There have been a lot of posts about people being lonely. They feel that there's an empty place in their lives, now, that needs to be filled.

Since resigning from Mormonism, several years ago, there have been times I've been alone, but I think of it as "solitude." I feel better when I realize that the "Mormon support group" didn't really exist. The friendships weren't real. They used up my time, took me away from my children on Saturdays and Sundays, told us lies, threatened and bullied us, and took our money, under false pretenses. Mormonism depressed me

Do I need to find another religion, another culture, another master-slave relationship, new myths, and other false prophets to worship? Do I really need to fill up the free time with more nonsense and busywork--or can I really be just free?

Must I start all over, and go out there and make new friends, to replace the Mormon "friends" who now shun me? Do I want to spend time hearing nasty gossip, seeing others lie to each other, watching people compete in their social pecking order? Even the snobbiest business firm or country club doesn't provide that kind of clawing to get to the top of the heap.

Mormonism is a rat race, without the benefit of a good salary. There are no bonuses, no learning curves, and no pride in a job well done. Am I supposed to miss being "in demand" to perform and rehearse Mormon music I don't like, and to teach proven lies to children? Am I supposed to miss cooking dinners for Mormon neighbors, who never reciprocated?

If we ex-Mormons are lonely, we could go visit the neighbors, on the last day of every month, and sit on their couches, and tell them they are wrong, and advise them how to live and what to believe.

If we're bored, we could go in on Saturday and clean our office buildings, for free, and make our children do it with us.

Where could we and our children find such well-seasoned examples of aggressive and passive-aggressive behavior, lying, back-pedaling, scheming, and manipulating?

We could join Facebook, to get to know people on an artificial, superficial level. We could try to be phony again. We could be nosey. We could judge people and "un-friend" people.

Some ex-Mormons miss having their phone ring all the time, having men (in groups of two or three) unexpectedly knock on their door at night, having Mormon neighbors asking them favors. No political group, or hobby club, or adult education class, or 12-step program, or MLM sales force would ever give us that much targeted attention. We would have to commit a crime, and be out on probation, to have that level of monitoring!

What could ever compare with the pervy temple recommend interview? Even personal doctors and dentists don't make people
be alone in their office with them, behind a closed door, while they ask personal questions about their sex life and their underwear.

What could take the place of the temple? Undressing at a day spa locker room, without the benefit of a massage, and then going to a seance in your bathrobe? Going to the same boring movie ("The English Patient", or "Step Mom") over and over, and getting up and taking your coat and scarf and sweater off and then putting them back on, over and over again. No popcorn. No talking.

Should my children search for another hate group to abuse them, to kick and shove them if they are late for meetings, to belittle them, threaten them, make them feel hopeless? Do they need someone to teach them to shun gays and people with tattoos, and to hate and apostates and certain minorities, and to belittle women and other religions? The children's schools, their sports teams, the Scouts, even the wildest fraternities don't offer such hateful, prolonged hazing and bullying.

How do you fill up the space left by the cult--and what do you do with your extra 10% of your money?

Very profound.

I still don't get why my family members continue to be exploited by Mo'ism. It cannot be uplifting in any form or fashion.

Thanks for sharing.

Anyone who leaves the LDS church finds a need to replace it with something.

Whether that's another church/religion/no belief system etc., or nature worshiper, who knows?

When the rug was ripped out from under me of Mormonism, the miracle for me was that I was still standing. On hard ground. Not the shaky foundation we were taught that was part of our biblical instruction, but a solid foundation.

Turned out it was the Mormon church that was the shaky foundation.

We went to many churches, my children and I after leaving Mormonism. That may have confused my children, but I knew once I was done with there I wasn't going back. When I did go back (only to regret it later,) that was such a huge mistake, I'm still paying for it yet.

Live right. Teach the values you want your children to learn by example. Love them and cherish them. Nurture their dreams and ambitions. Be there for them. I prayed with mine, we worshiped together, and spent most of my free time doing family things together until they grew up and flew the coop.

You won't regret investing your time, love and passion into your children.

Currently I worship at a Jewish house of faith. I don't feel tied to any religion, including Judaism. It's just where I feel most at home these days.

One of my children has become an Atheist, the other an Orthodox Jew. They're both good people. My Atheist is actually a better person than the other one, my other one has become my Prodigal Child. I'm not going to give up hope on that child, but it's hard dealing with. You raise them to adulthood thinking the hardest part is behind you, only to find another bigger challenge looming ahead.

The Mormon church messed with all of us.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2017 11:59AM by Amyjo.

Its a good question I just want some kind of social gathering of some kind still like a bbq in the culdisac every now and then or maybe watching a movie on projector with a crowd of friends, I don't know just some thoughts.

It may take a while, but if you want the barbecue, get a grill and invite the neighbors. If none of them will come because they are too righteous, invite people from work. Or join some kind of group, anything that interests you, and invite people from there.

Same with the movie.

Making a new life can be a gradual process, but that is not bad. Once you do get it going, you will have a genuine life with genuine friends.

In Mormonism, you are more likely to have neither of those things. And inviting some of the believers over to your place for a barbecue is a good way to find out if any of them really are friends. It can be a shock to find out who is a not really a friend. But it is so good to find the true friends that the shocks fade away to nothing.

Well I got the bbq most of the people from the church I know were just false friends which was disheartening I don't think they know what a real friendship is outside of social media.

Great ideas, and I can't agree enough with the idea that "solitude" has value.

I'm a very fortunate man--for one thing I have folks around when I want them, but I have my private space and time that my family respects.

Solitude is perhaps the best gift I've ever given myself. Sometimes my solitude is so sweet I can almost taste it. Nothing beats a long morning dragging into afternoon with just me, my brain cooking off one or two cups of strong coffee, my thoughts sprouting all over like arpeggios from a sax or mushrooms from a damp forest floor...

