I have learned something kind of scary about myself. I hate the Mormon church and I often look for more reasons to hate it. I admitted that a long time ago. The scary part for me is that I don't want to let go of all the hate or the pain. I don't want to forgive the church or its people. I need my pain and anger because it makes me feel justified. It makes me feel like I have power over the church. I know none of it is real. Holding grudges and hateful feelings is just giving it more power over me. All the anger and hate is making me a slave to the very thing I want to get away from. But I so badly want to let go. I want to forgive, forget and take my life back. It is a battle I don't know how to win.

I suggest you don't deny it or try to bury it.

It's normal to dislike anything or anyone who mistreats you. Making excuses for them doesn't make the problem go away.

When your feelings run their course, they'll change to suit your new stage of recovery. Until then, no need to feel guilty or beat yourself up.

This is a process, a long one. Sometimes that means steps forwards AND steps back. Where you are on the road is where you are, no one is going to grade you I promise :) Think of it this way, LDSInc IS abusive. Would you tell someone that has been in a long term relationship with an abuser that they don't have a right to be angry? When you are ready to move past it, you will. Till then always remember, whatever you feel is OK!

Anger beats the alternative, which is depression (anger turned inward towards yourself.) The anger will run its course in time. How much time can vary widely, so don't worry about it. Feel free to vent here as much as you need to.

bella 10, I hear you. Betrayal has to be one of the hardest things to forgive. Dante placed betrayers and traitors in the lowest circle of Hell. I've never forgiven the church or my father, and I think I never will. You are a human being, bella, and you deserve respect. You deserve the right to your own private thoughts. You deserve freedom from harassment.

Best Wishes
--Don

I'm not sure forgiveness is appropriate--or even possible--for an ongoing evil.

TSCC is still actively victimizing people. We are still in the phase where whistleblowers, journalists and investigators are exposing their evil to the victims and the rest of the world. They are nowhere near being "brought to justice" yet.

Contrast that with the CoC-RLDS. They finally made a decision to acknowledge and jettison Joe and his books and move on. Those still in the group may now (if they wish) let it go and forgive.

I think you are simply feeling a sort of empathetic acknowledgement of their evil--an honest human reaction that fits the scale of their scam. As long as it doesn't interfere with your daily life too much you have nothing to worry about.

I am feeling the same right now.

Brandywine, I am sad that others feel this same way, but it is also nice to know I am not going through it alone. It is hard to juggle feelings of wanting to be free of the painful and angry feelings, but also not wanting to let go of them. I know that forgiveness is something that takes time and it will come eventually. I just need to continue being honest with myself and work through what I am feeling. I hope that with time we will both begin to heal.

Understanding what the Church is and what it isn't is what makes the difference.

The only person who really could have been considered guilty was Joseph Smith and he has already gotten what he deserved. All the others have been duped and are victims. Some of them were just evil and have caused others a lot of harm, but who hasn't?

If you think it through, actually Joseph Smith was a victim of himself too. He actually believed he was a prophet and let it go to his head. He had his bad moments but occasionally he did good stuff too. What happened to him was a consequence of his own ignorance and arrogance and in my opinion, he entirely deserved it.

That's just humanity. Mormonism isn't the first crazy religion to arise and it won't be the last. Just be happy and proud of yourself that you were capable of seeing through it and is now a little more free. Not everybody had the same luck.

I think you'll let go of it when you don't need it anymore. You'll know when you reach that point.

Thanks Greyfort, I still have things to work through, but I think I am getting there. I appreciate the support. I think the more confidence I gain in myself the more I will be able to naturally let go.

Eventually (and it may take a LONG time) you will move through the hate and find yourself indifferent.

I didn't even realize it when it happened. One day I was aware that I no longer hated the people who had caused me terrible pain in the past. As long as they leave me and mine alone (and they do), I couldn't care less about them, one way or the other. It's a lot easier on you than carrying hatred around.

Another example of Mormonism as not a victimless crime.

It is very intense when considering how many relationships are strained or severed because of this fraud. It is impossible to quantify the total damaged caused by the LDS organization.

deco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Another example of Mormonism as not a victimless
> crime.
>
> It is very intense when considering how many
> relationships are strained or severed because of
> this fraud. It is impossible to quantify the total
> damaged caused by the LDS organization.


+1, severed relationship category!

Dear Bella10 - this is the healing process. you'll get through it, but you have to go through it. it sucks but you WILL come out the other side. don't rush, don't repress or deny what you feel, allow it and say, this is how i feel now, it isn't forever.

you are a human being and having those human feelings simply means that you are still alive. that is good news; allow yourself to bleed out the poison at your own rate. everyone heals at different rates. All the best to you, you are clearly a very strong person, what you did is admirable. All the best to you on your new journey - the beauty of the outside world awaits you - you'll get there.

Go easy on yourself.

I was going to repeat what Greyfort just said--it'll go away when you dont' need it anymore.

That is one of the biggest destructions. It has the power to keep people hating and bitter for the rest of their lives. In that, Mormonism often wins. Many exmo's never can heal to the point of apathy, i.e., no emotions and completely detached from it. So ,at some level, the relationship between Mormonism and exmo continues to exist.

