I had struggled with untreated suicidal depression for 15 years. I was very quiet about it. I am a web developer.
Three years ago I was divorced from my wife, left my birth religion and quit my job. On top of all my issues I was suffering from burnout – I hadn't had a vacation in years. Since I was the religious guy at my job I worked the holidays and was promised make up time. Company policy shifted at some point and we were only allowed to accrue a certain number of days with no rollover – when I quit, I also lost 35+ "make up" vacation days.
I tried getting another job right away, but quit after a month – it was an easy job, but I had lost my ability to work around others. I managed to pick up steady contract work for about a year, but this didn't give me much of a breather.
I also found a girlfriend who kept me distracted from my problems, but that wasn't to last.
Winter is when my depression hits hard, and it kicked in during the second year I was dating this girl. Having zero experience with depressed people, she couldn't handle it and dumped me. That's when everything I had gone through prior caught up to me.
Long story short – I got on medication and started therapy which helped a bit, but the suicidal thoughts and planning continued.
I don't remember exact time lines, but I think it was around 8 months ago that I decided to weigh the pros and cons of living by making a list. I decided not to off myself yet, and that instead I would try to focus on improving myself.
I am a homeschooled community college drop out. I grew up in a trailer and taught myself how to program when I was a child by making video games. I'm also a very creative person who writes, draws, composes music, etc. I started thinking about these things after making the suicide list, and realized that I had lost my way. I've never been one to care about money, but around a decade ago I was on welfare and living in the middle of nowhere. I managed to pull myself out of poverty by learning PHP and getting a job in Chicago. That was my salvation but also nearly my ruination. I had lost my creativity and life was all about work – I was making $96,000 a year at my full time job, plus keeping clients on the side.
In the last year I have been able to land another six figure job and multiple contracts with pretty big clients, but everything has consistently fallen through. I collapse a few months in, get panic attacks and feel suicidal again... so I had to take a different approach.
My current situation is this – I take on 3 to 6 month short term contracts, live on a shoestring budget (no cellphone, no car payment, nothing but the bare essentials), and then I self educate and work on personal projects for 3 to 4 months solid.
By doing this I have been able to learn 4 different game engines, 2 programming languages and finger pick on the guitar. Being raised as a homeschooled Jehovah's Witness left me with knowledge gaps, so I have also spent large amounts of time educating myself about science (genetics, biology, cosmology) and religion (I've read most of Dawkins, Hitchens and Sagan).
My goals have completely shifted over the last several months. For the first time in a very very long time I'm not thinking about suicide on a daily / weekly basis. I have put all of my creative energy into creating video games, and though I may never make a hit game or be a great musician or a scientist, these things are giving me exponentially more pleasure than working a full time job, spending 8 to 10 hours a day with people I don't love, playing office politics, supporting a platform I don't care about and just waiting for the weekend so I can sleep.
Winter is particularly difficult for me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder pretty much describes it perfectly. Vitamin D deficiency is huge and easy for someone with the sedentary lifestyle most of us lead. At the bare minimum, proper supplements helped me or just getting out in the sun with the intent that I need to recharge so to speak.
I think your key points help me in my spells as well: stay busy. To a degree I mask thoughts by simply overloading my brain enough that I simply can't think about them. It works and honestly I'm not one to care for what is considered healthy. At some point in my life I realized it's more important to find whatever works than to worry if it's useful or long term. I'm not in a pit of despair any more and frankly I don't care how I get out any more. At least not when the pit gets really big or deep like it desperately keeps trying to do.
I'm glad you found what works for you but I don't believe you have to take the minimalist approach you did. I'm glad it's working but we should strive to be at the top of our game. It does feel like a house of cards willing to topple at any moment but if you're anything like me, 99.9% of the obstacles you faced were entirely self-inflicted. I want success but it feels so awkward when I'm achieving it seemingly without any effort that I have to dick it up somehow to feel "normal" if that makes sense.
I experienced symptoms of SAD for most of my life. Then I started taking D3 supplements six years ago. Blood testing showed I was severely deficient in Vitamin D. The supplements got me to normal ranges. My symptoms have not returned.
