I joined at age 18. The church taught me a lot of good things like patience, gratitude, wearing dresses, sitting still & being a good girl, etc

But...

Years passed and I realized TSCC had stunted me and brainwashed me in all the ways we so often discuss on this forum.

But I was at a rough point in my life when TSCC literally rescued me, so I sometimes wonder how or even if I would have gotten out of the pit I was in at the time without TSCC.

I joimed the Army, eventually got married and had kids, TSCC guiding my major decisions and I thought it was an excellent blueprint that I was grateful to have because I would have felt lost without any guidance or advice. (I was a good person, never into drugs or alcohol or any mischief, but my family fell apart in my tweens after divorced parents, mother severe illness, father cocaine. So I died a bit inside and before even emerging to adulthood I was already bedraggled by the woes of living. So discovering TSCC at that time was extremely refreshing.)

Without TSCC I might have ended up depressed, aimless, and homeless. Doubtful I would have had children unless by some unfortunate event, because I honestly have never had the desire to have children. TSCC made me think that was a good idea. Doubtful I would have gotten married because it homestly didn't appeal to me either. Deep down I've always wanted to be a prostitute, I'm not joking. But TSCC implanted holier, worthy goals in my head, so I've never come close to the gutter of a life that I fear I might have lived otherwise.

That's simple. My parents wouldn't have had any of us children.

My mother would have had 2 kids instead of 6. I was #3.

Fine by me. I wouldn't have missed a thing if i'd never existed in the first place. Think on that for awhile.

While it is patently obvious I am not suited for religion, without my mormon upbringing, I'd have died by age 35. There really is no doubt about that.

It's impossible to say. My family was inactive until my teens.

My dad was disillusioned with the church after serving in Japan in the late 70s/early 80s, and seeing the shameless dishonesty and fraud with which the mission was conducted. He gradually became inactive, LDS in name only except for a dinner-time prayer.

My first real exposure to the church was after we moved back to Utah to be closer to family. Being around his immediate relatives (parents, siblings, etc.) apparently brought out the Mormon in him, because he completely reactivated, and insisted the whole family do the same.

Being 14 when your dad becomes another person and pressures you into a cult definitely tends to change you. I had had a relatively "normal" childhood up to that point, so the complete dissonance in my existing values (egalitarianism, skepticism) with the values of the church (patriarchy, faith) completely upended my sense of self. A hellish year of trying to be the peter priesthood my dad wanted ensued, followed by the last 10 years of trying to find myself after I rejected it and he moved away again.

I haven't the faintest clue what my outlook on the world would be if we hadn't come back to Utah. It's possible I would be some variety of Christian, rather than an atheist. It's possible that even as a religiously skeptical person, I would envy the religious perspective rather than pity it. I just don't know. I definitely wouldn't be who I am now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2015 10:55PM by doubtisavirtue.

Your story is interesting because your childhood was going fine until the church threw a wrench in it.

It seems most people are either born into the church paradigm or they choose it later in life. So it's interesting to hear your experiences being born as a normal person, then twisted into the Morg, then easily seeing how warped the church was and you found freedom as soon as you could.

Well, not exactly "fine". My parents were pretty violent at times, and my father had a nasty temper (they're good people, just flawed). Still, even those things became worse, not better, when we came to Utah.

I understand how trying so hard to be perfect Mormons can escalate tension.

I hope you've found some solid ground in your independent adult years.

I was born into it, but my sense of self destiny made it much easier to leave.
If i had never encountered the church, we would have been baptists and i would probably still be a disappointment to my parents with my obviously evil catholicism. My mother was always a person who didn't know what to do if someone wasn't telling her what to do, so if it hadn't been the mormons, it would have been some other equally life controlling cult.

Undamaged?

If not for the LDS church, I would be happily preparing for a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of a satisfying career having contributed materially to society. As it is I am struggling at 62 to put together some sort of life after decades of believing I was worthless because I could never manage to receive the blessings I was led to expect from activity in the Mormon way.

I don't know. You play the hand you are dealt.

But perhaps I could have found a personality a few decades earlier.

I feel a great empathy with many recent escapees here, particularly the BIC exmos. I identify with everyone who started their life as one of Jesus' Sunbeams, ended up a deacon or a MIA Maid on their way to the temple and missions and BYU and marrying too young as you start your life under a flower decorated basketball hoop.

I realized the church was not true. I was euphoric with relief. Much later I realized I had been robbed and I was not euphoric.

I don't mean robbed of truth, or time, or money, that was bad enough.

I was robbed of a personality. I had a bad case of MHPD. Mormon Herd Personality Disorder. I was raised on a force-fed diet of obedience presented as a miracle cure-all. As a result, I was insecure, unsure how to relate to anyone not Mormon,uptight, judgmental, didn't know how to be a good friend, and worst of all, boring. And I didn't realize it. I hadn't a clue.

