This is a bit like undressing in public, after a lifetime spent, by necessity, avoiding notice. I grew up in the sterile world of fundamentalism, the preacher's daughter, unimportant beyond how I reflected upon my parents and younger brother. At eleven, with little influence from the larger culture, I realized that I did not believe what I was being told, although it would be a few years before I heard the word "agnostic". This is the story of how I survived.
My childhood is a blur. I believe the first few years were good overall, I was well cared for and nurtured until I was four. My memories after that are hazy, except for critical turning points, traumas committed in the name of god.
Everything was sinful. Everyone was to be shunned or feared unless they went to my church or church-run school. I was taught that evolution was an evil lie, that the push for the ERA was an abomination and that I deserved to be hit. I'm not sure why I didn't buy the first two. Disbelieving the latter was much more difficult.
One day when I was four, having done nothing wrong, my mother told me it was time to begin spanking me. She took me into my pink bedroom, and explained that I would now have to lay on the bed while she hit me. My world flew apart at the seams. Everything I had assumed about the world, happiness, safety, love, all came crashing down. I tried to explain to my mom that if she did this horrible thing, she would be making a huge mistake. She did not believe that I had made an innocent error. She could not hear a four year old tell her that she was making a choice that would end our happy world as she knew it. It was very clear to me.
I became withdrawn and timid, but I loved school and loved to read. One day I came across a book on my mom's dresser entitled Dare to Discipline. I devoured it, hoping to forestall further beatings. This tactic was somewhat successful, although I developed an unhealthily meek and placating attitude. Even today my voice can go very soft at times. When my studies seemed to help me, I continued reading her books, and read through the entire temperament series by Tim LaHaye, learning how to present the required behavior before the whip came out.
While all music and most tv and movies were banned, and I had no contact with the outside world until I learned to drive, my mom made one mistake in fully enforcing a circular world. She encouraged and supported my relationship with the local public library. Perhaps this is where I read about the idea there wasn't a god and it immediately eased my cognitive dissonance. My soul already knew that good people don't hit children. The books verified that there were other thoughts beyond Dare to Discipline.
I remember reading Heinlein in elementary, and Twain and Dickens and books about Anne Boleyn and the Civil War. Reading about Egypt and the pyramids was a revelation. We honored them enough to put them in a book with pictures, even though they didn't go to our kind of church!
When things made no sense, the public library was there to show me the way to another world. I secretly and quietly followed the path the authors left for me, getting my comfort and sustenance from books while appearing to be perfectly obedient. I didn't yet know about "thought crime", but I knew instinctively to hide my books.