I have an appointment Monday to go over my meds. It’s wild, because on one hand my ADHD meds make every thing great but bad, but on the other hand my depression meds do the same. I just want to function without sadness and anxiety. That’s literally it.

Happy almost birthday to me. I’m glad I’m making it to 34 because this year was by toughest and I cannot describe the amount of times I thought about ending it. Which is terrifying because I’ve been working so hard on my mental health. I want to live. I want to be happy. My brain chem doesn’t.

To Be Finished - I’m tired and now one is gonna read this shit anyways lol. I’ll finish the story soon.

I transferred to Virginia Tech, was educated even more, hated the idea of organized religion, and mostly did not like or feel comfortable with anyone over the top religious and preachy. But I never really stopped believing in what Jesus taught and I tried to embody that.

Note: I was also outed by a Ex-Baptist preacher, and had to come out, but that’s a story for a different time and there’s resentment there lol.

I still knew I followed the principles of Christianity, I just didn’t want anything to do with Christians because the amount of hypocrisy. So I figured “I’m not a Christian so I now can do whatever I want regardless if it’s viewed as a sin or not”

This is about the point I started realizing that a bunch of the people I grew up in the church with or at least their parents or the adults, were not for me. It always seemed like a majority of them were hypocrites and so I just denounced my faith and didn’t claim myself as Christian anymore

I started a punk band with my friend’s our junior year of high school. We played some shows that year, and even a couple of my church’s events. But, college came around and we played more shows, made more punk band friends, and I was learning a lot, more than I thought, in community college.

I got super into the youth group then, became a youth leader my senior of high school. Felt pretty damn proud and like I had a responsibility to be someone the other kids looked up to. But, at the same time, this is where I took a deep dive into Christianity and faith in Jesus.

I cannot forget to add that around my parents divorce and after it I got heavily influenced by some metal, but a lot of punk rock, even the Christian ones. still to this day, some of those are my favorite bands, but back then i felt like my parents fell for “it’s a Christian band” regardless

I typically had to go. There wasn’t an option. But those Sunday afternoons eventually filled up with time with new friends, Xbox, or chilling in my mom’s basement. I eventually joined the church worship band around this time playing guitar. Which was exciting. I just wanted to be in a band.

the kids around him, I throughly enjoyed hearing about Jesus. He was kind, he cared, he didn’t judge….it was like all the things I wanted from other kids, as a weird kid growing up. Time past, both my siblings went to Bible Colleges, my parents got divorced, things changed, but still Sunday church

For some reason, I remember us hyper focusing on the Old Testament, unless it was Easter or Christmas. Then we talked about Jesus. As a kid with adhd, in the basement of a church that always smelt funny (a different topic I really want to dive into one day), that didn’t necessarily connect with …

Church always felt weird. I didn’t really connect with the kids there. We were friends, but not good friends. I sat and listened as well as I could (hardcore undiagnosed ADHD), but I remember the stories of the Old Testament being so bleak and boring.

I think it was around 2012 or 2013 when I denounced my religion. I grew up in the church. Sundays, sometimes Wednesdays, and oddly enough in Southwest Virginia, I was one of the few of my friends that had to do that (I didn’t have a lot of friends in my very young days) and I remember being jealous

I just watched a video my brother link to his Instagram that was basically about who Jesus was vs what this Christian Nationalist moment is doing to a lot of Christians. All the video did was break down what Jesus stood for and why Jesus really wouldn’t stand for a lot of stuff happening now