Out of blatant curiosity I'd like to know how you came about leaving your birth religion. Any Jehovah's Witnesses I've met seem to be so ideologically committed to that religion that I have a hard time imagining how anyone could reach a place where they stopped identifying with it. Care to shed some light on this? Also, thanks for sharing!
The internet and some really shitty people that I worked with a while back saved me.
Here's a bit of backstory.
I believed 100% that I would never get old or die because Armageddon would come before then, the Earth would be restored to a paradise and sickness / death would be wiped out for good. I started preaching from door to door at age 5 and was baptized at age 11. My parents have been in since 8 years old, and their parents have been in since their late 20s. Most of my family is in the religion and all of my friends were in it.
I believed in demons and angels.
I believed (as all true Witnesses do) that there were angels watching over us when we were preaching. In the 90s when I was 14 I would preach on a street that had the highest murder rate in Joliet. It was called the hill and was lined with crack houses and gangs on the corners. Also I'm white and everyone that lived on the hill was black. I preached without fear because I knew that I couldn't get murdered because god would save me with his angels.
Demons were very real as well – every Witness knows a few stories or has a friend of a friend that had a demon possessed item. I had reoccurring nightmares from the time I was a child onward that I was being attacked by demons, or that a family member was actually a demon waiting to kill me. I was genuinely afraid of the dark and especially mirrors in the dark until I was 28 years old.
I had never been exposed to other religious teachings or education surrounding evolution or cosmology. Instead I learned about these things from the Watchtower's publications which are of course slanted against science in their own special way.
the people I worked with were atheists and had no idea I was in a (mostly) fundamentalist religion until I had been hired. They launched a series of attacks on my beliefs, looked up videos and stories on the internet about Witnesses (after I told them I wasn't allowed to) and essentially forced those things on me.
In truth, this just strengthened my faith... but then something changed. They started acting friendly to me instead of attacking me on a daily basis (I think that's because after 2 years I had enough and threatened to sue in an email). Down the line this gave me the chance to ask them if they had ever seen demons (I knew they all did drugs and I was always told this is a way for demons to take hold of your mind).
They of course laughed at this question and assured me that they had never seen a demon. I then asked a good friend of mine from that job who had grown up doing drugs and around drugs if he had seen demons. He hadn't either. This got me curious so I started researching demons on the internet and found that they're basically treated as mythology.
That pretty much opened the floodgates. I researched homeopathy (I didn't have a real doctor until my teens – only a homeopathic chiropractor) and found out that it was pseudoscience. When I brought that up to my mother, she had a reaction that was similar to attacking someone's faith – that bothered me greatly and I realized in that moment that she was willing to believe everything. From there the entire house of cards fell, though very slowly. It took about 2.5 years to fully break free from the beliefs I once held as true and the internet is ultimately responsible for keeping me out. I was able to use it to research forbidden knowledge and join communities of other ex-witnesses who were struggling with the same issues.
Now I'm an atheist. My family relationships are strained at best (I've seen my parents and sister one time in the last 4 years, though they will speak to me briefly on occasion). I lost all of the friends I had built up over the years and as of last year I was totally alone save for the one good friend mentioned above and his girlfriend. They helped me to get through this by letting me hang out at their house a lot.
These days I'm doing much better. I'm so much happier without religion. It vacuumed up every iota of my spare time and I received nothing in return. I am convinced that all religion is destructive and corrupt, including Eastern religions. I think the notion of a god and spirits is laughable to the point of embarrassment and to deny science is to deny your own existence.
You are correct that most born-in Witnesses would never leave. That's because it means completely upheaving your life and becoming someone new. For many people that means drugs, sex, alcohol and partying – the things they weren't allowed in the religion. I did these things myself, but I was able to slow down and catch myself before I hit the bottom. Others hit bottom and stay there, or come crawling back to the "loving" arms of the organization.
I'm just commenting to say that this is a very deeply inspiring story, thanks for sharing your experience. I too had assumed that religious fundamentalists are mostly immune to facts and essentially get a mental root kit installed which is unbreakable. Hearing that you managed to break out of this (all by yourself no less) makes me a bit more hopeful for our species' future. Again, thank you for that.
