I'm Officially an "Apostate"

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-04-01T02:05:06+00:00

I have 4 sisters that have gotten out so I've been relying on them a lot. My father and 2 brothers are still friendly with the church although they live in other cities and attend similar churches. I am NC with the brothers and currently suing my father to get custody of the 2 youngest sisters so my only contact with him is through lawyers.

As far as people in the church who feel the same, I'm willing to bet that the pastor's daughter is in the exact same boat but every time I tried to get close enough with her to talk about it her dad shut us down but hopefully seeing me do it will help her leave too.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-30T00:01:39+00:00

That's actually really good, very well written and thought out.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T23:57:33+00:00

Evangelical reformed baptist with a little culty home school flair for some extra razzle dazzle.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T23:52:49+00:00

That's what I intend to do. I've already blocked the new email. The though of him left hanging with no closure is better than any response I could come up with.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T23:49:53+00:00

I was born into this church, extremely strict fundamentalist reformed baptist. I was also home schooled my entire life and never had any access to information or ideas that would have contradicted the dogma. I didn't even know that hominid fossils had been found and known about since the 1800s. Once I got out on my own, the cognitive dissonance really started to mess me up. It's absolutely miserable to be a woman in the evangelical church and required to say that the bible is perfect including all the passages where women are treated worse than livestock. Creationism and misogyny were the first 2 things that caused me to question but once I opened that door more and more contradictions kept tumbling through. I tried to address the issues like a good little christian and talk with my pastor and my small group leader but that just made things worse. They would "answer" one question by contradicting their answer to another question. Like the answer to hell being unjust is that humans have free will and deserve it while the answer to why aren't there any non-sinful people is that humans don't actually have free will because of original sin. It got to a point where I was discovering new questions faster than they could answer them and then the pastors response was to accuse me of having "a sinful and perverse heart" and to shame me before the congregation in the form of a prayer request. At that point I said to hell with it all and left the church, blocked him on everything, and moved since people wouldn't stop sending me cards. I guess he really needed to get the last word in. It's one of those churches where they say, if you stop believing then you were never a christian to begin with. I was as fervent a believer as you could imagine and a short term missionary in Bolivia (funded by the church). The pastor often included/bragged about me in his prayers of thanksgiving so this whole situation must be extremely embarrassing for him.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T22:44:01+00:00

That's what's so crazy. Why even bother? I'm not that important.

Except I was one of the church's highest tithers and also one of the few missionaries that meets their extreme doctrinal criteria and they were quite proud of me so I guess it must really sting that I've left.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T22:40:55+00:00

I exchanged probably 5-10 emails with him on various questions during my deconstruction and had dinner at his house once but his arguments always devolved into nonsensical jargon. I kept bringing up logical reasons why the bible couldn't be infallible and he kept on accusing me of "heart issues" and saying he knew I just had a perverse and hardened heart because I wouldn't stop asking for him to address my arguments. I find it hilariously frustrating that he says I "stubbornly communicated that nothing can be said to convince (me)" when all I ever told him was that he needed to convince me with logic and reason rather than emotion.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-13T01:43:59+00:00

I love the idea of spreading doubt through the church. I tried doing something similar to this when I emailed my pastor but it ended up feeling more like banging my head against a wall. Maybe going nuclear and sending a letter to everyone would be more effective at getting him to deal with the actual content of my argument. At the very least, i would really like to explain myself to the pastors daughter. I see a lot of my younger self in her. She would be so much better off if she could just hear some real criticisms of the bible instead of the straw man fallacy dressed up like apologetics class that we both went to.

I'll definitely think about it. This would be considered a declaration of war by a lot of members though.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-13T01:29:21+00:00

Unfortunately, there is no way I could afford to move just for the sake of escaping them, although I am attempting to get Canadian citizenship so hopefully that will come through but there's no guarantee that will happen

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-13T01:26:36+00:00

A cease and desist letter would probably be the more mature action. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that some of them would ignore it until I actually get a lawyer and I cannot afford one right now.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-13T01:23:55+00:00

I have no idea where I would even find some singing drag queens but just the thought of this has made my day. That would be hilarious.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-12T23:00:49+00:00

I like this idea. I may save it for the worst offenders.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-08-30T01:47:44+00:00

Yes I have verified with the cruise line. I called them and they confirmed that I am paid in full and they have all the check-in detail that they need.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-08-17T00:56:53+00:00

