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My position as a boy religion, when I reflect back, was more atheistic and my philosophy then, was live for today, because tomorrow you might die. Death to me was simply the extinction of my consciousness, into eternal nothingness. This did not frighten me because of course I was young and thought I still had an eternity before me to live and I was going to squeeze every drop of fun out of life before that day. I used to tell my friends I will live this way until the moment before I die and only then make amends with God if he exists.
The likes of “Two by Two’s as well as every other stupid exclusive cults or exclusive religion, are in their opinion all going go to heaven and watch from the happiness of there, the rest of humanity burn day and night, forever and forever.
A relative of mine in just one example of religious exclusivity and stupidity, he would always phone or contact me with great joy the moment some great calamity or catastrophe happened where sometimes thousands of innocent people died, which meant to him that the Lord was coming to fetch him soon, and to hell with the rest of humanity.
But to the likes of “Two by Two’s as well as every other stupid exclusive cult or religion, in their opinion they will go to heaven and watch from the happiness of heaven the rest of humanity burn day and night, forever and forever, because over in heaven they will have plenty of time to do it..
I tend to become radical and extreme if I believe what I perceive is the truth, in a way this was evident with my swimming, body building, shot putting and javelin throwing as a boy. I would practice for hours and hours, becoming completely obsessed with my endeavours in which I imagined myself as some great international athlete While others saw my just practising over and over again, in my mind, I was in an imaginary arena competing with world class imaginary athletes.
In the 1970’s I thought I had found the absolute truth as far as god and religion were concerned and accepted and embraced this belief in an extreme , fanatical and radical way, bordering on obsession and fixation. I began to suppose I was some sort of a latter-day prophet and gave out some amazing predictions, which were more psychic that God sourced prophesies.
In my opinion, this religious fanaticism and extremism were triggers that began to unhinge me mentally leading to the start of my thirty year battle with manic depression from the age of 38. It was then to my unspeakable horror, I found out there were things was happening that about the church life that I simply could not reconcile in my mind.
There was theft by church officials and many of the evangelist and preachers that I had trusted implicitly as people of impeccable honour were found out by the media journalists to be, hypocritical frauds, thieves, living, in luxury deceitful sinful lives. Unable to reconcile what was to me an impossible revelation, I began to descend into manic madness in order to cope with the impossible. I unconsciously began to try the to resolve, what in my mind that was to me was impossible to resolve becoming more and more distant from my loved ones, which led to my already fragile mind becoming badly unhinged.
Think about it, put yourself in my shoes! The way my mind works is when I accept something as true and honourable, I embrace it completely, absolutely to the pint of obsession and accept it without question and cant be moved from my position. In fact, I become extremely radical and obsessed about it and try to convince everyone I meet to come know this absolute truth that I know about and of which they are ignorant.
With my mind now completely unhinged and racing with psychotic thoughts, I tried to find some way back to the peace of mind and sanity, so I approached the medical profession for relief and was referred to a physiatrist by my GP. He put me on tranquilizers that helped me a great deal; giving me a buffer from the impossible irreconcilable thoughts that flooded my now restless mind day and night.
I was also given different anti- depressive medication. Reflecting back I know now that I was over medicated and lied to about the real dangers of tranquilizers. During my early treatment for endogenous depression, I asked one of my first psychiatrists if the bezodiazepam (Valium-type drugs) were addictive and he told me an outright lie in that they were not addictive at all and prescribed large amounts on my request, making me a drug addict unable to function in my working live or communicate and withdraw from my family into a fog of escapism.
I am positive that if I had never gone to a physiatrist or if he had not put me on tranquilizers I would have got myself back to mental, and health , by the way, I had always used to help me out of stress, exercise and body building.
To be able to work, live and function, in some way, I angrily blamed and rejected anything about the God and religion, which had disillusioned and failed me so badly. Unconsciously I reversed to my previous atheistic position.
However because I remained addicted to bezodiazepam for many years, I was only able to rethink about my religious convictions in a sane and rational way after I stopped them completely some years ago.
I have at the time of writing being free from the mania for over 16 years due to a miracle of God in my life and have stopped all drugs except the necessary medication needed to sustain my health.
In Jesus Holy Name I pray
I will no longer attend any church, because of the hypocrisy I see in them but I accept that Jesus was/is who he said he was and that there is indeed a God in which I can put my trust. I am no longer obsessed with anything and quietly say my prayers, at night, like I did as a little boy, go to sleep and trust “if I die before I wake I trust the Lord, my Soul, to take
In Jesus I trust
Alan McDougall
My position as a boy religion, when I reflect back, was more atheistic and my philosophy then, was live for today, because tomorrow you might die. Death to me was simply the extinction of my consciousness, into eternal nothingness. This did not frighten me because of course I was young and thought I still had an eternity before me to live and I was going to squeeze every drop of fun out of life before that day. I used to tell my friends I will live this way until the moment before I die and only then make amends with God if he exists.
