I had a very negative experience in Mormonism, despite my devotion.

My ex-Mo perspective of Mormonism is very negative. I'm trying not to let this hatred displace the genuine, constructive passions that I have for unrelated things/people in my life. It is not easy.

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What was your experience in Mormonism like? Good or bad?

What is your ex-Mo perspective of Mormonism like? Good, bad, neutral? How do you deal with any negative feelings if they exist?

Thank you.

My experience in the church wasnt all that bad, at least as a kid. My parents were middle of the road, and I generally liked most aspects of the church (except having to go EVERY Sunday) growing up. I for the most part followed the rules. I grew up in the 80's when it wasn't nearlly as bereft of fun as it is now though.

As an adult I hated it. They treat you like you are still a kid. you can't say no (just like you cant tell your parents no) you can't decide for yourself what activities/jobs you want to do, etc. I was very off and on as an adult as a result but I still believed the church was "true" until a few years ago. The temple was my first real clue it was bullsh1t, after that it was all down hill.

My ex-mo perspective is I hate the church. I see how it is draining my parents of their later years and I want to burn the entire thing to the ground. I am also fairly angry that I spent so many years feeling bad about myself when they were lying to me the whole time. I had massive guilt for acting like an adult when I was an adult. I refused to let the church push me around but then I always felt guilty about standing up to them and living my life. Not to mention the tithing I paid thinking it would go to help others. If they would refund my money it would go a long way to helping me view them more favorably. Oh, that and tell my parents they can relax a bit now that they are retiring.

Same here. I didn't like going to church every week, but I had some great member friends. I didn't grow up in Utah, so many of them went to different schools and I only saw them at church, scouts, and sometimes on the weekends. I had some great leaders too, and got to do tons of fun stuff that I probably wouldn't have done without the church's youth programs.

As an adult, all the fun was gone. No activities, few close friends, etc... It was everything I could do just to get through the meetings. I actually started paying attention to the talks and lessons, and there was nothing there. Once I really started thinking about the doctrine and the history, it was painfull obvious that it was all BS. How could I have missed this?!

Now, I don't like being surrounded by members in Utah, but it's not all bad. Like jesuswantsme4asucker, I'm more angry because I'm watching my aging parents devote all of their time and energy to the church. They're going to waste the best years of their retirement on missions, temple work, etc... I'm angry because speaking the truth has negatively affected my marriage...my TBM wife clings to the church and has stepped up the brainwashing with our children. I'm not worried that my kids will stay in the church, serve missions, etc..., but I think that will destroy my marriage if my wife doesn't wake up by that time. I lose respect for her every time she learns something new and chooses to ignore it, so I can't talk to her about the church any more. I know, because she's told me so, that she'll blame every bad thing that happens to us going forward on my "apostacy". If I lose my job, any of us get sick, get in an accident, etc... She's questioned if I'm gay, accused me of never loving her, etc... We had a very happy marriage up until I dumped my doubts on her...I had no idea that the brainwashing could run so deep.

The more I get that DESTRUCTIVE CULT out of my life, the more the following is true

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk0dBZ1meio&feature=kp

I could practically just copy/paste what jesuswantsme4asucker said. For me the massive guilt started in my teenage years, even though it was generated by stuff normal teenagers do as part of growing into an adult.
Looking back I see that I credited all good things in my life to the church and Christ and all negative things to my own faults. It's a terrible way to live.
Without going into details, I have three experiences with trying the church's full repentance process that left me feeling extremely betrayed and humiliated. Why three, not just one? Because I believed God must want it that way.
It is possible that the church positively influenced the direction of my career, since my patriarchal blessing told me I would be a leader, I believed it and pursued those types of opportunities. My parents, teachers and peers certainly weren't telling me I would be a leader, so I don't know if I would have taken the same path. And since I'm in a place I like professionally, perhaps there is something I can thank Mo'ism for.
The benefits certainly DO NOT outweigh the costs, however. I have zero problem at all telling my kids they are better off without the church in their lives at all.
I also hate the church now and church leaders in general. The arrogance, blatant dishonesty and abusiveness of church authorities is disgusting in comparison to what they ask of members. I hope to one day forgive the organization and the people there who have hurt me, just for my own peace of mind. The anger is dragging me down right now.
One of my ideas is to become involved in another community. It's hard for me to trust now, but I want to do this. I want a new healthy lifestyle, independence, separation from Mormons. I see a wealth of good in the world that I was blind to during my Mormon years and I'm trying to take courage in new discoveries.
I can also say I LOVE ExMos and PostMos. Really. The meetups with these people are priceless. I leave feeling absolutely joyous, validated, supported, enlightened...

