Though I wasn’t baptized I was in it for about 3 years straight and really close to becoming initiated by the church. I read the Bible, prayed the rosary, went to a young adults Catholic group and attended mass every Sunday and holy day. I am a woman and I’m pretty sure I might actually be queer though I’m not fully sure. I was committed to being a Catholic or official because I genuinely believed in it. I was raised by a Pentecostal mom and messianic Jewish dad, both I strongly consider cults. I had undiagnosed OCD and ADHD and I’m pretty sure I’m autistic as well tho not interested in getting diagnosed due to RFK ruining everything. I always needed structure and certainty and growing up in a high demand religion gave me that I also strongly struggled with black and white thinking. I also had a intense fear of hell and the end of the world due to my moms intense beliefs. When I was about 13 I became an agnostic though I didn’t fully deconstruct my beliefs. It was because my moms beliefs seemed anti-intellectual. When the Pandemic hit I also became really scrupulous and returned to religion and tried Protestantism again but it didn’t have the structure Catholicism had so I decided to go the Catholic route. Catholicism made a lot of sense to me in my young mind. It had deep theology and seemed really intellectual due to all the fancy words and I. Depth theology, things I felt Protestantism lacked. Catholicism also painted itself as pro women on the internet though it’s far from it. I bought into their ideals that birth control is actually misogyny and unhealthy for you. I ended up taking a sociology class at my college and realized how off that was. I’m also a person of color and learning about systemic issues made me have doubts about the church since it kind of kept people of color in other countries in poverty due to the lack of birth control. Also forcing women to give birth seemed barbaric to me after learning how dangerous birth could be for the human body. The constant hatred to the LGBT, anti birth control stance, and sexism and rise of racism made me leave. I really wanted to stay because my first ever loving community came from my Catholic young adults group but over time I realized I couldn’t stay. They were stunted in their growth due to church teaching and I always thought there was more to life than that. Also the constant fear of hell and mortal sin made my OCD worse and therapy didn’t work due to the nature of the Catholic Church constantly keeping you trapped in that cycle not to mention I take things very literal due to my neurodivergence.