The imaginary friend

Every night in my early teenage years, before sleep I did some soul searching and a little meditation, guided with a book of spiritual reading. In this test I analyzed my day, what I had done, how I acted in situations, as with with others; how I behaved with my teammates, my family, seeing if I lived each day as a Christian. After this analysis I meditated on God, with God, and asked forgiveness for my sins and the strength to be a better Christian, to be able to grow in virtues and overcome temptations, to be worthy of his love. I knew God was not going to come to my room and talk to me, he was not going to appear in a burning bush or on top of a mountain, he was not going to materialize in that voice that was in my mind.  Still, for all I knew he was listening. Over time this practice ans the subsequent\ examinations of conscience made me more and more severe. I was taught that we were all sinners forever and none could ever be perfect, only God, but still I intended to change my attitudes to stop making the same mistakes over and over again.  Each passing day fewer fouls were committed, through this I generated self depracating behaviors. I felt disoriented, not knowing what I was doing wrong, why did I feel on some days “you’ve done something wrong”? What to do about it? For God showed me that was the way to go? Why not calm my anxiety? What I discovered was that little by little I wanted to be a Christian following all the rules and councils of the church, but often those were paths that do not lead to anything, they were contradictory, and different interpretatinos for the same rule, depending on who you ask. As time passed and I wanted to become a better Christian, the rules became more and more confused, less clear and in the end, when I got tired of following the advice of others (spiritual guides, cures, books, catechism, etc.) I was watching the one truth: I was talking to myself. I played the two roles, the sinner and God.  I did not realize at the time, or did not want me to notice, that when I got tired of waiting for a clear answer, a guide, a word of encouragement, it was myself which produced such, which made up for the lack of response, and I long pretended that my monologue was a dialogue. What led me to think about it was the negative consequences of my actions imposed on me, because as time passed, more and more it was hard to enjoy life, because I felt that at any moment could commit a sin. I stopped living and doing several things that should have done at my age just because of being afraid to sin. This made my feelings sprout within, very adverse and increasingly intense, then ending in a depression. When I got to that point, which was that I did not care about anything else, not even about losing my life, I lost  my fear and I began to question my God and my church that led me to this state as seeing them as the misguided entities they were. I took off my head trying not to question the imposition of the word of God, not to thwart the imposition of the church, the imposition of which they know more than me and not worth a lot of my ideas, I got my head all the things I felt I did wrong, I did feel anxious, depressed, made me feel I was not enjoying life. From there I was left alone in my mind and no one else, there was no police authority and planteos blocking my ideas, reproving, desanimándome telling me not to think for myself, and from there all I had was an honesty brutal with myself. It was this honesty that made me, as I said, to participate less and less of the Baptist religion, and in turn the source of it was wanting to get to the truth.  I found the truth after a few years, and the truth was that all that time I had an imaginary friend whom I shared, through multiple variations, with millions of others on this planet.