My dad is getting angrier and angrier about me skipping and leaving church often. I think he is starting to slowly realize how I feel about the church. Today he yelled at me saying "Do you not appreciate all the things the church has done for you?!" All I could think of is the years of boredom it has made me suffer through and the low self esteem it has given me. It makes me feel like I can never do enough to meet their standards. So what lasting effects has the church had on you after you left? Or how did it make you feel while you still went? I'll be an exmormon once I resign after I graduate high school, so I'm really curious how you guys feel and what you, yourself had to go through.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 12:56PM by robertpantera.

Guilt and zero.

Ron Burr

Lasting effects that you need to resolve and overcome:

Being naive enough that you bought it as long as you did.

Being pissed that the church sucked up so many of your prime years and resources with BS and busywork.

Being pissed about having to learn everything you should have learned because you were so busy filtering everything to fit Mormonism. It stunted your reasoning ability and made you live with conflicting views (cognitive dissonance) which is exhausting trying to justify all the time.

Being embarrassed about how you judged other people based on Mormon rules.

Being frustrated that your family is stuck in a cult and you are not. It changes the relationship you will have with Mormon family members. You will know what they are thinking and their motives.

You may or may not experience these things. I hope you don't. However many of us have had to deal with these kinds of issues. THAT'S what the church did to you.

+ + + sadly totally agree :>(

Makes me SAD that I wasted too many years being fooled by it's feel happy manipulation!

Taught me even intelligent people can be taken by a huge scam if they are born into it and it becomes part of the family tradition. It taught me that being educated in the best schools and having a respectable career is not enought to break out of a well trenched scam if it makes that person feel important.

Rubicon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Taught me even intelligent people can be taken by
> a huge scam if they are born into it and it
> becomes part of the family tradition. It taught
> me that being educated in the best schools and
> having a respectable career is not enought to
> break out of a well trenched scam if it makes that
> person feel important.

I think there is an important corollary here: "...if it makes that person feel important AND NORMAL."

When someone is born into a family tradition---and most especially if that family tradition/identity is corroborated by that person's social/cultural milieu---they feel NORMAL.

Leaving that tradition, or even CONSIDERING the possibility of leaving that tradition, means going to (by definition) an ABNORMAL life...and it often takes a very long time, and great internal and external damage, before most people are able to find to strength to go to what is, for them ABnormality.

Everyone who leaves deserves both respect and accolades for having the real courage to make this often extremely difficult journey.

Make a list of all the things the church has done to you, give it to your Dad. Ask him for a list of all the things the church done for you. Maybe it will open an avenue of open communication.

Keep in mind the Jewish version of the Golden Rule that tavai quoted:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1408369,1408412#msg-1408412

"Do not do to others what you would not want done to you."

Just thankful for loving parents who didn't force me to do things I didn't want to, and that I walked away and married a Catholic....

Ron Burr

I have chosen to take the positive route and focus on what I learned and have in my life because of converting and living the religion. Yes, it was "The Good The Bad The Ugly" as was all of my life, in and outside the LDS Church.
I learned that personalities are the same everywhere, just the faces change. I experienced the same kind of positive and negative behaviors at church, at work, at school, and elsewhere.
I gained self esteem, self respect and self confidence from my "callings" as I had many, many opportunities to serve others and develop some of my skills and talents, some I didn't know I had.
I also have a wonderful, loving family with a variety of religious belief systems as their choice.
I chose well. My husband was also a father who was an example of what Mormonism was really about and respected my rights when I chose to leave it and the rights of anyone else in the family to choose their religion and belief system.
I gained a greater understanding of how religion functions in the societal needs of human beings throughout the history of mankind. Because I was a convert, I experienced how religious beliefs are taught on some level from birth and the traditions and rituals retain their value from generation to generation.

Sure, I can find the negative in my life. But why would I do that? I find the only way to inner peace is to focus on the good in others. Yes, I had some ugly, nasty experiences in the LDS Church. I also had ugly, nasty experiences in the work force.

I have found the value in all of my life and rejected any need for guilt, or regrets. I have wonderful memories that I will keep as part of my history. I will discard and let go of any emotional attachment to the negative experiences as they no longer serve me.

I have determined, now that I am in my seventh decade as a widow, that I will spend the rest of my days finding the fun, the laughter, the good, the uplifting, the inspiriting, the positive, in each day. I am grateful that I wake up and have another day to spend on this earth enjoying every little thing about it: the sunshine, the communication with friends and loved ones, having fun with friends, going to lunch, sharing our experiences and supporting my friends and loved ones. What I get in return is an amazing, awesome life.
And that, is why I focus on the good in everyone and everything as much as possible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 02:23PM by SusieQ#1.

It tore my family apart and turned my world inside out. It celebrated lies and spurned truth. It set me back as a young person, so I had to play catch up in my personal growth. It offended me with its pernicious subculture of envy and guilt. My cognitive-challenged siblings were seduced by its honeyed promises of eternal progression through rote repetition. It's a vacuum that abhors nature. It made me feel bad for being me.

Other than that, not much.

It did only two good things for me, as a convert of two years:

It helped me identify my faith and personal belief in God. I started praying again because I found the LDS church. But then, through praying, I realized how bogus and out-of-touch the Mormon Church was with the God I believed in. I prayed my way in, and prayed and thought my way right the f*ck back out....I call it "prayerful reasoning": that is, I used the brain and the conscience God gave me, to see how wrong and damaging the LDS church was.

The second thing: It helped me discover how much I love people. A lot of my anger towards the church comes from seeing how it hurts everybody affected by it...even those who eat it right up. I love people too much to love the LDS church. If I had loved myself more, I never would have joined.

What it did TO me:

It disturbed the peace of my life.

By that, I mean that the church found me at a time where I was in a dark, lonely, but pivotal time in my life. I bought into a lot of the love-bombing and feelings of false friendship because
I desperately wanted a sense of community in that time of my life. I didn't need that kind of false sense of community, though.

On the journey, I fell in love with a TBM, who played mindgames and broke my heart because I couldn't pretend to fit the Mormon mold. But if I did, my heart would have broken beyond repair, further down the road. I'm still hurting, but not beyond repair. In the end, I loved myself enough to leave...and him enough to let him go.

The church has given me a burden of hurt and rage that I wouldn't have had without it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 02:25PM by godtoldmetorun.

I work as an advocate for victims of domestic violence. I live in a small rural town that has 14 different churches, including one LDS.

Domestic violence affects TBMs at the same rate as the general population. I've had several TBM clients need material/financial assistance to get someplace safe, and the local ward has NEVER given a penny to their faithful tithe payer. I can't even get the bishop to as if someone is able to transport a victim to shelter (the closest one is 2 hours away--but so is our closest Walmart)

On the other hand, the local Catholic and Presbyterian churches will help ANYONE regardless of whether they are a member of that parish or not. Both churches have willingly given material items and money to TBMs, and in one case, a Catholic church member drove the TBM victim and her children to shelter. Both churches have used their resources to help victims starting out on their own to find a suitable rental property and a job. They have been an amazing resource, and even though I am not a member of either parish, I give generously when they have fundraisers, because I know the money will go back into the community.

So to answer your question: What has the church done for me? Nothing. What does it do for its members? Nothing. But for the low low price of 10% of gross they can assist you with getting into heaven!