No Faith

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 07-20-2023

“But then again, I have a soul. That extends beyond this vision and flesh. That reaches up; can feel the sky. The world, spirit, and Universe enmesh.” -EaE

I was six years old when I first went to Catholic school in Houston, TX. The jumper uniforms, the church, the strict teachers, the Wednesday mandatory service. The bible teachings, the morals and lessons. I was a child of neglect/ abandonment and abuse already, and I did not yet know how to read. The teachers and my grandmother harped on me until I got it right. Many lectures, a lot of getting screamed at and pinched until “I got it right”. I was petrified of getting paddled like some of the other kids so I continued to stay timid and shy. But, I did believe in God. My grandmother believed in God, and my teachers believed in God. Catholicism taught me this: “Pray and God will answer you”. So, I tried to do this. I prayed, prayed, and prayed again. I wanted my Mom and Dad back, that is all I ever asked for. My Mom came, only to give up after 1-2 weeks and abandon us (me and my older brother) again. And my Dad had promised us ‘it will only be a few months of living at Grandma’s’ while he served in the USMC. Well, a few months turned into 5 years. I was so angry that by the time I was 9 years old, I ripped the Jesus picture off of my wall and threw it. “There is no God or Heaven”, I already had that mindset. Then, it morphed into me putting two and two together: ‘They made up Santa Clause, they probably made this up too.’ It’s … like a Fairy Tale. I never told my Grandother that I became “Atheist”. She still insisted I pray at night time.

My Dad picked us up to take us to CA when I was 10, almost 11. Through my Preteen and teen years I was a bitter, pessimistic, depressed and emotional girl. I judged religion a lot. I hated it. The bibles, the talks about the bible, the churches, the praying. I just kept thinking “It’s not real, how can anyone think it is without seeing it? Without any proof?” I looked for signs, I came up empty. I couldn’t ‘feel’ or ‘see’ any spirits. Friends tried to convert me back to believing and they always fell short. Throughout the years sometimes I would hear my Dad and stepmom argue about religion. She was a christian, while My dad was atheist. Neither one of them could convince the other. I thought my Dad made a lot of ‘good points’, about saying ‘anyone could have written that thing’; The bible. Then again, I was already Bias.

I enlisted in the Air force at 18. In the military, it did not change much. I went to Church in Bootcamp just to have a few hours of peace and cry. I didn’t like it, I just needed it because, well, Bootcamp is horrific. But, at some point I was able to admit to myself, at the very least: I have no clue what happens after death, but I doubt it’s ‘nothing at all’, otherwise what the heck is all of this about? I then realized that I am agnostic. I am not claiming there is ‘nothing’, but I am not claiming there is something. I am not going to claim to know something I do not know. Because as of now, nothing has given me all the answers to all of my questions. Not religion, Not the military cult, not science, not friends or family, not even living life itself. Nothing. I know nothing. During my deployment to Afghanistan, a Catholic soldier was very offended when he inquired about my religious preferences. I simply used the term Agnostic. “So you choose to exist with ignorance in this world?” My reply: “We are all ignorant, some of us are just willing to admit it”.

Fast forward to many years later; My late twenties. I decided to try hallucinogens. There were already some studies that suggested they can help with Depression and PTSD and I was quite desperate. It is a hard thing to explain, because if you have not tried the substance, there is no way you can truly understand how it feels. It morphs the way you see things, the way you feel things, and the way you understand life. At first it was simply a relief, to not feel depressed 24/7. And to not ruminate on the same awful thoughts 24/7. Then by my early thirties I started to notice a shift. I became both fixated and petrified of death. I feared it, I questioned it, then I wanted it and even sometimes insisted on it. The happiest I ever felt, was on a hallucinogen. But also, the most suicidal I have ever felt, was on a hallucinogen.

My very last trip was the most terrifying one, before I decided to stop all together. My brain went from happy and silly, to dark and suicidal, to then dying… (falling asleep but it felt like death). Then I woke up and threw up. Then I spent an entire excruciating night on a ‘bad trip’. It’s what people call “An Ego death”. When your mind is no longer a part of reality. When you as a person have no sense of reality. I died and came back to life. I morphed into other humans during this trip. My memories were so distant that I started to question if they had ever happened. I was no longer me, and the world was no longer seperate. Everything bled together, and for at least 5 minutes, I had all answers. Everything made sense. I had no more fear and no more questions. I understood life in that moment. I understood true reality, that nothing was real. I am not an individual I am one with everything, and everything is one with me. There is no time. There is no people. There is no space. There is no ‘life’. We bleed together and move together, but nothing is truly real. Understand??? I don’t understand it either. It was just, in that moment, I understood.

I was sober by the morning and simply grateful to be back to ‘my normal self’. I wish I could say more. I just know that this took me further into the realm of spirituality. I do not believe religious people ‘are crazy’, or dumb at all. As a matter of fact, I have a feeling they have an innate ability to access something that I cannot (Unless I’m on drugs). Maybe they have more spiritual intelligence than I do. Maybe they have greater access to a realm that I do not have. Just like I have a very high emotional intelligence and some people lack it all together. That is a possiblity. We live in the confines of our own body and brain, and have the ignorance to think that everyone feels, see’s and experiences everything in the exact same way. Currently, I’m dating someone that is religious to some extent. He has gone to church more than I have, he believes a bit more than I do. He likes to pray sometimes, and he likes to hang up Mother Mary on the wall. I told him recently that I ‘wish i could just believe again’. He said “Then do it. Choose to”.

It may not be something I can feel or access, but it is now something I want. To have answers to what awaits us after death. I went on a blackhole research spiral recently, where I looked up documentaries interviewing people after they ‘died and came back to life’. I was quite fascinated to hear very similiar stories but from very diverse people around the world. Stories of being able to talk to ‘their loved ones’ that are ‘already on the other side’. Stories of feeling elevated, not ‘weighed down’ by a body, extremely happy and ‘light’. Stories of seeing and feeling light, water, nature in the most beautiful way possible. I had talked to the Chaplain at my job recently about my ‘Ego death trip’. He was weirded out and did not know what to say. It was evident he had never experienced a ‘drug induced psychotic break’. He ended up opening the bible to read things to me. But that’s not what I wanted. I don’t want a book. My substance abuse counselor recently told me to ‘go to church’ if I’m so concerned about ‘not having answers’. I don’t want a Church. A book and a church does not cut it for someone that is ‘void of faith’. I’ve tried all of that already, many times. I also respect that it does work for some people. I have clients with strong religious preferences that have expressed that it helps their mental health alot. I respect that. But, I want to explore without the confines of lectures, walls and text. I want to find things. At the very least, I’m open minded enough NOT to reject what I DO NOT know yet.