I do hope this is the right place to post this kind of topic, as this is really my first time coming for help with this issue I'm trying to come to terms with.

I guess it's best to start at the beginning. I was born and raised as a Mormon. So was my father, and his father. The Christian faith is pretty ingrained into my head since birth. At a young age, I never really questioned things around me.. never doubted what faith provided. But I was young, innocent, and very naive. As I started to grow older, and began to go through that phase of questioning everything, religion wasn't spared from being one of those targets. What I used to blindly believe and accept as just the truth, and not to question what doesn't make sense, where now becoming harder to ignore. I will admit... I've never once can honestly say I've felt the "spirit" of god, whatever that may or may not feel like. When I was growing up... I guess I just forced myself to believe that something like that would eventually come in time. It never did...

So... I continue to question my faith. Things that don't make sense to me. At a young age too, I was asking the roughest and hardest of questions pertaining to faith. Like why do innocents suffer in natural disasters? Why doesn't god help us with simple, MUCH needed knowledge about disease, cancer... so many dark and powerful, incurable diseases which cause no end to suffering? Why does it feel like we live on a very broken, venerable planet that seems like more of a threat to us that an actual home built by a loving god and father? And there were more questions that came still, the largest one that set me onto my own path towards spirituality, was the fact that I'm bisexual. I used to be very ashamed of that... felt the guilt, and the persecution and belittling from those that didn't understand that part of me. Through the years I've come to accept and love that part of myself, and have shed all the shame and some of the fears attached to who I am. But because of that separation between me and what I thought I knew what god was... I come to the... well.. honestly.. reality shattering truth that I'd have to find god, or some semblance of god, on my own. At such a young age, barely 12, it felt like such a daunting, overwhelming task... especially since I got absolutely no support from any of my family, and I was pretty much friendless growing up.

My first step was coming to love myself, and separating myself from what I was trained to believe what god was. What was once for a long time organized religion was quickly turned into a spiritual journey. That was a rough pill to swallow, since I did grow into such a sheltered and boxed in environment. But that journey has been rewarding so far. I've been asking lots of questions, had many ups and downs... but I really never lost hope that I'd eventually find god, in some way, in some form that would give me inner peace and contentment.

But... lately, within the past 3 or 4 years of my life (I'm 30 btw) Certain unanswered questions have been burning hotter in my heart, and becoing harder and harder to ignore. The harder ones that I was forced to set aside while I tried to find god on my own terms. The big ones that hurt to think about too long. The ones that drove me to dark places of doubt, anger, confusion, resentment towards god, and a fear of him truly not existing... And I guess now is a good a time as any to make it clear that.. yes... I do want god to exist. That's... what's given me the most comfort, the most peace and hope... the meaning to my life.. and strength in facing my greatest fear, my own death. I do fear death. I haven't come to terms with that. In truth.. and a sadly young age, I came to terms with my own mortality, while attending my own church no less. I wasn't more than 6 or 7 at the time, but I remember the experience as vividly as it were yesterday. Somehow, my train of thought had drifted towards the topic of death, and it suddenly hit me how inevitable it was. How I, nor ANYone could ever escape it. Whether I was ready for it or not, whether I had been what I wanted to be, or gotten out of life or not... death was going to take me away, and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it.

That weight.. the solidity of that truth, coupled with the fact that I still didn't know if I truly believed in god yet, as I have yet to "feel" him yet.. feel some sort of confirmation. I cried that day in church. Silently, to myself, and didn't tell my dad about it till many years later.. but I cried hard. That truth hit me so deeply, and how it affected me, how Ifelt in that moment will never leave me. Helpless, powerless, afraid... terrified of the unknown... even more terrified of the alternative.. the anthisis (in my mind at least) of having a belief in god... and that's the nothing that might await death. Non existence... an absolute and final end to everything I could ever hope to experience. That... nothingness... that void of being able to exist, absolutely terrifies me... It's a fear I've never been able to cope with, as hard as I've tried... And I've been trying much harder to the past several years... as the last few tendrils of my hope for ever find god has been slowly slipping from my grasp. I've been slowly approaching this wall for several years now... I've seen it's shadow darkly looming ever closer, and no matter how much I tried to ignore it, that fear of never finding god, the journey... the one I've been desperately longing to find something in... has all this time been doomed to be fruitless from the very start.

This post is already a lot longer and more personal than I was anticipating, so I'll try to skip a bit of my story, and get to the present. As of the last few months... I've been fighting harder than I ever have before in my entire life to find god. I was desperate, not wanting to let god of what I was raised to believe, in SOME way or another... would give me the hope.. fill in the emptiness... help me cope with the darkness.. something more powerful than myself... something that had loved me more than I ever have myself, or ever had been... I don't know... just something.. (This is getting oddly personal again, sorry...) Well... things came to a frighteningly quick head within.. the last few weeks or so, and ultimately... today. I've been slowly coming to the harsh realization that... I can't rely on faith. I can't. What used to be a small leap of faith at some point in my life, is now a chasm before me, I can't see the other end. And below me, is a darkness that goes on forever. I stand at the edge of this sheer cliff. I can't turn back. There's no turning back on the journey of life. I have only two options... take that leap of faith, and hope.. have faith... some kind of hope... that god, some god, somehow, will catch me, and carry me through the darkness and the abyss... have faith that.. I won't fall. that I won't... fall into this abyss and be lost forever... and right now, that option frightens me too much. I've lost so much faith in god. What litter faith I... may or may not ever really had in the first place.

So, that leaves me with one real other option. The one I have no choice but to choose... as I'm still so terrified of the alternative, and that accepting that there just is no god. There never was. And... damn.... it.. hurts to have to finally say that... to finally admit that, for the first time in my life, first in my head, then to my heart.. now, for the first time in my life, to anyone else, as soon as I post this. All of this.. truly came to a frightful head today... and the weight is still damned heavy on my shoulders. I don't... want to bear this alone. I'm frightened. If I dwell on this loss, I grow dark inside, depressed, cheated, robbed.. lost, abandoned and very confused... and very alone... I don't want to go through this alone... hell... I don't even want to go through this in the first place to be brutally honest. I... wanted to believe in god. I really did. I still do... but I have to come to terms with the truth. A truth that... finally answers... pretty much all those questions I've been clinging so hard to all my life.. the unanswered ones...

I've come to... some sort of closure, but it's so bitter tasting. I.. I am at the point where I see no other alternative, unless... unless god wants to take it upon himself, and prove himself to me in the way he only knows will work for my breaking, troubled, questioning heart. One that I won't doubt and question... god.. if he/she/it does exist in any way... and really does want my love... then I leave it up to him to guide me back under his protective.. one comforting love. Until then... I.. I guess I have to come to terms with this.. new change of perspective. That's... why I'm here. I've slowly have been becoming an atheist all my life.. and I suppose today.. is the day I try and fully accept it...

Is there anybody out there... that has gone through what I have? Has anybody else have to deal with this kind of fear, pain... loss, loneliness.. desperation.. and.. feeling.. robbed, and cheated out of something I never really even had a chance to fully appreciate or cherish. Nor.. will I ever have the chance to. How do I deal with this. How do I cope? Where do I go from here. The road looks so dark and unknown to me right now.. and I'm honestly reaching out for help right now.

Thanks in advanced to anyone who does reach out. This is the very first place I decided to turn to... and I'm hoping I did make the right choice...