Thanks, but I'm way less hopeful now. When I utter the "atheist" word it seems I am actually handing people an exclusive ticket to explain to me why I'm wrong. Explaining non-belief is harder than explaining belief.
I'm less hopeful because it seems that the general population is much stupider than I had anticipated.
I take it you saw the recent New York Times article about belief formation. It stated exactly what you say here, that direct attacks just strengthen a person's ideologies.
It sounds like you must have worked very hard to avoid self-knowledge. That's so sad. I'm really really happy for where you are now though. I've had countless conversations with religious fundamentalists that end in them asking me if I'd come along to their next meeting or if I'd like a leaflet and I always laugh (not in a bad way) at them and ask them did they not realize that I was trying to save _them_?
I'm sorry that your family relations are strained. It took me years to accept my father's strong faith for what it was and in the end I used to have really fun times debating him. (Though he never budged an iota.) Don't you think that the idea of the sacred and profane is deeply human? Seems like belief formation is hard-wired in so we need to collectively learn about how our brains work so we can fix our species.
Thanks for sharing. If you wrote your life's story I'd read it, I like your writing style a lot.
I missed the article but it sounds interesting, please link it if you have it.
You are correct only to a point when it comes to self-knowledge. I am horrified that I was never allowed to learn about evolution and science in general, though I've done my best to catch up (started with the cosmos series from the 70s, just finished The Grand Design for the second time and am currently reading Cosmos and the Greatest Show on Earth).
I suspect the idea of the sacred and profane is a vestigial part of most human's brains.
Sometimes the problem is that you never identified with that religion (even if you were raised in it), leaving in that case is more of a relief. The transition to the 'real world' is not without bumps, but it in the long term it is the best way for some.
This is very true. I have since come to realize that I was constantly trying to skirt around certain beliefs and rules. I found myself rationalizing more often than I care to admit.
I was in the exact same situation, in the same religion. I never 'bought' the stories, and practiced the beliefs to make my parents happy. I must add that I have other family members who lived a much more balanced life within the same religious beliefs and are quite happy and live fulfilled lives.
My upbringing was to practice the beliefs 'by the book' which can be quite difficult and erodes one's self-esteem...
That was my first thought actually while reading the pastebin.
He has to become more selfish and find a calling that doesn't involve any other people.
He dedicated his entire life purpose to raising a family with his girlfriend, admirable but that's a huge goal dependent on just one person.
Find something that motivates you, that make life wort living.
Making money is not a goal/life purpose it's a means to an end. It's up to you to determine what that end is.
If you really want to start a family you have to realize it doesn't necessarily have to be with that girl there's always others.
Don't know if this advice is right for him right now i haven't been depressed since i was a teenager I'm just a natural selfish loaner however realizing that my goal in life shouldn't depend on other people helped me a lot.
I mean I would like to have a girlfriend and kids some day however if that never happens i won't be bothered by it I got so many other things i want to do.
I just deleted a lengthy bit of writing to condense my personal experience to:
It was a ~2 year period of intense, repeated betrayal.
I would just start crying intensely with no obvious trigger. It was like a panic attack, but with unhappiness.
I really wanted to die and make it be over. But I'm too much of a coward to commit suicide.
I had a really good friend who always answered my phone calls and for that I am immensely grateful.
It took another 2 years to learn to be okay with being alone. I got myself on a pretty intense personal project (raising & training a goshawk), stayed focused on that, and ended up with a huge success there. I put myself to lot of smaller projects (home improvement type stuff) and learned I could do these things alone and have fun. I actually started appreciating alone time because I had permission to do anything I wanted to do. When I started dating again sometimes it seemed more like an imposition on my time.
I'm in a happy relationship now and more importantly am enjoying life. The latter is enhanced by the former, but the relationship is not required.
>The amount of self reflection in trying to find your own solution while in the deep is frankly impressive.
The short story follows a Depressed Person being neurotically introspective yet incapable of escaping her toxic and destructive behaviour. It's pretty spot on with how it feels to be depressed, as DFW was an expert on the subject matter.