Yeah, I don't get it, either, that people will keep going back to something so depressing.

Great advice, Amyjo. When we moved to Utah, I went back to the cult, and made the children go with me, which I regret. It was very different from our ward in California, which we left, when we discovered it was a hoax. All the bad things happened to my children in the Utah ward. I did some of the same things you did. We went to the Lutheran church, and my sons joined a Scout troop which was sponsored by a neighborhood coalition of Christian churches. They got their Eagle Scout awards, played sports, did well in school, and found plenty of non-Mormon friends, graduated from the University of Utah. We were lucky to live in a less-Mormon area. My daughter had the hardest time, and went back to the singles ward with her TBM two cousins, who lived in our neighborhood, and were like sisters to her. They were very conservative girls, compared to the wild Mormon kids. Many of my sons' Mormon friends got on drugs. There were several scandals and unexpected pregnancies. I don't know if other Mormon wards are as messed-up as ours was.

Sorry to ramble. The bottom line is that the Mormon church is NOT a good way to raise children!

Badassadam--where do you live? The City of Millcreek, in SLC, has outdoor projections of classic movies in the summer, at various school playing fields. There's a Blue Moon Festival in downtown Holladay, with live bands and food carts. I have single friends who love to go to the outdoor Farmer's Market. It's once a week at (I think) Liberty Park. They also enjoy "Park Silly" farmer's market in Park City, on Sundays. There's also music and dance performances in the street. Another Farmer's Market is held at Wheeler Farm, in Midvale. There are mostly non-Mormons at these events, as Mormons aren't as enthusiastic about community events and they are about their own exclusive little church projects, or their recruiting events (such as the "summer neighborhood party") Actually, you should go to your summer neighborhood party, because non-Mormons go to that, too, and it is a good chance to mingle with your own neighbors.

Subscribe to your community's newspaper--you can find one at your local library. Or, get the City paper, and the events will be listed there. You could be very busy this spring and summer!

That sounds awesome but I live in a town called Pocatello, Idaho kinda far away but I'm thinking its time I move this year.

Yeah, it's hard to be growing up and questioning in a Mormon community.

When I did that as a teenager (I was the rebellious one in my family,) would come back to church activity at the age of 19, and there I remained until leaving in my 30's.

There was a spate of suicides among some of my LDS cousins children in the past few years. From age 15 (the most recent,) to age 20, and age 25 - they were born LDS and grew up in the Morridor.

The youngest was from being a lesbian in her mostly heterosexual high school (that was in Pocatello,) three years ago. She'd been bullied to death. The 20 year old was from getting into drugs and with the wrong crowd in Orem, Utah.

The oldest @ 25 was because his dad was an abusive jerk, who literally drove him to suicide. He jumped out of a moving vehicle his father was driving while the dad was yelling and screaming at him. He was an engineer. And his mother's only child. She'd been divorced from his dad for many years, but that didn't change what an abusive jackass the father was.

How much Mormonism played into each of those, I dunno. Only that their lives were entwined with Uber Mormons in every direction. At home, church, school, and work. Where was the intervention for each of these kids? That was too little, too late in coming.

Drugs are destructive by themselves. For anyone leaving the cult, take my advice and don't substitute that for the church. It's a fast track to nowhere.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2017 10:36PM by Amyjo.

No. :)

I didn't fill the space left when I ditched the cult.
I made a new life. One that didn't depend on fake ward "friends," tattle-tales who monitored my behavior, or a "peer" group that pushed conformity with the enthusiasm of...well, a religion.

TSCC involves a vicious cycle of desperate need for peer approval with the ego of being superior to your peers who fail to live up to the group's arbitrary and irrational "standards." That destructive cycle is toxic. Other groups have it as well, but mormons have honed it to an art.

I ditched it entirely.

After pantomiming slashing my own throat, having a wedding that my wife's family could not attend, deluding myself for years that the Book of Mormon was real, etc. I didn't find any need to replace all of that with anything. I just started appreciating every moment of life.

Most places of worship are much easier going on their members than TSCC. Often they don't make any demands at all. Many ex-mo's are terrified to try again with another church or other place of worship, and I understand that. Perhaps you could try a meditation group. Or even a hobby club.

Rat race? Send Morgan Spurlock to the COB.

Not for me! I avoid religion like I would the plague! Religion just can't be validated as anything more than a significant GOD CON designed to take advantage of those who get caught in its snare! I actually laugh now when I see opportunistic charlatans speak authoritatively for a Supreme Being! Like the rest of us, they don't know diddly-squat about GOD! Until endorsed from the heavens by the Master of the Universe himself, don't give the clowns of false religion any of your time/money! Watch how quickly they drop you like a hot potato! As Always, tnurg (GRUNT)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2017 03:45PM by tnurg.

The church is no substitute for parents.

For only a few months--until I realized what was really going on in our ward--I put too much trust in our ward, and let them take over raising my children, in a way. I didn't supervise the adults closely enough, and they abused my children. I take a lot of the blame for that happening right under my nose.

I wonder...my ex SIL put the LDS church and relief society as #1 in her life, and spent most of her free time there, leaving her kids home alone, even when they were sick. She divorced her cheating, Bishopric husband, and married a High Priest surgeon, and moved into his house, in the next town, leaving her teen-aged children to live by themselves at her house. They hated the new husband. Her daughter committed suicide at BYU, and her son took a deliberate drug overdose 4 years later. Her third child has been in rehab several times for drugs. All TBM's.

i just look to live a normal life of my choice and not have a woman or bishop chastise me for jerking off or having a alcoholic beverage

All I know is that it would be nice to have one badass friend in the real.