When I was growing up I thought of every bad choice I made as adding to this constantly growing pile of sins I was going to have to make up for in Purgatory. Every bad choice, no matter how small, made me feel ashamed and scared of punishment. I got so used to it that It only recently occurred to me that feeling worthless and evil over little mistakes isn’t normal or healthy. For instance, when I don’t follow a doctor’s instructions all the way, I feel like I’ve failed them on a personal level. When I procrastinate working on my art portfolio, I feel like I’m committing the sin of sloth over and over. If I spend money on items I don’t need, even if it’s something I planned to buy, I feel greedy and materialistic. I try to tell myself there’s no reason to feel morally guilty over these things, but then there’s always the thought “if you stop feeling guilty, how will you stop yourself from becoming a bad person?” I’m sure non-Catholics can have this issue as well, but I think the teachings of sin and Purgatory have made it a lot worse.

I been smoking weed since I was a teenager. My husband and I smoke together but stopped since we had our son. We don't want him to get 2nd hand high from this.

Instead I take edibles to help with my postpartum hormones go back to normal. Men go through changes when their wife (or our case surrogate) goes through pregnancy and birth. I always been a tenderhearted man who does cry a lot. But the crying won't stop since our son is born and I'm not even sad???

Doc said it is my hormones going back to normal. I need long periods of sleep and fully body relaxations, but it is hard with a baby so I got put on edibles and it has helped BIG time.

But weed is the devil lettuce and bad and sinful so I get the Catholic Guilt. Even though it has helped me and I know it is helping but I still feel bad. It kinda makes me laugh because it so small and silly.

To combat it (and the small panic attack I get with it) I stand one leg and hop up and down and try to swing my hands in opposite directions. Give it a go, it does help because my mind shifts focus. My husband calls it my "Giggle Bush dance".

I use to get the Catholic Guilt while having gay sex funny enough it stopped when we got really deep in love with each other. And when that happene, he started dicking down me down better. Like when he fucks me it is like he is fucking his last fuck on God green earth so he is puting all the effort and giving it his last bit of life. And making love to him is like 100000x better and that alone is something I can begin to described.

I am getting way to tmi so I know it is kicking in so I'm gonna wrap this up.

Yeah I rather give up life in heaven and have that on the daily. I will lil Nas X my way down to hell real quick.

A lifetime with my husband will feel like an entirety in hell in heaven.

See now I'm high because I am rambling about how much I love that man.

He is in the shower and I can see his butt in the mirror. View is nice. We are going to cuddle and he is going to feed my gummy worms while we comedy movies.

The Catholic Guilt is just jealous that I don't submit to him anymore and instead submit to my husband on the daily.

Writing this out I can't believe my priest called it an "insight from God" after accusing me of being gay. Like bitch, is you blind look at me

The Catholic Guilt is crippling just like the Catholic. More and more people are leaving and seeing it look more and more like the damn circus.

My husband does this weird yawn thing when he rea

A lot of ex-Catholics complain about this and how it affects their lives even after they left the Church. And it's well known enough to have its own phrase. Some protestants complain about guilt, but nowhere near as much as Catholics do.

I was a convert that left almost as quickly as I joined, so I wasn't raised in it and don't have the full experience of that culture.

So what causes all the guilt? Is it the having to go to confession for every single sin? Is the teaching that any one sin can damn you? What specifically inspires the infamous Catholic guilt?

This summer, I submitted my application to the university of my dreams to which I was accepted. About me: I’m an older student who had previously failed out of college 10 years ago (quarter-life crisis whereby I had simply stopped attending) and has since returned to academia under “academic forgiveness.” I have since made straight As in all 35+ hrs of my studies and been active in honors student government, among other community and fellowship achievements. My professors have all written me gracious and glowing letters of recommendation for transfer from community college to university. I’ve also been told I’m a great writer and have been encouraged to publish as an undergrad. Simply put, my academic story is one of a hard-won comeback.

