As an ExMormon dealing with leaving Mormonism, the first thing one deals with is a 'paradigm transition' as they begin to deconstruct the paradigm and how they were living based on a paradigm with one set of beliefs, assumptions, and cultural patterns and then figuring out another paradigm of beliefs, assumptions and cultural elements.

It is a process of then struggling with the internal psychology and patterning (like one person mentioned their struggle with transitioning away from a Morning prayer).

To go through a paradigm transition is hard enough as an individual, but one does it in relationship to family, friends and a larger community. These are relationships one has often built throughout their entire life.

For the individual often their identity is dissolving in this process and being reconstructed. Suddenly it is "I am not who I thought I was." This is happening in relationship to a psychological death of the person to those who know them. ie 'You are not who I thought you were.'

There are the pressures of family and friends using the terminology 'Satan is trying to deceive you.' This is mixed in with thoughts and feelings from the individual leaving/breaking form feeling 'Nobody understands me' or 'My family doesn't love me'.

There are layers of processes that are similar to what gay people go to such as 'coming out to oneself' and then 'coming out to others.'

One may come out of some of the more obvious parts of the paradigm that they have lived in, but may retain other parts unconsciously that take time to come to light and are frustrating when they surface.

Carl Jung and various Jungians have written about the struggle for individuation that many people go through. They may remain in relationship to a group, but then find their own personal views and behaviors vs. just embodying the more socially acceptable views and behaviors held by a community.

This process can be lonely because one is finding their personal truth and identity vs. uncovering who they have been told that they are supposed to be and acting how they have been told they are supposed to act.

For ExMormons this may include things like suddenly not going to church for the first time, or not going to a family dinner or to a family baptism.

This process then involves determining whether to go to things like the family gathering after the baptism or whether to go to the family reunion with so many TBM's or to spend time with them individually.

The transition is a transition for everyone involved. It is a transition of internal and external identity and others' internal and external identification in relationship to the person and concept of the person.

This process is done in various states and stages of consciousness. Sometimes the behavior may be passive aggressive and done in an unconscious way. It takes time and thought to bring things to a more conscious state and to be willing to sort through feelings with family members and friends and different people are able and willing to do so in varying degrees. Sometimes too they take time to reconfigure their psychology and learn how to contextualize the ExMo in their psychology in a way that feels safe for them.

I am sure others may have great distinctions or patterns they have noticed in themselves and others that relate to more of an overview point of view on the subject. I would love to hear some of them discussed further as they relate specifically to the Paradigm Transition part of the process.

In short, the paradigm shift, is a matter of changing my personal World View. And, with that came a lot of exploration, and research and trying on different ideas and notions.

I have gone through many many transitions in my life, in the matter of my World View and all that entails from how I was raised, the influence of Christianity and Spiritualism on how I viewed everything around me, to Mormonism and the differences in ideas in that realm to leaving those notions (or most of them ) (in my late 50s) to create a new World View that more suited my experiences, and my age.

I noticed that something happened --- dramatic shift -- when I turned 70. Hard to explain, but it's a kind of freedom I've never experienced before. It's also focused on living my World View with the empowerment of my own individual, unique views with no concern for whether it's "right or wrong", for instance. It's a more pure way of living. It's a very open way of dealing with the family -- not so concerned with limiting access to certain kinds of toxic, negative behaviors of betrayal. My view: ya, they did "that" and I am not going to allow any of it to change how I live my life, or take any of it on myself. I am not responsible for other people's behavior.

I can accept and love and interact with many different kinds of belief systems and have a working relationship with a variety of people that is beneficial to both of us. Judgment and criticism go out the window when I deal with people: As Is! And it works beautifully!

I don't know if that is what you asked...

Yah, SusieQ it sounds like you have come to a nice place around your experiences. Obviously many of us are not there whether in age and life experience or in just time and distance and social positioning in the ways you are from the sounds of it. But it is useful to hear and contemplate in a sort of 'it gets better' kind of way.

Maybe there needs to be an 'It gets better' campaign for exMormons and questioners that talks about the processes people go through and where it can ultimately lead them even if they are feeling frustrated, lost, ostracized, etc...

Your story and perspective is encouraging and inspiring in some ways. I am definitely not 'there yet' but hopefully I will be some day.

A friend once talked about 'premature transcendence' and how some people try to transcend a place they are in their development and it doesn't work because one has to go through the experiences and thought processes personally to arrive at a more evolved place truly.

I will say that I do relax more in myself and I am hopefully getting to a point where I will be more ready to let go of some hurt and anger. I work at it and I have tried to transcend some of it multiple times, but don't seem to be able to really come to a place of freedom around much of it in spite of my desire to come to that place.