As a mormon I was always polishing the turd that was the my church experience. I didn't like going to church, I didn't like priesthood meetings, I didn't like general conference, and I've never been more depressed or depressed for a longer period of time than I was on my mission. But if asked I would have told you "EVERYTHING IS AWESOME! EVERYTHING IS COOL IF YOU FOLLOW GOD'S PLAN!" I would have told you "my favorite book is the book of mormon," and "my favorite place to be is any lds temple."

As an ex-mormon, I don't see anything good in the church at all. I think my perception of the church is as bad as you could get. I think that they make people's lives worse and put arbitrary burdens of guilt on all of the members. I actually wish to see the day when the mormon church is no more, or at least broken enough that it has no more influence over my life or the lives of others.

Man, I think you just hit on the newest "pillar" of the church... "turd polishing". They can park it between "perfect the saints" and "redeem the dead". They can create a committee in each ward for it and everything.

Genius!

Do I just not care enough any more about it? I usually read here when I'm really bored with work. I get paid by how many reports I type, so not like I'm cheating them.

My life was a fucking mess because I followed it. There were actually times where I tried going back after being inactive and even times since I lost my beliefs that I've thought maybe if I went back, things would get better--at least in bad times. My son has some problems and I have to remind myself that some of the mormons in my neighborhood have the same problems with their kids. The brainwashing runs deep.

BUT in the first years, I would start thinking I needed to go back and then I'd remember--the reason my life was so fucked up is BECAUSE I was a devout mormon. After all, I married someone gay to save him.

Most of the time I really don't care. I think the 15 are pathetic. I do find it interesting to read this board, though. I learn so much from it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2014 04:16PM by cl2.

Well, the cult taught me to beat up on myself, hate myself, and see myself as "less than" as they did. I believed so fervently that they turned me into my own worst enemy.

So, is it any surprise that when realized the Mormon church was all a big lie that it was the happiest moment of my life? I felt like fifty thousand tons had been lifted off of my shoulders instantly. I was floating.

I was raised in a pretty much 100% Mormon part of the mountains of Utah. The people in that town were for the most part pretty great but I believe that was more to do with being a farming community than being Mormons, although meeting up once a week with your neighbors did keep people more in touch with each other's lives than they may have been otherwise.

So I had a lot of good all around me, and most of my life the church seemed to be pretty nice for everyone else who wasn't hiding the fact that they were gay.

I love real life. The good, the bad, and the ugly--so long as its honest and not being viewed through Mormon colored glasses.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2014 06:08PM by blueorchid.

My church experience as a teen (after we converted) was excellent. It was the 80s, before correlation, and we did a lot of fun things. The LDS kids at my school were the popular kids (even though it was CA) so I immediately had an in, a gang of nice kids, overachievers to hang with. BYU wasn't bad either, if you stayed with the out-of-state kids. But graduating single - I have to say the Mormon lifestyle went downhill every year after that, although it also corresponded with the years the church got less fun and more corporate so it wasn't all about being single. In fact, it hit rock bottom when I did finally get my temple marriage and spent my first few years of that marriage in Salt Lake City.

That was my rock-bottom of the Mormon experience, where I found Mormons to be awful people (as a rule, with some exceptions). However, when I left the church is when I really saw Mormons for what they are. I thought it as just Utah Mormons or my husband's crazy extended family or a million other excuses. I figured our ward was just an aberration. When I left the church, it was like Mormons ripped off their pleasant, church going, God fearing, hard working masks to reveal the real people that were under them. It was like being in a horror movie where you find out the nice people in your neighborhood are space aliens or KKK members or anything but what they pretended to be. I'd have to say that my experience leaving Mormonism was worse than in Mormonism, even including the unfortunate SLC years, because I saw Mormons for what they really were after years of being fooled by them. And it wasn't pretty.

While an active Mormon: fairly positive.
I was at times embarrassed to be associated with Mormons (more of a "I'm not a sheep" type of deal.) In spite of being embarrassed, like in school and other public places, I could defend the teachings of the faith.

The beginning of my inactivity: neutral.
Didn't want to go back, but didn't have much bad to say about it. Just wasn't my cup of tea.

Now (still inactive): VERY negative.
Very cynical. Some of it may be from reading this forum, the more I become aware of (that existed all along) characteristics of TBMs, the more they shine through. No desire to go back, and in fact quite scared to go back.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2014 05:48PM by hausfrau.

