Is this just a phase of recovery that I am going through since leaving the church? I don't want anything to do with anyone or anything Mormon (except ex-mormons). Its hard because I don't even want to be around TBM relatives. The shunning were now receiving from people at church is making me hate it all more. And everytime I see someone from church or have to talk about us leaving the church it really affects me emotionally, even though I am very confident in my decision.

My very TBM MIL & SIL are going to be at my children's soccer games tomorrow and I really don't want to see them. I know church is going to be brought up. SIL doesn't know yet so she will probably ask the date of my sons baptism in a couple months, that is'nt going to happen.
How did you all deal with these situations after leaving TSCC?

A lot of people hate all things Mormon after leaving Mormonism. It is quite common. I don't think you are bad for feeling it, but hopefully you can work on getting over it.

For me, I didn't feel that. Instead of getting angry, I decided that while getting over religion, I was also going to stop falling prey to irrational emotions that make me see things in a weird light. To me, Mormonism is just a fringe Christian group that teaches a weird doctrine. I fully blame myself for the brainwashing I went through and the subsequent things that I did

Instead of being angry and blaming others, I focused on Mormonism as an interesting subject. The culture, the people and the religion of Mormonism are all interesting phenomena and are much better understood with a critical eye rather than an emotional one.

snb gives a good answer that I agree with, but of course getting over the emotional feelings you have will take time. The more distance (physically and emotionally) you can put between yourself and the morg the better, but unfortunately you must continue to deal with your TBM relatives. I'm sure things will get easier for you once you get over the discomfort of revealing your decisions to the TBMs in your life. Just remember that you're doing the right thing (particularly for your son, lucky boy), and the Mormons are the ones with the problem, not you. We all have to deal with unpleasant things -- just a fact of life. You'll be fine.

"but of course getting over the emotional feelings you have will take time."

Couldn't agree more. I'm glad you said it, because I don't think I did it the same justice.

We all have to keep our chins up and enjoy our new, less restrictive life. :)

Thanks, great advice. Hopefully with time things will get easier. I will have to try keeping a different perspective in mind when dealing with all of this. I do love to study "interesting subjects".

Yes.

Anyone who was harmed by mormons and their whole process should feel angry as an appropriate reaction to being used or abused.

Those who weren't damaged because they are part of the privileged group may of course claim that we are "being victims" and should just get over the genuine hurt mormons and their institution can inflict.

Fuck that. I hate apologists too. Walk a while in the shoes of a woman, a non-white, a gay person. Then tell me to take the kinder gentler path.

Hey, watcha gonna do? Moism is disgusting...

I still like green lime jello, and pistachio pudding, and those candies my ward used to make back in the day, but everything else I could live without.

I hope we can distinguish between those who espouse mormonism & those who merely follow it.

Oh Wait, Jesus said if you're lukewarm...

We should take the High Road.

hate is a Powerful Emotion;

'Love needs to be nurtured & renewed; Hate only needs to be provoked'.

It's a tough call where to 'begin' & 'end' the resentment many of us here feel are legitimate reactions to the patterns of Mormonism:

deceit including Lies

shunning

Fake Friendships, from missionaries & others
(would you have a beer with a missionary, a Mormon?)

lack of polite boundaries between individuals

(more?)

Bottom Line, there's little about Mormonism to Like:



Love & Truth are too valuable to decline
Hate & Lies are too ugly to accept.

There are a lot of things to like about Mormonism: The people who think they are better than you because they don't drink beer or coffee or tea; the endless number of meetings; the racism the church has held onto for so long; the patriarchy; the lying about its history; the heavy, relentless religious education it imposes on its members so that they can't be talked out of their "One True church;" the difficult to pin down doctrine--"I don't know that we teach that." The authoritarianism is a real draw. You don't have to think. When the brethren have spoken, the thinking has been done! Of course, you can find Mormon apologists who will argue until you are bored to tears that that has never been real doctrine and was only ever mentioned in a CES article by some marginal church writer.

This is an interesting subject to contemplate. In the earlier stages of recovery (about 12 months after) they got on my nerves. The way they looked, the way the used special words, the naïveté and baby voice, etc. Now I don't feel that way. I've had a bit of a change of heart. I guess I forgave myself for the way I was which was just like they are. Since I forgave me, I forgave them. Finally. Took about 2 years.

