The thing that snapped me out of believing was realizing that it doesn't make me happy. I had a lot of crappy experiences on the mission which ended with my humiliating early return and a lot of therapy (still ongoing after two years).

But sometimes thinking back there are a lot of good times that I somehow really miss- Mainly hanging out with other missionaries. I don't think I'll ever make as good of friends ever again in my life, and even hanging out with them after the mission isn't the same.

Do any any of you feel like you're exaggerating how bad things were while in the church? Like maybe you're just indulging in the human tendency to point out the negative and forget the positive?

For the most part, the missionaries I was around were largely not guys I would normally associate with, unless they dropped the phony pompous, sanctimonious act, which I assume they hopefully did once they got home. It was only those few that let their guard down to me, which happened far too infrequently, was when I enjoyed any sort of camaraderie.

Perhaps your mission was not nearly as uptight as mine. You should also ask yourself why at least some of these guys do not remain your friends to this day.

Yeah all the missionaries in my mission were pretty chill. From what hear it seems like other missions' cultures could be pretty toxic but mine was fine. The chillest missionaries tended to end up in leadership. Out of everyone I've ever known in my life, my MTC companion-turned-AP is probably the person I respect the most (outside my own family).

Are you friends with any of your mission buddies anymore?

Memory is a funny thing. Just as there is a human tendency to point out the negative and forget the positive, there is a human tendency to point out the positive and forget the negative.

There was an interesting study done once. Children tend to dislike school. Children, during the school year were questioned about the positives and negatives of school. Many of them focused mostly on the negative and could see few positive things about it.

This trend continued during the first part of Summer vacation. But there was a bit of a softening. Students began to fondly recall positive things along with the negative, although there was still so much negative that they certainly didn't want to have to go back to school yet.

Near the end of the Summer when students were questioned again, it was discovered that many of them actually liked school. They could list off more positive things about it than negative things. Many of them were eager for school to start again.

YES! So true.

I actually can recall both the good and bad and there is a lot of both. But when I come here to RFM I concentrate on the bad because in this case, with Mormonism, the bad isn't just some unfortunate incidents, some bad luck. No, it is loss of real life, being robbed of time and money and love and truth. Giving the best part of yourself to a lie and then watching those you love do the same as they pity you for seeing the truth.

This is worth sorting out as a priority.

I think of it this way: There was the herd and then there was me.

And you.

I wish I was.

+1 I still remember the a few positives. Then I reconsider how much better they could have been if I was out of the cult.

I was 18, I was working two jobs that summer to save up for my mission. I was gone from 6:30 am till 10 pm everyday. We'd had a windstorm come through and knock some trees down on part of the house. My girlfriend a TBM Mormon girl was on the repair crew.

Her sister was her ride and started work at 5am. She was dropped off at 4:30 am every morning for most of the summer. I woke up every morning to having her cuddled next to me on my waterbed.

Ohh the blue balls.... Fucking TSCC screwing with kids heads.

It's a funny thing. For me, most of the negatives weren't glaring and obvious, but they were also fundamental. Hypocrisy, control, dogma. But if you looked at my everyday life, well, it was fine. Feelings-wise on a surface level, Mormons were great to me. The problem is that those nice shiny feelings cover up a dark underbelly. I sometimes wish the church was "true" but it's not. No exaggeration needed.

When I was a member of the Church, I didn't consider it to be something which caused me pain. It wasn't until I'd been there for 30 years and was working for the Church that I began to recognize that the pressure towards perfection had been damaging my self-esteem all along. I hadn't recognized it until then.

I left because I wanted to heal from that damage and the moment I left, I felt that I'd taken back my own power and I did begin to heal.

I experienced pain after I left because old friends wanted nothing to do with me anymore. But I guess they were more like the friends that you make at work. If you leave the job, you vow to keep in touch, but you don't. Your friendship was really based around being co-workers. I didn't know that my friends and I only had the Church in common.

Several years later, I studied the history of the Church and felt anger to realize that they'd misrepresented themselves. But I got over that. Sometimes it resurfaces a little when I read the pain that others have gone through and I feel anger on their behalf.

I miss the social aspect of my membership in the Church. I miss having that large group of friends. But the truth is that I no longer fit in with those people. I've attended a few social gatherings since I left and found that all they can talk about is church. I guess again it's about what they have in common with each other. Take them out of the Church and they might find that they have little in common with one another.

