I just wanted to comment on something that I feel my years in the church really messed up for me. The church taught me to be codependent. It taught me that I wasn't good enough, that I needed some guy who died 2000 years ago to make me a whole person.

I didn't realize just how much of an effect that had on me until just the other day. I am 35 years old and do not know how to be independent. My whole life, I have relied on god. It's always been him taking the credit.

I am now starting out on a personal journey to teach myself that I am in charge of my destiny, nobody else. It's not as easy as I thought it would be so far...but baby steps.

Anyone else find this?

Yes, that has been my biggest beef with Christianity since I also had the personal revelation. The entire concept of the atonement supposes that you are not personally responsible for your choices and actions and that you are a pathetic sub-human creature who is incapable of determining right from wrong all by yourself.

How pitiful is that?

I used to date a JW and when we first had the conversation about him being a JW and me being an atheist, he asked me why I was an atheist. I told him I believed in personal responsibililty and "surrender yourself to god and trust in Him" just sounded like abrogating personal responsibility so that you never have to be accountable for your actions and choices. Either Satan tempted you into it or it was God's plan and you are just a puppet with no control over yourself.

My advice, with respect to your personal journey, would be to focus on very basic principles until you feel more comfortable with your own self-directed moral compass. Study the concept of integrity and decide how you can apply that to your life. Read books on co-dependency (Melody Beatty -- genius!), read books on self-esteem (Nathanial Brandon), Decide what values and qualities you want to espouse in your life (personal integrity, personal responsibility, whatevs) and then ask yourself how the situation at hand could fit into that new worldview.

Good luck!

It's never too late to learn to think for yourself and run your life responsibly as you see fit.

The more you practice the easier it will become.

Absolutely. Like Cheryl said, this is a huge step! And it feels good to take it. But you know what felt even better? Sitting down one day after becoming irreligious and determining what my new moral values would be. After a few hours of deep philosophical though, I read what I had come up with. It was *good*. I would be a better person, the people around me would be better people, and the world would be a better place, all if I followed the moral values I had set for myself. It was quite empowering to know I AM a good person, that people can be good people, all without a god.

The church not only teaches that a saviour is needed, it also teaches that you cannot trust yourself. You must seek the counsel of the leaders, follow the prophets, get the confirmation from the holy ghost, etc. This is damaging to a young person because it does not teach that life is up to you. It teaches that you're not capable of running your own life and making your own choices.

At first it may feel overwhelming to know that nobody's got your back and that it is up to you to decide your life. But it may also feel very liberating. As you go forward you will start to feel more and more comfortable in your own skin and your own brain. Trust yourself, discover the true inner you and above all enjoy the new journey.

D

YES! All my TBM family keep arguing that I am not "following the Spirit" and that if I raise my children away from the Church they will not learn to "follow the Spirit." Actually, I find that I am REALLY following and being sensitive to my feelings on a higher level than ever before in my life. It's amazing, and dizzyingly free. The Church makes you question any feeling that doesn't fit in the mold, and it becomes impossible to really "feel" for yourself.

I tried an experiment to be more "in tune" with the spirit once. I decided I would act on any impulse that seemed external. That was a very interesting week

I had a really hard time learning to think for myself once I got out of the cult. Just forge ahead and just laugh like crazy every time you do something stupid and be glad it was your own mistake, made by you, because you thought of it on your own and now you can change your mind without asking anybody and do whatever else you want to do. I hope that makes sense.

It's not all roses for anyone, even though many Mormons pretend they are the happiest people on the planet.

I can't say I had the same experience when I came to realize it's all BS, to me it was more like Dumbo where Timothy Mouse suddenly says "the magic feather isn't real, you could fly all along!"

I do a lot of public speaking, and I used to always say a little prayer before a speaking engagement to ensure I'd do well (because it still scared me and I'm still an introvert). Realizing it's all BS didn't affect my public speaking because I realized that I was doing it all by myself all along. These days I just take a few deep breaths and do a bit of meditation and visualization instead.

My story with co-dependency was one where, because of the dysfunctional family I grew up in, I was independently depending on myself at a very young age. This was the case until I married in the LD$ cult and the priesthood became what I was required to "trust" to get me back to heaven, not myself.

From the get-go I rebelled against these chains, probably because I had learned to trust and rely on myself in creating my own destiny. I found the temple ceremony a very poor road show with everyone dressed in stupid, stupid costumes looking bored to sleep and trying to remember which way to change their costumes, relief society was gossip-society, and sacrament meeting was the same meeting about paying, obeying and praying as the one I tuned out last week.

I'd always been a reader, had graduated from university, and now found this religion thing way different than the picture that had been painted for me. I started reading lots of books that definitely were not on the LD$ cult's best seller list. No Man Knows My History, by Fawn Brodie, a granddaughter of a prophet, answered a lot of my questions. I had always found parts of JS's story hard to swallow and the answers Fawn Brodie found in her research quest made sense to me. I had grown up with a con man, and I think I had recognized this in JS's personality even before I read Brodie's assessment of JS life in her book.

When I began asking myself questions about the cult and seeking answers on my own, inspite of being told not to by others, became the moment in time when I began to get back the old trust I had in me, myself and I----and it felt wonderful.