I was baptized Catholic before I even reached my first birthday, although I never went to a Catholic church until I was a teenager. I live on a dead end street and a Protestant church is right at the end of it, my mother was a part of it and decided it would be easier to take my sister and I there. My sister, Hannah, was baptized Protestant (don’t ask which one, this particular church changed from Lutheran to Methodist and back again too many times to count). I did not realize I was Catholic until I was in 7th grade, and realized how angry my maternal grandmother was that my paternal grandparents decided my faith.

I had been bullied terribly in public school throughout the entire course of it, so upon graduating from 8th grade, I was sent to Catholic high school in Fitchburg. Apart from the itchy uniform, I loved it. The people were nice and we only had one surly nun. Religion class was mandatory but was set up more like philosophy, so there was no real “brainwashing”. Masses were regular and mandatory, as were retreats.

At this time, my mother and sister decided to convert to Catholicism, after my maternal grandmother died, and the minister did not conduct the funeral correctly and wanted to wait until she came back from vacation to do it, they decided they had enough. They converted and we had our first communion (I didn’t have one until I was 15).

When I was 16, a junior in high school and only nine days before my 17th birthday, I was in a car wreck and my sister died right next to me of head trauma, crushed chest and blood loss. The woman who had been driving us (I didn’t have a license yet and still don’t) was going 20 over the speed limit and lost control after another car merged illegal with our lane. We spun 3 times and the SUV rolled over another 3. I was legally dead for a few seconds according to paramedics. It was at this time I began to question Christianity as a whole.

I had been disturbed by the genocide in the Old Testament, where the Jews wipe out entire races because God told them too. The horrors of the Crusades were another, and the growing protests by the WBC preaching hate towards homosexuals were things that made me sick.

My sister had been more in touch with Wicca and questioned the Bible in her religion classes (I didn’t for fear of Hell). We were both strong believers in the supernatural, magick and psychic phenomena. I began to look through her books and found that the idea of a God and Goddess more comforting, and after talking with a psychic who accurately described her bedroom 100% without ever seeing it in person or a picture, and even knowing what college I was going to without asking, I decided to make the switch.

There was no pressure of Hell, no forcing of others to follow my faith or anything, unlike Christianity. My cousin had already become a full Pagan and opened me up further. Right now I live by my own philosophies from combining many faiths such as Wicca, Shinto, Buddhism, and other ideals into one. I am much happier now.

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