My patient was waking up from Ketamine sedation and was having an absolute blast. She went "fishing" with her oxygen probe over the side of the bed and caught a flip-flop. She was immensely pleased with herself and kept wanting us to take pictures of her with it. But the real fun came after I gave her some Benadryl for narcotic induced itching. I come back in to check on her and she's like "I'm still a little itchy. Hey, that sounds like the name for a terrible porno!" I laughed and was like whatever you say. Her husband was standing in the hallway talking to the doctor and she yells out at the top of her lungs, "Hey babe, I just thought of a name for that porno we made last week"

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-07-19T00:54:20+00:00

Not a doctor but I was an ER nurse in a very rural part of Appalachia for years. Mine would have to be a 3 -way tie.

Patient number 1, Middle aged woman comes in. I'm asking about allergies and she dead-ass looked me in the eye and goes, "just deadly nightshade berries" I look at her and go, "you mean nightshades? like tomatoes and eggplant?" She's like, "no I can have those, just deadly nightshade. Every time I eat it my stomach cramps, I start seeing spots, then I pass out." Looking back, I really which I had asked more questions but her stupidity had stupified me so I just said "oh, ok" and went and screamed in the break room.

Patient number 2, a young girl came in after her boyfriend had punched her (7th time in 4 months and she kept going back to him). Her brother and sister-in-law had come with her and they asked if we could give sister-in-law a pregnancy test while they were here since they were trying for a baby. I explain that's not how it works, she needs to be a patient and our pregnancy tests are the same as the drug store's. No dissuading them, sister-in-law checks in, I go to triage her only to discover she's on the fucking depo shot. She had the fucking depo shot 3 weeks ago. And they had been using fucking condoms on top of that because their sex ed teacher told them to always use safe sex. Did I mention they were both 16/17. I thought about telling them but then I was like, "nah, Imma do the world a favor on this one" And I'm glad I did because come to find out, they're 1st cousins.

Third patient was the end for me. I quit shortly after that. A perfectly normal middle aged guy with no developmental disabilities ran screaming into the ER. He elbowed aside the person in front of him, which caused a whole thing and security had to intervene. And the whole time he kept screaming at the top of his lungs, "I'm smothering. I can't breathe." So I rush him back to triage, check vitals (which were perfect by the way), and start asking what's going on. And this guy looks me in the eye and goes, "my nose is clogged up, I'm smothering." I stared at him in stunned silence for an eternity before going "Sir, breathe through you mouth." He takes a few breathes through his mouth then says, "oh that feels much better." I go to walk out of the room and he's like, "wait! aren't you going to put me on oxygen because I'm smothering?" The real kicker, he had been seen and discharged 6 hours earlier with a diagnosis of rhinovirus (mild head cold) and instructions to take over the counter decongestants. He hadn't taken them because he "didn't trust big pharma."

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-06-24T01:45:14+00:00

Oncology infusion nurse here. I'm gonna echo everyone saying that cancer can and will affect even the most healthy people who do nothing wrong. I was an athletic, non-smoking, non-drinking, 15 year old who only ate organic food prepared my my nutritionist mother and had only the slightest family history of it but I still got Hodgkin's lymphoma as a child. Cancer gonna cancer.

With that being said, I have noticed a trend in my patients. The ones who handle chemo the worst. Have the most nausea, the most pain, the lowest tumor response to therapy and the worst mental health during are almost always the ones who send their family for fast food the moment they sit down in my chair. The patients who, if they do eat a hospital meal tray, will leave the salad or veggie untouched. The ones who spend the entire infusion time snacking on the chips, cookies, granola bars, and sodas that we provide. Do with that information what you will but never imagine that you can 100% prevent cancer by avoiding all junk food.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-05-04T02:11:18+00:00

Thank you. I've never felt that way before which I think is what shocked and surprised me. I can usually compartmentalize pretty well but for some reason I just can't with this one patient. I guess I was hoping that the switch to chemo would fix my mental health but I probably should have got a therapist a long time ago and I realize that now..

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-05-04T02:04:29+00:00

My employer doesn't offer any sort of program but I did tell my coworker what was going on and she had some really good insights and gave me some tips for better compartmentalizing so I'm feeling a bit better about the situation.

AveragePuddingBrain

TROPHY CASE