My story..........

[c2105026]

Well.....

I was born into a christian household in 1983. I went to sunday school, where I played up a bit - interesting for at school I was actually well behaved. Anyways, my parents and I kept going to church until age 9. At which point I announced I would no longer go. I announced it to my scripture teacher at school (BTW the church was uniting church), and she tells me of how jesus came to her in the hospital and confornted her with all the sins she had committed.

Anyway I trundled along until in 1999 at the age of 16 I became interested in buddhism. In senior high i did not drink because of this. When I went to uni this dithered, and one holiday out of bordeom I actually read the bible.

Now things get interesting. It was around this point I discovered I was queer. This made me feel alone and awful. In 2003 I eventually became an alcoholic and a compulsive overeater.

My drinking escalated until march 2004 when i self-diagnosed myself as an alcoholic. I joined a local AA group, and began working on the 12 steps. My buddhism kicked back in, however, my bulimia picked up. Whilst i did not drink again for some time, my eating binges included much meat, which is a no-no in buddhism.

In late 2005 I watched the film 'the life of brian' on tv, and felt that the madness displayed there i was copying through my allegience to buddhism, an organised religion. Hence I became a unitarian. I mentioned this on the 2006 census.

In may 2007 i was in the local Target one night and saw richard dawkins 'the god delusion' on the shelf for sale. I bought it, read it, and promptly became athiest. It was the only thing that made sense.

However, things only became worse. I started drinking again for I stopped going to AA, and my bulimia continued. This generally led to a culmination of events in july 2009 when I had to leave my civil engineering career and my other town to start a new life. I undertook training in a new career (primary teacher), stopped smoking, and life has been slowly improving.

One factor that has lead me to negative behaviours is my self loathing due to my sexual orientation. NOT A SINGLE RELIGION, IN ITS PURE FORM, ACCEPTS QUEERS!!!! Hence I feel much anger towards religion.

[nari]

C,
A brave and sad story but it appears that you have largely overcome the escalation of events. Good for you!

Hope you find a solution to the challenge of being gay - there is a lot of support out there (and here).

nari

[Lord Blackadder]

I've always been fascinated, and slightly disturbed, that religion has this peverse interest in whose wobbly bits we play with. I mean really, as long as the people involved are consenting adults and repect each other, who cares if it's: two blokes; two shelias; a bloke and a shelia; a bloke, a shelia, a pair of handcuffs, a TARDIS (oh, hang on, my mind wandering again...).

Be happy with who you are. Don't ever let a bunch of numbnuts (i.e. religious types) make you feel bad about who you are attracted to. Most sane, rational people couldn't give a tinker's cuss who you are shagging. In Melbourne, all we care about is which footy team you support.

The world would be a much nicer place if people didn't go sticking their noses where they didn't belong.

[davo]

Welcome, good to have you here

Religion has really big hangups with sexuality, scripture is the culprit I think, really whatever floats your boat if your not hurting anyone I say! It's really the least important thing about anyone.

Anyway glad you made it to the land of reason I'm sure you will find a lot more solace in the outlook it gives you than with the religious nutters.

[Annie]

Hi again Numbers. I say all that too. You will find that there arent many people here with ridiculous obsessions about what adults do with their pink bits. As Davo said, you are now in the land of reason. Devoid of religious nutters. It's good to pop over to fantasy island occasionally if you enjoy poking them with a stick though.

[wolty]

C, thanks for sharing your story. Sounds like you have been to hell and back. Glad you have come out the other side.

[c2105026]

Thanks guys.....yes at the moment i am still battling my weight problem, and I have been without a smoke for 23 days. I am still on medication for bipolar disorder.

FWTW, when I refer to 'queer' I mean bi......I have loved both men and women......

[Logic]

Welcome - I'm sure you'll find the majority of people on this forum to be supportive...and a little (ok a lot) amusing.

[Pinky]

Hi C and Welcome!

I'm so sorry that you had to go through all this crap. I too have an eating disorder and found that my religious up-bringing made me feel worse about "what" I was. Being mentally ill in a church is not a good breeding ground for remission!!

I heard one religitard say one "If only they could cure gay" WTF!! I nearly lost my mind...

You will find lost of lovely people here.

[Kosmos]

Hello there,

Thats some very rough circumstances that you have faced, I'm amazed at how people can go through so much, and come out the other side with improving circumstances brought about by their own actions.

I tip my hat to you sir, any one of the issues you have highlighted and faced can be enough to bring a person down, take some pride in what you have faced and speaking as someone who was victimised, never feel ashamed of who you are. Welcome to the forum.