Your stories

My husband, a lifelong atheist, recently had open-heart surgery and was in the hospital for almost a month, almost all of which was in the ICU.

He experienced several complications from the surgery and nearly died.

The ordeal he went through included almost constant and debilitating pain, not only from the surgery, but also from the invasive techniques used to save his life. This is traumatising to anyone, but it was even more traumatising for him because it resulted in him experiencing flashbacks of when he was brutally tortured (in the name of God) while imprisoned in concentration camps.

He was also unable to eat or drink anything most of the time he was hospitalised because of the complications from the surgery. This was yet another layer of trauma for him because he was starved & deprived of water when he was a POW in the concentration camps.

He was delirious much of the time that he was hospitalised and experienced severe anxiety all while fighting for his life.

I too, experienced emotional trauma as I watched him in agonising pain while he was fighting for his life.

We both needed help and support but I didn’t know who to turn to because, like my husband, I too am an atheist. Our friends and family are religious, and it’s difficult to truly connect with people who are telling you that you need to pray to Jesus for a miracle when in fact, praying doesn’t do fuck. All human beings will eventually die. No amount of prayer can change that. I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that I just felt like we both needed support from people without a religious agenda.

I reached out to the chaplain’s office to see if they had a secular chaplain who would be able to come visit my husband and myself to offer us greatly needed support. I was told they didn’t have secular chaplains on staff but that they could still help non-believers.

While that may be true, my husband was targeted for genocide and tortured simply because the origin of his name is Muslim. All the horrors that he experienced were done in the name of God and were rooted in religion and nationalism, and both of us are highly opposed to being counseled by people whose educational background is religious studies.

I ended up calling into a YouTube show (“That GD Show”) to ask for help. My husband and I regularly watched the hosts (Dave Warnock & Genevieve), and we both felt a connection with them.

So out of desperation, I called into the show to talk to Dave and his two guest hosts. I told them our situation and how I felt like hospitals need to have secular, humanist chaplains available. Dave and his co-hosts offered me so much support and hope, and Dave also gave me his cell phone number and asked me to call him anytime, which I did. We talked and texted frequently during my husband’s hospital stay, and sometimes I would put him on speaker phone so my husband could hear Dave’s voice. 

My husband recognized his voice and upon realising that Dave, a complete stranger whom he admired, was on the phone talking to him gave him so much hope and made both of us feel cared about and supported.

Dave also reached out to one of his atheist friends who lived a few hours away from where my husband was hospitalised. He asked his friend if he would come visit me and my husband. It was shocking when this complete stranger showed up at the hospital simply because Dave told him we needed support.

I still get tears in my eyes when I think about how these two caring strangers helped us so much during our time of need. They didn’t pray for us or put us on prayer lists but they gave us what we needed…care and connection.

While we were both very fortunate to have received that kind of help from complete strangers, we still would have benefited from a secular chaplain. Many other non-believers in the U.S. are deserving of and could greatly benefit from care, compassion, and support from secular chaplains while they are hospitalised.

The “I Am Dying Out Loud” platform is trying to bring about awareness for this need. They advocate for hospitals and medical facilities to have a “religion-neutral environment,” and this would include providing access to secular, humanist chaplains. 

My husband and I are supportive and grateful for this much needed non-profit organisation, as well as the founders who have taken the time and energy to get it up and running. 

Thank you so much for all you do. It means the world to us.

As soon as my mom decided to stop treatment, she asked to see her family and friends to say good-bye. I honored all of her wishes, including her religious requests. She was a Catholic and I am an atheist, but this never defined our relationship. I respected her decision to die, but it was still incredibly difficult. She was my favorite person. My time with her was fleeting and precious. 

But this time was tainted by two nurses who forced their religious ideology into the most grief-stricken and distraught time of my life; my last day with my mom.

In February of 2022, when I walked out of the bathroom of my mom’s hospital room, I startled a nurse who was “praying in tongues” over my mom. When I asked him what he was doing, he said “I am giving her the message of the gospel as I know it to be true.” Although she was medicated, at times she was aware and responsive. So, I asked the nurse

if she had asked him to do that and he said “no”. He said he had asked her if she knew what would happen to her after she died and if she believed in an afterlife. Although I assumed she had said yes, he told me she had said “no“.

His question to her was an egregious, unethical and unprofessional violation of her emotional, mental, and physical care. Glossolalia was not a part of her religion. She may have been frightened by it but had no way to defend herself. His behavior highlighted his religious privilege and disregard for her beliefs. I had to push my anger aside and focus on the time left with my mom, but instead I was confronted with more unsolicited religious overreach a few hours later by another nurse.

It was evident my mom was going to die soon. As her new nurse introduced herself, she stated how blessed we were to have her because she worked in hospice for years. She had an overly joyful demeanor in a very somber room.  As we sat facing each other, with my mom laying between us, I asked her what I could expect to happen; meaning will she be in pain or uncomfortable and how I will know if she is minutes from her death. Her response was that she will have an amazing religious experience and that she would see Jesus and her loved ones. 

I was in shock.  I asked her multiple times to refrain from expressing her religious ideas, but to no avail. As I firmly pushed back on her for forcing this conversation and engaging me in debate, I realized that my mom may be hearing us.  I stopped and then just asked her to get eye drops for my mom. When she returned, she said “Just one more thing, it’s a fun fact. A study in Germany showed that a spirt weights five pounds”.  Before I could respond, my siblings came into the room. 