Not knocking ya mate but getting a religious education from the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens and Sagan is like taking dance lessons from Stephen Hawking, just saying.
It's still learning about religion from people who want to remove religion. It's akin to trying to understand homosexuality by asking Bryan Fischer. It's fine to educate yourself on their viewpoints and even to agree with them, but don't pretend that you're learning anything about religion. You're learning about atheism.
I'd recommend checking out Karen Armstrong, Joseph Campbell, or Stephen Prothero, off the top of my head, each of whom represent a fairly different viewpoint and none of whom actually advocate for religious upbringings to my knowledge.
Ah, I understand what you are saying. The problem is that, I truly don't believe in gods or spirits anymore. Without gods and spirits, what is the point of religion? I consider myself to be a secular humanist.
How Religion Poisons Everything is "slanted" in a way to be sure, but I actually agree with the arguments presented in the book. What do I stand to gain from studying other religions closely?
> The problem is that, I truly don't believe in gods or spirits anymore.
Neither do I. I don't see how that's relevant to learning the subject matter that you're claiming to learn. You don't read a book about Java and say that you now understand Haskell. You don't read a book about real-time embedded systems and come away with an understanding of CSS. You don't read a book by Dawkins and claim to have increased your understanding of Sikhism.
> What do I stand to gain from studying other religions closely?
I don't know. What do you want to gain? Why are you studying religion at all, if you have no intention of studying religion?
If you want to study atheism, that's fine. Study atheism. But unless you think that atheism is a kind of religion (which, last I checked, it is not), then you are not studying religion.
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and the God Delusion are books about religion. I mentioned a few authors that I have read whose books cover either science, religion or a mixture of the two. I will grant you that I am not making a hard study into comparative religion and certainly did not mean to imply otherwise.
Incidentally, despite being somewhat sympathetic to the viewpoint, I felt The God Delusion paled in comparison to Dawkins' other works. He's far more compelling in the mode of "Isn't all this stuff amazing?" than the mode of "Isn't that stuff awful?"
Currently reading The Greatest Show on Earth and I have to agree, but I do agree with many of the points that were made in The God Delusion. I will say he should have spent less time on his memeology ideas.
Indeed – or more to the point: I wasn't clear in my original statement. I am learning about certain aspects of religion – not learning comparative religion.
I am not however "learning atheism" as others have decided to claim in this thread. I stopped believing in god years ago, at that point by definition I was an atheist.
I am interested in the origins of religion, the scientific reasons that it exists, and the negative impact it has on people.
No, he's deliberately misreading me in order to feel that his self-identification is infringed upon.
According to him, if a Christian believes in God, and then reads about Christianity to learn about Christianity, said Christian is not a Christian because they're "learning about Christianity". The sheer quantity of stupid required to believe this has disinterested me in continuing any conversation.
Not all religion is about 'believing' in gods and spirits. They are often used metaphorically to convey deeper ideas, e.g. In Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Sufism.
The idea that all religion requires uncritical belief in gods and spirits is itself a false belief.
What you stand to gain is to learn ideas about the experience of being human and the nature of the psyche. You do not have to start believing that mystical beings are real in order to benefit from the metaphor.
Whereas I do believe much can be learned about the human psyche from religion, and that having a strong understanding of why religion exists is important, I don't feel it is necessary to make a deep study of each religion's core beliefs. I do feel I have a strong grasp on the metaphors contained within religious practices.
In my opinion religion exists for both good and evil. It helps certain humans who are unable to cope with the reality of permanent death and loss. It helps people who have become unfocused or destitute to dedicate their lives to something they feel is larger than their own issues.
The evil it serves is obvious. People are robbed of time, money, creativity and hope. Wars are started over it and scientific progress is halted due to it.
Not all religions / religious practices / beliefs are good or evil of course. That would be too broad a statement, but even some seemingly harmless religions such as buddhism lead to violence and oppression.
I personally stand to gain nothing from committing to a religion or conforming to a belief system, but there are others who need to be told what to do by men who claim a higher authority. Far be it for me to try and discredit their belief system, but I do believe that the world would be better off without religion – I just don't think the current populace is ready for that change.