The situation: While I had expected to possibly get in to my school of choice, based on all the above, my advisor routinely pressed on me the importance of joining another national honor society. I was told that while it wasn’t essential for my transfer app, it would be good and it would open me up to other scholarship opportunities. Unfortunately, neither me or my advisor could get ahold of the particular honors society; I was a “shoe in,” however, due to my past grades, we just needed to confirm my acceptance.

When it came time for me to submit my app, my advisor and I still had not gotten ahold of the society (several months of emailing multiple people with zero response… frustrating for us both). Since I needed to submit my app and my advisor was assuring me that I would accepted, I asked my advisor if it would be academically dishonest to check “yes” that I was a member. Note: I did not write about being a member in my transfer essays, nor did I mention it on my CV, etc. It’s just a little box that asks for “yes or no.”

My advisor said that they would be very upset and would being going to “top people” if I was denied on a technicality. They advised me to go ahead (this person is a senior advisor at the community college). 2 weeks later, we of course finally heard back—just as life would have it. It was a “no” due to my past failures. One thing to mention here is that most other chapters of this society don’t have this hang up—nowhere else in academia has had a problem with my past due the academic forgiveness stipulations.

My advisor assured me that everting was fine and that no one was going to say “oh deny them because they checked yes on that box.” They assured it me it would not hurt me either way.

Fast fo

I can't get over it. I spend so many nights agonizing over it. I hate how its put me behind the other people my age. I hate how I can't even see an attractive girl without hating myself and feeling guilty. I'll never catch up. I'll never be able to have a normal relationship. I'll never lose my virginity. I'm so scared of hell, but I can't bring myself to be Catholic in good conscience. I feel like existence is pure torture. What's natural brings me pain, but doing the solution brings me pain too. It's all pain

EDIT: If you're reading this now, I had an epiphany about my mental health and the thought patterns that drove me to make this post. I made another post about if if y'all want to dissect that

Catholic guilt has been destroying me recently. I was raised in a religious family and attended catholic school for the first decade of my life. It’s like you spend your whole life being told that some glorious person died for all of your sins so you could live eternally in happiness, but also are constantly beat down for making mistakes and threatened with eternal damnation in the fiery pits of hell? And it’s weird because i don’t even believe in hell but somehow i am so terrified of it? They preach about how they are all kind and work to help others but the second someone doesn’t subscribe to their exact view of christianity, or when someone does something that goes against their personal beliefs all of that goes out the window and you are shamed. You are told that you have to tell all of your sins to a priest and that somehow that will fix everything, but it doesn’t. Because, the next week you go back to church and it feels like to spilled your guts out to a stranger for nothing.

And as much as I don’t really believe, i want to so badly. I miss the way it made me feel when i was younger, like someone was always watching over me and that everything really did happen for a reason. I miss the sense of community that it provided, how it made me feel like i belonged. But I just don’t anymore and sometimes it just fucking sucks because all you want is to be able to believe in something bigger than yourself, or believe that someone really does care about you.

I know this sounds pathetic. You want to nothing to do with it, but you miss is. You don’t believe in what they teach, but somehow every time you do anything that you were taught was wrong you feel a pang of guilt and instantly regret it. Especially when it happens every goddamn day.

Accidentally say oh my god? you are a bad person. Miss church? You are going to hell. Think about a girl in any way other than platonically? You will never get into heaven like that. No one wants to be around a sinner. And deep down you know that it isn’t wrong but you can’t help but to think that way because that is how you were raised and no matter what you do you can’t seem to shake it?

It feels like, if there is even a small chance there is a god, he just left you behind without a second thought. These thoughts won’t stop coming and i feel really shitty. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hey guys, I may end up talking to a counselor and a priest to get different perspectives... Though I can guess what the priest will say almost certainly. Anyway, I welcome Catholic/non-Catholic perspectives, but please be kind. I was a cradle catholic. Raised in the church to believe missing Sunday mass was a mortal sin. I went to Catholic school up until middle school - only because a town we moved to didn't have Catholic school. A mistake my dad said he feels was the worst decision that he could have ever made. For me, public school was the best thing. It gave me perspective. I'd never had a "non-catholic" friend. Here, I only had non-catholic friends. These people, these good people, how could they all be destined for hell? Not possible. Just because they had a different belief structure.

