no one ever talks about being an atheist in a religious family. it was a few years ago when i started to doubt. i kept it a secret though because i knew that nothing would've changed. sometimes my family blasts music in the car and they all sing along to it. it drives me mad. it makes my ears hurt so much that i just want to rip my ears off. during service, listening to people pray and sing and recite bible verses makes me feel like i'm suffocating. but a few weeks ago i told my mom that i didn't believe anymore. and she told me that it was fine and that i would meet god soon. those words felt so disgusting. sickening. so i started missing church, pretending to sleep when they come in my room to wake me up. it always leads to screaming matches but it makes me feel so free. i just wish they would leave alone. is it bad that religion makes me want to die? i regret being born in a christian family. i regret even being born.

I been thinking real hard about even relaying these awful things about the person that I have admired the most, the person I have respected and revered my whole life but that now, has completely backstabbed me in the worst way possible. A few years ago, a scandal broke in my political family involving my mother. As you can imagine, it nearly broke my marriage and tore my husband’s family apart. My sister in law found my father in law and my mom talking on social media. The worst part of it, when I was confronted, I was accused of knowing about the whole affair and made it looked like I was an accomplice to the whole ordeal. When I had absolutely no clue to such a disgusting mess. I don’t know what neither of them were trying to accomplish and now, I’m the black sheep of the family. No one talks to me. While my father in law is still loved and honored. My mother the home wrecker and I pay the sins of her ordeals. She never once has said I’m sorry. Never! In her head, I’m better off without that side of the family. But it’s not about that; why did she do this to me? Why my father in law? Among so many men? Why him! I guess I’m just looking for an explanation and I know I will never get it from her. Because she just cannot accept she did anything wrong. I wish I could get her version because as of now, I only know everyone else’s but her’s. I always thought I didn’t need to hear her side because it’s not my place to question her, but I have kids who now have to suffer for her sins as well. I don’t think it’s fair to them either. I guess the damage is done as well and the past is the past. I won’t get nothing accomplished but I just want an acknowledgment from her part that she messed up.

• August 12, 2023