[Image Courtesy of *_Abhi_* under Creative Commons License]
When I was a Christian, in many corners I had somewhat of a good reputation. Not with everyone, but most people thought I was conscientious, sincere, kind, dedicated to those I cared about, honest, and frequently heartfelt. I asked too many questions and was almost TOO conscientious for some people, but it was a good reputation, overall. The people I knew thought those decent things about me, so I thought them about myself and wanted to keep that self-image. But to keep that self image and avoid being a fraud, I had to leave Christianity.
I left Christianity BECAUSE I saw myself as conscientious, sincere, dedicated, kind, honest, and empathetic. That confused a lot of people, and many found they had to take one or more of those qualities away in some way or another in order for my deconversion to make sense. They were decent people, but they were doing what they had to do in order to understand how I could change.
And slowly, the reputation changed. The very qualities I thought were part of me were suddenly denied to me. And the shocking thing about it was…I didn’t realize how much of the way I saw myself was constructed by the way other people interacted with me and saw me. It affected me more than I admitted, especially that first year of detaching from Christianity.
The most difficult thing was reminding myself who I was. If someone tells you you’re a terrible person and you believe them, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because that’s who you feel you are. And for awhile, I lashed out in anger — partly, I think, because people told me I was angry (although some of the anger was warranted, in hindsight some of it was probably a reaction to who people told me I was). And I said mean, rude things — partly because people said I was a mean, rude person (although, at times, partly because…some strong speech was and is needed at some intersections).
So, I’m posting this because someone told me I was a terrible person recently, and I laughed it off, as I’ve done countless times before — but this time I decided to post it on Facebook. I didn’t think it bothered me…but a few people said nice things that countered the insults — a couple of them people who have known me very well — and it has been really encouraging to me over the last few days. Which is surprising, as I really didn’t think I cared.
I have to remind myself that I need to remind myself who I am in order to keep being who I am and grow into the best versions of myself, changing opinions where I need to so that I can keep working towards trying to be a better person. Or I can forget the person I am and think the changes I made that have accentuated those qualities have ruined them, without ever really realizing that I’ve forgotten who I am until I realize that I see myself as a terrible person because I let myself passively get used to taking in all the lies.
I guess that’s the advice I would give to someone making a similar shift. Don’t forget who you are, even when other people do. And be prepared to fight mentally against the lie that you’re not who you are, because with a big shift like deconversion (or others in that realm, probably), you’ll be surprised how much the opinions of you shift. Don’t let someone’s unbased insults define the person you see in the mirror. The same qualities that they respected yesterday, oftentimes, have brought you to where you are today.
[Self-Taken “Selfie”]
Hope that makes some sense; it’s just been on my heart the last few days and I wanted to share it.