[MajestyJo]

I was raised in the Gospel Halls. Everything was "thou shall not!" and I went to church three times on Sunday and on Wednesday was prayer meeting. I sang as soon as I could talk. I taught Sunday School when I was sixteen. This didn't stop me from becoming an alcoholic or a prescription drug addict. In fact, I was put on Valium at sixteen, because I couldn't deal with life.

I walked in fear with the feeling that the wrath of God was going to strike me down at any moment and I had a lot of resentment, anger, and feelings of rejection and abandonment concerning God, the church and my family.

There was no acceptance of who I was and I felt that I had to mould myself into a person that I didn't feel that I was or couldn't identify with.

I was told that Jesus loved me, and my attitude was, well if you tell me so I will believe, yet I didn't have faith that God, Jesus, or whoever, had any time or love for me, because I didn't think, feel, act, etc. the way they said a good little Christian girl should.

Religion was a box that I wanted to break free of and felt like I was able to do that using drugs, alcohol, relationships, work and food. because they allowed me to suppress the feelings, shut down and shut off the all the words that made me feel unloved, shame, guilt, etc.