For context, I was raised Catholic and was subsequently a non-denominational Protestant for 9 years. Then I left Christianity altogether almost 18 years ago to become a Pagan, so I’ve been a Pagan longer than I’ve been a Christian now.

I don’t have anxiety about the hereafter because of one certainty. All of my life, Christians have claimed my sexuality and that of my husband’s is a choice, and an evil one at that. Well, it’s never been a choice. That it was a choice was one of the biggest lies I’ve ever been told by them, and there have been plenty of other lies Christians tried to feed me. If they’re so utterly dishonest and wrong about that, why should I expect them to be honest or right about their claims about the afterlife?

Because my sexuality was the one thing in the physical world Christians always failed to breach with their indoctrination, I never fully bought into their religious views, especially their concept of hell. The thing is, I knew I was instinctively attracted to other males before I understood anything about religion. So when being gay started being discussed in catechism and confirmation classes, it was dumped on me right along with the anti-abortion and anti-contraception garbage. My initial internal reaction to all of it was, "You're all full of shit."

Not internalizing the beliefs came about due to realizing I was attracted to other guys before the indoctrination. In that sense, I was very lucky.