Several years back I spent a lot of time volunteering for our local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). I was very involved in their art program and I even made connections that led to the job I have now. I meet some amazing people and found the support I needed as a person with a mental illness.

Since then, I have worked at two nonprofits both in the mental health field.

In my previous position, I was required to drive clients to food pantries – almost all of them were at churches. Some said a prayer before passing out food. One actually made you sit through a sermon before they gave you groceries. I thought it was disgusting that they were taking advantage of very vulnerable people.

You shouldn’t help others in the name of god. You should want to help because you’re a decent human being. 

It’s no surprise that you run into a lot of religious people in “Holy Toledo”. 

I’m thinking of volunteering again and I would love to hear where you volunteer. I need some secular ideas. 

At the top of my list right now is my daughter’s school. It might be nice to meet some of the other parents and I definitely need more reasons to get out of the house. However, I may have to wait a couple months since the last week of school is literally next week.

Okay decent humans, where do you volunteer?

A while back I asked in a post if you can be both spiritual and atheist and I think most agreed that you can, in fact, be both. It led to some interesting comments.

If you can be both, do you think spirituality is an important part of life? A part needed to feel whole?

Working in mental health as well as being a patient I sometimes run across things like this — a pie chart that shows spirituality as an important part of wellbeing.

Do you agree that it’s a dimension of our wellbeing? Is it necessary?

Sometimes I’m annoyed with spirituality’s inclusion right alongside physical, emotional, and financial health. Until my last post about spirituality, I always associated spirituality with religion which gave me some seriously bad vibes whenever anyone brought it up — especially professionals.

I myself have never considered spirituality as important but recently I have been thinking about it differently. Maybe it does play a role in my life. I’m still trying to figure that out.

So what do you think? Is spirituality important even when you’re an atheist?

As many of you know, I have schizoaffective disorder which comes with both mood and psychotic symptoms. I have been on medication for many years and I’m in a good place.

Prior to medication, I had hallucinations that I thought were spirits or ghosts. Once I started taking anti-psychotics, the ghosts went away and I knew they were just symptoms of my mental illness – and better yet, symptoms that could be treated. That came as a relief since I was often frightened by them.

Sometimes friends and family are a little leery of my diagnosis since they, too, have experienced “ghosts”. My “ghosts” came with an explanation but theirs didn’t. It’s pretty obvious that I have a mental illness, but I don’t think that’s true for all of my friends and family. What exactly are they experiencing?

I would never discredit someone’s personal account. Something was obviously real to them. 

I consider ghosts as “unexplained”. I don’t think there are dead people haunting us, but I do think there is something to it and one day science will catch up and figure out what that something is.

I also see aliens as unexplained.

Do you see things as unexplained or do you dismiss them and say they’re not real? I’m really curious to see how you guys feel about this.

When I was younger, Ohio was a swing state and often very influential in elections. We have since turned red. It’s pretty hard to believe that our state once voted for Obama. 

What happened?

I don’t often write about politics because I really don’t want to get into fights with people, but I have something to get off of my chest.

I’m losing hope.

Obviously, I’m not a fan of Republicans. And although I usually vote for Democrats, I’m not a huge fan of that party, either.

With the rise of Bernie and AOC, I thought I would see some real changes made but it feels like their movement has lost momentum. My husband and I donated time and money to their campaigns and felt a tiny bit of hope.

What happened?

My husband and I struggle with everything from student loans to childcare costs. Sometimes it’s hard to accept that this is just how things are and any chances of relief are pretty bleak. 

My husband has a very stressful job and he doesn’t get breaks. There is nothing in Ohio’s laws that requires employers to give their workers breaks. How ridiculous is that? 

Don’t even get me started on my maternity leave.

My husband is very passionate and vocal about politics, often fighting with family and friends on social media.

I’m not as loud, but I still care. I’m just losing hope.

 

Where do you stand? Do you think things will ever change?

I don’t know what to say. I am beyond disgusted but not at all surprised. My daughter will have fewer rights than I did — or even her grandmother did — and that is so incredibly fucked up.

Please check out this article over at FtB’s Death to Squirrels.

For those of you that were once religious, is there any aspect of your faith that you miss?

The Outsider

Growing up, most of my friends went to church. Some of my friends were even the children of pastors. We lived in a pretty conservative area. While my parents considered themselves Christian, we did not go to church (except for an occasional wedding or funeral) and it was not forced upon me.

I was always an outsider. My friends had confirmation and vacation bible camp – things I knew nothing about. All of my friends were people I went to school with but they had a whole nother community in their church.

I have to admit, I may have been a little jealous.

I sometimes went to church services with my friends and I never got it. I didn’t enjoy it and I definitely didn’t understand it. However, I tagged along to a couple of youth group activities and they were actually kind of fun. 

I knew I would never fit in and unfortunately, I felt like I was missing out.

A Question for the Formerly Faithful

Obviously today I want nothing to do with religion. I don’t fit in and I don’t care. For once, I like being an outsider.

For those things I thought I was missing out on – do you miss any aspects of your religion? The community? Some comfort?

It’s kind of funny to me now because I’m still friends on Facebook with many of the people I grew up with and most of them are still religious. I just thought they would all grow out of it.

One of my friends goes to a church with cardio drumming. Now I know I’m definitely missing out!

 

It’s really quite unfortunate that capitalism fuses itself with politics and social issues. Sometimes I don’t know how to fight back other than not give them my business. Money is what matters most to them, right?

That Online Giant

I am often amazed by Amazon and order from there often. You can order just about anything you want and it shows up on your doorstep one to two days later. How do they do that?

My husband avoids Amazon as much as possible. It seems to be a morals vs. convenience situation and he took the high road.

My husband is very passionate about politics and social justice, and workers’ rights are very important to him.

But There Are Others…

My husband will not fill up at a BP station. He will drive to another part of town if he has to. This goes back to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

He’s not alone in boycotting businesses. I do it, too.

I will not shop at Hobby Lobby or eat at Chick-fil-A. I’ve avoided those businesses for years. 

Chick-fil-A is very popular where we live and I stew in my anger every time I go by and see their drive-thru line so long that it’s spilling out into the street. 

Hobby Lobby is easy for me to avoid. I shopped there occasionally before the insurance and birth control issues and I was always annoyed by the plethora of Christian items. Besides, Michael’s is better anyway. 

 

I would love to hear what businesses you avoid.