All I know is that I like myself a lot better and I'm much more comfortable in my own skin as a non-Mormon. That tells me that I made the right decision, for myself.

The Mormon cult and its members are experts at "gaslighting" people. I live in Utah, and my children and I are constantly exposed to how wonderful Mormonism is, how happy the Mormons appear to be on Facebook, how prosperous the Mormons neighbors are, how perfect their marriages and children are, etc.

It's like 1984 around there. The Mormon neighbors act like we ex-Mormons are crazy, when the Mormons are the ones who are crazy. Some of the neighbors still believe Joseph and Emma were the perfect couple. They still have Relief Society lessons about the ideal marriage of those two. They still revere Joseph and the other early polygamous prophets, devoting an entire RS year of lessons on each one!

Mormons still say, "The Mormon church is the best way to raise children." They still believe that apostates are evil. Some TBM neighbors have dis-owned their own children for leaving the cult. And now there's the added vindictive hatred of gay parents and their children.... Anyway, this is NOT NORMAL human behavior.

YOU and other non- and ex-Mormons are not the odd-ones-out, yet we are made to feel that way. Shunning is abusive, and manipulative, and messes with your emotions. Lying messes with your mind. Mormon play-acting, denials of truths, changing their history--all these things make you doubt yourself.

You are buying into the PR hype!

TSCC pays madison avenue advertising firm many thousands of dollars to keep the Mormon cult in the rosy spotlight. They call it "heart-sell." The same firm advertises the American Red Cross.

Were you exaggerating? Maybe if you had stayed in the cult--maybe if you went back to it now--the threats would end, and you would be granted all those promised blessings of social acceptance (If you obey, magnify your callings and pay tithing, you might feel accepted, maybe.) success, money, a beautiful virgin spouse. Everything but love, sanity, confidence, self-esteem, autonomy, freedom of thought and speech.

Here's a little test for you, if you aren't exactly sure:

Go to the Mormon church. Go for the whole 3 hours. Dress appropriately. Listen in class. Be friendly with the people. Sing the words to the hymns. Observe how you feel. Do you feel the love of Christ? Do you feel uplifted? Do you feel like you belong? Would you like to be one of these people? Would you like your children to be part of all that?

Still not sure, one way or another? Then, go to church for as long as it takes. Religion is a personal thing. In America we enjoy freedom of religion, and it should be your own choice.

Only you can know if you were exaggerating.

I have no doubts, because my children shared many of the abusive experiences with me. They can back me up, word-for-word, what happened. They also witnessed the harassment and slander of my character--because they were there.

In addition to my "witnesses", I have the witness of my own soul.

Like Greyfort, Woodsmoke, and Don Bagley, I have do doubts that Mormonism is NOT FOR ME. NOT FOR MY CHILDREN. When I walked out of the ward house for the last time, I looked back, and thought, "God is not here. This cult is not of God." Our lives are happy, and blessed, and filled with love! Every day, our decision to resign is reinforced. We never have looked back.

Breeze Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Go to the Mormon church. Go for the whole 3
> hours. Dress appropriately. Listen in class. Be
> friendly with the people. Sing the words to the
> hymns. Observe how you feel. Do you feel the
> love of Christ? Do you feel uplifted? Do you
> feel like you belong? Would you like to be one of
> these people?

Good thought. Being at BYU, I go to church every week and I f***ing hate it. Because 95% of the time it's so freaking boring, and 5% of the time they teach from certain materials (i.e. Miracle of Forgiveness) that bring up memories and feelings from the mission. I know it sounds like I'm crying [triggered], it's definitely sub-PTSD by far, but it's still true.


>Would you like your children to be
>part of all that?

I think about this a lot. And the answer is a resounding "NO!".

-- I will not have my children recite "I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet" from the time they are barely learning to speak.

-- I will not teach my children that Obedience is a virtue to retain into adulthood. It serves a purpose while they're young but I'll never teach them to distrust their own judgement.

-- I will not have them baptized and congratulate them on their "choice" before they're old enough understand what it really means. They're free to investigate themselves but I won't have them cajoled into it.

-- I won't keep them so preoccupied with church meetings, church callings, and seminary that they're unable to have growing experiences outside the church. They won't grow up dependent on the church for a social support system.

And the list goes on...


So good thought. This has helped me organize my thoughts a lot, thanks.