I sometimes think as well that there is something to the group evolutionary process that is important in terms of working through some of the emotional nuances and political and social nuances to create new structures and forms, much like has been done for generations whether creating new spins on old religions or new spins on spirituality or general consciousness, or relationship approaches, etc...

That said, I think it is valuable to have a range of perspectives and contributors, so one can see that one has evolved beyond one point and that one is not yet evolved to another potential point of consciousness, and they can work towards that or their own version of that general perspective and not just perspective, but true deeper inner experience which it sounds like you are having.

I know for me there are certain experiences that I have come to that are quite amazing and I don't really know how I have arrived there, places where I gain more freedom and less concern about what family and friends think or find some sort of inner peace around a conflict. But other places where I feel like I am still very much transitioning internally and externally.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2012 03:00PM by wonderer.

The fact that has settled in with me and put a whole new perspective on my life is a web site/program I saw on "the relative size of things". I think it might be in the TED series. I love the photo's of space looking at the earth that is about the size of an apple. I live there, but does the universe care? Apparently not! :-)

I have boiled it down to\: we live, we die, we do stuff in between. I often add: there are no wouldas, shouldas, couldas, what if's. It's just -- what is!

This is based on a comment a close relative said (paraphrasing) in looking at a grave stone: the real stuff happens in the "dash" between born and died dates! :-) That dash says it all!

Who are we -- human beings -- and why do we think we are so dang important? Life goes on and on and on much the same in our little section of our world whether we want it to or not. And with not much in put from us either! I mean, really what do we have any real control of anyhow?

So, I take the position of: it is what it is. Let it be. Let it go. There is another day and I can be a happy content person regardless of what other people do --- at least most of the time.

Life is about just a few things: attitude and focus.With those two things we create our individual world and determine how we function in it and with others and how we care for ourselves and others in work, play, home, school, career, etc.

I see Mormonism is a little tiny religion/tribe of a few generations of human beings who have created their own World View and tend to stick pretty close to practicing what they preach, or as well as any human being does.
Mormonism is just one of about a hundred known religious World Views and is important, in the final analysis, only for a few years to a few people.

I happen to be at a place in my life where I can control a few things in my environment, even though it is very limited presently. It's more important for me to focus on what I have and not what I don't have as there seems to be some kind of thread that includes a bunch of stepping stones that follows a person's life.

Everyone is so different that we can say or type the same set of words and they are interpreted and understood very differently depending on the person and their general emotional state at the time and what they may be experiencing. Right on target, someone says, to totally the opposite from someone else. That's what human beings do. They express themselves and they get to do it in this day and age on a computer with a keyboard in that nebulous world of the Internet! Fascinating stuff, actually.

So, here we are, strangers typing in a white box with black letters forming words trying to express ourselves and communicate our thoughts, hoping that something makes sense!

Fun isn't it? :-)

SusieQ...

One of the things I remember when just starting the board was some comment asking if you were a 'troll' or a Mormon or some such thing. I thought 'Oh, maybe she is someone to avoid.'

Amusingly people are all disturbed by my presence on the boards at the moment talking about how I am trying to recruit people to this or that and someone said something like 'no offense but I think you are a Mormon.' Then I realized, oh, maybe I am someone like her to these people. hehe.

Yes, I think people form tribes of different sorts. i have often wanted my tribe and I have looked for it, but often I seem to be a bit of an outsider, even when an insider in one form or other. I don't fit in the nice neat little boxes. I don't want to be confined by atheist ideas and I don't want to be confined by Religious ideas of any one group, so I pick and choose.

It sounds like you have had something of a similar journey even if the specifics are different. It is nice to have you on the boards offering your perspectives, at least for me and clearly for some others, and I guess we are part of the counter culture in our own ways as well.

One of the most difficult Thinking Scripts from Mormon religious teaching is the notion that there is a right and wrong way to think, and act, and it's a narrow, highly defined road with no deviation.

What former members often forget is that their experience is not the same as someone else's. It may have some similar attributes, but ultimately we all experience Mormonism differently depending on whether we were a convert (like me as an adult) or BIC, lived in a predominately Mormon environment, or not.

I have often said there are as many different kinds of Mormons as there are Mormons! Kirby wrote an article of something like five or so categories.

It's hard to stop thinking that "my way is the only true way" that is so embedded from Mormonism! That is why, when someone like me, with an entirely different background writes from an entirely different perspective is often misunderstood. The judgments and criticism and fault finding just fly!!

Oh well. I understand that. I can only be who I am and what I experienced! Take it or leave it. :-) I am an individual!

Yah, you are an individual. We need the variety around here.

