My dad was a leader in our church community. I was always acutely aware of people watching and judging me as a result of this status. Church people were loving and good people, but I resented it because I understood I did not have free will. In middle school when they asked everyone if we wanted to get baptized, I understood right away that I had no option but to say "yes" unless I wanted to deeply shame my dad. It occurred to me that I had no choice but to pretend to be religious for life and marry a devout person someone from our church community, and all that made me deeply sad. My dad was awesome and never pressured me on these things, but I understood that that's simply my life circumstances and choosing anything other than church would hurt him and my family.

All the same, since I was raised with church as my reality I subscribed to that worldview through adolescence and didn't know anything different. But I was told that I was supposed to hear and feel and have a relationship with God. I was never sure I heard or felt anything even though I tried. They said you had to continuously pray, internally. One day when I was 15, I realized all my life, maybe I wasn't really praying and I was just talking to myself in my head. I stopped, and realized it was true.

I was forced to go to a 5 month religious bootcamp at one point as an early adult (long story) where we did nothing but religious things with really regimented schedules - classes, prayer, service, evangelizing, etc. I went in with an open mind, but it was my ultimatum. I thought I'll genuinely give this a shot after going through 20+ years of church doing nothing for me, but if this doesn't work that's that. It didn't work. I stopped keeping up any pretense of being religious and left for good.