I had lots of good experiences growing up in the "church". However, I didn't grow up in Utah and all of the good experiences were basketball, scouting, high adventure trips, etc..., not really church-related.

While I had a few good experiences on my mission, I don't think I exaggerate the negatives: days spent walking for hours on end for nothing, parasites, malnutrition, blisters, ingrown toenails, peddling fiction to poor, uneducated folks that didn't deserve that, etc...

I recently read through my mission journals. There are a few funny stories, but it's mostly about wasted time, about how almost every scheduled appointment fell through. Several times throughout I wrote, in my mission language, how "the best two years" line was BS and that the mission was, without a doubt, the worst time of my life. It might have been more bearable had we been given enough money to eat and access to healthcare (and some free time), but it still would have been a waste. It is, and probably always will be, my biggest regret.

seriously, must be a pathetic life if a mission was the best two years. street contacting for 10-12 hours in 80-90 degree, >90% humidity. walking next to shitty, boring companions who are trying to climb the leadership ladder and will turn on you in a heartbeat

f that

I had a pleasant enough church experience. No horror stories here. But I can't seem to get around the problems with the LDS church's bigotry and overall lack of truthfulness.

Hanging out with friends is a great memory. Many people remember fondly how great it was to be young and experiencing life away from home with good buddies. That has nothing to do with being Mormon or being on a mission. It's just what young people tend to do. People who fought in a war together remember their wonderful friends from the service. People who fight forest fires make fast, intense friendships.

Lots of terrible situations can result in close bonding with your companions.

Something that older people tend to do is to remember the good times and gradually forget how bad the bad time were. How often have you heard the phrase "the good old days?"

In order to remember the bad times as being so intensely bad, it takes some really bad things.

Also, don't sell the rest of your life short. you may never have teen-ager/early twenties experiences again, but you certainly can have wonderful experiences and friendships that are far more intense and fulfilling. If you are open to it, and not stuck in the past.

I stood in F&S and I exaggerated how much joy the gospel had brought into my life while I secretly struggled with my sexuality and was terrified.

I stood at my homecoming speech and exaggerated to my ward my great success as a missionary and what a spiritual experience my mission had been when the only good part of my mission was the country I was in, Argentina 69 to 71 and the people and the food. I never told the brothers and sisters in the pews that the mission was grueling and all my baptisms went inactive almost immediately and that I was horrified and embarrassed to be bothering complete strangers everywhere I went on the buses, in the trains, at a restaurant, in the park . . .


I spent my Mormon life constantly exaggerating for the church. What I have found since is that the truth needs no exaggeration and we can just use exaggeration for it's intended purpose which is how big the fish we caught was or how big something else is---wink wink.

I think you are observing confirmation bias. A lot of time, it is a good thing. It helps us cope with our situation. We accentuate the positive reason for our decision and forget the negative. It helps us be content with whichever path we take and makes us feel like we are "right". The people in the church do it, the ones out do it, everyone does it.

I left because I unintentionally stumbled onto the dna issue which opened up many cans of many worms. I can't relate as well to people who left because they didn't like it. I think they have a harder time deciding if it is just their personal problem or not.

Never forget the positive. Never.

I have ranted and raved on RfM because I was hurt and nothing made sense and I was afraid of losing everything I knew.

Do we exaggerate or do we emphasize? Remember, we're all coming out of a culture that denies our pain, as if we are just being like silly children, and then wastes no time reimposing its dogma. It's called gas lighting, after a famous movie where a woman is abused by her husband but he makes her doubt her reality and think she's crazy so she doesn't tell anyone.

This website serves an important purpose. There are victims of gas lighting who don't know what reality is, and it takes a strong voice to combat a lifetime of indoctrination.

But, sometimes, I think we do go too far. Mormons are not evil. You have to remember that. Their just victims of dogmatism like you were. You found your way out: it doesn't mean they will. It doesn't mean you have to cut contact with your Mormon friends or family. But let's not kid ourselves that there is a divide now. That's e great debate that keeps popping up in post after post here: cut ties and start over? Or stay and work with what ya got?

Losing faith isn't necessarily traumatic in the same way for everyone. I think most people know is. Contributors on RfM are free to come and take only what they need and leave the rest. You should never look to another person for what to feel, because they can't give that to you. You have to figure out inside yourself what you feel on any topic. You can counsel who friends for advice and ask them to double check your emotional math, but in the end you have to realize that your feelings are as human as anyone else's. I reject revelation now. That means that no man knows the thoughts and intents of another man's mind as if he could read it like a book. Be wary of points of view from people who assume they know what they cannot know. That goes for both sides of the faith debate. Be that agent unto yourself you always learned about in Mormonism.