My brother saw I was visibly shaken and knowing that I had not slept in almost two days, motioned to the couch to suggest I take a nap. I was too distressed and had to calm down. I told him I would head to my house, just a mile away, but that I would return soon.  I hastily left, planning to go home and compose myself, and then return. 

I never went back because she died a few hours later. 

My emotions clouded the fact that my mom would die very soon. I wanted to be with her until the end. I wanted to talk to her and hold her hand as she would have done for me. She would have never left me. So now, I am left without her; but the guilt, anger, and shame for leaving remains. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself. Maybe I should have let the nurse ramble on. Maybe this nurse’s stories and claims would have comforted my mom since they aligned with her beliefs, although she did not know that. Wasn’t this about my mom after all and not the religious overreach? Should I have once again just gone along to get along?  

I may always contemplate these questions, but I will continue to use my experience as fuel to ignite awareness and change, and to protect others in their most vulnerable time.

Dave and Bevin’s new adventure, the I Am Dying Out Loud organization is dedicated to ensuring that non-religious people's beliefs are equally valued and respected in medical environments, especially end-of-life situations.

This topic is deeply personal to me, and I'm so grateful for the humans who are creating this resource. Many of you know, but for those who don't, my grandmother died by suicide. When I got the phone call that she was being taken to the hospital, my whole world was spinning. I was the first person from my family to arrive, and the hospital took me to a private waiting room - the one where humans go when they're told the worst news of their lives, and I was terrified and devastated and...all the awful feelings. Then, the hospital chaplain walked in, and it was the first time I'd been alone in a room with a "religious-authority" since my abuse by the "religious-authorities" from my church.

The chaplain didn't know anything about my past, of course, and I'm certain his intentions were to try to comfort me in that waiting room, but his presence only brought me terror and shame. It was shocking how quickly I reverted back to my "submit to authorities" mindset. I was like a child again and found myself "confessing my sins“ (sharing family history that I did not want to share) to a stranger. Then he stayed with my family throughout the night and was with me when I was brought back to see my grandmother before they took her to surgery. He walked in with me as I saw her blood-covered body, and a part of her body was exposed that she wouldn't have liked. I stood frozen in horror at everything that was in front of me, but the thought that screamed in my brain was that a "man of God" shouldn't be in a room with my half-naked grandmother. I hated that he was there. I hate that he takes up an awful space in those already awful memories.

This happened before I found the ex-religious community and had ever heard the words religious trauma. He didn't know, I'm sure, how much more traumatic that night would be for me because he was there, and that's the whole point of #IAmDyingOutLoud. Bringing awareness about the need for secular options for non-religious people is needed in this world. I wish someone had just asked me if I wanted a chaplain to come, instead of assuming I would.

Thank you to all who are doing the work to change the "norms" of this world.

What you have shared over the years has provided valuable information that has helped me restrict and/or remove access of the religious to patients who don't want uninvited visits within health care settings in my area.

More recently I have been the recipient of such unwanted visits while having IV therapy for a progressive neuro-immune degenerative condition.  The visits were distasteful intrusions to say the least and in a couple of instances ended in heated debates between me and the religious visitors within the IV Unit setting.

Though my arguments against such visits are not popular around here because the area leans toward being a bible belt, and it is often excused with statements like "They mean well...", I will keep pressing the issue through education and advocating for patient rights with the hospital administration and the religious too.  At a minimum, I want the free-pass the religious have to IV, chemo and dialysis units within our local hospital to be restricted or eliminated entirely.  Getting the religious out of the wards when not invited to be there will come next...

Honestly, I find the arrogance and self-righteousness of some religious representatives to be breathtakingly disrespectful; especially toward those who are not at their best!

With great thanks to you and the organization for all that you are doing.

My late husband, Robert, and I had always lived our lives as atheists. In 2013 he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Late in 2015, when the effects of chemo treatments were worse than the disease, we decided to discontinue further treatment and opted for in-home hospice.

We were fortunate to be able to privately hire a very loving and dedicated part-time carer and our medical coverage included weekly visits from a patient advocate, nurses, doctors, and eventually, contracted “personal” caregiver visits for bathing, shaving, nail trimming, etc. Because of this support, I was able to keep my full-time job working a hybrid schedule of in-person and remote.

Upon learning his prognosis, Robert stated in writing to our health care providers that he was an atheist and didn’t want any type of faith based spiritual counseling or support. He was from a Catholic family and I was from an Evangelical one so we both have had our fill of proselytizing.

Our health care provider honored these wishes. However, they “contract out” certain hospice care work. A few weeks before Robert died, a contracted worker arrived to bathe him. She began singing hymns, praying over him and “speaking in tongues.” Our carer happened to walk through the room and warned her to “cease and desist” per Robert’s wishes. But, when the contracted worker returned the following week the same thing happened. Again, she was told to stop. I returned home and asked if he felt better after being bathed and he responded that he didn’t like the woman. I asked why and his only response was “I don’t trust her.”  (It was difficult for him to speak at that point.) Our carer then explained what had happened and I made a few angry calls to ensure she wouldn’t return.

Because of our family backgrounds, we had become accustomed to proselytizing and could let it wash right over us but that my dear, sweet, loving Robert, in his last weeks of his only life while being so ill, vulnerable and dependent on others, had to experience this indignity, this total disregard of the person he was, and his wishes- was cruel, abusive and unforgivable. This should not have happened to him or anyone in a similar situation. And that, Dave, is why I thank you, Bevin and Sheila from the bottom of my heart for initiating the I Am Dying Out Loud organization. I’m so happy to be a part of it.