- As a youth, I had absolutely no interest in religion and I was put off to the extreme by the silly exclusive cult the “Two by Two’s that had held both my parents into a fear of going to hell. This cult was so exclusive that unless one joined them and stuck completely to the beliefs one would end up in what they said was “A lost Eternity”, which was really a nice way of saying hell. I think that at the most worldwide, there might have been as little as a few thousand of these sad people. If their teaching were true, then God workmanship, when he created humanity, was very poor indeed, it means that some 7,000,000,000 or seven billion people on earth are rejects and to be declared a faulty product and thrown into hell and forgotten by him forever. This is really overkill is it not!
The likes of “Two by Two’s as well as every other stupid exclusive cults or exclusive religion, are in their opinion all going go to heaven and watch from the happiness of there, the rest of humanity burn day and night, forever and forever.
A relative of mine in just one example of religious exclusivity and stupidity, he would always phone or contact me with great joy the moment some great calamity or catastrophe happened where sometimes thousands of innocent people died, which meant to him that the Lord was coming to fetch him soon, and to hell with the rest of humanity.
But to the likes of “Two by Two’s as well as every other stupid exclusive cult or religion, in their opinion they will go to heaven and watch from the happiness of heaven the rest of humanity burn day and night, forever and forever, because over in heaven they will have plenty of time to do it..
I tend to become radical and extreme if I believe what I perceive is the truth, in a way this was evident with my swimming, body building, shot putting and javelin throwing as a boy. I would practice for hours and hours, becoming completely obsessed with my endeavours in which I imagined myself as some great international athlete While others saw my just practising over and over again, in my mind, I was in an imaginary arena competing with world class imaginary athletes.
In the 1970’s I thought I had found the absolute truth as far as god and religion were concerned and accepted and embraced this belief in an extreme , fanatical and radical way, bordering on obsession and fixation. I began to suppose I was some sort of a latter-day prophet and gave out some amazing predictions, which were more psychic that God sourced prophesies.
In my opinion, this religious fanaticism and extremism were triggers that began to unhinge me mentally leading to the start of my thirty year battle with manic depression from the age of 38. It was then to my unspeakable horror, I found out there were things was happening that about the church life that I simply could not reconcile in my mind.
There was theft by church officials and many of the evangelist and preachers that I had trusted implicitly as people of impeccable honour were found out by the media journalists to be, hypocritical frauds, thieves, living, in luxury deceitful sinful lives. Unable to reconcile what was to me an impossible revelation, I began to descend into manic madness in order to cope with the impossible. I unconsciously began to try the to resolve, what in my mind that was to me was impossible to resolve becoming more and more distant from my loved ones, which led to my already fragile mind becoming badly unhinged.
Think about it, put yourself in my shoes! The way my mind works is when I accept something as true and honourable, I embrace it completely, absolutely to the pint of obsession and accept it without question and cant be moved from my position. In fact, I become extremely radical and obsessed about it and try to convince everyone I meet to come know this absolute truth that I know about and of which they are ignorant.
With my mind now completely unhinged and racing with psychotic thoughts, I tried to find some way back to the peace of mind and sanity, so I approached the medical profession for relief and was referred to a physiatrist by my GP. He put me on tranquilizers that helped me a great deal; giving me a buffer from the impossible irreconcilable thoughts that flooded my now restless mind day and night.
I was also given different anti- depressive medication. Reflecting back I know now that I was over medicated and lied to about the real dangers of tranquilizers. During my early treatment for endogenous depression, I asked one of my first psychiatrists if the bezodiazepam (Valium-type drugs) were addictive and he told me an outright lie in that they were not addictive at all and prescribed large amounts on my request, making me a drug addict unable to function in my working live or communicate and withdraw from my family into a fog of escapism.
I am positive that if I had never gone to a physiatrist or if he had not put me on tranquilizers I would have got myself back to mental, and health , by the way, I had always used to help me out of stress, exercise and body building.
To be able to work, live and function, in some way, I angrily blamed and rejected anything about the God and religion, which had disillusioned and failed me so badly. Unconsciously I reversed to my previous atheistic position.
However because I remained addicted to bezodiazepam for many years, I was only able to rethink about my religious convictions in a sane and rational way after I stopped them completely some years ago.
I have at the time of writing being free from the mania for over 16 years due to a miracle of God in my life and have stopped all drugs except the necessary medication needed to sustain my health.
In Jesus Holy Name I pray
I will no longer attend any church, because of the hypocrisy I see in them but I accept that Jesus was/is who he said he was and that there is indeed a God in which I can put my trust. I am no longer obsessed with anything and quietly say my prayers, at night, like I did as a little boy, go to sleep and trust “if I die before I wake I trust the Lord, my Soul, to take
In Jesus I trust
Alan McDougall