I'd be lying if I didn't have questions about the bible "gaps" before. I recall asking tough questions in theology class while still in Catholic school (6th grade me was a PIA). I believe, questions I asked that priest were where I started to drift. They couldn't answer my questions without agreeing that the bible was to be taken as a tool vs complete fact. But that's what we had to believe. It's fact that a ship could hold all the animals on earth. That humans came from 2 people. All nonsense really. Anyway, to the meat of my concerns. I have two children. My husband and I (not a cradle catholic, but went to the same Catholic elementary school as I went to - thus, he has the sacraments), have pretty much said we'll put our kids through the sacraments to appease my parents. We married Catholic, went through the Catholic marriage classes (which were a trip). We baptized my oldest, but this was pre-pandemic. We haven't been to church since the beginning of the pandemic for a few reasons.

1. We didn't want to: 1a. I have never felt like anyone cared for me to be there. Catholics aren't exactly welcoming. How many are there just because of their own guilt obligation? Going through the motions. 1b. I don't want my daughter's to think I believe what the church does and take away their bodily autonomy. If I go, I'm being hypocritical. I fervently believe my girls (or anyone else's girls) should not be forced to have kids if they don't want them.
2. The belief of "I can't get sick, God will save me, why do I need a vaccine" (anyone else wanna tell them the vaccine could be the boat he sent to save them from drowning? No, just me? Anyway...). I know the Pope said

They teach us we don't deserve love, and I feel like I don't still. They teach us there's no such thing as a good person, so I feel that I'm bad. They teach us nothing done without God can be good, so I feel like everything I do is bad and worthless now. I can't even make out with a girl consensually without hating myself. I feel weak, undeserving of life, undeserving of love, and completely broken.

I had never even considered that, but now I'm just 😬

I presumed it was just a deep seated insecurity, but now I'm wondering where exactly that insecurity came from other than just not wanting to be poor any longer.

Hiiiiii,
I'm the ex-Catholic dyke who posted about leaving the Church yesterday because of homophobia related reasons. Sooo I work in a school that, while it isn't aligned with the archdiocese in my city, is still Catholic. Today was the feast day of one of our patron saints. My coworker, who I've talked to about Catholic shit before, does not know about the struggles I've been going through or the decision I've made to distance myself from Catholicism. When she began to engage me in a conversation about the feast day.
I...couldn't...do...it. I couldn't tell her that I've left. I just didn't have the energy to have that conversation.
The whole exchange just brought up a lot of feelings for me, and a lot of questions. Like...

Oh shit, I have a Confirmation name that I've been using for 10 fucking years. It's in my fucking signature. What do I do with it now? I don't know if I want it...

What do I do when Catholics who know about my faith background try to engage me in conversation as though I'm one of them?!
(NB: Not all of the people who engage me like this are homophobes! Most straight Catholics are honestly just clueless about the queerphobia within the Church. They trust the leadership so much that they just think "well Father Brian's known me since I was a baby. He wouldn't be an asshole to my lesbian friend, would he?" Spoiler: he definitely would)

What do I say when I go back to visit my Catholic high school?

What do I say when I go to churches in other denominations?! Will they think I'm a filthy flaky pew-hopper?

What do I do with all these fucking rosaries/saint statues/prayer cards/third class relics/scapulars/MY PRAYER VEIL? Do I burn them? that seems kinda harsh...

I've had a bunch of dreams about the virgin mary telling me to do shit. These dreams have had played an outsize role in shaping most of the big life decisions I've made, most notably my choice in career (I'm a teacher). Now I'm super burnt out and I...don't think working in a school is for me. What do I do now?!! Who's gonna tell me what to do next?!!! AAHHHHH?!!

Should I go through the un-baptism thing or is that too extra?

Should I learn more about the Church's shortcomings now that I'm not worried that reading about the imperialism/racism/abuse scandals is gonna "turn me away from God?"

