Religious trauma (kinda?) (Has to do with me being gay)

I don't know why I'm writing this but I just need to vent. I'm a 17 yo girl who was about to die internally a couple of months ago. So it goes as follows: I was born into a very religious family (I am an Ortodox Christian) and happen to be gay. I didn't really care about it until 6 months ago or something when I started to fear hell. With the pandemic I had to stay home and I haven't attended school since mid March. I had a lot of time to think about it and my fear quickly turned into my greatest nightmare. Whatever I did I couldn't stop reading about the sin of homosexuality in Christianity. Almost everyone condemned me to eternal fire. This religion tends to feel like a continuous struggle with fasting, prayer, sin and repentance. I read so much that at some point no hour would pass that I didn't think about the eternal punishment. Horrendous images of the hell would go through my mind and I started to ideate death. No rest, no peace for me almost all day and even night. I would cry my heart out almost every day and experience severe hatred despair wrath depression and terror and I would sob so much that my chest would literally hurt from pressure. Please believe me that I am not embellishing anything in my story. Of course I wanted to die in the near future. I would go to sleep crying and I would wake up tired and anguished. Someday I decided to see the priest at my church to repent. He told me that all practicing homosexuals are going to hell and that I HAVE TO marry a man and have children which I cannot explain how much damaged my psyche. I was literally trembling from anger. Finally, with someone's bit of help I managed to understand that I'm not going to hell only for that and good people are not going there, which was one of the biggest reliefs of my life. I have never been so badly psychologically affected. Now even hearing the word "church" makes my palms sweat and I can't stand Christianity anymore. I can't stand the church the priests anything! Hearing about the church makes my heart race and fear surrounds me, seeing a church or a priest only reminds me of those times and I almost get a panic attack. I am not fully recovered because sometimes I start to cry uncontrollably when thinking about whatt I went through a couple of months ago (around May).
I know that maybe this story is pointless but I would like to receive a piece of advice. Do you think I should see a counselor?
*Sorry about my English grammar, I'm not a native*
Thanks in advance.

Hello, and welcome to the forums! As you see, I'm one of the moderators here.

This is far from being a pointless post. Clearly, it's something that distresses you.

Before I say anything else, you'll notice that this post has been moved to the OCD forum. Which isn't to say that you have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I don't mean to put ideas in your head, as far as a diagnosis or anything. It's just that I'm OCD, and so I see things through that lens. Most of the folks with OCD that come into PF are obsessed with their sexuality. Not in the same way you're troubled- just that's the overwhelming theme of the OCD forum. But.. if you dig enough, you'll find some topics in here from people who have religious fears. In the wider world outside Psych Forums, religious fears are I think rather common for folks who fall into an OCD anxiety loop. So I placed the post here, because it's a religious fear that you've been apparently obsessing over. Which isn't to say you have OCD- merely that to my eyes you exhibit some qualities of that. And as a moderator, it's my function to try and put posts where I think they'll fit the best, or be seen the most, or get the most good responses. OCD seems as good as anywhere else, and better than the other anxiety forums. And we don't have a religion forum. And this is a fear. So here it is.

People with OCD will frequently be going along just fine, until they think about something- often a rather innocuous thought- and then it will snowball, as it did with you, until it becomes an obsessive fear. It's my understanding fears about religion aren't uncommon with OCD style anxiety- fears of going to Hell, more often than not I think. I know I've done the same thing, especially as a child- fears of Hell, or of committing the 'unforgivable sin', that kind of thing.

First let me address the... religious aspect of it. Not supposed to get preachy in PF, it's against the forum rules to excessively promote a religion or belief system, but we're two people brought up under the same overarching religion so it's not proselytizing- it's the center of your fear.

The conundrum you find yourself in, I sympathise with. I'm bisexual, and I'm also (supposed to be) Christian- and traditionally, same-sex attractions and relationships are considered sinful. I... don't like that, but that's just the way it is. I vacillate between believing that it IS sinful, and ignoring the question entirely. Girls are a little luckier than guys are- I have a Y chromosome, assigned male at birth (don't feel very male often, but that's off topic- my biology is male). The sexologist that I find myself most agreeing with- his name escapes me at the moment, but he was Australian- did some very exhaustive studies on male/female sexuality and came to the conclusion that a male's sexuality is fixed- firmly. A female's..... is more fluid. BUT- and a big 'but'- there has to be a lot of motivation, to change. So either way it's not easy to just stop being straight, gay, lesbian, or bi. We tend to be what we is, and change is either very hard or impossible. Something I try to get across to folks here in OCD that have unreasonable fears they're gay- when they're just not, to any outside observer (and hardly set off my own Gaydar).

So it's hard to change... but... we were brought up it's a sin... what to do? This is what I do. Okay- maybe it's a sin. If it's something I can't change about myself- and it is- my only option would be to not do that behavior, and that will have to do. I can't help what turns me on, I can only abstain. If I'm that worried about it.