It's funny how I learned to hate Mormonism as a kid. I think it was because I had a cruel and hateful father. Every beating I took drove me farther away from the church I associated with him. The culture that supported my old man had to be bad, because he was bad. Yes, I hate and despise everything Mormon.

Was I offended? I wish that's all it was.

I love word puzzles. For years, I refused to use the word "seer". Kinda gives a whole new dimension to the term "petty", doesn't it?

I've been out for 8 years. I am not around Mormons very much. I was just around my mormon family last weekend and it reminded me how much I hate the Mormon church. I don't have a problem with most of the members. I feel sorry for them. Even the members who are horrid are that way because of the church. If a brainwashed person were to blame for the brainwashing, then it wouldn't be brainwashing. I am not special because I made it out because I over came the brain washing, I just am what I am. (I had circumstances that helped me get out)

I hate the mormon church. I wish it would have a huge exposing scandal for the fraud that it is. I hate that my family believes, pays, propagates that church. My hate doesn't weigh me down, it empowers me to tell my story, I tell everyone who will listen how bat shit crazy that church is.

I feel that way as well. Vacations with the family all center around church related topics and make me want to vomit. I feel so misunderstood by my family and alone. I just don't feel comfortable around them anymore. Part of me just wants to run away from my life forever. I feel like everyone is in the dark but me and they are not willing to turn on the flashlight!

I don't hate the mormons. I just disagree with thier beliefs. As long as they don't force their way of life on me,,I have nothing to say. I got tired of the "us vs them" attitude. I also don't agree with other religions. I don't badmouth them either.

I think leaving mormonism is like ripping off a bandaid. The wound is there, and it doesn't get better when constantly poked in. So try to not let anyone poke your wound and it will in time heal just fine. Avoid mormons and things mormon, things that make you upset and with time these things won't upset you as much. It's only natural that we seek to avoid the things that has hurt us.

When one is in mormonism one really doesn't understand how intrusive it is. How mormons are constantly pushing each other's buttons, like little kids do. They don't treat each other like adults so how could they treat you like one? Unfortunately we have to teach the mormons in our lives how to treat us like adults. Perhaps you need to clearly say that you won't talk mormonism with them, or don't want to listen to testimonies unless you are free to express your testimony and when they violate your boundaries: Walk away! Hang up the phone! Don't let them poke your wounds.

notanymore, I'm sorry you are having a hard time but I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way sometimes. Last night I went to a play at my daughter's junior high and one of the members of our ward I hate the most was there with his wife and kids, sitting right in front of us. This is the man who has lied about me and because of his lies, people believe that I'm not attending because I'm offended and not allowing my kids to attend either. He's gone behind my back, believing I don't want my kids at church and offered them rides. Basically saying "I know your mom is keeping you home from church but I'll give you a ride if you can sneak out on her." Who DOES that? How do you not HATE people who slander you and try to steal your kids? How do you not hate people who just make up lies? But most of all, he and his wife were good friends with us before this - we've even been on vacation together. But when the pressure was on, he never even asked ME what was going on before he started lying. Again, what's not to hate about people like that and every thing in the system that made them the way they are?

That being said, the only thing that has ever really made me mad was the lying. That the leaders are lying to us and the members are lying about us. And it's so sneaky and underhanded that you can't fight it, for the most part. You can only walk away and be outraged about what is going on behind your back. And I can tell myself it doesn't matter any more - I have new, non-LDS friends I like better. I can tell myself I'm lucky and better off without Mormonism. I can say I feel sympathy for the nice Mormons who've had their morals twisted out of shape by a bad religious system. And then someone treats me unfairly based entirely upon lies they heard about me and I start hating Mormonism all over again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2012 11:22AM by CA girl.

Yup. The church is despicable and its members are insufferable and infuriating. I apologize to no one for my feelings about the church.

Mostly when I see billboards in the largely unchurched PAC NW. I was happy to see a graffiti tag that said "F#$% Morons" underneath one recently.

The hate, if I really think about it, is nothing more than that feeling of absolute powerlessness that I experienced for many many years. And a bit of regret that I didn't figure it out sooner.

But that's just a common sense thing that TSCC has tried to hijack and make it their own.

Bastards !

