Posted by:
afraid of mormons
(
)
Date: January 11, 2018 04:30AM
Welcome, Startinganew! The New Year is a great time to start over. I think 2018 will be a great year for you, because it seems like you are taking charge of your own life!
SAHM mothers--Mormon or not-mormon--complain about loneliness and isolation. The good news is that this is temporary. Try to enjoy having babies to cuddle and love, and nurture and teach. Cherish the special moments.
IMO, the best solution for you is volunteer work. You will meet the nicest people in the world. Volunteer jobs can be more interesting and challenging than paid jobs. When you volunteer (outside of cults), you still keep your freedom to say "No" when your kids are sick or you are burnt out. Usually, your schedule is your own.
Trust me, you don't want to have a calling in the Mormon church. There is too much competition, power struggles, gossip. Mormons build themselves up by putting others down--and they are the very nastiest to each other. (They try to keep on the good side of the targets they are trying to convert.) I didn't quit church right away, because I didn't realize how depressing it really was. I just told them I was leaving my callings (I had 3) for a while, to volunteer in the school across the street, for a while, instead. No other explanations or excuses.
I volunteered in the local schools, beginning when my kids were in pre-school and kindergarten. It was nothing like church, at all. The kids were happy, the teachers were good people, in California the people were genuine. I was still TBM, but wanted to help people who really needed me. At the same time, I wanted to be appreciated, not just used. I started at the bottom, which was being a playground supervisor every day at lunchtime. My shift began at 11:30, and I had to drag myself out of bed to get there--that's how depressed I was. My husband was being a jerk, and my in-laws blamed me for his acting-out. (Later, he left me for other women.) I needed a break from that dysfunctional TBM drama, and volunteering was my escape!
Soon, I started making friends, and the school asked me to help in the classroom. I was the only one around who could speak Spanish, and they needed someone to help some kids who spoke no English at all. I was not qualified, but after a few months, I became good at it. The next year, I substitute taught. Unlike the Mormon church, the school was open to new ideas, and my new friends and I were full of them! The school needed improvements. We started to have more fund-raisers, which became popular in the community. We got the local pro football and basketball teams to donate sports equipment for auctions, and team members would give motivational talks to the kids, etc. Our little beach town had a "street fair." The community, and the local Christian churches provided more support and neighborliness than the Mormons ever pretended to give. We adopted a "sister-school" in the inner city, and were able to make improvements to it, along with our own school improvements. I was voted onto the Board of Education, and was speaking to large audiences. Only a few years before, I couldn't get out of bed, and I felt like I was a "failure" in the Mormon world. I had to leave that stultifying, hopeless TBM world, in order to grow and find happiness. My children thrived, because I was so actively involved in their life.
Sorry to ramble--but our life really changed!
If you decide to stay Mormon, you need to take a class in assertiveness training. Read "When I Say No I Feel Guilty." Set your own boundaries of how much Mormonism you can tolerate, and say "No" to the rest. You can't allow them to intimidate you, and use up your valuable time. You want time to find REAL friends, and to do something REAL. The Mormon stuff is draining, and you need to balance all that with something fulfilling.
I also began to exercise, working from quitting before the aerobics class was over and being too sore to go back for a week--up to doing two classes back-to-back, 3 times a week. I could never find that sense of improvement, in anything Mormon.
I was also team mother for my children's sports teams, taking turns. I played the piano for school musicals, and for the Junior League women's singing group, which were more fun than playing funeral-dirge Mormon hymns.
On Sundays, we would go to the beach! That cheered me up!