I think that learning to see things objectivity is the key to recovery from mormonism. Both the good things and the bad things get exaggerated at different times, depending on how you choose to feel about them. Emotional pain over past events is supposed to help prevent people from repeating mistakes. Happy memories makes you want to repeat those experiences. Except that mormonism is an all or nothing proposition. When you slam the door to mormonism shut, you also feel cut off from those good times too. After that, you have to take ownership of your feelings more than ever. Choose to feel good most of the time. I even meter my time and emotional investments, in how much time and energy I spend going back in to my memories of my former self, to find the pieces I need to heal now. Sometimes, you have to say "time is up, we'll start right here next time". It's a part of being an adult. As you go back and heal this way, eventually you see things as they really are/were. If you suspect that you might be exaggerating you need to ask yourself, "okay, what is the lesson I need to learn here?". If you focus more on staying positive in the here and now, it gets easier to budget some time to go back to find what the lessons were that you should have learned in your mormon past.

TBMs deny their Mormon stress and personal damage.

I'm not a TBM, so I'm free to tell the truth.

It doesn't matter if we exaggerated our personal experiences or not. The church is a lie based on more lies. It perpetuates racism, sexism, cruelty, homophobia, financial and spiritual exploitation, child abuse, and religious fraud. Most importantly, again: It's a lie and a cult. Something could be great, but it still might not be true.

I do think in society in general, we throw around the word 'abuse' too much and tend to get histrionic about things on an individual level. But the thing is, IT DOESN'T MATTER what happened to us on an individual level nearly as much as it matters that there is structural exploitation and widespread, systemic abuse going on here. Utah is essentially a theocracy.

To be polite & for public courtesy

Different people fit in different places, they have different experiences. The families & cultures
inhabiting The church are not one plastic pantomime assembly line.

Imagine being the perfect little mormon girl. Even my parents thought I'd never leave mormonism. I was their golden child.

Finding out your boyfriend is gay and then the bishop assigns you to experiment to see if your gay boyfriend can get turned on so that he can be married, that he is damned if he doesn't change. And all that went along with it. I can't even explain the emotional and mental damage that happened to me, the perfect little mormon virgin girl.

My nonmormon now boyfriend was just pointing out to me what I was like back then when he dated me at 20 and I wouldn't marry him because he wasn't mormon.

Imagine going to your own cousin to get the TR to get married to your gay boyfriend. He didn't know the story (and no I didn't "experiment" to the extent they told me I could because I couldn't deal with it even with all the stuff the bishop of the singles ward told me I could do). I learned A LOT about sex from the bishop. And I was hot. I hate the attitude that all women who marry gays are desperate or homely or special spirits. I was damn hot. My boyfriend liked to show me off. But my cousin wanted to postpone our wedding because he knew I wasn't telling him something while my boyfriend sailed through his interviews. I've always been treated as the failure for not saving him. Even my own daughter said I was at fault for not saving him, changing him.

Then to be told I was at fault for him cheating on me because obviously I wasn't giving him enough sex. A bishop friend.

I was treated like a second class citizen while growing up. WTF was I doing in that religion? They nearly destroyed me, but I MYSELF pulled myself back up.

Oh, I don't exaggerate. I can't even express in words what mormonism did to me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2016 07:42AM by cl2.

This actually happened??????????? I'm so sorry that happened to you. TSCC's history with gays keeps getting worse and worse.

And a lot more. Cl2 has been very generous with her experiences in the hope that it will help others. And I am sure she has helped many with her special insight.

Thank you, Susan. This board has helped me heal SO MUCH. When I came here, I hated my ex. Now we live together.

I didn't mention the letter from Packer that nearly destroyed me when all I asked is what hope I might have should I marry my boyfriend. My sister and her husband happened to be there when I opened the letter. I burned the letter. I can actually say that letter gave me a dark feeling every time I saw the envelope, so I burned it. Tearing it up or throwing it out wasn't good enough. I wish I had it now. My dad said he would have taken out a full page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune and published it. My parents didn't even know about the experimentation business. They told me we could do anything but have intercourse and the bishop would still give us a TR. We went so far as necking. That's about it. French kissing. Our first assignment, but my boyfriend wasn't supposed to tell me, but he knew me well and so he told me beforehand. I was suicidally depressed. Then that bishop was released and we had to start all over again.