Religion is the prefect template for corruption. Anywhere from hundreds to millions of devout worshipers who believe the unfounded teachings of a human (either in book form or spoken word) and are typically willing to die for those beliefs has all the makings of disaster.
And I agree, this applies to governments and corporations as well. Pretty much anything that exploits an ideal.
As I stated above, I recently read How Religion Poisons Everything as well. No idea if you've read this book yourself, but it has some very compelling arguments as to the evil nature contained within religion.
Putting faith and believing in the creative works of human beings, using those beliefs to start wars, shun homosexuals, commit acts of horror and atrocity.
And this doesn't just come from "large hierarchies". Have you considered the religious suicide cults of the world? Even on a small scale, group think through the template of religion can be very deadly.
I like Terence McKenna's take on spirituality. It's a personal endeavor. All institutions infringe on freedom and autonomy.
The leaders of the institutions are the beneficiaries of controlling the "channel" to communing with Existence or "God".
Now that we have the internet & relative democratization of information, it is more obvious that we can easily live a spiritual life without institutions or having to follow a prescribed path. We can (and most benefit from) follow our own individual path, uncontrolled by others.
I'm also a devoted Humanist. To me, most of religious doctrines are noble lies. The aim is to make us good humans to each other. The teachings have value. The power of Churches adulterates the messages.
I was raised a Jew, but now most resonant with Jesus. The Old Testament God is a bitchy megalomanic. Jesus was a human being and I'd argue a Humanist searching for a new theological basis.
I'm glad you said this – I recently had the same thought. Jesus seems more like a humanist than a religious zealot. I would not be shocked to learn some day that the claims of being god, or god's son were later additions to his teachings.
You seem to have a specific view of what it means to be 'god', or the 'son of god', and are judging all religion through this lens.
The Quakers, for example hold that 'there is that of god in everyone'
Many forms of tantric Hinduism hold that the ultimate state of being is realizing one's unity with god.
The Sufi's (and some parts of non fundamentalist Islam) claim that one's experience of god is personal and cannot come through an intermediary.
What these ideas have in common is that god is not placed outside the human, but is an inner experience of the human, or a stage of development that can be reached.
What could be more humanist than the idea that humans are or can be in direct contact with the ultimate reality?
Sorry I misread your comment earlier in the tone that you were attempting to get an atheist to consider other religions.
I believe there is a difference in the aspects of religion I am interested in from what you are describing. I simply am not interested in making a study of the worlds various minor religions, and I know a great deal about the major ones already. I am more interested in the psychological damage that is done to people by fundamentalist religion and the negative impact it has on their lives.
I'm not sure why you are pushing other Eastern religions though – I'm aware of many of these teachings, it's just not my primary focus.
As for personal beliefs and what not – I don't care to learn how "god is in me" or "around me". The esoteric nature of religion is bothersome as are the delusional lies of the people who founded them.
You: "I am more interested in the psychological damage that is done to people by fundamentalist religion and the negative impact it has on their lives."
I think your definition of religion (spirit beings) is limiting. The study of religion and philosophy can lead to a lot of interesting thoughts about purpose, meaning and morality. Those topics are usually interesting to everyone. Maybe add Ravi Zacharias to your list and CS Lewis has a lot of interesting stuff on this topic as well.
My definition of religion isn't "spirit beings". My definition of religion is more along the lines of: A crutch for the weak, a tool for manipulation, an excuse for the lazy, and a template of evil for the manipulators.
Edit: I don't believe for one second that morality springs from religion. We have morality in spite of religion.
Perspectives give insight into the "whys". You may not agree with the perscription, but understanding the diagnosis can be very enlightening. (For the record, I'm non-committal in either direction, atheism or otherwise).
And the "whys" will be answered by religion? I find that science does a better job of that. I'm infinitely more interested in physics and cosmology. As I have stated in other replies, I'm more interested in the negative aspects of religion.
An understanding of the planet's various cultures and particularly their art. The history of human self-expression is bound up with religion, for various interesting reasons.