I experienced Mormonism in Central Utah, the most Mormony place on earth. I came from a less-active family and wasn't thoroughly indoctrinated as a child. This allowed me to experience it more as an observer that a participant, even though I was quite active at times. I found it to be unbelievable throughout my time in it. I was attempting to believe it, but couldn't. I was participating to please others. I am old enough to have observed how they manipulate doctrine, change things to suit their own purposes, and generally display strong evidence that it's all man-made. When the internet came it was easy to discover that they'd been lying to me about Joseph Smith and the historical origins. My love of science revealed that the Book of Mormon was obvious hogwash. I regret that I spent so much time bothering with this little cult. It's just another scam among many.

My experience was generally good, but the feelings I had inside of me were awful. I never felt so guilty, so unworthy or so sick as I did when I was a Mormon. I felt that way mentally and I felt that way physically.

Ever since leaving Mormonism I decided to put all of that away. I was a hardcore TBM and from the moment I left I've been interested in why I was that way and why other people are that way. Because of that I've largely healed from the negative and I've salvaged everything positive that I could find and I don't really have hurt or bad feelings towards the religion. Mormonism is interesting and the people are interesting and my goal is to study it. This is partially so that I can understand my experience and partially because brainwashing and branding techniques are interesting.

I'm far less interested in the particulars of how Mormonism hurt someone and how they feel about Mormonism because of it though. I can empathize to a point with people who have been hurt, but they tend to view Mormonism with a negative filter that doesn't leave a lot of room for objective truth. My interest is in figuring out what Mormonism is in the most objective way possible.

I hated it from being in Primary. I realised early on that the women were second class citizens and that I was just expected to accept this.

Even back in the 70's when there was still a local budget and Bazaars and Spaghetti dinners and real Christmas parties etc. going to church was always kind of a drag. Primary mid-week, 3 different trips to church on Sunday - PH, SS, then Back for Suckrament meeting -before the consolidated schedule of course.

Even the scout camp-outs sucked because there was always the bully or two who loved to torment all the other scouts.

To be fair, I do have some fond memories. There were some great times. On balance, it sucked way more that it was fun. My first temple trip, my mission, Elder's quorum president - all of that truly sucked.

I've been a non believer for almost 10 years now. I'm still very angry. Mostly because my family is still in and I feel like I'm forced into battle with the cult every stinking week. Living in Utah county doesn't help either.

AS A MORMON:

Family not active, attended church, mainly the activities, with friends. Members friendly to me, partly I think because my family was not active, and liked this, but also noticed favoritism shown to the kids whose parents ran the ward---like in road show leading roles, choices for class presidencies, etc.

Loved the church's plan for life after death, and fell for the promise of life being as beautiful as a lovely rose garden because my earthly family life left much to be desired.

Married in the temple and active for a while.

AS AN EX-MORMON:

When the puzzle pieces started to show that mormonism was a fraud and a cult, that ole sleezy Joe was a very imaginative conman who looked out for only his interests, and that many, many lies, cover-ups, and murders had been committed, I was beyond being angry and feeling robbed. I think a part of me will always be angry and fighting to expose the cult as long as it lives and breathes. I have children and grandchildren locked up tight in its clutches, and I dream of the day they will be free.

That said, I love my life now. I love being the master of my own soul, or however that saying goes. I enjoy the journey of discovery....discovery of truth based on evidence. And, I feel very fortunate and grateful to live in the age of reason and the amazing Internet.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2014 01:02AM by presleynfactsrock.

Mine was great I loved being a member enjoyed the theology and structure, loved the values and community. Pretty much all of it worked for me.

What killed it was integrity. I simply could not reconcile church history to the values we espoused. Then I noticed how the top leaders were always out of sync with democratic and civil rights issues to the point where it was clear that they live in a little bubble removed from the rest of society. They weren't remotely leading but changing years after society had already claimed higher ground.

The leaders felt like a bunch of old guys protesting elvis only to show up years later after elvis was no longer cool wearing greased hair and elvis pins acting as if they'd discovered him.

It really was a shame for me. I loved being in the church. I'm truly disappointed by these guys.

I didn't leave because of sin or any complaint against me. I left despite the benefits because I could no longer testify of something that all evidences confirmed was fraudulent.

I'd love to find a true church but my LDS experience has undermined any hope that such a thing is possible.

The Elvis thing is spot on!

The church failed me on so many levels. Then made me to believe that it was my fault.

I grew up going to the mormon church. Nothing there ever felt relevant. It was like I was living someone else's life for the longest time. They had my entire future/ eternity planned out before I could even walk.

