The end of the world

i once read that the majority of people who suffer from severe anxiety and/or panic attacks were raised in strict religious households. i'm not sure if this is why i have these problems, but i do recall severe anxiety plaguing me from at least age 7, when i was shown a christian propaganda apocalypse film in the baptist church were i was taken 3x a week for 18 years. this movie is the most horrifying story i can think of: the movie opens with a mom waking up and her husband is there, her children are there and she's brushing her teeth or something and suddenly she turns around and her whole familly is...just...gone. she runs out into the street in her suburban neighborhood screaming and crying and yelling for her family and the streets are empty. she then runs desperately in to her town center and she sees this huge long line of people wrapping around a street corner and going into some sort of "official" building like a bank or social security office (more likely). the people in line are waiting there to get their mark, a number on their foreheads. these are the people who have been left behind because they did not accept jesus as their personal savior when they had the chance. now they are left on earth for the devil and jesus to fight over, with a final decision being made on judgement day, a day in the near future when they will have another chance to choose jesus or spend eternity in hell.

yep, that's kind of when my anxiety level was given all new meaning. the next day i accepted jesus as my personal savior in church along with my 5-yr-old sister, who actually led the way. she was even more frightened by the movie than me. i've asked my mom what she was thinking by letting us, such young children, see a movie that was so damaging to such young minds, scaring the living shit out of us etc. she doesn't remember it. she also doesn't remember me swallowing a handful aspirin in a fit of rage at age 12. maybe i don't blame her, those were terrible times.

i have no idea what this movie was called and i don't want to see it again, but i am curious, somewhat. this morning i found this on google, and some opinions about something like what i saw, that i can agree with, particularly:

"If you grew up around a certain strain of American fundamentalist Christianity over the past several decades, the 1972 film, along with other "rapture movies" has a terrifying cultural resonance that probably still haunts you to this day."

and it is true, there will always be a part of me that believes the RAPTURE is actually fucking possible. that's the most insane part of my mind. it's The Fear that lives In There.

"...to experience their full power, you have to have undergone a terrible initiation into them, one only an evangelist would encourage anyone else to undertake. No one, having gone through this initiation and since rejected the beliefs that produced it, would hope to share the experience with another."

true true. that movie provided in me the singular most horrifying sense of panic i have ever experienced. i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

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