What can I do with feeling God is punishing ne?

I was raised as a Catholic but haven't practiced being a Catholic for roughly 17 years. When I was a kid I wanted to bethe 1st ever Alter girl. But I chickened out as I'm naturally shy.

I was a nightmare teenager between undiagnosed bipolar and hormones i was a mess. High low etc etc.

There is a thread on here about Hyper-Religious. I'm in this category. But I'm wanting to ask this question...

"Does God punish us for being bad?" I mean in respect of given us the diagnosis of Bipolar. Was I diagnosed cause God hated the way I reacted to things, the way I behaved with my siblings,the way I behaved with my parents.

You could say I'm hypo-manic currently. Normally I'm singing hymns loudly and saying prayers I'm very good unfortunately at remembering prayers especially school prayers. But I'm filled with guilt and feeling that God is punishing me for my teenage years the way I acted and behaved.

Do you think He is here with me? Do you think there are things I can do to kill the guilt as its killing me?

I'm not religious, but I'm sure that if there is a god, he knows about your mental health and understands why you acted the way you did. I don't believe an all-knowing benevolent god would punish anyone for things that are essentially out of their control.

Maybe it could help you to consider what you think is the nature of god. If you believe that god is rational and/or compassionate, then perhaps that can help your worries. After all, punishing someone for things they can't help is not rational or compassionate. If anything it would make more sense to help that person.

Hi There, Try remembering this quote,

God only punishes the ones he loves, So you must be something very special .!

The source of my being is unconditional. It created all and unconditionally allows for everything we experience. It is the true nature of love and allows for free will. My source does not punish or reward. It accepts and allows.

That said, we create the lives we live. On one level or another, we create it. There are many things we create and participate in unconsciously. We exhibit little to no control in those instances. We are sometimes the effect of someone else's creation. Are we at fault for those circumstances?

There are also times when we purposefully and consciously create the circumstances of our lives. Are we at fault then?

We can contemplate fault and judgment in an endless loop. It will always begins and ends in the same place. There are things we created knowingly and regret and there are things that seem beyond our control that we wish were different. Does it make sense to believe the after effects are a punishment? What about the times when what comes next is positive? Why aren't the 'punishments' consistent?

For me, worrying about judgment and punishment is an endless and fruitless journey. The data is inconsistent and it doesn't add up. That leads me to believe it is not an accurate reflection of the system we live within. It is in my opinion a man made construct that attempted to explain a complexity of life that is hidden and difficult to understand.

It is more valuable to take a step back and look at the big picture. What does seem completely consistent is that there are causes and effects. Every action has has a cause and every cause has an effect. In my mind it serves me more to work with this system and attempt to understand the effects my creations have. If I can anticipate what the effect of my thoughts, feelings and actions might be, I can more effectively choose my actions.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Every thought and feeling we have moves energy and we know energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Therefore, everything we do displaces energy or causes a shift. If we create something, something else must be broken down in its place. If we take, something has to give.

I could go on as there are several of these laws. Some call them the 7 natural laws of the universe. I am a systems expert and those laws are by far the best attempt at truth I've seen. They honor what we can see with our eyes and feel with our hearts. Most importantly, they are consistent with the one true law that all is one and one is all. We are all connected and we all have the same source. Check out the laws if you're interested. Working with them consciously has opened up a lot of doors for me.

For me it is about experience and learning. It isn't about punishment. If anyone is punishing me the only thing I can do about it is accept it and live my life to its fullest anyway. Dwelling on it teaches me nothing. Taking responsibility and being accountable to myself for the effects of my actions teaches me everything.

Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.

When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."

I'm in total agreement with FluffyDinosaur's and Fern's thoughts on this. All I will add is that there are countless people who suffer grave consequences from various illnesses or treatment and they did not "deserve" it, so in my book there was not specific "punishment from God". I'm talking about wonderful people, like my mother, who died young of cancer. I'm also thinking about people like a young girl of 12 that was sexually abused/raped by her father's best friend.

