Do you ever just want to kick yourself, really hard, preferrably down a flight of stairs? (No suicidal tendencies here, just frustration with myself!) I am such a people pleaser, have been all my life (no doubt in part due to being a very faithful JW for 24 years of my 25 years of life) and it seems to get me into so much crap. A bit of background, then on with the story: my husband and I left in September (just stopped going to meetings) and have been completely inactive since. I've been reading a lot about religions of the world, as well as Franz's books, books on archeaology, etc., trying to figure out what I can truly put my faith in. My general conclusion is this: there may be a God, but there's no way of proving it; archeaology doesn't really support a lot of the claims the Bible makes; evolution seems like a pretty possible scenario; and overall, as much as I want to believe in God, there's no evidence for it and especially there's no evidence that the Bible is from God - pretty much the opposite. In 500 or 1000 years people may very well look back at Jesus the same way we view the Greeks and Romans with the gods Zeus and Neptune - a totally foolish belief.
Now, this is almost embarassing it so SO stupid, but here's what I did. I've been off and on some of my depression/anti-anxiety meds lately (DR thought I was ready to go off two of my meds and I was in agreement, went off them slowly, just about flipped out, saw my DR and am back on them) and have been very emotional. On top of that, my family (parents, etc) aren't really talking to me due to my leaving. My job is great, very friendly and caring people. My boss is especially different than your average boss: she really views us as a family. She demands a lot, and I give a lot to gain her approval. Well the other day I was feeling really lost and alone and started to write her this e-mail (btw, she's also a very devout Christian who knows that I'm an ex-JW) asking her about why she felt she could have faith in God. I changed my mind half-way through, but we have an old ERA system terminal for our internal e-mail and I couldn't delete the message. I ended up finishing it and sending it. She called me up to her office later on and preached to me for an hour. She said she believes because she's always believed, because she knows there's a God. Not very helpful in my search, I'm afraid. She said she wants to pray with my regularly, and said a prayer with me that day. I don't mind her being interested in my religious beliefs, I think her caring so much is really nice and there's no legal issue because I was the one who brought religion up to begin with. But part of me (a big part!) is very afraid that I've backed myself into a corner, that she's going to expect her preaching to end me up back in a religion so I can be "saved." I can't really tell her "no, I don't want to talk about this anymore" and yet I don't want to compromise my own integrity (did that as JW for too many years!) by just pretending to be interested and believing in what she says.
Any ideas as to how to handle this situation?
Thanks for your help in advance!