Beliefs you have made a mental u-turn on?

[kemosabeimalone]

Just that really? Are there things you believed strongly in the past that you have had a complete turn around on? Maybe your religion, who you vote for? Maybe your stance on drugs or the football team you support. Talk to me about it - was the change a ‘road to Damascus’ moment of revelation or more subtle or insidious? How did your family and friends react? Was it hard to ‘come out’ with your new viewpoint?

When I married DH he was a practicing Catholic. I had been baptised Catholic and then never set foot in a church again. I thought organised religion was a load of old hooey but I was willing to tolerate his eccentricity because it meant our DC would go to good schools. I don’t know quite how it happened but after 16 years together I suddenly found I believed everything he and the D.C. believed. I took instruction, made my first holy Communion and and was confirmed. I fact just getting married was unexpected to me. I thought marriage was an outdated institution and assumed I would just live with a partner nit it mattered to him so I went along with it.

I can honestly say that joining the church changed my life. Quite apart from any spiritual gains the community I’ve found through it have bought me such great friends, opportunities, support and new things in my life. A chance comment from a fellow parishioner after my confirmation lead me to training as a counsellor and that lead to going to Uni for the first time, earning an MSc and a whole new career as a psychotherapist.

Thanks for sharing Cobwebs - your faith sounds very fulfilling. I can see how if the person you love has a strong faith, you’d want to engage with their religion too. How lovely that it provides such a wonderful element in your life now.

My u-turn was about having more than two children. I really thought I was done after DS2 but 8 years later my partner and I got broody again and we tentatively started trying for number 3. We were stoic about it - reconciled that it might not happen - I’m in my late 40’s - but we now have a 2 month old daughter and she is the absolute light of my life!

Sorry stoic is the wrong word - I mean we were realistic 😉

That bought a tear to my eye @kemosabeimalone. We had planned to have 3 or 4 DC but after the second my DH decided he wanted to stop at 2. I guess that was his complete change of mind. We argued and went for counselling and in the end I gave in because although I was sure he would love a third child if we had one, there was always the chance he wouldn’t and having been unwanted myself I didn’t want to burden a child with that. All this was nearly a quarter of a century ago and I occasionally still cry for the third child we didn’t have. I envy your third child. Good call!

I'm the total opposite - always wanted 4, had one, decided I was done! Never regretted it, best decision for me definitely, no idea what I was thinking wanting 4!!

That drag isn't sexist.

I never felt that way unit I watched Ru Paul's drag race.

Not all the drag performers on there were sexist, but there were a few that were clearly mocking women. I felt deeply uncomfortable watching it and quite angry at how some people chose to portray women.

I was a dyed in the wool atheist.

I was also an alcoholic.

Part of my recovery, was to accept that maybe just maybe I wasn't the most important/ all knowing thing in the universe and that I should look to a Higher Power.

6 years and counting sobriety is plenty enough for me to agree that was a good idea

It's massively improved some relationships/ friendships with people who have a similar view but I do find it hard to share with people who are like how I used to be. Particularly my family so I tend to keep quiet or use a more generic 'karma' type language around them.

I used to really love bullfighting . Now I see it as utterly sadistic.

Special schools. I used to be ideolgically opposed to them. I believed strongly in inclusion and how mainstream should adapt to the children and that special schools shouldnt exist. I still believe in inclusion and a childs right to a mainstream education but my child is in a special school and i dont believe that a mainstream school could ever adapt enough to include him. Not without entirely changing the whole education system in a way that might not support other children.

Grammar schools - I was a product of a grammar school education ( in Northern Ireland) and believed they give great life chances to children.

However my dyslexic child was streamed into the non academic set for GCSE at his good comp. mentally it floored him, took him years to get over especially being told he shouldn’t aim for A levels. My son is now going into final year at uni aiming for a 1st!

I can now clearly see the argument that you don’t write of a child and destroy their confidence at 11 by making them fail an exam and sending to lower rated school.

I was a practising Catholic. Was told when I was about 18 that my auntie had been abused by her uncle who was a priest. He had also interfered with other cousins. His brothers and sisters refused to believe it because a priest could do no wrong. He was eventually moved overseas by the church. I've completely turned my back on the church now and only attend mass for weddings and funerals.

I stopped going to Christenings when the priest started going on about how its purpose was to get rid of original sin. I realised that I hate that notion. Babies aren't born with sin and I hate the idea that they are seen like this. How can I support a church that sees innocent babies this way?

I then read/thought further about how women are seen and treated within the Catholic church. In Ireland it was fucking disgraceful and it became public policy and it just reinforced my view that I could no longer support the church with my attendance.

I'm still on the fence about whether I believe in God but the church will never get me back in the fold.

