DAN vs HELL

Hey, Guys!

Since everybody is calling me Dan (I fear this joke will never end) I’m just going to embrace it. Now that’s out of the way, onto the story that I wanted to share with you guys.

I was raised Catholic. We went to church and my siblings and I went to Sunday School. Later on, we were enrolled in private schools that had a focus on Christian beliefs and doctrines. I made my first communion when I was a child, chose my saint and did all the things a good Catholic should do...Then we moved. My parents were never really religious and whilst we did go to Mass on Sundays and Christmas and Easter, it was never really a big deal in the house. When we moved it became even less of a focus. We no longer went to Mass at all and thoughts of faith just kind of faded into the background. Between leaving Christian schools and moving, I became a teenager.

 I also lost my faith. I wasn't ever a real believer, but I did have some convictions. I knew God was real and Jesus might be and that I could talk to God about things. I knew what was right and what was wrong. What I began to question was who and what defined wrong from right? Did people make up these rules? Do these rules differ from God's? If people have never spoken to God, how do they know what he wants? And what does it matter? I began to doubt the 10 Commandments and societies ideals of morality. I was young and pigheaded. I needed to go out and find out things for myself. I didn't think that anything really mattered, except what I wanted. If I was having a good time, what did anything else matter? That was the entire point of life, escape despair for as long as you can, then you drown in it. 

I met a boy and became friends with him. He was on the outside of the social network, liked a lot of the same music as me and had a similar sense of humour. We began hanging out every day during out down time, as I was in the advanced classes and he wasn't, Bad behaviour seemed to bloom between the two of us. Testing the limits of the teacher's patients, taking things from the classrooms, disrupting and mouthing back became the outlines of out days, then once we met up with one another we'd share the hijinx that we'd gotten up to. During this time, he wasn't my only friend. I was friends with another boy, who I'm actually still friends with today. He was in my classes and we joked and fucked around all the time, still getting top marks. I think he was the only real reason I continued going to school. I mean, I was afraid of my parents, yeah, that was a huge factor, but he made school interesting. Sometimes the three of us would spend afternoons in detention playing cards with the teacher who was supposed to be watching us or graffitiing the urinals in the school bathrooms. Kid shit, nothing too serious...Until the school decided that it wanted to try a "book fair".

All of us came from poorer families. We didn't have extra money to throw around and we looked on jealously as the librarian and other students set up the books they'd be selling. I wanted a few of the books so bad. I'd read them in the school library before and I'd loved them. They broadened my mind and brought me some comfort that I was desperately seeking. I knew that if I asked my parents for money, I'd be told no. So I talked to my mate about it and together, he and I came up with a plan to steal the books that we wanted. Whilst one of us did the stealing, the other would distract the adults with questions. We'd wait for the other to slip out the other door and give the thumbs up signal to let the other know that it was okay. We took turns doing this for several days until we had everything that we wanted. We were on top of the world. We were smug. We'd taken 20 books from the sale and 40 or so from the library. We figured we deserved them more than the kids that bullied us and we were saying fuck you to the teachers who didn't stand up for us.  It was funny.

Then it hit me. I was going to burn in a lake of fire. There was no escaping this. Panic began to set in. The guilt snuck up and was choking me as I laid awake one night. 'Why did I do this?' "What made me think this was a good idea?' 'I'M GOING TO BURN IN HELL BECAUSE I WANTED TO BE COOL!' Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night. I needed to hide the evidence firstly, then deal with God later. It seemed more important to not get caught during this lifetime, then to tell God I was sorry. Dunno, why, just was.
In the dead of night whilst everyone in the house was dead asleep, I legged it to a bush laden area with my rucksack filled with the stolen books. I tossed them into the brushes and underneath them. No one will know that it was me who did it. I ran home and laid down in the darkness feeling that I'd done a good job. Then I remembered that the school's name was stamped in the library books...They'd be able to trace them back to the school and then it was only a matter of time before me.
By the time I'd gotten home it had started to rain. I knew that I'd have to go back out, collect the books and hide them somewhere else. Get rid of them somewhere else. 'Jesus Christ, the hiding the evidence is even harder than the actual theft.' I thought in vain as I collected the books up.  I wasn't sure if I'd gotten them all, but I didn't figure one or two books would matter, especially out in the rain. 

I could hide them in the school and have other students find them and turn them in. That way they'd think they were just misplaced somewhere in the school. I mentally patted myself on the back for that ingenious idea. 'Why didn't I think of that earlier?' I had to sneak the books back in small amounts so I wouldn't raise suspicion. And as for the books I'd stolen from the sale, I could donate them to the local library. I didn't deserve them.

I didn't tell my partner in crime about my guilt or fear. He was completely in the dark as I began to hide the books around the school, some I even slipped back into the library. When other students brought to her attention that the book wasn't missing, just misplaced she the librarian thought she was starting to lose her mind. I smirked at that, remembering what a bitch she'd been toward me. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have done that to the elderly woman... Anyway, back to my partner. I had him over to my house one evening after I started my return work. I said something that upset him, I don't remember what it was, but he hit me. First in the chest then across the face. I was blinded by rage. I put him in a headlock and choked him. How dare he raise a hand to ME. I told my other mate about what happened and she told me that he was a piece of shit and had been spreading rumours about me behind my back.  

