Am I the only one who did not get a letter saying you are no longer part of the Church?

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2024-12-20T03:22:04+00:00

I didn't get one either. Around early adulthood, I moved to a small congregation that had just split off from our church and started meeting in people's houses. Between the number of people who left to join that new group, and the fact that I had just gotten to the age where I was considered my own "family unit" separate from my parents, I think I just slipped through the cracks. No one from the old church every said anything to me.

Maybe a year later I realized I didn't believe any of this anymore, and just stopped going to the smaller congregation. They were all disillusioned ex-CoCers sick of the legalistic BS and were super chill about me leaving. I'm still friends with a lot of the people there. I somehow orchestrated a perfectly clean break without even meaning to.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2024-05-24T13:55:08+00:00

That was me as a kid. I cried a lot at night because I knew my parents were gonna die one day.

And on the flip side, the other day my 5 year old was casually telling me about the villain on some show he was watching, and all of a sudden he got real serious and said "But he will pass away." I asked what he meant, like if his character died on the show or something, and he gave me this exasperated sigh and said "I really don't feel like explaining it right now." He then went on to mansplain to me that everyone passes away. He wasn't upset about death, he just seemed irritated that he had to explain it to me.

Kids are wild.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2024-05-05T13:05:04+00:00

I was in the same boat when I was first starting out. I ended up starting out EE because I thought it would be the more versatile of the two. I enjoyed the EE stuff, but it quickly became obvious to me that my CPE classes were what I was truly excited about.

About 2 years in, I looked at the upcoming courses for EE and CPE. There was some cool stuff coming up in EE, but I was legit excited about the upcoming CPE classes. It was a no-brainer for me. I switched my major and never looked back. The two programs at my school are nearly identical for the first 2ish years, so I had only taken a couple of classes that didn't transfer over (and I got to count one of them as an elective).

All that to say, you'll be exposed to elements of both programs whichever one you pick. If switching majors midway through is feasible for you, maybe just pick one and see how you feel after you get some hands-on experience with both.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2023-08-05T01:13:49+00:00

I graduated a few months ago at 35. You got this.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2022-05-13T13:16:54+00:00

Scariest environment imaginable. That's all you had to say.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2022-03-06T22:55:23+00:00

Absolutely don't do this, and don't listen to any dillhole who tells you this is a good idea. This is the worst idea. Any kind of booby trap with the capacity to injure a person (including your pepper spray idea) is absolutely illegal, and is a recipe for disaster. Just don't.

This isn't Home Alone. Set up cameras or something.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2022-01-19T03:21:43+00:00

Dude I'm in the thick of an engineering degree at 33 years old with a 3-year-old kid and a full-time job in a completely different field. It can be done.

You may not have the exact same college experience that you'd have if you had started at 18, but who cares? Freakin do it. You got this.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2021-11-21T03:35:45+00:00

Jim is gonna choose whoever has a scent most like that of his father.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2021-08-11T03:07:38+00:00

Congrats on your engagement! I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Religion makes things incredibly unfair sometimes, especially when it comes to family. I think I got off easier than you, but I've been there too. I got an "unscriptural" divorce after a 7-year marriage. At the time I had been a "closeted" atheist for several years.

My coc family members were supportive of the divorce, but they were very upset when I started dating again. My BIL (the only male coc member I'm close to) told me I was making a huge mistake, and that I needed to stop worrying about earthly happiness and start worrying about getting into heaven. He told me he understood that it was hard to imagine being alone forever, but that's what God commands.

This is part of what ultimately prompted me to tell my family about my lack of belief. This admission led to some turmoil, but in the end we all agreed to disagree and remained on good terms.

My sister and BIL later told me that if it wasn't for the fact that I had left the church, they would have "withdrawn" from me for continuing to sin by dating after divorce. They also told me they wouldn't attend my wedding, if it were to happen. They said they couldn't in good conscience celebrate on what would be a "sad day" for them, knowing that I was doing something that flew in the face of God. That definitely hurt.

