed hard enough in the end clearly Welcome to this place of sanity


i sent this from my iPad

[Logic please]

Welcome to the forum Wrenn, hope you enjoy the discussions.

And thanks for sharing your story. I think.

Looking forward to seeing you around the place.

[Mjt]

Hi nice to meet you

[bruce1937]

I would be surprised if it was not more common than you think.
I would have been terrified if I had believed the bible to be true.

[prudie]

Hey Wrenn welcome.

[EvilDRMike]

Welcome Wrenn An interesting story. Not sure I'd be telling everyone about my bed wetting so good on you. I'm also glad you didn't hang onto god for another three months.

EDM

[Praxis]

Hi Wrenn. Welcome and thanks for sharing your story. Can't have been easy.

I was raised Catholic and don't ever recall being encouraged to read the bible, just to believe it

I'm glad your innate sense of logic and reason prevailed. Maybe you'll never know why your bedwetting stopped (I'm no expert but from my limited understanding there is very rarely a physical reason for it, most bedwetting occurs as a result of some sort of trauma) and perhaps you don't even want to but it did stop, so that's the main thing

Happy to have you here. Hope you enjoy the place.