It took me 22 to 23 years to figure it all out. I went to my leaders for help and they not only didn't have answers. They gave me the wrong answers. I lived my life so that I would never have to discuss sexual issues with bishops and I found myself in the bishops offices discussing sex a few times a week. I know NOW that one of the reasons we got married is to get those damn voyeurs out of our lives.

And just last summer the wife of the bishop who gave us these assignments stopped by my ex's office (his office has an outside entrance as he is grounds supervisor) and talked to his workers about our 'supposed' divorce and how she understood I was upset about the alimony. What fucking alimony? We never even discussed alimony. We haven't divorced anyway. None of the women including the bishopric's wives thought I should get my husband. He was someone all the girls wanted. The bishop even told me several times that I was the ONE girl in the singles ward that he couldn't figure out why I wasn't married, that I was the hottest girl in the ward.

Mormon leaders haven't a clue how to deal with this issue. And there is a current or recently current gay poster who has had his bishop, stake president, and mission president tell him just recently to get married.

My experiences happened in 1983 to 1984. My husband started cheating 2-1/2 years into the marriage (after we had twins a year in). He left me at 11-1/2 years. I'm coming up on the anniversary of being with my boyfriend longer than I was with my husband. I'm actually looking forward to that anniversary. No matter how much I've healed, that will be a milestone for me. I should have married him when I was 20.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2016 09:40AM by cl2.

Going from my home into town and back again I pass by a ward
house. I often get a nostalgic longing to be part of that
community again. I have a lot of fond memories of being part
of the LDS Church. I also have MANY memories of killing time
by watching the clock and mentally calculating what fraction of
the meeting there is to go, and my spirits lifting as that
fraction got smaller and smaller. I remember the soul-crushing
guilt over the most trivial things.

But the reason I left is entirely because their claims are not
true. If I thought the founding and authority claims of the
Church were true, I'd be there every week whether I was bored,
guilted or whatever.

Mormonism demands submission to their authority based on their
truth-claims. To give them that kind of authority based on
falsehood would be too much of a violation of my conscience.
So, no, I'm not going back no matter how cool the social
programs are.

Funny you should mention your mission experience. It was in mine where I had an inkling that something was not right. It was fraught with disappointment that I heard nothing from God about his being proud of me for choosing to serve. I craved his approval and yet I felt empty and vaguely feeling ignored. Could these stirrings be exaggerated? Dunno.

I had high expectations of people serving on missions but merely observing some of them stirred yet another layer of doubt in my mind. Here was an MP, sickly and requiring 24/7 nurse care. Why in the world was he on this godforsaken island? Over there, another MP who was kicked out for swindling money from LD$, In¢. You know what they say about honor among thieves. Missionaries who should never have been given the green light by their bishops abound: they were literally mentally unstable (up at 3AM babbling to themselves), horny young dudes who couldn't keep it in their pants, or emotionally unhinged. I am not exaggerating.

Church service was a borefest, year in and out. Activities and events, vapid and unsatisfactory. Temple attendance, something to drag my feet to because there was nothing there for me. Yet I talked myself into believing it all meant something.

About the only positives were family and friends. And even that was illusory, it was me assigning great(er) importance to forced relationships built around "church this, temple that".

You could go on a fool-time mission. They are calling people (fulls) for that.

Just because there were some enjoyable aspects of my life as a Mormon, it does not mean that something really abusive was going on.

I liked the basketball games at church, but you can play basketball elsewhere.

I liked many of the campouts with LDS scout troops, but you can camp with other groups.

I liked many of the experiences I had on my mission, but you can go to Germany and learn about the people and history of the place without a side job as phony religion salesman.

I liked going to college, but you can go to college somewhere other than BYU.

Those kinds of experiences are available to human beings without being made to feel you have a problem, because you don't fit in the Mormon box. You can do great things, have great friendships, and even grow spiritually without being subjected to invasive interviews from priesthood leaders, upholding lies about Mormon origins, or subscribing to a narrow cultural worldview that puts real limits on what kind of life you lead.

The real emotional outburst is about the opportunity cost. How much better, how much more of other things could I have done without devoting so much time, emotional and mental effort to being Mormon?