I think there is a misconception in this thread that I am arguing against the study of religion, but I'm not.
I understand the value in comparative religion classes in terms of enriching one's understanding of history and human culture.
I personally have no use for this in my current course. I am interested in the harmful aspects of religion.
Once again, I have to point out I am an atheist, I'm not learning about atheism. Science != atheism. Reading about the evils of religion != learning atheism.
Anti-religionists do not believe in god, and wish to attack ideas connected with religion whether they have anything to do with believing in god or not. Anti-religionists are therefore willing to dismiss ideas simply because of who presents them rather than on their merits, and are thus subject to a pervasive ad-hominem bias.
That if you had said that you are learning about "atheism" at the start of this subthread you could have avoided a lot of confusion and suggestions from people offering advice about books to read about religion.
Then you deal with the baggage that comes from such a label, and clarifying that you're a 'secular humanist' doesn't give you the right to expect to avoid that baggage.
1. 'baggage' is not a synonym for 'rights' (legal? social?)
2. While an Atheist is necessarily a non-believer, a non-believer is not necessarily an Atheist.
Furthermore, you tell people you're an Atheist specifically because it conveys a lot with a little. Some of what it conveys is definitely not secular humanism, if that's how you prefer being viewed, you should start with that.
Not only is that not an offensive observation, it should be common sense.
You may confuse the tidings of a bipolar disorder with external effects like co-workers. I think one of the most important part of dealing with depression is stopping to blame external circumstances, other people and even yourself. Come to think of it, stop blaming anything or anyone (like in buddhist phiĺosophy)!
Another part is to objectify suicidal thoughts. They are both extremely real, but caused by the disease and distorting reality. It's very easy to find reasons for suicidal thoughts, but they are hardly ever "true".
It's worth noting that I have a friend who was brought out of many years suicidal depression by his faith in God. I say that simply to add balance to our anecdotal judgments upon religion, albeit he isn't part of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
1) The person above never claimed above that losing their faith directly caused their suicidal depression. As such your anecdote does not balance out any judgment about religion I have.
2) I am already ideologically committed to being ill-disposed towards the concept of religion and, honestly, your single datum won't change that.
3) Are you claiming that your friend found God (they had no faith faith before) and this was directly instrumental to their suicidal depression lifting? Or was your friend always religious?
4) If God exists why should belief in that existence have an effect on suicidal ideation and major depressive episodes? What I'm saying is, how do you imagine these two things are connected?
5) Is it not possible that the two events occurred at around about the same time? That is to say, and I swear I've never used this before: correlation does not equal causation.
Human beings perceive things through emotion, so anything that cause a perspective shift that enables them to deal with their emotions/the situation in a more positive manner helps them cope, be that getting religion, losing religion, or some other circumstance in their life.
Also, you're an asshole for using this thread to start pushing an agenda.
No. No I'm not. If anything your hostility is indicative why it is so beneficial that we now have these virtual forums where we can exchange ideas on these topics in a non-confrontational manner. Nothing is gained through hostility.
Let's be clear. I do have an agenda. But you also have an agenda. Your approach is only going to make my resolve firmer not weaken it. Maybe, I don't know, think through what you're trying to say a bit more before hitting 'reply'. Also, have an unbiased look at the other replies to my comment.
It's because I'm ok with being blunt about my opinion. There can be no mistake about how I perceived your pushing an agenda in a thread involving someone's severe depression.
You on the other hand, are simply passive aggressive.
The hope is that the people you're responding to will read it and realize they're not alone when being attacked (yes, asking loaded questions can be an attack).
There is a time and place for everything, and while you have every right to post anything you want to, you also have the responsibility of doing it in good taste. This was neither the time, nor the place, and shame on you for doing it.
The thing is. At some point in this conversation I'm going to have to ask myself what I did to make this person call me an asshole, to call me passive aggressive, to claim I attacked someone, and to heap shame on me.
The conclusion I'm going to come to is that you feel threatened by something I've said. Given that we're talking about belief in God and religious commitments here I'm going to have to conclude that you believe in God and potentially identify with one of the world's religions.