I, too, had some pretty strong feelings of hatred and anger as I made my transition out. It didn't help that new DH was still in the church at the time and most of his family were (and still are) rabid TBMs. Ex-DH was a pretend TBM, too -- no escaping it. I figured out a few things that helped, though. I'm not saying these would work for everybody.
- Grounding and centering to calm myself down
- Time wandering around Barnes&Noble with coffee in hand
- Time spent out in nature where the TBMs don't go
- Realizing how much better I feel since I left
- When they say obnoxious/offensive things, I vent later, in private, instead of getting into a fight.
- Like CA Girl, the lying infuriated me, too. I mostly did whatever I could so I didn't have to be around it. It helped that DH and I moved a few months after we got married, so I didn't have to live in the same crappy neighborhood that felt like a Mormon fishbowl where everybody watched and gossiped.

I still cringe when I see BYU merchandise at the local Walmart, though. I visualize it all going up in flames.

Luckily, I no longer live around anything or anyone mormon and have very little contact with any mormon relatives so I don't have to deal with the cringe factor anymore.

The thing I have more of a hard time with is dealing with the things in my life that are so frucked up because of my mormon involvement and always will be. I am reminded of them on a daily basis. I don't carry the stanley steamer trunk full of baggage that I used to, but I will always have to haul around a suitcase. I can never undo the fact of my ridiculous marriage to someone who I never in a bazillion years would have married and had children with had I not believed it didn't matter who I married as long as they had a pass to the clubhouse--and someone I was actually encouraged, by moronic brainwashed parents, to marry. My relations with his children will always be precarious.

Life is so much better than it ever would have been at this stage if I'd stayed in that church, but I do hate everything mormon that I have to drag around in that suitcase.

This is precisely how Mormonism screws up our lives with a capital F. I'm only slowly jettisoning the crap I've collected. I envy you for not having much Mormon stuff going on around you. Obviously, Memphis is not Yakima. Shoot, we Eastern Washin'tonians even have our own temple for a population of only a couple hundred thousand.

Anyway, it forces introspection, and after thinking long and hard over a period of a few years now, I'm pretty convinced I never bought into it. I didn't believe the BoA since 1969, right when I left for my mission, and it had become apparent that the book bore no resemblance to the scrolls. I was sorely disappointed. I quit reading and teaching from the BoM back in the late '80s and early '90s, and stuck only to the Bible, yet no one seemed to notice. I absolutely hated attending the meetings and would often go outside and wander around during great parts of the 3-hour block, even taking to coffee drinking while Sunday school was going on before coming back and teaching a priesthood lesson. But I have a hard time explaining why I didn't just throw in the towel years ago when I clearly recognized that I didn't believe.

I just don't find anything to like.

Timothy

Memorize these words! "Let's not talk about religion during a game/at a party/at the grocery store/in the workplace/in front of the kids/etc." Then, change the subject. Say this whenever and wherever it applies. I suffered for months, wondering how to explain things at a family wedding, after my temple recommend expired. My solution worked like a charm!

"Let's not talk about religion. This is a happy occasion! How is your family?"

Everyone varies in their tolerance to pain, abuse, and shunning. I have zero tolerance, because I was severely abused and tortured by my TBM older brother, until I escaped to BYU (the only university my parents would allow, although I had scholarships). I married a parent-approved RM, who beat me for 14 nightmarish months. I ended up with PTSD. Then the Mormons started on my children.

CA Girl wrote about someone who resembles many of the Mormon priesthood leaders we have known: "He's gone behind my back, believing I don't want my kids at church and offered them rides. Basically saying "I know your mom is keeping you home from church but I'll give you a ride if you can sneak out on her." Who DOES that? How do you not HATE people who slander you and try to steal your kids?"

The priesthood leaders broke into our house and dragged my sons out of bed, forcefully dressed them, butt-kicked them up the stairs and into their van, and forced them to stay in meetings half-dressed and subject to ridicule. They did this several times, when I was already at church, early, for music rehearsals and the prelude. The bishops hideous high school senior son tried to molest my little girl at a church campout.

I hated going to church as a female, divorced, single parent.

I left the cult quietly, and tried to get along with my Mormon neighbors, at first. Their frequent knocking at our door, and their nastiness, and their lies had a lasting effect on me and my children. All of them "hate" Mormons, and one of them married one, and she thinks she will be strong enough to keep her future children from being sucked under.