Speaking of the young 12 year old girl, her mother left her father (and her) when she was about 5 years old. That in itself can be a bit of a trauma for a child. Then the rape by the adult man. This young girl went on to do delinquent things at school, married and had three children that she eventually abandoned and had her father raise. She became a heroine addict and alcoholic and committed crimes (stealing, DWIs, drug dealing) that led to jail sentences. She became eccentric in other ways that would normally be rejected in society. Because of all of this, many people didn't want her around because they were afraid of her, kind of for good reasons. But why would she have been punished as a child? I know that she did nothing wrong back then. To this day, she continues to be punished by society, though her behavior did warrant it. I would hope/assume that if her childhood circumstances had been better, that her fate might have been different, at least to a large degree. She eventually received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, that her mother also has. Her paternal grandmother had a bipolar diagnosis, too. I knew her grandmother well. She was a lovely lady. I even like this girl's (now woman) mother, though of course I didn't like that she abandoned her daughter.

I am sort of an agnostic, but when I do think of a God (or Jesus), I don't think of punishment or hate. We all have our trials and tribulations. Sometimes they lead us to learn and become better people, and sometimes not. The bigger the challenge, the more significant the success, even compared to someone who rarely, if ever, had to deal with adversities.

I understand what you are all saying guys, but if there is a God..... I'm questioning this..... how can i be 'the chosen one' in my family. No-one in my family has a mental illness let alone bipolar. Is this why he has punished me cause of all the upset I caused when I was a teenager btw I wasn't a yob or anything i was an angry teenager but shhhhh don't tell my family lol!

Miss Laura, I personally do not think God is punishing you. I think you just happened to get bipolar disorder. I do lean on the scientific end of this regarding that. "Stuff happens!" (using a better word than the usual phrase). Accidents are accidents. How something affects us can be a mystery. Maybe somewhere way back in your family tree, there was a gene for bipolar disorder. My thoughts are that you just had the bad luck of either inheriting such a gene, or having it activated/triggered by something. It's possible an ancestor had the disorder but nobody in the family ever talked about it. You know that stigma was even worse way back then. It's still way too prevalent.

The brain is still a real mystery in many ways, even for experts.

From the limited amount I know of you, you are a lovely person. I can't imagine you did anything horrible enough that a God would punish you. Also, think of all of the really dangerous, sinful types that never have any negative ramifications for their behavior. One would think they would develop some horrible illness, but they often don't.

I was raised as a Jew. My step-father was Hindu. My best friend is Catholic; when we were growing up I fairly often attended Mass with her (which I enjoyed more than she did). As an adult I studied Buddhism at a Zen monastery for some years, and still practice some aspects of Buddhism. My husband is Methodist.

So, plenty of religious and spiritual influence.

I don't believe that God would punish anyone anymore than I would punish someone I love. That said, I fear that God or just the general "universal energy" does punish me, because I have no other way to explain many things in my life that have gone terribly wrong (that I could not have made better at the time).

So I have a lot of conflict about the whole subject. Mostly, since it's a tremendous trigger for me, I try not to focus on it. It remains unresolved.

My personal belief is God isnt going to punish you.. God isnt going to punish you for having a mental health problem, He is about love..

This is just my belief so please ignore if you want.

I believe in grace. So that means that no matter what we do (and we all do stupid or wrong things) if we acknowledge that God gives us grace and forgives us.

The illness is something that just is. Asking why me versus others doesn't really work because the answer is why not me?

But it is not punishment. God knew what he was doing when he made us with this glitch in our brains. Good things can come from it too. It just takes great patience to see them.

Thank u for this comfort, Rainbow.

Looking back I've been depressed since I was roughly 13 years old. But what if it was before then? But I hid it well? Someone once asked me at high school if I had ADHD I was really upset by this I came home and cried to my Mum. So mania/hypo-mania obviously were about back then. How did no-one realise I was in need of help. Even God didn't know. Am I just a good hider. Is it possible to be sneeky like that when your hormones are playing havoc with your mind?

If God is real and God is here for us why be evil and give us this horrible illness. I really am angry as I don't want it. I've missed my 20's and 30's due to my anger towards it and being 'ill'. Maybe I'm just meant to be hyper all the time. Maybe I don't deserve help that is given.

I guess I'm a lost cause..... if i don't get answers I need then how can i move on?

