On the nod is the dream state when taking opiates and other drugs. I have no personal experience with this, but I have taken percocet after dental work and surgery. I've felt like I was floating.

I'm wondering if TBMs get the same high from religious experiences. I've tried to get this high while bearing my testimony and being like the other members, but it never really worked out for me.

Does the cult programming from cradle to grave have that affect on certain people - otherwise rational people? I'm asking for thoughts on this idea.

With opiate painkillers, I get a bit of a buzz. With the lighter of the two that I am allowed, I'm barely aware of it. With the heavier-duty one, I definitely feel foggy-brained. Alert, but foggy.

I no longer attend church at all, but I can remember sitting at our usual place, in the second row, fighting to remain conscious while bored to death. I was aware that the deacons or whatever were watching me, so I tried very hard to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head or allowing my chin to drop. Essentially, I was asleep - but forced to remain upright. Horrible.

Question for the bread-passers: Did you guys ever take bets on who would nod off first?

I was heavily into Mormonism for my entire life, until about 15 years ago, when I started to question.

I never got any kind of "high" from church. I definitely felt "low". I got very depressed, and I stopped going to church, to keep that "Sunday depression" from seeping into my week-day life. I had a career that demanded me to be on top of things. I had children to support. I could not be ill. Depression was the most disabling illness I ever had--and I had just a mild case. I would sit in a stupor in the meetings, but soon I began feeling pain, like I was being abused. To me (I was a single working mother) the lessons were a slap in the face, telling me that the ONLY way to be happy and to be "saved" was to be married in the temple. I had already done that, and with my PTSD, that was something I could not, and would not do to myself and my children. The Mormons threatened me--told me that I would be strangers with my children in the hereafter, separated for all eternity. We would burn in the Second Coming. There was going to be a BIG earthquake soon, and we needed to prepare (and buy expensive storage food and equipment). I had to pay my tithing, in an attempt to perhaps move up into the second-highest kingdom. I was threatened that if I didn't pay tithing, I would fail financially. Actually, I thrived, but I was made to feel like a failure, in every way. If I neglected my 3 callings, in order to do my work and support my family, I was harassed. The Mormon world had no place for a divorced single person, and I felt lonely in a crowd. Awful!

I never took drugs--not even Advil--because I never needed them. I was spaced-out in sacrament meeting, without understanding why. I had reached my limits of judgments and criticism and shunning and lies and manipulations and fake friendships. I would bring a book, hidden in the cover of my scriptures. Mostly, I would plan menus for the coming week, and write grocery lists, and make a schedule of domestic duties. I refused to overlap church and work.

Monday, after the weekend ordeal (Saturdays were lesson preparations and music rehearsals, etc), I would jump out of bed on Monday, and run off to work--happy and fulfilled, successful, and in charge, once again. I would not allow church to interfere with that happy life I was living!

The blank space around me is my armor. I still don't ever confide in Mormons, or trust them in business, or allow them into my personal life. It's a self-preservation thing. My family is still together, and we plan to stay that way.

"Bored to death". Those are the words that Catnip used. Some part of you is killed in those Mormon meetings. Maybe it's a spiritual death. Maybe your soul is being sucked out of you.

Resigning from the cult gave me new life.

Otherwise, I would have needed antidepressants or pain pills or SOMETHING, to get me through all those Mormon meetings and activities.