Two questions:

1. How long did it take you to recover from the anger toward and hurt from Mormonism?

2. What helped you overcome the hate, anger, and/or hurt feelings toward/from the Mormon church and its members?

Edit: I feel like it is taking me a long time to dispel all my negative/hurt feelings toward Mormons and Mormonism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2014 10:48PM by bella10.

Some looked at a rock in a hat and saw god. Others used the rock to sharpen their being.

Mormonism hurts many but overcoming it is a path to becoming a better person. I'm not concerned about anger.

I think some of the pain and anger derives from great expectations in the past. I was hoping for clearly stated and logical answers from the Scriptures or the Living Prophets. I was really, really hoping for supernatural relief from personal deficiencies and difficult situations.

Then there was no more hope left, and I had to go ahead and figure things out for myself. While not necessarily requiring more effort, it does require making a lot more decisions and owning those decisions. Learning that new approach to life helps you to ignore the unrealistic hopes that caused the disappointment.

I hope that makes sense. I know it was healthy for me to write it.

1. Still recovering, though the intense feelings of betrayal and hatred have generally subsided. Occasionally I will have a sort of "PTSD" flashback where I grow angry with the suffocating attitude of Utah Mormons. I would say that I arrived at this state after about 1 year of leaving. That said, I am a young adult without my own family and am currently focused on school. From my observations people who leave Mormonism at a younger age seem to recover much faster than those whose lives have become interwoven with TSCC.

2. Reading about other religions (worldwide) and religion in general helped. I found it much easier to forgive the LDS members/church for all the pain after getting a better understanding of how religion in general has enabled humanity to cope with the beautiful struggle we call living.
Note: I am not religious in any way. In fact, I identify as agnostic/atheist.
I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that learning and observing religion from an outside objective perspective helped me to free myself from what I see as the shackles of dogma.

Also (and I know this sounds terrible) cutting off my TBM family helped a lot. I guess the disowning was more mutual than just me but distancing myself helped me to overcome the family-inflicted shame that comes with being "apostate". It has and currently allows me to live my life the way I see most moral and fit regardless of my family's arbitrary set of values.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2014 10:32PM by iwenttothewoods.

I too am a young adult and must say I have come farther than I thought I could, but still have a lot of healing to do. My healing doesn't just involve recovering from hurt feelings of being lied to doctrinally wise. It also involves recovering from the social and emotional bullying I received from girls in my church classes.

1)I think it took me around 2.5 months for all of my anger to truly subside.
2) My two closest friends helped me recover rather quickly, along with a lot of help from here on the board. It also helped that my identity never intertwined heavily with Mormonism (or religion in general). I'm too much of an introvert.

The healing for me came from adding new things to my life that were bigger and better than Mormonism had ever been--although, what isn't? Mormonism started to fade into the distance, or perhaps limped is a better word as real life emerged.

I had an unusual recovery because I left many decades ago and I just buried it all. Deep. Had no where to put it. There was no RFM or anything I was aware of like it. A few years ago all the wounds from Mormonism started surfacing and demanding attention. This time there was RFM . . .and Google, and books and forums. Knowledge and camaraderie go a long way in the healing process. They say misery loves company, but I've found exploration loves it even more. Explore all that's new and just dwell on the past long enough to defang it.

For me it was a matter of not picking at the scabs. I walked away about three years after my mission and didn't give the church much thought -- except when family brought it up. I wasn't angry, just relieved. I went about my business and things worked out for me. Every now and then I'd mourn tor the normal childhood I didn't get to have, but that would pass. However, I eventually realized I had some mental health problems tied up with that LDS crap about conditional love and eorthiness. I had a good therapist, though.

I didn't engage in anger in what I call my very personalized Exit Process from Mormonism as a young woman-convert.

I can sound like a rabbid dog- I can be dramatic/theatrical that way, (I'm an extrovert), and have been very frustrated while getting out of the LDS Church, but I do not hold any anger, rage, bitterness toward the LDS Church or the members.

Besides, I don't like being angry. It takes too much energy and I knew it was always important to let anger go quickly before it negatively impacted my life and everyone in it!

I lived with and loved Mormons. Most of the people I knew and loved (except for a few exceptions) didn't bother me about my personal choices. My generational believing husband was very kind and asked what I needed from him and I said:
"Live the 11th Article of Faith"
We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

We had some struggles but they all went away when I shut up about the LDS Church, refused to be negative about it, respected his right to his beliefs as they were about him and not me anyhow.

We had a pack to agree to disagree and it worked... .we got to over 50 years of marriage, the last 15 or so with me as a non believer.

I put some old fashioned wisdom and good psychology into practice:
I concentrated on a few important things:
Keep my self respect, and self confidence, and sense of humor setting on High.
I took my power back and owned it.