Or... what I do.. is simply not worry about it. We are all sinful creatures. No one is without stain. And, from the theology you and I were raised in, we're saved by faith, and only the Grace of God is going to get us into Heaven. There are some that say sin is sin and it's all the same in God's eyes- but we ALL sin. That is the Human condition. I argue... and I pull a lot from CS Lewis in this... that say what you will, some sins are worse than others. I know in the epistles, Paul (or Peter?) argues that sexual sins are extra bad, and he lays out his argument. I... don't want to dispute the infallibility of God's Word, but I still think I do far worse things on a daily basis, than the fact I like the same sex. Things done against other people. Hateful thoughts and attitudes. Things that poison the heart- every day I have the opportunity to become a more heavenly creature- or a more hellish one. I usually stumble into the latter- but I think my sexuality is very inconsequential to that. I simply can't help being Bi. It's an untenable situation, to think I'll go to Hell based solely on an attraction- especially if I should manage to not act on it. I'm sorry, the Bible lists it as a sin, and the list I seen also mentions things like gossip, slandering, etc. A whole list- homosexuality is only one thing out of a list of things most people are guilty of on a regular basis. Which means there are other fish to fry. I simply am not going to obsess over only one part of my sinful nature, and one at that, that harms no one else.

Well, there's my argument that if you go to Hell, I'm pretty sure that there's plenty of opportunity for you to do so, that have little to do with who you choose to sleep with. Your bad temper (if you have one), the way you treated someone bad, that person you could have helped, but didn't- things like that, are what make me question my own salvation. Not a sexual attraction.

There's my reassurance... and that's all the reassurance I'll give you, sweetie. IF.. this is an OCD style fear pattern you've got going- where we get stuck in this loop of a horrible fear of something we think is worse than death- and that's a very OCD thing to do- we will seek reassurance that it's just not so, or not that bad. I've given you that. The trouble with that is, that we get addicted to reassurance. And need it like a drug. When eventually, a person just has to decide they're not that bad thing, or that bad thing they fear will happen, won't in fact happen to them. From a theological perspective- man I ain't God, I can't say. But from a practical, secular perspective- if you don't let that fear go, it'll drive you mad. You'll see story after story in this forum (OCD) of people just beside themselves with fear- ironically, often fear they're gay/lesbian when they're not- and they can't let it go, and it just eats at them.

I can only reassure you so much, that there's worse behavior to worry about with God, than the fact you like other girls. You're going to one day, have to make the decision for yourself on how to deal with faith and sexuality, and come to some kind of mental compromise. Folks with OCD find that hard- we don't want to let go of our fears. We're in a way, control freaks of the highest order, because we try to control our very thoughts.

I think... a therapist would do you a world of good. A secular one, for now! Not someone who would necessarily tell you religion is all just a bunch of made up crap, but someone who is going to let the religious side take care of itself, and just concentrate on your mental state of well-being. That might be able to tell you if this is, what it feels like to me- a... an example of OCD style behavior. You get a thought, then you suddenly get scared at the possibility- which is usually just a 'what if'- in this case, 'what if I really go to Hell because I'm a Lesbian?' and then it snowballs into something you can't stop thinking about, and want to die- if I had a dime for every person with OCD in this forum, that simply would rather die than be what they fear... and I'm just as guilty of that, by the way. so it snowballs, you feel as if death is preferable- and if you stop to think about it, that's the fear talking- wouldn't death just hurry you on to that Hell that you fear? If this were a rational fear, and less obsessive, than death would be the last thing on your mind, wouldn't it? Try to hold off that for a while! That right there is one big reason I moved your post- folks with OCD will wish for death when if you stop and think about it, it makes no sense at all. OCD is a very irrational disorder. Most the OCD crap I do makes no sense at all- and I know it!- but I can't help myself. 'Cause, you know, 'disorder'.

I think a secular therapist- one that specialises in anxiety, especially- even though I have no hard evidence this is OCD, but still- especially a therapist that has experience with OCD, would be the best thing you can do for yourself. They will be able to give you tools to deal with your fear. They can also.. I don't know of any sure-fire drugs that stop anxiety in its tracks, not if it's OCD, anyway- but that can at least take the edge off, until you have the mental tools to bring yourself down to a calmer state of being.

I didn't mean to write this much, and I didn't mean to get all theological- but this is one of those things where it's just so complicated, you know? I could have said oh well what your priest said is all bullcrap- but we were not raised atheists. Otherwise, you wouldn't have this fear. With OCD, I find I will magnify things that are based in some grain of truth, or accepted wisdom. And then blow it up all out of proportion.

I really think that.. if you remain a religious person, you'll need to see that therapist and get over some of this anxiety so that you can think more clearly. For my own sexuality it's been both harder, and easier. I'm Bi so I just picked what I thought would make me the most satisfied with myself (but at the same time, being Bi means I always want both- so I'm never completely happy in any choice I could make). If you have no attractions for men at all, the priest can say go marry a man and have kids all he wants, but he's not he one living in your head, miserable, stuck in a relationship that has no joy in it. But you can't either work out your own salvation, as it says in the Bible- OR decide to chuck it all out the window and become an unbeliever, without getting this overpowering anxiety dealt with. I've myself never been formally diagnosed with an anxiety disorder- I'm old enough and lived them enough to have a good idea of what I have, however- but I sure wish when I was a teenager, I'd gotten some therapy. Please, if you can, go see a therapist. It can't hurt and will hopefully do a lot of good. You're going to have to get yourself past this crushing anxiety before you can think rationally about who and what you are, and how that fits in with what you were raised to believe.