I try to remember that I believed it too, I didnt see anything wrong with it for a long time. People can't help what they're taught to believe only what they do with new information. In many cases, they will stick with what is comfortable or doesn't interfere with the beliefs they already have. sorry, that probably doesn't help. I'm reading back what I just wrote and Im getting angry. LOL
The bottom line for me is this:
It's hard not to get angry. I blew up at my wife yesterday when our 5-year old daughter said that God made her sister Autistic.
It's true that her sister is Autistic, but I was furious that she would allow our daughter to think that. After I calmed down, I tried to apologize to them both and explain why I had a hard time with that. My daughter is fine but my wife just doesn't want to talk aboutit now. She thinks as long as it's not hurting anyone directly then who cares?
I'm still mad about it. But I also recognize if I can't have grace for them I might end up undermining my position by reacting angrily. I have a sneaking suspicion this won't be the last issue I get pissed about, so I'm trying to approach it in a more detached way, where I don't blame them for saying something fairly innocuous without parsing through the deeper implications of what it is they're saying.

If all religious people would just live their lives as they want to, stop trying to convert people, stop trying to use the government to force their beliefs/morality on to the rest of us, and stop denying settled science that puts us all in peril, it would be a lot easier to not still get angry.

1. I felt liberation
2. I also felt very stupid for believing it for long but I quickly got out by blaming it on my surroundings and others
3. I felt very proud of myself
4. I felt peace
5. I felt erections again

Forgive them for they know not what they do.

You are not alone but other deconverts vary a great deal in their emotional response, in part based on how much they were (or feel) harmed.

Personally I never had much anger because I had my own role to play and was able to acknowledge it. No one holds a gun to a believer's head and thus prevents them from leaving any time they want. There are, of course, multiple metaphorical "guns" such as the threat of being ostracized, including losing your family connections and the only sense of community you've ever known. I'm not saying it doesn't take courage. I'm not saying it doesn't violate everything you once believed about the alleged "agape love" and integrity in your faith community and perhaps in your family of origin. But at the end of the day, I chose to try to remain in the faith despite knowing better, in order to avoid facing the full implications. These implications included my own need to be right, my own aversion to admitting that I was not, etc.

I think most go through a phase of anger and feeling a need to combat the whole notion, but then realize it's just such a waste of time. Because people are going to believe what they are taught, until they get older and start to think for themselves. I've gotten to the point I don't let it get to me. I just wait for an opportunity to talk to people when THEY bring it up. Then hopefully they will really think about it, and perhaps start to question their beliefs. It is hard to get over that initial feeling of anger though. Took me a good couple of years or so. Don't worry, you'll get over it.

Being angry with the Tooth Fairy is pretty silly.......

I think you adjust and get used to it. I know that for me I'm more aware of it every day and it makes me feel more isolated. The bottom line for believers is that they are all so afraid of death. This is why they invented these religions to avoid death. The old custom of saying "gesundheit" when one sneezes is because it was believed that just for an instant the person was so close to death. You sneeze and get "god bless you." I still hear that one every day. Old habits are hard to break.

I think the feelings are more intense when atheism is still new to you and you are likely on the defensive a lot. It was Christmas Carols during the holidays everywhere I went (public places) that used to make me angry, forcing all within earshot to hear songs of Jesus worship, no matter what religion a person might be.

I remember being so angry at the gym one day, asking the manager is there a time of day I could come when they are not playing the Christian Carols? She answered, "January." I canceled my membership.

Over time, I've learned places to avoid, radio stations, favorite singers, etc., during the holidays, but when triggers are unavoidable, I grit my teeth and try to focus on the other things. I've become a bit more tolerant of the religious, but I've also just become wiser on what to avoid.

Religion? Christianity or specifically conservative white protestantism from USA?
Made up stuff taken as reality exists everywhere, religion is only one of them.
Read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and you will understand that all those made up stuff are/were very important for the development.
The way to cope with religion is to understand that for many people religion is part of their own identity, it is difficult to question or even listen to critics for something that is so fundamental as religion. After this you will learn how to deal with people.

Another nice exercise is: Look for the ideas that are part of your identity and see how you feel bad if they are questioned.
It can be country, rights, some view of society (those are the common examples).
Countries are just lines on the ground that at some point an elite group drew and convinced everyone else that it is reality.
Rights are things that we think are nice and we would like to have, but they are no natural at all.
Our idea of society are one out of the many that are possible and even if some of those models are more or less based on science and maximizing the rights that we think are good, they are still just a fantasy.

Anyway. Have fun with religion, anytime that someone tries to shove their religion on me (mostly when it is christianism because I know it) I start demanding hm to be a good follower of YHWH and citing impossible commandments until the guy uses the "each one can follow whathereve he thinks is good" or simply stopping trying to convince me as he is being portrayed as the bad religious person for not following the commitments.

But if you are saying about the power dispute of religion, well religion is only one way to harness power, patriotism, idealism, group identity etc. Religion is the one you have a special attachment because even tough you abandoned it, you still have an attachment to it, it is still part of your identity (to deny the religion).

It will get better when you can define yourself as atheist and not ex-religious (or new atheist, the concept is the same)

As mentioned here... For me it never goes away... It just seethes at different levels. It doesn't consume me by any means but when mentioned I tend to go straight for, "It's not real!"

So... Learn to have fun with it!

[quotev.com]

I reserve that sort of loathing for organized sports. Talk about yer idle worship,

I converted to agnosticism/atheism about the time I was fourteen; I am seventy-four now, and I'm still angry. Though, my anger has mellowed and rarely think about it. Whenever religious sales people knock on my door, it all comes back, and I send them away. They are delusional, and I'm sane. They are on my property, and I have the power. It feels good to send them away. There is no point in being unkind; they are parrots who are ignorant. Yet, a great frustration lingers; too many are gullible.

Take a holiday somewhere secular. UK is nice.

Marijuana. Lots of marijuana.

Just let it go.

You have already wasted enough time and money on religion before you became an atheist.

No reason to waste any more time or money after religion means nothing to you.