I said that recently to a Mormon, something about how the Mormonism I grew up with was different from some friends. I have very much found that in my journey.

I went to a family gathering of a friend once and their family was so different than mine and had exMormons around integrated an had a more 'secular' sort of gathering. I loved their creativity and artiness. In contrast my own family can feel very formal and stuffy a lot of times and when I left Mormonism, part of what I was leaving was the stuffy formality.

I went recently to spend time with a couple of Mormon artist friends of a friend. They were both so different than people I would expect to be Mormon. I have my issues with Mormonism as a whole certainly, but I do find that there are some stereotypes that I hold from growing up in the family I did, in the Ward I did, the Stake, city, etc... that are not the case with all Mormons at all.

I wrote this sometime back and report it now and then. It is one "how-to" way approach the transition out of Mormonism from a Narrative Therapy perspective.

In 1987, after 12 years of LDS membership, a mission, temple marriage, employment at the Missionary Training Center, graduation from BYU, a wife and four children, I found myself considering suicide. I became a Mormon in 1975, just out of high school. I had felt lost and suicidal, then too, in spite of having been accepted the colleges I had chosen. Everyone who knew me would have been surprised to see my name in the obituaries.

However, I was introduced to Mormonism on a road trip. I was drawn into the dramatic story of the Mormons, who had left the known behind and risked all they had to live in a society created on their own terms. I was drawn further by the Plan of Salvation taught by the missionaries. When I was baptized my life was infused with direction and purpose. I adopted the Mormon story and a Mormon identity.

For a few years I felt better; however, I gradually reached a point where I couldn’t continue to live in a borrowed story and from a borrowed identity. Although Mormonism had given me time to sort out my life to a point, some psychological tasks can be put off only so long before they take a profound toll on us in the form of depression, dependence, or a kind of semi-dissociated state. I had reached that point.

Fortunately, I began seeing a skilled non-Mormon therapist who nonetheless saw a lot of Mormons. We spent nearly two years together, meeting weekly. I learned that if I paid attention to what I was thinking and feeling and I was curious rather than judgmental, I would find out who I was and what I wanted.

Until then, my priority had been to avoid people becoming angry and disappointed in me and rejecting me. Those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors I knew or believed would be unacceptable, I denied, disowned, and kept under wraps. In Mormonism there are many ways to be unaccepted. Near the end of 1989, I decided that to remain a Mormon was to betray myself and to risk even more serious problems than I had already experienced. As frightening as it was to leave, it was more frightening to stay.

My association with other ex-Mormons through the Internet has made me aware both that everyone’s story is different and we also have much in common. Given my personal experience in transitioning out of Mormonism and my profession as a psychotherapist, I’m particularly interested in how we go about reforming an identity after leaving the Mormon Church. Some of use leave with our identities pretty much intact, while others of us painfully struggle with who we are and how we fit into this new non-Mormon world. The Mormon story was our story. We were part of it. It was part of us. Perhaps it was us. Therefore, when we leave we may feel we have lost a large part of our story about ourselves—our identity. Such a loss is profoundly unsettling.

However, we can develop a post-Mormon identity that keeps the best of who we were while “writing back in” aspects of ourselves that can create a richer and more joyful identity. The rest of his paper describes one way to further help make that happen.

Uncovering and Telling a New Story of Ourselves

Even as the longest biography of us could not hope to tell everything about us and might leave out important aspects of our life as we ourselves might wish to tell it, so our lives as Mormons is not the only story, the whole story, or the truest story about us. As Mormons those events, thoughts, and feelings of our lives believed not to fit within the official Mormon story tended to be suppressed, hidden, ignored, shamed, and feared--written out of the story of ourselves, written out of our conscious identity.

However, when the elements which have been edited from our life to serve the Mormon story are recovered, identified, and honored, they can serve as a framework for the telling of a new, more authentic and enlivening account of who we are and who we are becoming. The process below is one way of recovering and retelling our personal stories so that they may be more satisfying, enlivening, and true to us. The process described below will help with that discovery and incorporation:

1. Draw a line down the center of a piece of paper. It could be standard-size paper, a note book, or something much larger, such as an easel pad or newsprint.

2. On the left side write a title that represents your life or some key aspect of your life as a Mormon. I will use “Old Story.” You can be as creative as you like, however. The focus of the title may be as broad or narrow as you wish. On the right side put down whatever title that best expresses for you the new life you are beginning to live or you hope to live. I will use “New Story.”

3. On the left side under “Old Story” write down the events, the thoughts, and feelings that made up that story. Include both positive and negative items—anything that is important to you. You can use sentences, single words, drawings, pictures, or collage. Feel free to add to this column at any time.