When ever I misstepped or dared to be different it was my fault.

Despite all this I believed. That belief drove me to a suicidal-like depression, which at the time I blamed myself for as well.

I feel robbed of a genuine spiritual experience which I now believe is no longer possible.

Shame is a good word to sum up my Mormon Experience.

My Exmormon perspective is that the church is not a very healthy environment. Many people are deluded. Some may not be negatively affected directly, but pretty much everyone is negatively affected indirectly.

The church's stances are outdated and dangerous for these reasons.

it diverted me from true passions from authentic treasured loves

for years in anguished I languished I lived captive of the schedule callings the church established directing half, or more, of every weekend be taken away from time in bed or for sex (which the institute director said was definitely a sin;)

nor walking trails on my beloved coast staying overnight nearly anywhere camping nor in motels exploring it all was mountainbday hikes for me then - had to be at church on Sunday teaching. Oh all the pictures not taken, rocks not polished never touched the limits the church conscripted calling bound life put upon me.

It's been so long it's hard to remember. I can remember being bored a lot. We recycled the same lessons every month. Not sure why we had hymnals. We sang the same four hymns every week. "Super Saturdays" were anything but that. I just remember wanting to be anywhere, and I mean ANYWHERE else than there.


As an exmo I take great pride that I was right. Anywhere else is indeed better. I wish I could get my siblings out of it, but other than that is doesn't effect me at all, now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2014 12:38PM by jon1.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s to a TBM father and uberTBM mother. Oh, and the father molested my sisters; physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually abused all of us; and was raped by my still-TBM brother. My mother said our house was schizophrenic, between the wonderful times when my father wasn’t there and when he was home.

So, I grew up with a mother who completely 100% believes everything, and finds her entire center of life in the religion. She was from polygamous stock and taught we would practice it again in the Celestial kingdom. And everything about blacks being fence sitters.

Because I knew all the answers, my teachers loved me. I didn’t fit in with the other kids, so scouting was painful. In high school, I started to suffer from the disconnect of it not making sense, but unable to actually form questions.

My mission in Japan really sucked. I was severely depressed and the MP told me it was because of a lack of faith. I grew up isolated from others, and didn’t have the interpersonal skills to get along with my companions, while struggling with the overwhelming guilt of not believing what I was doing.

On my mission, we kept saying to ourselves that the Japanese members were so much more spiritual than US members. After a year of school, I went back to an area in my mission to teach English for a year and saw how utterly insane the members were.

I didn’t last much longer after that, and stopped wearing my garments.

Looking back as an exmormon, while it was not “The Church”, as we called it, which did all of this, the Morg certainly provided an environment which fostered the abuse and mental anguish. I have two seriously mentally ill siblings, products of the same environment. I feel like I’ve lived through hell.

I also went on a mission to Japan, then returned afterward to teach English.

Japanese Mormons are freaks!

with the exception of my mission, aka the two worst years of my life.

I was very positive about mormonism even after I realized it was a fraud, but that soon changed once I saw and experienced the dark underbelly from the opposite perspective. I can honestly say I left for intellectual reasons alone and turned "anti" afterwards.

There were parts of Mormonism that I actually enjoyed, and other things that I just endured because I believed it was true. I think it breaks down into three categories: (1) Things I enjoyed as a member and have fond memories of now; (2) things I liked as a believer, but grew uncomfortable with as my disbelief grew; and (3) things I was uncomfortable with as a believer and I really detest that I was subjected too.

1. I liked some of the activities we did like basketball, the pioneer trek (I know some people have awful experiences with these but I liked mine), and some of the campouts. Of course, possibly with the exception of Pioneer treks, you can do this stuff with other people.

2. I liked BYU and my Seminary classes in some ways, but I see that these experiences were far short of what they could have been because of the controlling LDS leadership. I liked teaching Gospel Doctrine class in my student ward, but as my views grew more unorthodox this grew more uncomfortable. Looking back these things were not terrible, but I wish I hadn't invested the time there.

3. The stuff that really sucked. Interviews! I did not like the worthiness interviews, especially as a teenager, where they seem to have an excuse to interview you every couple months or more. The temple was uncomfortable as a believer, and even more uncomfortable as a non-believer. I don't like the temple because it is a system to manipulate people into towing the line (see detest for interviews above). My mission perhaps wasn't horrible compared to some, but I wasted a lot of time in Germany spinning the wheels in the mud with people who would never, ever not in a million years join Mormonism. Looking back, I really want that time back. BTW there are lots of worthiness interviews associated with missions.

