Boy, I sure was, I worried about everything. The only items I was conversant with were approved church topics. I took myself VERY serious. Et vous, mes chers?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2014 08:59PM by byuboner.

Yup, I was serious. My becoming of a TBM was fairly gradual, but once I was TBM, I was very serious and devout. I only looked at church-approved materials and put hundreds of hours into church service which kept me too busy to do much of anything else.

I know everyone's experience is different, but I really liked what I was doing. I did not want to leave. The history was just too overwhelming though and I had to leave... it was just too obvious to me.

I left a long time before the Internet or easily available historical information. What pushed me over, Exodus, was the constant demand for perfect. Perfection from a Boner; that's impossible!

Well, Cialis does help! But call your doctor for an erection lasting more than four hours. Ouch!

A ward member, upon hearing that I had lost my testimony, questioned me. He asked me if I had ever believed it wholeheartedly. He seemed relieved when I said no! Later, I realized why. They believe that if you accept it whole and then reject it, you go to hell!

I've gotten similar comments, I just let them go. What I value the most, Rationalist, is honesty. You are honest in your non-belief, I find that refreshing! Honesty always comes in second place as Mormons must defend the church at all costs. Boner.

I'm enjoying your posts, and learning more about you. I was active until age 23 when I married my never-mo husband.

I was very serious about social aspects. Word of Wisdom, Standard of Youth, no sex before marriage.

I wasn't very serious about doctrine stuff. I didn't see myself marrying in the temple. I didn't have much interest being around Mormons. I didn't like reading the scriptures. I did graduate from seminary and institute but always hid my quad in my book bag. Even though it was obvious that I'm a Mormon, I didn't like thinking of myself as one of them-- a sheep (this is in Utah.)

I was the one they never worried about leaving Mormonism. I was VERY SERIOUS about living perfectly. I was forever looking for the things I didn't do perfectly. I still have people say to me, "But you did everything right and look what happened to you." Even my Mormon friends.

No. I knew it would be better for me to be serious, but I could not do it, not even to save my soul.

I tried to curb my silly, insouciant attitude, and kept a straight face at all the appropriate moments, but inside I was always looking for the humor angle. Things were fine until I was convinced to go on a mission and then went to the temple for the first time just before leaving for the SLC mission home and the LTM. I will never understand the TBMs who go ga-ga over the temple experience. Going to the temple is the silliest thing I've ever done with a straight face. I still have this image of my very cool bishop (who had a Fireside at his home for the priests and Laurels the Sunday night the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan the first time so we could all watch them!) standing in the celestial room in his white clothes, green apron and baker's hat...! What was he thinking? What was I thinking?

I think I just kept it up because I didn't know how to do anything else. But I only went to the temple two more times: that next week, in the SLC Mission home, and then when I married my BYU lets-hurry-up-and-have-sex-before-I-explode bride.

To believe that there is a supreme being who wants his eternal offspring to build and attend temples where the rituals change according to needs and surveys is insanity. The club my friends and I created in 4th grade made more sense than the temple experience...

I could not, and did not, take the mormon church seriously after going to the temple. I stayed in because the roadway it showed me was the only one I knew about. You know how silly the mormon church is? Here's how silly it is: While I was at the Y, my new bride and I moved out to Lakeview (a two bedroom house on 3/4's of an acre at $75/month, when I was making $90/month being a cook at the old Mr. Steak on N. University!) and within two months I was called to be the EQP in the Lakeview ward. Ah, yes, the power of discernment, as practiced by bishops trying not to offend either side of warring factions: "I know, let's give the job to that Mexican kid who just moved into the ward! He's a BYU RM, is newly married, and nobody can say I played favorites!!"

No church that can pick me to be an EQP can be taken seriously.

From the time I was 14 years old I kept spiritual journals in which I tried to make sense of every doctrine. My flowcharts trying to figure out section 132 and the new and everlasting covenant are a trip. Straight-arrow, amateur scriptorian, hell-bent on making sure all my unworthy family members knew I was coming for them! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

How can a person be serious when you're 50 and the RSP scolds you for being in the foyer instead of SS class. I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. Her face turned a funny color and she literally clenched her fist, stomped her foot and left. The whole scene still makes me laugh.

The longer I stayed mormon, the funnier things got. F&T meetings were hilarious to me.

Good new name for mormons, "The Scold Society". One of their favourite pastimes.

Yes and no. I struggled as a member. I believed in it, but some,ok most, of it was hard to understand and make sense of. I was not exactly a willing member. I knew I was supposed to have daily prayers and scripture study and FHE, but we seldom did, and then I felt guilty for it. I attended most all the meetings (until towards the end)and didn't read anything not church approved. I secretly rolled my eyes at Molly Mormons, because I wasn't one of them, yet I never felt like I measured up. So, was I serious? Yes and no.

During my mission and for a few years after I was very serious. Then I started masturbating and looking at porn and before you knew it I turned into a full-blown homosexual who tortured puppies and kittens.

LOL! Bet you even walked across the lawn at BYU, too!

I always thought gays liked dogs. Does this change my paradigm?

I wasn't serious until I met my future wife. I tried hard to be serious and played the role well. But it just never seemed to fit. It's much better being out, even though it took me 60+ years.

I don't think I ever believed. I went along to get along. As soon as I graduated I left the small town and resigned the Mormons. This was in the early 60's.