Are you implying that non-theists don't have the capacity to experience empathy towards another human being such that they feel it's inappropriate to attack attack their religion in a roundabout manner in a thread in which they're asking for help from other humans?
I just want to make sure that's how you feel, because it appears as if you've concluded I must be theist based solely on my empathy towards the OP.
I was suicidal prior to leaving the religion. I didn't leave until age 29, but I have been suicidal since age 16. Leaving the religion however did worsen my depression. This is because my friends and family shunned me, I no longer knew where to turn for "answers" (more on that below). Ultimately I was depressed that I had dedicated 29 years of my life to a lie.
I wanted to be so many things in life and I am a person who actually has the ability to achieve those things. My religion robbed me of those opportunities. First by suggesting college was a bad thing in the 1970s and thus preventing my father from attending, second by pointing out the bad in every possible career or lifestyle choice that fails to conform to the Jehovah's Witness standard.
It would be a very foolish to think the source of my depression is caused by the loss of "Jehovah" (the god of the Witnesses, thus the name). Jehovah is nothing more than a delusion. Jehovah, who I knew as the one true God, creator of everything – a being that I called "father" in my head; a creature that supposedly loved his son so much that he killed him for the sake of human lives (I can't help but wonder if this is why Witness parents can write their children off so easily) is simply an adult imaginary friend.
This imaginary friend is spoken to in in prayer. Any faithful Witness says at least four prayers a day (one before each meal, and one before bed). That adds up to 28 prayers a week. Unless you count the group prayers said at the weekly meetings (church), then you're looking at 34 prayers a week. Oh and let's not forget personal study (preparation for the meetings, three times a week) and family study (once a week). Now you're up to 38 prayers. Oh wait, I forgot about field service (preaching door to door) at least twice a week (more if you're a full time preacher). That's 40 prayers a week. My father once gave a talk at one of our meetings and said he prayed on the ride to and from work everyday, and we were also told to say silent prayers to ask for courage when preaching. I would say praying 50~ times a week is pretty common for a faithful Witness. And these are very personal prayers – like talking to a friend, but in your mind (unless it's a group prayer). Nothing is by route, save for the sign off "in Jesus name we pray, amen", but even then people get creative – "in your son's name whom we all deeply love, amen" etc.
A typical group prayer is something like this (imagine you're at a Kingdom Hall (church) on a Sunday and the study is about Christ's death:
"Jehovah our God in the heavens, we approach you this fine Sunday morning, the Sun, though hot reminds us of your glory and infinite power. Jehovah you truly are worthy of the praise and honor that your son so lovingly died for, and as we gather this morning to talk about his death we ask that you give us an appropriate portion of your Holy Spirit so that we may fully digest the spiritual banquet that you have laid before us. Jehovah please continue to watch over the faithful and discreet slave class so that they may in turn continue to provide us with the proper food at the proper time. Also we ask that you be with the Smith family, we know they are going through so much and we ask that you help them cope with their loss. In Jesus name we pray, amen"
That would be considered an appropriate prayer in terms of length, subject matter, and conclusion and the fact that it was made up on the cuff as opposed to by rote.
Individual prayers are very similar, but more personal. You're supposed to pray about any decisions you have to make, pour your heart out, and throw your burdens on Jehovah.
I did this for 29 years. I'm pretty sure the waves of depression I get about the religion are something akin nausea, but in my brain. I don't miss god, I despise the very notion that one would exist. I don't miss religion, I despise it for essentially driving me to the brink of insanity when I admitted there is no god to myself.
Imagine praying like that for 29 years, not thinking you would die, spending countless hours preaching from door to door, studying books filled with lies and misquotes, having your mind filled with an alternate history of reality made up by groups of men in ties.
Witnesses are mind raped and very few people are equipped to deal with that sort trauma. I'm pretty certain depression and suicidal tendencies are a natural reaction.
All of that said, I could see how some people would cling to religion and claim it saved them from suicide. Some people need lies to get through life.