I'm not at all sure that apathy is at all desirable. To me it just seems like the ultimate damage. Hate is downright healthy compared to apathy.

I am of the complete opposite view. :)

Agreed x1000000

You are right that "hating" something that has hurt you is normal. But true recovery moves beyond hate, and that is something all of us have to do, in our own way and in our own time. The hard part is really for those of us who can NOT move on because we are forced to continue living with our abusers. Our families won't let us live our own lives. I get that.

You do not need hate and anger to justify ANY decision. Hate and anger may only bring you down and hurt you more. It is NOT worthwhile to keep holding on to the hate and anger and allowing that to keep on causing you pain. As another poster has said on this board, hate only hurts the *hater* (meaning you). It does not hurt the one who hurt you, at least, nearly as much.

Nor do you need to lack forgiveness - and in fact, you should NOT fail to forgive. It really takes a great load off you and you feel so relieved when you forgive. (Note, as B.T. Swami wisely said, that forgiveness does *not* mean you give permission to those who hurt you to keep hurting you - but what it does mean is that you let go of the negative emotions and grudges against those whom you believe to have hurt you and you move on.)

Nor do you need it to move on with your life - and in fact that hate and anger might actually be holding you back. To move on you should accept your past and view it in a positive light. In my faith (Hare Krishna), it is taught that everything happens for a reason, and our past mistakes and negative circumstances are to be seen as potential learning experiences from which we can learn and grow in our faith and develop as better people.

What you do need to justify any decision is the Truth on your side. With the Truth you are satisfied in your standing up for the right cause, and so you know that you did the right thing.

Have Truth on your side and let go of the hate. :-)

I have to say, no disrespect to HKK, but I have been told this during my recovery and all it did was making everything horribly worse. I know a lot of people find peace with this advice, but personally I found much more peace following all of the other advice on this thread -- let yourself be as angry as you need to be. You don't have to force yourself to forgive them. When you have healed enough, the harsh feelings will naturally fade.

+1 to this and to Greyfort.

Don't feel pressure to forgive or let go, or anything. That leads to repression, which causes all sorts of other issues in the long term. Feel free to ignore the destructive doctrine of unconditional and immediate forgiveness.

Maybe you will forgive one day, that is your call, and not your current concern. Right now, you need to let yourself feel and understand your feelings. Emotions serve a purpose. Let these run their course, spend time on resolving them (not burying them). They will only go their way once their purpose has been served. If you try and expedite this process you will only cause further suffering.

The worry that the premature forgiveness crowd espouses is that you will build this life long resentment. This is different than the anger and hate that you are feeling. The kind that HKK is so afraid of is a conscious decision, it is active and fueled, the kind that you are feeling is passive, it will run out of fuel as a natural course of things and you will move on. The reality is that the destructive lack of forgiveness is an extremely rare thing, that is usually only found in stories about string told by 80 year old real-estate moguls. The vast majority of the world does not experience hatred in this way.

It's normal and natural.

Sometimes knowing what you are feeling is normal can be helpful to move beyond it.

I wished I waz angry at the church still. I have favored depression since. Be angry at the church. They took your life and soul and used it like a rug: just to be used and walked on.

I am in the middle of the hate right now. My problem though is while I hate the church I am directing a lot of hate at the people too.

In three months we will resign. Once our son is off at college we will send in our paperwork. It will be easier because he will be away from the grips of all the members he has grown up around.

So right now I am hating anyone associated with the church, ok not everyone but almost everyone. I hate the phoniness of their contact. I hate the cookies they drop off. I hate their messages of love. I hate their cult-y smiles. I hate them because they are a representation of all the money and time I lost because of the cult. I hate it all and I hate most of them. I want nothing to do with them.


Yeah maybe I am consumed with hate. I imagine it will be better when I can completely move on. Right now I am doing okay. I'm trying to stay out of depression. My husband is moving on better than me, or at least he appears to be better.

Anyhow for now I am okay with hate, it's an emotion and for so long I just turned them off. If you haven't seen the Book of Mormon musical you should go to youtube and find the song "Turn it Off", it totally describes the church and emotions. So hate it's okay because I am feeling and I need to feel.

Well, some days I have extreme hatred.

Some days nothing.

For me, RfM posts add fuel to the fire.

I like the fire but, don't want to get burned.

Of course you hate the church for what it did to you and others. That is a logical and natural response to mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse. And those are just as difficult to heal from as physical abuse.

Let your feelings out, your anger. Hold it up to the sunlight and examine it from every angle. The anger is helping you acquire knowledge and understanding of what happened because that anger is keeping your mind focused.

It is difficult, but that is the process that keeps you from burying it all. That's what I did for many, many years, and when the time came, the anger was still there and needed to be dealt with.

We were taught for too many years that anger was negative, was of no good use. That is not true. It is a tool to get you where you need to be as much as any other. Just harness it, use it wisely.


All the best to you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2014 10:21AM by blueorchid.