I had a burning desire to get even with him. I'd helped him with his assignments, shared my things with him and this is how he treated me because he was jealous of my writing popularity on MySpace? The next day he told me that he was moving and wouldn't be going to school with me anymore. He said he couldn't tell me last night because we'd gotten in that fight. He hugged me and told me that he was going to miss me and all the good times we had. A lightbulb went off inside my head. I could pin it all on him. He'd get in trouble and I would get off. After all, I'd been the smart one and wore gloves and told no one, while be bragged that he got away with stealing from the school. Peasants. I smiled back and told him that I would miss him too and I would never forget the good times. He left that afternoon without doing a full clean out of his locker. I knew the combo, so I excused myself from class, saying I had to go to the toilet and dumped a lot of the stolen books into his locker. I knew a teacher would be cleaning out the locker so another student could use it.
Rather than wait for the books to be discovered, I went to see the head. I told her that I had some information that she needed to know. She sat me down and asked me what I knew. And I told her. Told her how he stole from the book sale, from the library and that some of the things he'd left in his locker. When she asked me how I knew it, I told her that I knew about it but I was afraid of grassing. She told me that I'd done the right thing about telling her. She and the librarian opened his locker and found 6 stolen books in there as well as some other shit he'd stolen. I knew those 6 books were actually my sin, not his, but justice had been done. I'd returned all the stolen things. God would be pleased with my efforts. (I later found out that she called his new head and he was expelled for theft of their property later. This just helped to blacklist him a bit.)
The librarian and the head praised me for recovering some of the other books he'd stolen. I remained silent on my actual part in the plan. I didn't want to be expelled. I wanted to go to Oxford, not some shithole in Bangladesh. Then there was the problem with God. I wasn't sure if he'd fully forgiven me, as I hadn't admitted my part. Sure, I'd returned everything and donated things, but would that be enough?
I started to pray every night, telling God I was sorry for what I'd done and that I needed his forgiveness. First, it was just enough to say sorry, then I needed to do an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be. Then I'd tell him once again I was sorry and that I'd never do that again. This went on for 4 months and then slowly faded away. The fear lessened and soon, I wasn't feeling to need to pray every single night. I felt that God knew how I felt and had forgiven me for what had happened. He understood the situation and wasn't angry....

The fear faded for a few years until I was 16 and just out of the blue I began to fear once again that I was going to go to Hell. I hadn't done anything wrong except like a girl-And back then, I believed that was bad. That it was a challenge and that I was failing it. Old school lessons and taunts from my classmates of "lezzer-munter" ran through me, heightening my paranoia. Memories of all my past, faults, lies and short comings seemed to be magnified. I knew I had to talk to God about this. I prayed every night for an hour, doing prayers, telling him I was sorry and begging for forgiveness. Soon these hour prayer sessions turned into two hours. I began to tell God that I was sorry for every single thing I did. Take a piece of bread without permission, tell God sorry. Don't put the seat down after finishing, ask God not to send me to Hell. 

It started to take over my life. I began looking at everything as though it was pointless unless it was for God. And if I didn't do something or do it the right way, I would end up in Hell for eternity. It was during this period in my life when I wasn't suicidal. I began to fear death. I'd even started thanking God for letting me wake up in the morning and for sparing me another Earthly day. My grades fell. My friendships slipped. I was turning the evenings into religious chanting ceremonies. I'd pray along with Latin songs and would do the Rosary at least once a week. This went on for almost a year. Mania made it just as bad as depression. Depression had me terrified of death, that I would accidentally kill myself when I was feeling depressed and end up in hell. Mania made me paranoid that Satan's minions were out to get me and would try and drag me down to Hell.
Then it all started to fade away for a little while. I get by okay now with not obsessively praying or begging God to forgive me or asking him not to send me to Hell. Sometimes the fear sneaks up on me when I least expect it. I can't watch things on the 7 Deadly Sins or things on the Book of Revelations-it sends me into panic. One time I watched something on the 7 Deadly Sins and was re-convinced that I was going to Hell and that I needed to repent. I worked myself up so much I was physically ill.
And I'm left to wonder, is this a byproduct of my bipolar disorder, something else, my Catholic upbringing or a combination of all those factors? I think I'll ask Melfi about what she things about all this and share it with you guys on my next Mental Health Mondays Blog.  I'd asked one of my previous shrinks, but she didn't really have any answers. She kind of just glassy-eyed stared at me until the timer dinged off and it was time for me to leave. I never asked her about it again. After her reaction and lack of answers, I was scared she'd think I'd gone completely mental and would lock me up in the nut hut. 

Has anyone else ever had experiences like this? If so, what happened? How did you break the cycle? Do you know someone who struggles with this? I'm curious by nature and not knowing is driving me mental.