Anywho, curious to hear y'alls thoughts.

When I drink while depressed I find myself questioning if I should return to the church. When I sober up I realize those thoughts only came from substances and how Catholic Guilt tells me that I have no value to anything larger than myself outside of the church.

Sorry in advance if I sound like a complete novice.

I've been drawn to Satanism but avoided it because of a polar opposite upbringing.

I've lived with "Catholic guilt" passed down by my mom since I was a child and I'm 30 now. I've always believed that what goes up must go down, that anything I indulge in will inevitably result in something bad happening to offset that positive feeling. It infected my thinking and became a self-fulfilling prophecy, resulting in anxiety, depression and impostor syndrome.

This might sound odd but as a child I used to daydream about myself being consumed and destroyed because I believed I wasn't worthy of having my own opinion or individuality. Then I would think about Satan and feel better - idk maybe I just liked the rebellious feeling.

Upon finally reading about Satanism the day after my 30th birthday, I had the revelation that it's incredibly inclusive and accepting and speaks to me on so many levels. It also celebrates individual thought and indulgences that I've for too long suppressed. I've thought about Satan before on numerous occasions and felt liberated by it, but only now am I actually ready to take it seriously.

Apologies if this all sounds naive, its just exciting to be in an entirely happier headspace.

hi, just here to tell you.. if you were raised religiously or still are & you feel an intense feeling of uncertainty and fear of regret about your abortion even while knowing its for the best in every single way, you might be suffering from catholic/christian guilt. i am someone who is not even religious anymore and i still struggled with this so deeply. it didn’t come to my awareness until AFTER everything and my mind was so much clearer. i had no regrets & was happy with my decision after but the before was really hard & tough, it almost felt like i didn’t want to go through with it. it was definitely just catholic guilt, it is so hard to outgrow but the good news is.. its not real & those feelings are lying to you.

i hope this helps someone!

I (21m) stopped being Catholic about half a year ago, I just want to date casually and have flings and hookups and just have fun. But I can't. I feel guilt and shame for finding these girls attractive and wanting to be with them. If there's even a chance things could get sexual or advance into romance, I freeze, feel guilt, get anxious, get awkward, you name it. I've had girls hit on me (I can never hit on girls because I'm just so damned uncomfortable because of the previously mentioned guilt) and I just freeze. I feel so uncomfortable around sexual topics and I hate myself for it. I'm going to reach an age where it's weird that I've never had sex and it's causing me so much distress.

I want to go to a bar with a wingman and find someone, or go on tinder or bumble, or even go to a party and chat people up, but I just can't get comfortable with it. I go to one of the biggest party and hookup schools in my country and I'm a virgin who's wasting it. What the fuck can I do?

Hello, everytime I practice any other stuff I have this guilt that God (catholic) would punish me. I've been some kind of rebel all my life and this guilt has been there since a lot of time, the only time I felt I was doing the right thing was when I read the "New Testament for kids" and that was only once. Now every time I practice stuff I have to deal with this catholic side of me that's always in the search of that God, I have fond respect for people beliefs but besides that time of reading I have never felt that was the path for me, I see very few people actually practice what it preaches and this dogmatic un-questioning stuff is really not for me. I would love to hear if any of you guys ever have dealt with this 'Cristian/Catholic Guilt' and how you dealt with it. Thank you a lot, love you all.
PS: I'm not sure this is the right Flare.

Growing up Catholic, I (23F) always assumed I’d be a stay at home mom and have kids, like my own mom did. However since graduating college and beginning my first full time job, and also since meeting my boyfriend last February, who I love with every ounce of my heart, I have begun to think differently. Had I not dated him, I would have most likely married and had children, but since he does not want them, it has opened my eyes to new realizations and desires for a future as a childfree adult. It brings us the independence, both physical and financial, to travel around the world and also allows me to pursue my main passion of creative writing, without the constant interruptions of parenthood. They’re a lot of work, and I remember what I was younger, that I was slightly annoyed about all the work that goes into child rearing (once again, still under the assumption that being a mom was my only option) because I like being a bit lazy with my routine (such as sleeping in on a Saturday, which I expect most adults enjoy). I had always gone with the assumption of “eh, I’ll figure it out”, when realizing that my careers and hobby interests did not fully align with parenthood, but without the eureka moment that, even as a women, having kids was not the only option. And while I absolutely love the idea of a childfree lifestyle, I still have trouble fully accepting it without the little “what if’s” in the back of my head. I know I’m good with kids, and I like being around them just not 24/7. How would I come to terms with this decision and feel happy about it, and not with an attachment of guilt brought on by my moms expectations?

