Faith

6/8/2026

Faith… What is it? I’ve heard about it my entire life, but always in the same sentence as capital G, God. Unless you’re at karaoke and someone is a fan of George Michael. I have always rejected the idea of God, except for a brief period in my preteen years. There’s no way there’s a single all-powerful entity overseeing and planning everything for us. The idea has always been ludicrous to me. The older I grow, the more I believe this to be true. 

The list of bad shit in the world goes on and on and on, but that’s too broad for my world. Somehow I see big pictures, but also don’t see past the end of my street. For me there’s no way anyone would put all of the things that are me into a single body. An omnisexual, polyamorous, genderqueer transgender male with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Two of those things would be enough for a single person, but I got all of them together. If there is a God he can go fuck himself for giving me all of this to deal with.

I’ve gotten off topic. This concept of faith eludes me. Fundamentally I understand what it is to have faith. To believe in something bigger than yourself. To give yourself over to something greater. To surrender your being to something other than yourself. How does someone possibly do that? How do you just let go of everything in this life and what you are over to something that you aren’t sure exists? From another perspective, how do you give yourself over to something that you aren’t sure is going to happen?

Is it the anxiety that keeps me from truly understanding? Is it the control that I refuse to give up? People always say to fake it until you make it, but I can’t sit here and tell myself that it’s all going to be ok when I don’t know that it is. Especially when I’ve had the four years that I’ve had. For four years I’ve been telling myself it’s all going to be ok. Four years of saying that it’s going to work out. What have I gotten? Four years of disappointment. Four years of deep fucking pain. Four years of being ok never actually happening. 

I can’t do it anymore. I can’t have faith. Not in myself. Not that things are going to be ok. Not that I have the strength to carry on. How am I supposed to believe in something that might not be real when so much of my reality is questionable? Dissociation is a bitch. I have been through hell the last four years. Yes, I made it out the other side, but barely. And just because I made it through all that doesn’t mean I could make it through all the other infinite possibilities that could be the next fifty years of my life. 

But I’m trying to have faith… I’m trying.

--Wyatt Ridley