Sounds like an interesting story. Please tell.

Took it very seriously, went on a mission, tried to get a testimony praying, working hard, studying, etc but nothing ever came of it. No response. That made me feel guilty. Many of the things at church were bizarre and intrusive wastes of time, IMO, like PPIs, temple work, journals, much of home teaching, the many long meetings. I never fit mentally with those. Reading church approved books sort of gave me a feeling that maybe there was truth to the church, but when i started thinking what the books were saying, i realized they were making stuff up. My 20s were a period of half believing. 30s i figured it was prolly false and definitely a waste and annoyance. But with a TBM, i could t leave. In my 40s i realized how wrong it was and stopped attending.

Now i look at my TBM relatives and cant understand how they cant see what a crock it all is.

So serious that I seriously wanted the fairytale to be true - that I could live on and on and be happy ever after. This is what I banked on and went to the temple to ensure.

And the TEMPLE part? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry first. Seriously. SERIOUSLY? The outfits surrounding me were a riot. Who would think that grown-ups would even consider putting them on? Yet here I was. And attempting to hide the giggles and utter embarrasment.

Then there were the handshakes. We had secret signals when I was in second grade and these seriously reminded me of those. Did I think that God would require that we all remember these at the welcoming Pearly Gates? Yeah, sure.

Church attendance for me with my new hubby was pretty regular after this, but I was so BORED. I was in my fourth year at university and this seemed so juvenile and questionable to me. I found Fawn Brodie's book, No Man Knows My History, at this time. Now, this WAS something that made sense, matched puzzle pieces, and was something I could take SERIOUSLY.

The end of boredom was in sight for both me and my husband.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2014 02:51PM by presleynfactsrock.

Oh hell no. I was never really LDS...yah I got baptised and confirmed all the way up to elder...but serious about being LDS...not for a minute...and I developed a dislike early on for those that were "full of the gospel". They always came off as phony.

RB

I'm in the Yes and No category. I never really questioned it until I was an adult. I knew it was a story that was to silly to share and convert others with. But I did buy into the idea that you should follow the rules and I didn't follow them all. I was good at feeling guilty.

Up to my early twenties you might worry that the vein in my forehead would explode at the slightest suggestion of anything said or done that wasn't church approved. The world was filling up with sin and I might need to do a taxing march to Missouri at a moments notice (my folks were raised especially old-school on that one). Fortunately that part of me isn't quite as overplayed as it was.

I wonder sometimes how a person can be a TBM and not become over-serious, actually. I've seen examples both ways, of course, growing up in Utah but at the times I lived out of state the balance seemed to shift heavily away from this strained mentality. As a whole it was obvious when I wasn't in Utah that I was surrounded by people with a more balanced picture of life, people who still worked hard and had their particular beliefs but without so much drama mixed with stress and a dash of isolationism built into their worldview.

I tried to be, but I always knew it wasn't what I wanted. I only went along with it because my parents told me I'd suffer for all eternity otherwise.

For many years, I took it all very seriously. Eventually, I started to lighten up and not be so dogmatic about specific things. The interesting thing about that was it was a bishop who told me I was too serious! HA! Then, the whole thing came tumbling down when I realized what Joseph Smith Jr was actually doing. It was my oldest daughter that showed me some evidence that cleared up my questions. My personality is such that I find humor in so many things. This was another time.. I was able to have a good laugh at how I took it all so seriously! It confirmed that I was right about my sense of "what is wrong with this picture" all the time. I also knew that the temple rituals were symbolic also.

I was a convert, so that tempered how I lived the religion and raised our family. I recognized the fanatics and stayed clear and knew they were preposterous. I think my moderate stance helped most of my family be able to leave it all and not be too concerned about it.
We all left pretty easily, compared to others I've read about.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2014 04:17PM by SusieQ#1.

I wasn't very serious as a kid growing up in the church. I went through the motions for my parents. Eventually they wore off on me and I went on a mission. The responsibility I felt for "the souls of men" on my mission caused me to become very serious. Then my desire to be a "stalwart priesthood holder," a "good and faithful servant," and such took over once I got home.

Now that I've shed all of those pointless burdens I've started to laugh again and not take everything so seriously. But I still have a long way to go to reverse the damage caused by that suffocating pressure I felt for so many years.

Big time TBM and very serious worker in the vineyard until I went in the Navy and, well you know, Stan has control over the waters. Started the slide on out but it took about twenty years to take really good so that I'd resign.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2014 04:28PM by michaelc1945.

I was pretty serious. I think my path to leaving began when my relationship with God grew stronger than my relationship with the religion.

You know what? I never really fit in but I tried and tried and tried. I never felt like "god" accepted me and I know that most members never accepted me. I was never stupid enough. I was never good enough of a blind conformist.

And the doctrines damaged me. Especially the perfectionism, never good enough, don't trust yourself, crap. There were a few good friends and good times, but the repressive judgmental controlling intrusive influence was always there, just hanging around ready to pounce.

There are some nice people who happen to be mormons, but very few of them are nice to everyone, free of judgement, arrogance, shunning etc.

I was a nice kid, trusting, with good sensibilities, kind to others. If the mormon cult has done anything to/for me, it has made me more wary, negative, pessimistic, and jaded. But why wouldn't it? So so few mormons are genuine people notharboring a manipulative agenda.