It's the guilt Catholics in particular feel, probably because Catholicism is built around guilt primarily, and so we guilt more often due to the looming thought of someone watching and loathing us, being casted as a sinner.

Do any of you feel or have felt this? Former Catholics/Christians, do you still feel this from time to time?

I'm struggling really hard. Idk if I'm atheist or not, but I need help outside of what I'm doing for therapy. Catholic guilt has lead me to have destructive thought patterns (check out post history if you want more detail on that) and lead me to just be socially, romantically, and sexually behind. I need to deconstruct so badly. Please help.

EDIT TO EXPLAIN WHAT I MEAN: Mainly I'm just unable to date or be sexual, not because of disinterest, but because it makes me feel like a bad person. I'm a 21 year old virgin and I just can't do online dating, or go to a bar or club or chat girls up, because it brings out a deep shame. I also can't go to parties for the same reason.

My thought patterns are based on the whole "we all deserve to die and be tortured" teachings. Basically I feel like if anything bad happens, I deserve it because I'm a bad person and I deserve to die, and if I deserve to die, shouldn't I kill myself? It's a vicious cycle.

I want to be able to casually date without thinking about marriage right off the bat. I want to have a fling or something idk.

I need help. I'd type more but I'm starting to trigger myself

Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 7-22-21

Bill rambles about the Finals, catholic guilt, and Boston comedy.

https://omny.fm/shows/monday-morning-podcast/thursday-afternoon-monday-morning-podcast-7-21-22

TL;DR - My dad never gave me a patch because I never beat Mario by myself and has felt bad about it for 33 years. Pic of patch at the bottom.

I'm visiting home for the first time since the pandemic. A few things are different here. One of them is that I now know and understand as an adult approaching 40 that I have ADHD. I didn't get diagnosed properly, though, so my parents and I are talking a lot about it.

One of the issues I face that's really bothersome is Executive Dysfunction. The best way I can describe it is if I haven't seen a process step by step I get overwhelmed and freeze and can't do the job. From simple things like loading a new dishwasher to changing a serpentine belt in a car. Or playing some video games (parts or in whole - guides and YouTube walk throughs are my life saver).

Now for the Nintendo part.

In 1988 when I was a kid my dad bought an official Nintendo Power patch that said, "I Saved The Princess." It has Mario on it. Not a great patch but I'd apparently really wanted it, except I hadn't beaten the game. He told me I needed to beat it before he'd give it to me.

Challenge accepted, apparently!

I got all the way to the very end and froze up on the last jump (I assume this jump was the castle jump but I have no memory of the event so I'm repeating my dad's story here). I made my dad do the last jump. He never gave me the patch because I didn't finish the game myself and he was trying to teach me a lesson. He expected I'd go back and do it but I never did.

He kept that patch for 33 years and agonized about how he'd never given it to me. How he'd gotten mad at me and he was a bad dad. But he never understood why I froze up until I explained Executive Dysfunction to him (and maybe that was it, or maybe I was scared for some other reason).

He gave me the patch and nearly cried telling me about his guilt. And I don't even remember any of this. I guess I have to find something to put it on.

Nintendo Patch 1988 The patch

I officially declare my Catholicism to be dead. I realize now it is a system of making people feel guilty and keeping them that way. A girl today told me I say sorry a lot and she asked me if I was raised Catholic to which I said yes. She said she was as well and the Catholic church has a monopoly on it. This sort of thing has happened a couple times so I say fuck it. I'm out.