Advice on taking the plunge
I would love some insight and advice. I am very early on in my journey in the grand scheme, but terribly scared.
I grew up in a hippie Unitarian household, my extended family is mostly Catholic. I've always considered myself spiritual, but an experience when I was young where an Evangelical family member harmed me and proclaimed I was sent by the devil drove me as far from any church, as I assumed they'd view me the same. I am FTM trans and bisexual, married to a man, and raising a kid. It's been a hard time getting to a decent place in life, surviving a home rife with addiction and DV that ended in suicide, surviving a partner that attempted my life, now struggling with the economy and world as it is, etc. A nagging voice in my head, still to this day over two decades later, says I truly am damned.
I got truly interested in Catholicism in part because I have a appreciation of it's history and the saints, but over the years that grew into a genuine yearning. So here I am now. I want to find comfort and embrace God, but it's difficult to feel like He wants me after all of this. I felt so at peace and relieved to tears when I attended my first mass and visited a shrine, but I am so terribly scared that it will not "click" for me or that I will unwelcomed if I become anything more than a stranger in the back pew.