I checked out books from the library, bought a couple dozen books and read web pages and articles on line months on end soaking up information.

I got busy filling my time with adult education classes at the local college which put me into a whole different social environment for about four years. That was very beneficial.

I didn't take this on as a recovery or healing process. I grew up with the old adage: "It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind." And I did.

I changed my mind. That was about me, not anyone else. Other people's belief systems were as important to them as my new evolving world view was to me.

Then I lived The Golden Rule.

It's worked out very well!

I've posted many times on how we made it work.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2014 10:39PM by SusieQ#1.

I was angry at the way the parents of some friends, who were hell raisers like me, treated their sons (but I got over it). My Dad and I had our set to's but he never disowned me or brought into question anything church/worthiness related in regards to my "straying from the path". It was later that I came to realize those other parents were the product of a fucked up cult that put them in fear of their own salvation. I don't think Dad & Mom were worried what anyone thought about them.

Ron Burr



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2014 02:03PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

Honestly, I started healing when I stopped reading this board for a while. I love the conversations here, but when the wounds were fresh, it just made me angry and bitter. I took a break from everything Mormon...and realized that life had even more to offer without it! I knew I was on the path to healing when I could come back here and not be weighed down with negative feelings.

It took about a year but the anger left as I started to live my life for myself.

I still feel a sense of loss for the life experiences that I may or may not have missed out on by being Mormon during my youth, but my wife is pretty good about letting me experience some of that.

I'm lucky in that none of my family is Mormon and my TBM ex-wife divorced me at the drop of a peep stone... after that I have had very limited contact with Mormons.

For quite some time, I had been feeling very uncomfortable with many aspects of the church: the insistence on absolute conformity, tearful, soap-opera-like "testimonies," stupid, busywork callings, etc. But in the church, you can't ever DISCUSS these feelings with anybody. You either get shocked silence, or hit with the old, "Pray, pay and obey" line, plus "you need to read your scriptures more often."

When I started reading on this board, I realized that there were a LOT of people who had shared these feelings, and that it was possible to ESCAPE.

The late, great Kathy Worthington was still around back then, and she and I exchanged some emails, and she was amazingly understanding. She understood exactly what I was going through. And as I got to know other folks here, I felt as if I had come home.

Other people, much more schooled about the church and advanced in their own recoveries, provided articulate explanations for the fuzzy, incoherent feelings I was experiencing.

For a while, I felt very angry and betrayed. After resignation, most of that faded away. Now I just hang around the board because I enjoy the people here and like to read their comments.

Eric K, Susan I/S, CZ et al, thank you yet again.

Still angry after 10 years out. I don't think the anger will ever go away but it can be managed somewhat.

off and on for 17 years with an exmo therapist. He is actually the one who told me about this board. I had a lot more to heal than just my relationship to the LDS church, though. I had my gay/straight marriage/separation to deal with and the fallout of that.

This board has been one of the things that helped me the most. I came here still hating my ex and now we are good friends again and share the same house. This board allowed me to be ANGRY at the lds church and to get the anger out.

I still come here to read and comment as I get bored while I'm working and I find the conversation more stimulating here than other boards or facebook. I still run into issues as my daughter is about as TBM as you can get and so I come here to vent or read. Reading here has never been a detriment to me. It has always been helpful.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2014 11:36AM by cl2.

I went the other way.

Rather than "go against the church", they were always going against me, rubbing me the wrong way, playing foul, out of bounds.

Recovering is a continuing process. It started eighteen years ago. My entire family has departed. Three of us officially resigned and the other three are inactive.

As for me personally, I was immediately very angry and blamed God for my thirty years of deception. I then thought that there is no God and for the next fifteen years I dealt with more of a disappointment in God than the Mormons. Towards the end of that time of pain and anger, I had faced some mortality issues which started me in examining myself. I came finally to the conclusion that the anger I had harbored for so long was being misdirected towards God. Instead I was really angry with myself for having been so deceived for such a very long time. Once I understood this I was able to open myself to searching whether God really existed. After the death of my mother and while making her funeral arrangements I started to view God a a positive force in life. During the funeral mass the priest invited all who wished to partake of communion to come to the alter rail. I was moved to get up and go to take communion. Forty-three years earlier I had left this same church and now I have returned. I am content with that decision and am at peace with God and life.

The LDS church has left some scars. I still have a hard time being forgiving for the false teachings that directed my life for thirty years. The recovery is even now continuing but with the help from God that I receive by being again with a true Christian church is immensely helpful. I prayerfully ask that those of you in pain find healing and peace.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2014 02:55PM by michaelc1945.