Ps on another note there is a test online called Young Mania Scale i found it through Wikipedia. Its a self assessment and they tally up your score out of 60. I got 29/60 says I'm manic. I don't know if I am or not who knows just thought I would share a bit of info with you guys

I understand that you're angry about it, I feel the same way. This illness has stolen some of what ought to be the best years of my life, so I think you're fully justified in feeling that way.

As for nobody realizing you needed help during adolescence (and possibly younger), that same thing happened to me as well. I find that in our society, most people are remarkably unsympathetic towards kids, and adolescents in particular. Any "bad" behavior is blamed on hormones or angst, and the standard response is to punish kids or try to force them in line through some other means. I think none of the adults noticed what was going on with me because they didn't care to notice. They just wanted me to be a good teenager, shut up, and focus on getting good grades. I think that happens way too often.

I was also "diagnosed" (actually my mom forced the diagnosis) with ADHD when I was a child (I guess around 9-10 or so). I am now absolutely certain that I don't have ADHD (my Pdoc even tested for it), but back then I didn't know anything. They sent me to some sort of group therapy. I've heard that many bipolar people get mistakenly labeled as having ADHD in childhood, thought I'm not exactly sure why that is. I don't believe I was hypomanic back then, I thought I was just an enthusiastic kid.

Laura, I am sorry that you are struggling with this. Whether religious or not, many of us struggle with this at one time or another.

I am not religious, but I pray and find comfort in prayer.

I have struggled with why bad things have happened to people who didn't seem to deserve it such as babies, who haven't had a chance to be naughty yet.

One long drive, I heard a radio interview with Rabbi Harold Kushner about his book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." The interview and reading the book helped me, even though I am not Jewish. Some takeaways are freely available on the Internet. He wrote not only as his experience as a Rabbi but also as a parent of a child with a degenerative diseases with only a few years to live. He struggled with his faith and his book is the result.

There is a PsychologyToday blog post about this "Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Bad things happen for the same reason anything happens." by Dr. Ralph Lewis a psychiatrist. He too struggled with this question when his young wife was diagnosed with life-threatening cancer. As he writes, so many people struggle with this that it has its own term: "The theological problem of trying to explain why evil and suffering exist in the world is referred to as theodicy. The central quandary is this: “Why do terrible things happen in a world governed by an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God?” Lewis gives a secular response: "Why would bad things not happen to good people? Or, more simply and crudely put, “Sh*t happens.”

For me, when I struggle with this , I only increase my own suffering...

Best wishes and peace!

So.... its got a little bit worse I'm now reciting prayers and singing hymns, looking them up on Google and YouTube. Its kinda hard getting the hymns I remember. Trying to remember the hymns I sung at school in the 90's is tough going though.

I know this is probably down to being off my meds but I'm in a current state of not going on them. It's a little bit annoying having to sing and say prayers but hey ho its what I got to do

The hymns and prayers are fine. There's nothing wrong there inherently, but it is a symptom at the moment. I think at this point you know things are headed in a bad direction. All of the signs are there and you know how to help yourself. Why not do it? Why let it go on and put yourself in a bad place?

You started with the same pattern as before. You make a thread about how its ok to be off your meds. Then your family gets upset or you hide it. Your practitioners recommend meds and you refuse. Your friends get upset and don't want to listen. Next up is usually talking to strangers and inviting them to your place. Then regret.

You're at that sweet spot where you still have insight. That is like a superpower you can use. If you make a few changes you can head the bad side off at the pass.

You keep wondering if God is punishing you. To me, it feels more like you're choosing your path here. Do what you've got to do, but don't forget you have choices.

I agree with Fern. You’ve been down this road many times before and it always ends up the same way.
Choose your path whilst you still have insight.

I'm a member of the fern and Pookyl club. You will have much peace of mind if you take the medication your brain needs to function at its best

But guys, i really cant I hate them beyond hate and I'm gagging when I take them which makes me feel awful. I spent 4 hours 10pm- 2am just crying last night i don't know what to do.

I'm really sorry. I know it can be tough. Have you considered shots instead of pills, or is the hate just for the meds in general?