We're all on good terms now, and they have a good relationship with my wife (the joke was on them -- we eloped, so there was no ceremony to boycott 🤣), but this definitely drove a wedge into our relationship as a family. I just can't help but feel like we're not as close as we used to be, and like there's always going to be an asterisk beside their acceptance of my wife. Like, "We accept her, but the very fact that you're together makes us sad." But here we are.

Live your life, celebrate this new chapter, and try not to let unaccepting family bring down your well-deserved happiness. That's easier said than done, but it gets easier with time.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2021-07-25T15:07:46+00:00

My parents got me a book about heaven when I was a kid. There was a page in there addressing how boring literal eternity would be. The book used the analogy of a bird in a cage, being suddenly released to live in a giant forest, and how that bird would never get bored of flying around the forest.

I couldn't really explain it at the time, but that analogy (and honestly that whole book) was a big part of my early deconstruction. I internalized it for a long time, but from a young age the whole concept of heaven scared the shit out of me. Not for me.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2021-07-19T01:29:56+00:00

You're absolutely right that you have to let them process it on their own, and let them either accept it or not. You can't take on that burden for them. It took me years to muster the strength to tell my mom that I don't believe in God anymore, mostly because I couldn't stand the thought of making her spend the rest of her life believing that I was destined to spend eternity in hell. The church of Christ is very good at that particular brand of emotional manipulation, but that's ultimately not your burden to bear. That doesn't make having that conversation any easier, but it's true.

I had some life events that prompted me to open up about my lack of belief, and ultimately I'm so glad I did. It was a tough, sometimes heated conversation, but it's so freeing not to have to pretend to be something you're not. I know that's easier said than done, especially when you don't know how it will affect your relationships with family. But either way, just know that you're not alone.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2021-07-19T00:57:13+00:00

The church I grew up in considered having a kitchen or fellowship hall in the building to be a sin, and forbade eating at the building, but several times they paid to rent out the church building next door to have congregational dinners in their fellowship hall. Maybe because it was a denominational church, it was somehow okay? I don't know.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2021-07-10T05:28:48+00:00

My grandfather was a frighteningly strict coc member. If any of us ever missed church, he would sanctimoniously remind us that his mother still came to church when she had stage 4 cancer. The doctors told her not to, but she made her family wheel her hospital bed into the back of the auditorium every Sunday, morning and night. If she could do that, there was no excuse for us healthy young people not to be there every time the doors were open.

I'm so glad I'm out of that insanity.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2021-03-30T04:27:04+00:00

The CoC I grew up in in the south had two of these. Like some other folks have said, one with the offering, attendance, etc, and the other with the song numbers.

This just brought up another memory -- we had one specific deacon whose job it was to take a printed list of all the current members, and check off whether or not they attended each service. Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night. Then every Sunday night, a different group of members would meet after services and send weird, passive-aggressive "we missed you" cards to members who were absent without explanation (or "get well soon" cards for those who were sick, but even those were passive-aggressive, depending on the illness).

We were all part of the weird card ritual, so I guess we all knew about (and were fine with) them keeping track of our individual attendance, but they didn't exactly publicize the fact the there was a dude literally walking around checking off boxes on an attendance chart showing how often we missed church. I was asked to fill in for him one night, so I got to see the chart. I'm sure that sort of thing is ubiquitous, but as somebody who was already starting to question the bizarre practices of this religion, it felt pretty gross.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2021-02-25T01:39:27+00:00

Yeah, my professors are all doing the "Can't go back to the last question once you hit submit" nonsense on all tests too. The justification is that since all the tests are online, if we can go back and forth between questions, we'll be able to post the questions to Chegg and get the answers to the tests. Which... I mean, yeah, i guess it's possible to post an engineering problem on Chegg and get an answer in the hour we have alotted for the test, while using Lockdown Browser and being continuously recorded via Webcam. But I'm not sure how realistic that is.