I have PTSD, and went to a therapist who helped me a great deal. For me, the best solution has been to avoid all things Mormon. It is actually fun, sometimes! It cheered me up to get rid of 6 shelves of Mormon Deseret books, to throw my garments in the garbage with the cat litter and coffee grounds, to strip my house of stupid icons and photos of my polygamous ancestors. I even threw out those old unhealthy Mormon recipes, started shopping at the health food stores. I dress differently, and no longer use the Mormon vocabulary. I changed both myself and my environment, and found my true self in there somewhere. I still live in Utah, but I go where the Mormons don't go--such as out in nature, as one poster recommended. We spend a lot of time in Park City. I do not hire or do business with Mormons. My best friends are not Mormon--old friends from high school and college, bridesmaids--and half my cousins have left the cult.

For me, it has been healthy to hate everything Mormon. Especially, I have kept my children away from the abusive ones.

After taking forestpal's advice, do the same thing to your mind.

The mind is completely different. You can't subtract the Mormon crap like you can when you throw out the books and homage photos. You have to dilute it by taking Mormonism out of the brainwashed paradigm of the "Restored One True Church" and replacing it with reality.

It is a fringe religion started by a perverted convicted conman, same as so many others. By a quirk of fate or happenstance, Brigham Young took over and his organizational and management skills plus isolation anchored the new cult. Had Samuel taken over you and I would probably be Methodists or Lutherans not needing a site like this.

How to do that? Start seeing religion in the Big Picture by educating yourself. Joseph Campbell is a great beginning because by understanding the origin of human mythology, it is a lot easier to forgive yourself for believing Mormon missionary hogwash. You realize that you are sort of preprogrammed to believe in a virgin birth of a god who comes down out of the sky and lives with mankind to teach valuable truths. The Hero of A Thousand Faces tells the story of how myth moves along throughout history being reinvented in many different ways. You can see the landmark documentary series of "The POwer of Myth" on Netflix.

This does not negate the truths of man's spiritual nature, rather the opposite. Enduring myths prove the hardiness of ideas about man's potential and the realization of human nature and the existence/relationship to god as expressed over and over by many different cultures.

With that background, study next the classic book "The World's Religions" by Huston Smith, now available in paperback for $.25.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Worlds-Religions/Huston-Smith/e/9780062508119.

Now you have a basic understanding of how different traditions have taken these myths and incorporated them into working religions that mesh with the cultures they are found in--i.e., the hero comes back and brings what the people need.

After this preparation, read the history of American religion without the Mormonism. If that is a little dry for your tastes, the textbook "Survey of American Literature, Part I" gives you a great feel for the emotional climate of the time. The fervor of the camptown revival spirit. Grant Palmer's book "Insiders View of Mormonism" tells about Joseph Smith's experience as an exhorter in the tent revival period in upstate New York. If you prefer to read the history of the Mormon religion through the eyes of academic integrity, Michael Quinn's work is without peer.

Before you choke on all this, be aware that these directions involve "flooding" your mind in order to neutralize emotion. There is value just in the emersion of studying religion to help strip away its power to evoke a negative response. As posters have mentioned above, to make it an "interesting" and "curious" developmental blip in American religious history, instead of the most important and significant event since the birth of Christ.

There is no question that the Mormon religion has become a high-tech soul-eating, family destroying monster. You are watching a horror movie about a Frankenstein mutant half business, half religion, who crashed out of the laboratory and is now running for President. It is bloated in size and so full of lies it cannot keep upright and is toppling while people run screaming to keep from being crushed as it falls.

Anyone who peeks under the business suit screams "my eyes, my eyes." Mormonism cannot stand scrutiny. It's bullshit is held together by bullshit, so don't lose a winks sleep that this stone will keep rolling.

It is already over for Mormonism, thanks to the weakness of its God, who apparently can't control even Google, let alone the weather.

Best

Anagrammy

I was a young adult convert so that probably put me in a different category of former Mormon.

I live with and love Mormons. I don't believe in their religious views, but I do believe in universal truths such as: love one another!

I live my life on my terms. Other people have no ability to stir up negative attitudes from me unless I allow it. Personally, it's just too exhausting to hate anything or anyone.

Live and let live. That's the best we can do.

They get to do what they want, the way they want, and so do I.
Their choices are not----about me. They are about them.
Good to separate the two.

I have learned not to take any contrary behavior personally. The best advice I ever read or got: DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY!!! Other people's thoughts and behavior is 100% about their insecurities, and certainly their behavior is not about me anyhow, even if it is directed at me. Why would I take their stuff into my life? I don't need it or want it.


So many myths/deities/religions - so little time!

Life is short. Ignore what you don't want in your life.

I hated everything about it before I quit and even more so after.