I just realized that ten years ago today I began what would be the worst experience of my life. Here is my story. I converted to Mormonism when I was 18 and just a few months before graduating from high school. I immediatly had people telling me things such as, "I could never marry somone who didn't go on a mission" and "you and your family will be so blessed if you serve a mission" so being impressionable, idiolistic, and niave I put in my paper work and after fourteen months I was "called" to serve in New York City Spanish speaking. On May 28th 2002 after a farwell party at a friends house two days earlier (where I believed that I had a great two year experience ahead of me) I said good bye to my never mo family as they stood weeping and gave me a ride to the airport. After speending the day with distant relatives in Utah I reported to the MTC on my instructed date of May 29th 2002. I could never have been prepared for the tidal wave that hit me. My first days there were so uncomfortable and unbearable that one day I got up and stormed out of a classroom saying that I wanted to leave. I was talked into staying and over the weeks I began to settle into a routine.
However, I began to experience something that I never had before in my life, SEVERE DEPRESSION and THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE! I also experienced severe ANGER and SELF HATRED! I was angry because of the mindless indoctrination that I was being subjected to, and hated myself for leting myself be pushed into it, and that my family was also suffering severly because of it. Here was the most infuriating thing to me though: "I WAS SUROUNDED BY KIDS WHO HAD BEEN PREPARED FOR THIS THEIR ENTIRE LIVES AND HAD FAMILIES BACKING THEM AND EXPECTING THIS OF THEM" and therefore they couldnt see through or chose not to see through the brainwashing and cult like tactics being taught to us and used on us.
Here are some of the things that stood out to me the most during my time in the MTC:
1.) The songs: "Called to Serve" "True to the faith" and "The Army of Helamen" (I was in the MTC the same time that Janice Kapp Pery and her husband were) so a big deal about that song was made and they did a fireside with their family). All of these songs were about growing up and "being taught by godly parents" and I could tell that none of them applied to me as I grew up with parents who thought that the LDS Church was a bunch of "Horse @#$%&."
2.) Large group classes taught by Shane Littlefield (director of Training) he looked like Bill Murray and everyone thought that he was such a "cool guy" but I thought he was a smug asshole.
3.) Being told that the "stifiling of the individaul thought process was for our own good."
4.) Being surounded and controlled by Krusty old timer Utah people.
Finally because I had been exposed to other religions and ways of life I could see that they were slowly trying to shut down my individual thought process.
After six weeks in the MTC I was sent home on a medical release by the counselor there for depresion. I never went back. After that experience my faith in mormonism never recovered, after being force fed a diet of dogma twenty four hours a day six days a week sitting in a Mormon Church for even one hour a week never felt comfortable again, as much as I tried it for one year. In 2003 I walked out of CHurch and anounced to my Parents that "I quit" in 2010 I resigned my membership.
It is very ironic that I was pushed into going on a mission by people who thought that it would "strengthen my testimony" yet it is was broke my testimony and belief in mormonism.
Looking back, those six weeks as a missionary were THE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE! They were the first time that I experienced depression on that scale before. Today I can look back on this day as the begining of my journey out of mormonism. Thank you all for listening and for your support.

Seriously on #3? I've never heard it put that blatantly before. Good to know. Props to you for getting OUT and seeing what so many other people can't or won't. Glad you're here on the board - post often!!

I remember being in the MTC and thinking, "This is brainwashing."

Unfortunately, it took a year for me to crack. :(



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2012 08:03AM by Robin.

I was baptized at 14 and also was influenced to serve a mission. I remember thinking, "This is a cult" when I went through my endowments. I remember thinking "This is a cult" when i went through the MTC. I still can't figure out what took me so damn long to get out.

Welcome to the ranks of the informed and shunned. When I read your story it brought back many memories of my own experience way back when.

I entered the "LTM" which is what it was called in 1976 when I went on my mission. My experience was not like yours in any way except that I was miserable. I grew up mormon and my parents expected me to go on a mission my whole life. When I got there all I wanted to do was go home but I knew it would kill my parents so I stuck it out. I spent 4 weeks in absolute misery and spent many nights crying myself to sleep wondering what the hell I was doing.

I finally made it through that effed up experience and went to Chile. When I got there I was unlucky enough to get a companion who was all gung ho. We were in a small town and in my first 4 months we knocked on every door in that town two and a half times. We had guns pointed at us, we were treated like we had the plague, and on the other hand we were welcomed by many. Then my companion became friends with our district leader and they decided it would be fun to leave me and the DL's junior companion (who had been in Chile for two hole months so neither of us spoke much spanish) alone for the next two months while they played together in a different town about 50 miles away. I must admit I learned spanish pretty fast because I had no choice, but it was another miserable experience.

Anyway, I spent my two years in Chile, but I was a rebel and never followed mission rules. I treated it more like a vacation than a mission and I really enjoyed the remainder of my mission. I almost got sent home dishonorably with about 1 month remaining and when the assistants to the pres came to my apartment and told me they were sending me home I challenged them and their false sense of authority and they went back to the mission home with their tails between their legs. On my exit interview with the pres I told him about that visit and he told me he never authorized them to do that and that he would have a talk with them. I never heard what happened to them but I do know that one of them ended up being the athletic director at YBU for a while in the early 80's.