My experience wasn't generally negative. Nothing overtly negative caused me to leave the church. The process was pretty much based on me reasoning my way out.

Plus I always found being in church so dull and I never really believed it in the first place if I have to be honest with myself. In our home, though, you were either living like a Mormon or you were breaking one of the rules of the home.

Once I had a taste of independence as an adult I was able to more freely evaluate what I'd rather believe (I am an atheist.) and even more trivial things like what I'd rather due Sunday AM (Usually sleep.).

Wishy washy, some really good leaders and some really bad ones. Most are non professional regular Joes who shouldn't be councilling or teaching. They were always changing doctrines and history around to suit the moment and then the guilt trip saying you must have misinterpreted what was taught. They don't teach you to find the comfortable solution to what was taught rather to act with your heart(the spirit) rather than your head (logic). If you don't read or write this is a great church to belong to. If you do read and write the guilt is unbearable and they will screw with your head until you come to the conclusion that you don't need other people making decisions that effect your life.

I could also cut and paste jesuswantsmeforasucker's answer as well.

Everything was fun and games as a kid. I had friends at church, the activities were fun, I didn't mind going every Sunday; it's just what we did.

As an adult, a whole different story. Juggling kids and callings and dh's callings (most of his callings meant I had to get the kids dressed and to church by myself) was so hard. I'd arrive at church stressed and frazzled every single week. The lessons in church were the same thing over and over and over - I was so incredibly bored 90% of the time at church. And let's not mention everything you're supposed to be doing - home/visiting teaching,callings, meetings, tithing, cleaning the building, driving your kids to seminary every morning, FHE, prayer and reading your scriptures every day - the list never ends!

The temple was what started the downhill spiral for me too. It was so awful and creepy - yet at the time I felt like I was the one deficient for not having some wondrous spiritual feeling like everyone else claims they did.

Fast forward another 5-10 years and things just kept not adding up and I questioned a God who was so exclusive in who he would allow to live with him again. So many silly things they taught us simply wasn't logical. The shelf finally broke and I'm free.

Now after Mormonism, I think it's horrible. I had never felt so free and light in my life. I felt like what I imagine an inmate serving life must feel like when he's paroled. I'm angry at all the angst and guilt I felt for years for imaginary morals and teachings some jerk decided to make up one day. I'm angry at all the tithing money we wasted and all the money my parents are wasting. I'm angry that my view of the world and life was so very narrow for so long.

I don't hate the people; our ward has so many good people and good leaders, but I do hate the church and the higher ups who perpetuate the fraud.

after reading this, I can't help but wonder how many used to sit in church, as I did, thinking that you were alone in your thinking and that you were surrounded by everyone who had a firm testimony,a willingness to follow the leaders and a disassociation with reality as you saw it.

I actually loved it when I was a child. We lived in the "mission field" and my church friends did not go to my school. I had a great time in mutual and scouts as well. I didn't find that I was all that affected by the guilt inducing attempts during my aaronic priesthood years.

The troubles began when I went on my mission. The mission destroyed my self esteem. I was called to a country with a very difficult language and I didn't have the right stuff to succeed. It has taken me years to realize that it wasn't my fault.

BYU was also a horrible experience for me. I hated it, but I did learn how to think critically while there. I sometimes wonder if I hadn't gone on a mission or went to BYU, would I have found my self on the outside?

I studied my way out of mormonism 18 years ago. Looking back, I feel angry that a big chunk of my life was stolen from me and that I suffered unnecessarily because of a fraud.

For a long time I thought that the leaders of the church were just misguided believers. Since the Tom Phillips fraud case against the church, I have begun to see the church in a different light. even though I was disgusted by the church's bigotry for years, it didn't really hit me that what the church was doing was criminal, until Tom came along.

I can see that the church is capable of creating a wonderful community for people. I honestly think it does more harm than good, though. I'm still angry and I feel that if I can see through the lies of mormonism, then those who remain are either stupid or crazy. And the leaders of the church are basically a blight on humanity.

The mormon church needs to change or go away.

I was a young adult convert. My decades-long experience with Moism, in retrospect, was negative, with many seriously down times directly due to Moism's dashed hopes. I stayed active and trying for decades for DW's sake. When I left, I was deranged mentally, a broken man.

I now see Moism in the worst possible light, as a soul-less, greedy corp. desperate for wealth and power. I despise this corp. and wish for its demise. Much of my immediate family is tbm.

Now I am yogi meditator. I do my thing to bring peace to the family and world of humans, in spite of surrounding darkness. I've found a home within myself, and rising contentment.