What's in RELIGION?

I'm a generally unhappy person. Really. I really am.

Day in and day out, I suffer from (almost) clinical depression and the inability to manage my anger. Well, I can manage them both well enough to maintain jobs & focus in school... but it's been getting more difficult lately because the anxiety that I've been suffering from my entire life: It's gotten worse.

Death is inevitable. It's random; almost impossible to guess when & how it'll happen. You wanna believe that most people will die a comfortable death in old age; preferably while they're sleeping so they'll dream their way into the afterlife but nowadays that has become a pipe dream. With all the violence and disease happening in our day and age, you'd almost be surprised to hear that someone died a normal death. Let me guess what you're used to hearing: Cancer of the ____, Car accident (drunk driving, texting while driving,  etc.) or Criminal activity (wrong place; wrong time or any other form of manslaughter/homicide), right?

It's like we can't get a break... a much needed break.

What the fuck does this have to do with religion?

Getting to that.

When most people die, it's expected... at least to me. If you have cancer, I'm going to be hurt when you die but I'm not going to be surprised. In my heart, it's understandable and it's justified. I take my knowledge and I try my best to cherish the time that I have because it might be snatched from me at any moment. But what if one day, unexpectedly, by surprise, with no indications or warnings, at random you lose someone close to you? I never knew I had to answer that question until the situation was presented to me.

Last year, I lost one of the closest people to me: my cousin. He was only 18 years old and to this day, it doesn't feel like real life. The day I was told is also the day a piece of me became different. I've dealt with serious bouts of anger and sadness, which I believe is normal, but I've also had a new strand of anxiety come out of the situation. It feels like that anxiety controls my life now, which is sad because... it's ruining me.

His death also made me question my religion. I've always been confused about whether I should be Christian because my family is or if I should practice another religion on my own... but now I have doubts for them all. I'm "unofficially" educated on most religions but I've been thinking about atheism. On a flip side of the coin, I've been thinking... "Is it possible to be spiritual, to believe in a God, but not follow any of the written material. Can I believe in a God without a Bible, Quran, etc? Do I have to believe in the folklore?"

The worst part about it is having conflicts with my parents. My mother is Christian but not a strict one. My father is also Christian but his methods seem to be a hybrid between Christianity & Hinduism. Do you know what my mother told me today? My anger, my depression, my unhappiness as a whole is a direct result of my resistance to religion and specifically my rejection of Christianity.

How do you explain to someone so deeply rooted in their religion that you believe in God, just not in the same way that they do?

I believe their is a higher spirit. I believe there is a God. I don't believe in practicing from a book that I've only been told to follow but have no actually proof of it's production. I don't believe in prayer. I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I do believe in the afterlife and I do believe that people can be stuck in "limbo". I don't know what you call my beliefs.

To say that my beliefs are wrong is fine. That's an opinion. To tell me that because I don't share the same faith as you; I bound to be unhappy until I convert? That, my friends, is absolute bullshit.

I don't even know what more to say.