4. Identify current thoughts, feelings, and events you like or are proud of which no longer fit the Old Story. Place these on the right side under New Story. Don’t worry about order. You can use single words, drawings, pictures, or collage. Feel free to add to this column at any time.

5. Identify what you are doing to move your New Story along and put these in the right column. Some questions along this line might be

• How did I prepare to take this step?
• What was the turning point that made this possible?
• How am I doing now that was different from before?
• What exactly am I doing?
• What image is guiding me or what am I saying to myself to keep going?
• If I made a plan, what is my plan?
• Am I doing this on my own or do other people play a part in making this happen?
• Who encourages the changes I’ve made and how does he or she show do it?

6. Identify how your New Story helps you identify important values and goals. Some questions might include

• What positive things does it say about me as a person that I would do this?
• What personal characteristics does it show?
• What have I learned about myself and other people that I did not know before?
• What does this show about my values?
• What does this show about my goals?

7. Identify times in the past when the elements of your New Story have surfaced even briefly. Identifying these times helps you link your New Story to the past, showing that the changes you are making have been part of you all along rather than an aberration or a mistake.

• Were there times I had done something like this before?
• What would be some examples?
• Did I or someone else predict this change? Who was friendly toward this change?
• Which incident in my past stands out as a good illustration of the changes I would be making?

8. Extend your New Story into the future. Doing this will help give you hope and vision, which are important for sustaining change. Some questions about the future might be

• If I look at the changes I’ve made as a trend in my life, what would the next step be?
• If I were to send a letter back to myself from the future, what positive changes would I tell about?
• What do I want my life to look like in a year or five years or ten years, given the changes I am making now?

9. When you have written down the elements of the Old Story and New Story you want to work with, identify the elements of the Old Story that you wish to keep as part of your New Story. Move those elements from the Old Story to your New Story by circling them and drawing an arrow from each circled element to your New Story side of the page. This brings together the positive elements of the Old Story into your New Story, creating continuity for your New Story.

10. Finally, when you have completed this process, hang the paper on a wall or put it somewhere accessible so you can use it to remind you of your New Story. You can add to the New Story from time-to-time as your life unfolds. Writing our New Story and sharing it with others, perhaps on Recovery from Mormonism or in another setting, often strengthens our new identity and encourages us in continuing with our new life.

Telling Our Own Stories

As Mormons we were encouraged to meet monthly and tell the Mormon story as our own story. This monthly retelling is a powerful method the church uses to strengthen Mormon identity, often at the expense of what is really true to its members. Recovering our story from Mormonism and telling it as we experience it rather than telling it as we were expected to tell it is a powerful way to stand up for ourselves and recover who we are. I hope that the ideas and process presented will move us a little further along toward living the story that is most true and enlivening for us.


Material for this article was adapted from Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities by Jill Freedman and Gene Combs

Journaling

Not smoking/drinking, etc.

IDEAS:

Belief can be conditioned.

(this has kept me full of hope in my life. In other words, if Mormons could brainwash me for their benefit, I can brainwash myself for my benefit. "What one man can do another man can do.")

Self-reliance/food storage

The idea that I can make much of what I need. I can cook from scratch, can, sew, iron, crochet. I can even make faux beef and chicken from gluten and used this skill just this week when I made a chicken pot pie that NOBODY guessed did not have any actual chicken in it. Food storage is a regular part of my life and just this month, due to a family emergency, I was able to turn over all my food money to help someone out. I lived on my food storage and had no problem treating it like a game because in Relief SOciety, I once held a game called, "How Long Can You Last" about living on food storage. (Store more butter powder and powdered milk!)

Most valuable concept: "after all you can do"

This is a twist of the Mormon concept, "You are saved after all you can do." After leaving Mormonism, I reused this concept to help me. I asked myself if I had done "all I can do" and if the answer was yes, I would say, "Well, that's all God expects from you." Later, when I detached from the idea there had to be an imaginary friend, I would say, "Well, that's all anybody can expect from you," and after detaching from people's approval, it became "Well, that's all you can expect from yourself." This Mormon concept turned out to be a very valuable tool in moving forward to better mental health and, in my case, unraveling the reinforcement that incipient godhood gave to my already robust narcissism.

Public speaking

It was a tremendous boost to my self confidence as a convert that the stake put me on the speaking circuit with people I admired. Testimony-giving taught allowed me to regularly practice speaking extemporaneously.

Community

I was always a loner. For the first time I truly felt like part of a group, a team that accepted and valued me. Decades later, this feeling of community with a self-important arrogant cult could transform into a feeling of community with all mankind, and then all living creatures.


Good luck with your project!

Anagrammy

Nice to hear from you again wonderer.