Edit:
on "not knowing where to turn for answers" – nearly every question on religion and life in general that you have can be answered by a Witness using Watchtower literature and circular logic. What you should watch, eat, drink, wear, think; how you speak, the friends you choose, when you should date, the types of entertainment to watch, how to deal with -insert religion-, how to deal with -insert objection to core witness belief-; you name it, it can be answered. You aren't really taught to think for yourself when you're raised by a very faithful witness family.
I feel like working on client projects aka work a few months and then taking few months to learn/work on your own ideas seems ideal. I have issues with depression and a hate-hate relationship with my work atm. I constantly fantasize about not working for anyone and spending all my time pursuing my own ideas.
Just curious... instead of 6 month work, 3 months personal projects, have you tried 6 hours work, 2 hours personal projects, 2 hours gym and/or people interactions?
Yes, but my brain doesn't work that way. I believe I have some form of ADD. I can typically get about 6 hours of quality programming in per day and then I have to crash. My side projects fail miserably if I don't put all of my effort and concentration into them. These projects are usually involving some form of art and my process involves a great deal of silence. I'm an introvert and am much more comfortable alone or with one other person. I have a girlfriend now who is almost identical to me in these ways. I work on my projects for 12 hours and she draws. When I get a contract, she helps with the paper work and client relations.
Your story is in very many ways similar to mine (unfortunately, I'm still in the process of fixing my motivational problems). Care to get in touch via e-mail (mine is in the profile)? I'd love to know how you handled some of the religion-related issues.
Three years ago I was divorced from my wife, left my birth religion and quit my job. On top of all my issues I was suffering from burnout – I hadn't had a vacation in years. Since I was the religious guy at my job I worked the holidays and was promised make up time. Company policy shifted at some point and we were only allowed to accrue a certain number of days with no rollover – when I quit, I also lost 35+ "make up" vacation days.
I tried getting another job right away, but quit after a month – it was an easy job, but I had lost my ability to work around others. I managed to pick up steady contract work for about a year, but this didn't give me much of a breather.
I also found a girlfriend who kept me distracted from my problems, but that wasn't to last.
Winter is when my depression hits hard, and it kicked in during the second year I was dating this girl. Having zero experience with depressed people, she couldn't handle it and dumped me. That's when everything I had gone through prior caught up to me. Long story short – I got on medication and started therapy which helped a bit, but the suicidal thoughts and planning continued.
I don't remember exact time lines, but I think it was around 8 months ago that I decided to weigh the pros and cons of living by making a list. I decided not to off myself yet, and that instead I would try to focus on improving myself.
I am a homeschooled community college drop out. I grew up in a trailer and taught myself how to program when I was a child by making video games. I'm also a very creative person who writes, draws, composes music, etc. I started thinking about these things after making the suicide list, and realized that I had lost my way. I've never been one to care about money, but around a decade ago I was on welfare and living in the middle of nowhere. I managed to pull myself out of poverty by learning PHP and getting a job in Chicago. That was my salvation but also nearly my ruination. I had lost my creativity and life was all about work – I was making $96,000 a year at my full time job, plus keeping clients on the side.
In the last year I have been able to land another six figure job and multiple contracts with pretty big clients, but everything has consistently fallen through. I collapse a few months in, get panic attacks and feel suicidal again... so I had to take a different approach.
My current situation is this – I take on 3 to 6 month short term contracts, live on a shoestring budget (no cellphone, no car payment, nothing but the bare essentials), and then I self educate and work on personal projects for 3 to 4 months solid.
By doing this I have been able to learn 4 different game engines, 2 programming languages and finger pick on the guitar. Being raised as a homeschooled Jehovah's Witness left me with knowledge gaps, so I have also spent large amounts of time educating myself about science (genetics, biology, cosmology) and religion (I've read most of Dawkins, Hitchens and Sagan).
My goals have completely shifted over the last several months. For the first time in a very very long time I'm not thinking about suicide on a daily / weekly basis. I have put all of my creative energy into creating video games, and though I may never make a hit game or be a great musician or a scientist, these things are giving me exponentially more pleasure than working a full time job, spending 8 to 10 hours a day with people I don't love, playing office politics, supporting a platform I don't care about and just waiting for the weekend so I can sleep.