When I left TSCC I thought I was so unique and I really talked about my experiences a lot. Many people don't want to hear or understand what I went through and now I just kind of hunker down and downplay all my experiences.

Her is my question: Are we peculiar now that we are no longer peculiar people? Are we uniquely broken? Broken in similar ways that other people are "broken"?

Am I still playing some kind of persecution game (similar to the TBM persecution complex) now that I am no longer a warrior saved for Saturday?

Just some deep thoughts on this monday-after-thanksgiving. I am in some kind of funk.

I'm going to go with everyone else is normal and I'm strange for not wanting to be normal. :-)


I know what you mean. We went from being God's special little God-embryos to being regular animals on the packed planet Earth.

I think one reason religion is so successful is because people like the idea of feeling so important that God favors them.

Yeah, I hear you. Just another human on a packed planet earth. Not a queen and priestess to the most high god with kingdoms and realms and however that fairy tale goes. (I never got "sealed" in the temple but I spent many an awkward moment across an alter from a stranger doing proxy sealings). GOOD GRIEF! What a fool I was.

It seems silly to experience grief over losing something so obviously false, but I was raised by ultra TBMs and it was all very real to me until I was in my early 30s. And I've been out a good ten years.

Define normal.

A setting on the clothes dryer

Good point and a timely reminder, thanks.

Sedagive, and all the other wonderful lines in that movie.

unworthy Wrote:
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> Define normal.

Exactly.
I've got news for you: nobody's "normal." We're all unique, a bit strange, not like everyone else, and trying to find our way in life.
"Normal" is the face all we individuals put on to show the rest of the world that we "fit in." It's always fake. Always.

As for us...we share a common experience, which in many cases was traumatic and yet joyful. It's OK to relish that bit of commonality in this group, and even celebrate sharing it :)

I certainly don't feel normal. And I am also in a funk. But I feel more normal that I ever did when I tried to be a TBM. But as 'unworthy' stated above, define normal. I think normal is what you feel when you fit in with a group that defines who you are. Given that, I feel normalish among RfM folks. I've found that people here are real and honest, and maybe that's better than trying to define normal.

Very true. I do feel understood here, more than really anywhere else in my life.

I was never a Saturdays warrior. Too old. However, I was one of a very chosen generation.
We were led to believe we were chosen to be the generation that would walk across the country and return to claim Missouri.

After living close to Missouri, I had to laugh. Really!? Who in the hell would willingly live in that hell hole? Not a great place to visit let alone live IMO. So many things didn't make sense.

So many questions. No answers. Joseph Smith didn't have any insight into the future. Zero. This has left the current leaders babbling and bumbling for explanations that make zero sense. It's impossible to take 1800's rules and make them work in 2014 and beyond. The world was not supposed to exist. JS had prophesied that the end was near. Just another end times cult that was wrong.

The people that leave mormonism after doing their homework are the NORMAL ones. The ones who stay in spite of the insanity are not normal. They're brainwashed. Sad, but true.

A very chosen generation, just like all the others. And I thought I was of the chosen. Good grief. Thanks for your perspective. And I've been to Missouri, too. I was not looking forward to walking back there, either. But anything for god, right. Sheesh. I still can hardly believe I was willing to do anything for that odd cult.

Personally, I'm feeling like my group of similar people in the world has shrunk. I used to feel like a sort of troubled-Mormon-on-the-edge and I was sure I had plenty of company.

Now I'm a hurting-and-trying-to-be-ex-Mormon and the only people who can understand me are those reading my words now. I don't know how many of you there are, but I feel like my kinship in the world has gotten smaller. I feel pretty weird. It is hard to be in normal, social, happy settings when right now the burning internal issue of my life is struggling with the damage of my lousy church.

I don't know if we're uniquely broken (as in permanently), but I guess uniquely damaged feels about right.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2014 02:12AM by dinah.

Uniquely damaged seems right to me, too. Thanks for your insight and good job escaping TSCC.

Uniquely damaged, I like that. For now this is about the only place where I feel normal. Most days I feel like a fish out of water in society. I used to be weird in the world but I was mormon so I was supposed to be weird, you know in the world not of the world.

Now I don't have that to fall back on so I just feel weird. I am though testing the waters and it starting to feel normal. Our town has a large bar scene, we go out a couple times a month and it's nice to not seem like a weirdo and partake in a beer or two every now and then.

I think for all of us it will get better, eventually.

Normal is a setting on the dryer

Even though I quit the Church 34 years ago, the Mormon CULTure is still a part of who I am today. Jesus! Just look at me! I am wasting my valuable time typing heartfelt comments on RfM. Why? Because I resonate here with kindred souls who stepped in the same dogshit I did.

That, and most of my extended family are still TBM, including my mother. (Dad is probably doing missionary work in the hereafter as we speak...most likely proselyting young women in need of a Priesthood Pass to the CK.)

Yes, I had a similar realization as my spouse (who is extremely understanding, yet as a nevermo will never really fully "get it") wonders why I spend so much time on this site. I have been out 10 years. I suppose I will still be normal if I'm lurking, reading and posting in another 25 years. Thanks for your post.

Thanks, all for your lovely thoughts.

We're kindred spirits. People who've had the unique experience of getting f**ked over (and our minds damaged) in a way that no nevermo can ever imagine.

Many people have been deceived and that deception has hurt them to the core....that's not unique.
What is surprising and odd/peculiar to people is that a so called "religion" is the perpetrator of the deception so I'd say we are not uniquely broken but we have been broken in a unique way.

I hope that makes sense.