That I am no good with money . In fact I was thinking about starting a thread asking if you can change very suddenly. In my family money was to be enjoyed , spent asap and then days of struggle followed . Both my parents were from very poor backgrounds if that is relevant . I have always struggled. High or low income , alone or ( briefly ) in a relationship. Although my salary is not bad , second part of month I had no cash . Although I always paid bills. By Pay day I had a wish list ( clothes , things for house, presents) and by mid month I was back to square one. This month I suddenly felt I had to stop . Paid a large chunk of money into my savings .Cancelled subscriptions . Didn’t buy the goodies. Did a meal plan and a budget shop . Have cash for the rest of month . No desire to spend . Do not want anything . This was not part of a plan . I did not think about . Just saw myself as a saver . Obviously not complaining . I hope it lasts . After years of making budgets , trying to save I had stopped thinking about money except to think I was born bad with it !

More anti-road to Damascus, getting first-hand experience of the nepotism, corruption and hypocrisy in certain churches was my first step out of religion (coincidentally, starting on the night I was baptised, in a denomination that does 'adult' baptism on kids). I still studied the texts for years after and worked with multiple religious organizations. Again, coincidentally, it was talking with a devout Orthodox man on the corruption and the purposeful misdirection that went on through time in making the current versions of the texts and still goes on now in pulpits that I stopped trying to find any personal value or religious meaning in religions or their texts. He found that part of wrestling with faith and saw his duty in warning from the more egregious leaders, for me, it killed the last embers of interest in it beyond historical interest.

It's a lesson I've had to learn repeatedly, so many times - groups that espouse wanting to do only good often lend themselves to justifying control of others - whether behaviors/thoughts/emotions needed to be 'good' in their eyes or changing information to suit them. Ideologies are a powerful corrupting force, both in groups and individuals, and the very human desire to belong makes it easy for them to hurt so many. I'm now wary of any ideology-based people or groups.

Blindly trusting doctors. They're like anything else - some are great, some are just fucking spanners.

Mine is absolutely trivial but after years of thinking Pa Inglis of Little House on the Prairie fame was a total hero, the other day I realised that he was a bit of a dick.
He took his very young and still growing family from a fairly settled life near family and general civilisation and slung them about the Mid West for years. He took them to places where they had no home or crops, where they were nearly killed by one thing or an other more than once, poor Caroline had 3 babies while on the wander. Apparently he had an "itchy wandering foot" and had come across too many people while hunting one day so that was that, off they went.

I used to be a loyal member of the Labour Party, wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole now.

timetest same here. The inaction over anti-semitism and the gender debate effectively marginalising women were the last straws for me, will not even consider voting for them.

nosswith Those were exactly my reasons. 40 years of my time down the pan. I’m politically homeless now.

About breastfeeding. I was so full on about it after having my first at 17 years old. I would preach about it and pressure pregnant friends. Passing on ‘helpful’ info. Then I grew up and found feminism.

I used to think sex work empowers women and tw are women.

I used to think I wasn't feminist.

My whole view has changed dramatically in the last 5 years.

@IDontLikeZombies

Mine is absolutely trivial but after years of thinking Pa Inglis of Little House on the Prairie fame was a total hero, the other day I realised that he was a bit of a dick. He took his very young and still growing family from a fairly settled life near family and general civilisation and slung them about the Mid West for years. He took them to places where they had no home or crops, where they were nearly killed by one thing or an other more than once, poor Caroline had 3 babies while on the wander. Apparently he had an "itchy wandering foot" and had come across too many people while hunting one day so that was that, off they went.

@IDontLikeZombies If you haven’t, I’d recommend reading Caroline: Little House Revisited by Sarah Miller. It’s absolutely wonderful, it’s the adult companion to Little House on the Prairie.

My abrupt turnaround was trans stuff. I remember having a very heated conversation with a male friend of mine, he was absolutely incredulous that I would accept a transsexual as a woman just like me, and I was very much on the how can you possibly know what it feels like to be in the wrong body?

It was on here and specifically a conversation about trans in sports that peaked me and made me really think critically about how if I didn’t have an inner sense of Woman, then how could a male person?

Similar to others. Will never vote labour again. Used to believe you can't feel like a woman and that makes you one

I think I changed my mind about weed! I used to smoke a bit (never excessively) quite a few years ago (before kids) and had a "it's fine, what's all the fuss about" attitude, but having watched a lot of my friends and family smoke it and see the longer term implications of being a pot head, and that most of the people who do it long term suffer mental health issues and fail to make much out of their lives, leads me to believe it's a dangerous drug these days. I believe the odd person can handle it but for the vast majority of people think it's a lot less safe than people make out (particularly the strong varieties around these days). I don't impress my thoughts onto people that do it though. That's their choice, a shame so many people seem to be brainwashed about it though.

Third wave feminism to radical feminism.

Green Party/Labour voter for over twenty years to politically homeless.