I Lost My Religion
I saw a psychologist twice in the summer of 1983. Two sessions and I never went back. It wasn't my idea. My parents made me go because they thought my life was spiraling out of control. And it was a condition of being able to have their roof over my head, until I could get back to having a place of my own. What did I do that was so bad? I had a beer.
Mind you, I was 21 years old at the time, had a steady (albeit part-time) job, and was trying to save enough money to move out of of my parents house. Again. Because my current roommate had gone and gotten engaged and bailed on me. I was trying to be quiet, but my dad met me in the hallway and asked if, "I didn't think it was a little late to be getting home?" He gave me a hug goodnight, and that's when I suppose he smelled the liquor on my breath. He asked if I'd been drinking. No, I replied confidently.
The next morning when I walked into the kitchen my mom was sitting at the kitchen table crying. Crying for my lost soul, as it turned out, because sin had no hierarchy in my parent's mind. Murder, adultery, blasphemy, drinking, littering. Any act of sin was an indication that you were "lost." Unsaved. Turning your back on God.
So they set me up an appointment with a Christian Psychologist, so he could help me work through my "alcohol problem" and restore my salvation in the process. Though I went to the first appointment with the intention of playing the game to get my parents off my back, I must admit that he did help me in a couple of small ways. First he administered the Myers-Briggs test, which did ultimately help me understand my INFJ personality type. For any of the few out there with this personality type, you understand this is a burden unto itself sometimes.
He also told me that I seem to have a need to systematically destroy the good things in my life. I was offended at first, but then I realized he was right. Friendships, love, compliments, any kindness anyone has ever tried to show me, I've found a way to push it away. I suppose it's because I feel as though I don't deserve anything good in my life.
I don't want to lay all my troubles at my parent's feet, but I feel at least part of this aspect of my personality developed because I could never accept the God they offered me, and so I could never be the person they needed me to be. I feel I faked it pretty well, but I always felt I stood apart from my parents because they had this relationship with God I could never have, because for whatever reason it just didn't "take" with me. Even today when I visit my mother, all we seem to talk about is the weather. It's a safe topic, even though God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.
Mind you, I was 21 years old at the time, had a steady (albeit part-time) job, and was trying to save enough money to move out of of my parents house. Again. Because my current roommate had gone and gotten engaged and bailed on me. I was trying to be quiet, but my dad met me in the hallway and asked if, "I didn't think it was a little late to be getting home?" He gave me a hug goodnight, and that's when I suppose he smelled the liquor on my breath. He asked if I'd been drinking. No, I replied confidently.
The next morning when I walked into the kitchen my mom was sitting at the kitchen table crying. Crying for my lost soul, as it turned out, because sin had no hierarchy in my parent's mind. Murder, adultery, blasphemy, drinking, littering. Any act of sin was an indication that you were "lost." Unsaved. Turning your back on God.
So they set me up an appointment with a Christian Psychologist, so he could help me work through my "alcohol problem" and restore my salvation in the process. Though I went to the first appointment with the intention of playing the game to get my parents off my back, I must admit that he did help me in a couple of small ways. First he administered the Myers-Briggs test, which did ultimately help me understand my INFJ personality type. For any of the few out there with this personality type, you understand this is a burden unto itself sometimes.
He also told me that I seem to have a need to systematically destroy the good things in my life. I was offended at first, but then I realized he was right. Friendships, love, compliments, any kindness anyone has ever tried to show me, I've found a way to push it away. I suppose it's because I feel as though I don't deserve anything good in my life.
I don't want to lay all my troubles at my parent's feet, but I feel at least part of this aspect of my personality developed because I could never accept the God they offered me, and so I could never be the person they needed me to be. I feel I faked it pretty well, but I always felt I stood apart from my parents because they had this relationship with God I could never have, because for whatever reason it just didn't "take" with me. Even today when I visit my mother, all we seem to talk about is the weather. It's a safe topic, even though God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.
61-69, M