Anyway, had I not had parents who expected me to be there I would have left during the first weeks of entering the LTM but it was my love for my parents and my worry of what it would do to them that kept me there. Now looking back I wish I had just left and dealt with my parent's reaction. I know that you are better off by having left when you did and I congratulate you on being brave enough to get the hell out when you did.

Craig Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyway, I spent my two years in Chile, but I was a rebel and never followed mission rules. I treated it more like a vacation than a mission and I really enjoyed the remainder of my mission. I almost got sent home dishonorably with about 1 month remaining and when the assistants to the pres came to my apartment and told me they were sending me home I challenged them and their false sense of authority and they went back to the mission home with their tails between their legs. On my exit interview with the pres I told him about that visit and he told me he never authorized them to do that and that he would have a talk with them. I never heard what happened to them but I do know that one of them ended up being the athletic director at YBU for a while in the early 80's.
>
Did you ever tell us about this "meeting" with those whom you challenged before?

I would like to hear more about the daily MTC experience. I've been fascinated with the mishie stories lately. My brother went to the MTC and came home early. He never explained why and I never asked. So I've always been curious about what actually happens and if the daily routine had anything to do with him leaving. I know you just mentioned a few things "tombs1", but if someone can post more details I would love to read it just out of my own curiosity. Or anyone else of course. Thanks!

I never could relate to the self righteous Utah Mormons when i was in the MTC. I still couldn't figure out how they singled out caffine as the reason we don't drink coffee and therefor Coke as well.

I also could never gain a testimony of prayer or a patriarchal blessing. It all seemed counter intuitive to me. Like predeterminism.

I ate like a pig there and I enjoyed playing b-ball when I could, but I struggled with it. Soon as I got in the field, I thought everyone was psycho. But I soon became like them for the next 20 years until I finally cracked the Da Vinci code and bailed out of this disgraceful pyramid scheme.

Chose The Right you F__ken lying criminals. That is is they are...CRIMINALS. CTR! what bullshit!

I was one of those people who had been trained for it my whole life and didn't see anything being done there as unusual. I was all about strengthening my testimony and it seemed like everyone in my class was too. All 6 of us were really gung-ho and we studied a lot. It was fun though because we were learning a foreign language which I had always wanted to do. It took me till 5 years after my mission was over to finally realize that this church made no sense and the evidence I was basing my life on was all just feelings.

During the cold war years when communist countries sent athletes or musicians to other countries the thing that kept most of them from defecting was the threat of retaliation on family members.
Sounds far too simalar.
What allowed me to endure the two years was the image of my mother sitting in RS meeting with all the sisters eyes on her saying if you had married in the church he would have stayed on his mission.
I stuck it out for my mother.

The day I went into the MTC (Missionary Torture Center) was the longest day of my life. After the closing prayer and my family was saying good-bye my father pulled me tight and whispered in my ear that he'd rather see me come home in a coffin than to come home early. I always remembered that and although I struggled throughout my mission with testimony issues I didn't want to let my dad down.

When my flight arrived at my home airport my family wasn't there. They thought that I arrived later so I sat there by myself, with a lonely girl in the Ward who was looking for a husband, waiting for them to pick me up.

I lied at my High Council report and told them how wonderful my experience was and I lied in my homecoming talk as well.

A few months later I was off to US Army Basic Training and realized that my entire mission was one big brainwashing just as basic training was. That made it easier when I made the decision to leave the cult behind.

motherfreaker Wrote:
-- After the
> closing prayer and my family was saying good-bye
> my father pulled me tight and whispered in my ear
> that he'd rather see me come home in a coffin than
> to come home early. I always remembered that an
> although I struggled throughout my mission with
> testimony issues I didn't want to let my dad
> down.
>
> That is the saddest thing i've heard in a long time.

Funny, our times at the MTC overlapped one another. About the time I was going to Oklahoma, you were going home...you were lucky to go home.

Thank you for that post. That fascinates me that that was your experience. I am so happy for you.

I was the opposite. Raised from birth to go on a mission. I was a zombie on automatic pilot by that point. I just blocked all of it out and kept going. I had never allowed myself the thought of not going.

My father said the same as others,"I would rather you came home in an coffin...." Coming home early was not an option.

I did not fit in--not in any way. It was painful. It was foreign to my nature. I did not thrill to any of it. I just knew I had to do it. My God I was brainwashed.

I cannot believe the luck to find my way out.

I fell into a deep depression in the mission as well. I convinced the mission president to send me home after 5 months. I felt suicidal for the first time in my life. My mom said people in my home ward spoke about me as though I had died. The mission was the beginning of the end of my testimony. I fought the brainwashing throughout. Many people just gave in though. Those 5 months were the worst months of my life and I suffered ptsd afterwards for several years as well as nightmares. I basically pretended like it never happened and spoke of it to no one for fear of being judged. If only i could take it back. At least I got out early though.

Cycles of depression defined my life in the shadow of mormonism. Suicidal depression is what finally cracked my "testimony".