Can/should I leave?
So I’ve been a Christian my whole life, grew up in church, parents are elders at my local church, the whole nine yards. We were even missionaries for two years in northern India. The thing is the more I am exposed to other belief systems the more I start questioning my own beliefs. I have never seriously considered leaving (unless you count one time when I was twelve but my parents quickly shut that down), but recently I’ve been wanting to connect with my Celtic roots, Irish and Scottish, and I feel really drawn to how the Celtic pagans view the land and spirituality as a whole, as well as Brigid in particular. I have been incredibly traumatized by the church as an autistic person, a woman, a queer person, and a human being in general. Our time in the missions field was so traumatizing at such a young age (6-8) that my subconscious has blocked off most memories of that time. I left the church my parents went to when I was 17 to find a different church where I thought I was seen and loved but they heavily favored my (now ex) best friend because of a host of reasons and the fact that she was the pastors daughter, and they just used me for labor in exchange for a scrap of love. I feel like I’m at war with myself- one side saying I can’t leave because of a couple spiritual experiences I’ve had with demons along with a lifetime of pressure to be a devout Christian, and the other side saying that we can’t stand being this any longer, i can’t stand the threat of hell for who I love, how I identify, or even how my nervous system works (yes I’ve been told you can pray autism away…). There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance happening right now. If anyone has advice on how to go about this I’d really appreciate it.