What deconversion is like

I see that someone else has had this thought before me, but it’s a good one, so I’m going to post it here anyway.

Imagine that you’re hanging on to a rope, suspended over an abyss. All around you are other people, all clinging to their ropes. You shout encouragement to each other, telling each other not to let go of the rope or else you’ll fall. Hang on to the rope! they say. They even have a song: “Hold On to the Rope”. They sing it to each other on Sundays.

You’ve been hanging on to the rope for a very long time, and your arms are tired. All this rope-holding doesn’t seem to make any sense sometimes. The rope burn is terrible. But you don’t dare let go of the rope because of all the awful things that will happen to you if you do.

At last, you become so tired of holding on to the rope that you let go, and fall.

Six inches. That’s how far away the ground has been all this time.

This is a great surprise. So you tell the others, “There’s no danger! You’re almost touching the ground as it is!” But they won’t listen. They just cling to their ropes all the harder.

And now you have choices. You can walk around. You can run, or even dance if you want to. Or you can talk to other people that have also let go. Strange how you never noticed them before. You also have two free hands that you can use to build things, examine things in this new world, or hold hands with someone nice, instead of just holding on to the rope all the time.

Life is good with your feet on the ground.