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Here's an interesting article I read for the intriguing title...

PREACHING HELL IN A TOLERANT AGE
Brimstone for the broad-minded.

But I ended up by understanding something pertinent to this discussion of hell -- Christ suffered the actual torments of hell for His flock. Were those torments real, or just a "spiritual separation from God?"

Scripture shows us clearly that Christ suffered the agony of hell on the cross for us. He gave us a clear portrait of what hell is, promising that we wouldn't have to suffer like He did because He suffered for us, so that we could stand acquitted of our sins before God.

"And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him." -- Matthew 27:30-31
"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." -- Hebrews 12:2

If our hell is merely a psychic malaise, then so was Christ's separation from God. But He showed us clearly that it wasn't -- it was objective and real and devastating.

If our hell is merely a psychic malaise, then so was Christ's separation from God. But He showed us clearly that it wasn't -- it was objective and real and devastating

I never said it wasn't real. You are making things up as you go along. You are putting words in my mouth that I never siad. That's fraud.

Peter Chopelas writes in an article reviewed by Orthodox Church officials in America

The idea that God is an angry figure who sends those He condemns to a place called Hell, where they spend eternity in torment separated from His presence, is missing from the Bible and unknown in the early church. While Heaven and Hell are decidedly real, they are experiential conditions rather than physical places, and both exist in the presence of God. In fact, nothing exists outside the presence of God.

Note here that God is present but He is experienced by the soul as absent. This experience (state) of God's absence is hell. Ergo, God is, by definition, not present in hell to the soul which is in (a state of) hell.

he than contrasts this with the traditional Western view (since then the Catholics have moved closer to the Patristic view of the 1st millennium):

This is not the way traditional Western Christianity, Roman Catholic or Protestant, has envisioned the afterlife. In Western thought Hell is a location, a place where God punishes the wicked, where they are cut off from God and the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet this concept occurs nowhere in the Bible, and does not exist in the original languages of the Bible.

The Orthodox understanding of heaven and hell is our state of existence in the presence of God. His love is either experienced as joy in those who love Him and burning in those who hate Him.

While there is no question that according to the scriptures there is torment and "gnashing of teeth" for the wicked, and glorification for the righteous, and that this judgment comes from God, these destinies are not separate destinations. The Bible indicates that everyone comes before God in the next life, and it is because of being in God's presence that they either suffer eternally, or experience eternal joy. In other words, both the joy of heaven, and the torment of judgment, is caused by being eternally in the presence of the Almighty, the perfect and unchanging God

This is not a new concept

This is not a new interpretation or a secret truth. It has been there all along, held by the Church from the beginning, revealed in the languages of the Scriptures, which were spoken by the Christians of the early church era. This understanding was held by nearly all Christians everywhere for the first 1000 years of the Church's existence, and, except where influence by western theologies, continued to be held by Christians beyond Western Europe and America even up to this day (including the roughly 350 million Orthodox Christians worldwide).

He then goes into very detailed analysis of different words used for hell in both Greek and Hebrew

When you examine in context the source words which are translated as "hell" in English language Bibles the original understanding becomes clear. You will find that "hell" is translated from four different Greek and Hebrew words. These words are not interchangeable in the original language, yet, incredibly, in English-language bibles these words are translated differently in different places to fit the translators' theology (rather than allow the words of scripture to determine their theology). Not only did English translators dump these four very different words into one meaning, they were not even consistent with it and chose to translate these same words with different meanings in different places. It is no wonder that English readers of the Bible are confused.

The article is rather long, going into ancient concepts of afterlife, etc. so I will stop here. I have no problem with your mistaken interpretations. That will be your burden when you answer for your deeds. That you rejected the Church despite the fact that it was given to you on many on occasion is something you will have to explain, for as the Bible says "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."—Mat 12:37