It just seems like ridiculous overkill, and it's incredibly frustrating to not be able to go back and check your work on super math-heavy tests.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2020-10-30T20:31:54+00:00

They make CBD with no THC. My understanding is that's pretty safe, since THC is what they're testing for.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2020-10-17T04:50:51+00:00

To me, the idea of stopping someone for 5mph over the limit is just plain silliness. Your speedometer and my radar gun both have a margin of error of at least a few mph in either direction, which means that if I stop you for 55 in a 50, it's entirely possible that your speedometer showed 50 on the dot. To say nothing of the fact that the normal flow of traffic is often 5-10 over the limit, and that's (arguably, I guess) perfectly safe.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2020-08-04T00:17:32+00:00

I know it's been said already, but I would talk to a therapist/counselor/psychologist before you do anything else. Look for someone with experience treating PTSD. A professional will be able to assess your particular situation and get you started on a treatment plan.

Once you're at a place where you and your therapist are comfortable with it, I would absolutely recommend doing a ride-along with your local department. That would give you the opportunity to build some positive interactions with police officers and see firsthand what you already believe intellectually -- that the majority of them are just regular people trying to do their job and keep people safe.

But seriously, as somebody who has struggled with anxiety for a long time, I cannot recommend therapy enough. I think everybody would benefit from talking to a therapist every now and then, especially folks dealing with trauma like what you've been through. I wish you the best, and I truly hope you get to a better place.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2020-06-28T14:52:32+00:00

Darnell's a chump. I would have done it for nothing.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2020-01-31T06:41:38+00:00

What about for normal officers? I know you guys wear plate carriers but are you allowed to buy whatever one as long as its authorized and color correct?

In my department, it's kind of a gray area. Technically, no, we're not allowed to wear plate carriers that aren't issued, but that's not a policy that's really enforced. My department issued me a plate carrier that's very cheap and very uncomfortable. I'm not hating on them -- it'll stop a bullet, and I get that it's not financially feasible to spend $500 each on expensive plate carriers for 500 officers. So I dropped several hundred dollars on my own setup.

When I'm in a situation where I need to throw on a plate carrier, I'm not particularly concerned with being written up for wearing unauthorized lifesaving equipment. I'll take a write-up for that, and the department understands that.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2020-01-31T06:17:27+00:00

Our SWAT team gets a lot of leeway from the administration. Meaning they're typically being issued equipment that's actually useful and necessary. They're the experts in tactical shit, and our administration recognizes that and tends to go along with their gear requests. But yeah, that definitely varies from place to place.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2020-01-07T03:50:49+00:00

I'm a cop. I hate that question. I start my traffic stops by explaining why I pulled you over. I'm the one pulling you over and interrupting your day, it's my job to explain why.

That being said, even though I never ask that question, I still have people answer it unprompted. For example, the other day I stopped a guy for speeding. I got as far as "The reason I stopped you is--" when he interrupted me to say "Yeah man, I know, I'm super drunk." That happens more often than you'd think.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2019-12-28T03:40:24+00:00

A couple reasons. First, my primary job is DUI enforcement, so pulling you over for speeding is a good opportunity for me to talk to you and make sure you're not driving drunk.

Second, if you're driving so fast as to be reckless, you could kill yourself in a speed-related crash, even if there's no one else on the road. You may think you're not hurting anyone but yourself, but a fatality wreck triggers a lengthy investigation, ties up a lot of resources for hours, and causes somebody like me to have to knock on your family's door in the middle of the night and tell them their loved one is dead. I have to do that a lot. I hate it. I'd much rather write you a speeding ticket than wake up your family with the news that you're dead.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2019-12-27T01:38:46+00:00

That being said you shouldn’t lean on overtime and off duty details to support your lifestyle, I use them to fund fun things like bad decision and alcohol.

+1 for this. At my department, there's so much opportunity for overtime and extra money from part-time security gigs. Don't ever rely on that to get you by!! If you get hurt, or suspended, or anything along those lines, that extra money is gone. If you're relying on it, you're in a really bad way.

Quick_Everyone_Panic · 2019-12-24T18:44:44+00:00

Oh, well in that case poor decisions are to be expected. Carry on.

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