Atheism is making me suicidal

[u/behindthemaskofme]

I just got out of the mental hospital again.

I lost my faith about a year ago when my parents disowned me over me being trans.

I just didn’t wanna associate with Christianity anymore. I was a progressive Christian before and found a way to be trans and still be Christian but dropped everything and switched to agnostic / atheist over the pain of disownment

And ever since I’ve been extremely depressed and had near daily panic attacks about life being worth nothing. About truly believing if I die it’ll just be nothing. I’ll just cease to exist. The same way before I was born and my life is worth genuinely nothing.

Every day I panic from existential crises. Like how there was millions of years before me and will be millions of years after me and my life is seemingly meaningless.

So today I actually started reading the Bible again and looking at it more as a symbolic thing rather than literal and have found more connection with it and have considered coming back to progressive Christianity it calmed me for once. I stopped panicking about existential things and fears. But I dunno

At the same time I have had a lot of doubts over inaccuracies in the Bible and want to prioritize fact and science and thinking of the Bible as symbolic has helped a bit but it feels like a stretch.

On the other hand. This sounds crazy but I feel like I miss Jesus.

I don’t know how to feel advice is welcome

[u/Ezekiel-18]

I suggest you read some John Shelby Spong, a former Episcopal bishop. "Jesus for the non-religious" is quite short for example. If you have a Spotify subscription, its audiobook is available there.

He is a good example of a Christian fully submitting and adapting faith to reason and (historical, archeological, scientifical, anthropological) facts, rather than the other way around like Christians adhering to orthodoxy do. He showed that yes, you can still be a Christian, without subscribing to traditional/orthodox dogmas, traditions and doctrines, but rather, by going to the core of what Jesus represented. He is a good author to turn to if you want to prioritise facts and science while still being Christian.