For me it was 23 years of "two against one" as they say--the Mormon church and me against me. We were a great team when it came to keeping me from finding my true self, my best self.


Some things you learn as a child really aren't easy to learn as an adult. Most any child can learn a new language easily. Most adults struggle and are never as easily bi-lingual as they could have been. It's not just language that is harder to learn when you are an adult, it's actually quite a few things, important things for your life.

Every child deserves to know what their choices are in life and never have to settle for being part of a pre-chosen herd automatically. Knowing one side of the story at eight years old and then being told you are "choosing" to be baptized is mental cruelty.

I could kiss you for posting your perspective as a TBM!!
All of my family are mormons, but I've been out for forever so i definitely lost touch with the mentality and was struggling to understand how it is that they don't seem to be aware of their odd, repressive behavior. I guess if you genuinely aren't aware that everyone isn't like you unless they're unrepentant and hell-bound sinners, i can understand the total lack of awareness and accidental rudeness. Not excuse it, mind you, but understand

Obviously, there's no way to even guess. When your parents met BECAUSE of mormonism, would you even have the same parents? And if I did, my father probably wouldn't have been much different. He wasn't raised active mormon and I think was drawn to it in his young adulthood because it is attractive to controlling narcissistic men. However, my mother had an independent, adventurous streak (they met in Tokyo during the Korean War, both were in the military), and I don't think she would have been nearly as subservient and would probably have encouraged her daughters to get their educations, as she had.

Me, who knows. I have thought about it before and seen different scenarios that could have been totally possible. Some really good, some not so good. The only thing I know is that I would not appreciate the life I have now if I hadn't had life's previous experiences. And all those things got me where I am. I would only want to go back and live a different life if I could know what I know now and remember the things I've been through.

I had a conversation with a friend recently about our childhoods and she said something that really hit me. She had a horribly abusive alcoholic father. She said she would give anything to have been raised in a religion where her parents believed they would go to Hell if their lips ever touched alcohol. And I realized that with the way my father was, if he had been an alcoholic, it would have been a nightmare. Even if he wasn't an alcoholic but had drunken rages.

I was lucky not to ever have to experience that. I'm glad I was afraid to smoke for fear of God. Everyone in the 60s and 70s smoked. I know I would have because I felt out of place in my early work years because I didn't. I'm glad I never had to deal with trying to quit. But I do know that I wouldn't have married the asshole I married if I wasn't just looking or someone, anyone, who could take me to the holy house of handshakes. And that would have been the biggest plus to my life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2015 11:13AM by NormaRae.

If my whole extended family had never encountered the church then I might actually be in touch with some of my multitudinous cousins. But we are the black sheep of the family since my parents left Utah and rejected the church. And those cousins are all soooo boring to be around, and I blame the church.

I'd be wealthier. I'd have had a much better relationship with my non-LDS dad who was a treasure. I'd probably be married with kids because there were no worthy, temple recommend holding, potential spouses within any reasonable radius of my home.

In other words, I'd be a happy, normal, adult. I'm not terribly unhappy nor terribly abnormal but just odd enough to know that I don't always fit-in with those who should be my peers. Mormonism made me an odd duck.

I would probably have died of AIDS in the 1980s or 1990s. I grew up Mormon in the 1970s and did all the proper Mormon things - Boy Scouts, mission, BYU. I've also know my whole life I'm gay. For years I was uber-Mormon to try to hide that fact. It all fell apart after I graduated from BYU in the late 1980s. I became severely depressed, attempted suicide, etc. I eventually left the church, came out as gay, and have been happy ever since.

If I was openly gay when I started college in the early 1980s I would probably have been dead by the end of the decade. So I guess it's a small miracle I'm alive today. I didn't die of AIDS, but Mormonism came pretty damn close to killing me instead.

I would like to think I'd be more open, less repressed (sexually), less conservative with my language and clothing. Less superstitious and more adventurous with fewer mental blocks of what I can do and what I can't that being raised in the church gave me.

I'm giving my children this life, without a limiting world view, and hope it'll pay off in the long run.

For whatever reason, I really romanticized everything about the grunge/punk/rock scene. Because of what I grew up with I often thought it was my destiny to spend my life playing music in a band.

But the mormon church was always telling me to live the same kind of life my parents were living. I also idealized the whole drug culture that was pretty endemic in the grunge scene. IF my parents weren't so strict and helicopter-y I probably would have tried drugs out(not that all never mormons do, I'm just speaking for myself because of the people I idealized).

So...I guess I'd probably never have gone to college and I'd have a pretty interesting but unstable life trying to make it as a punk/rock musican.

I've thought about this from time to time, even before leaving TSCC.

I would have married my Catholic girlfriend from college. Life would have been different that's for sure. How? More money. More friends. More Love. Less judgement.

I would have bought a big bass boat with all that tithing money.

I would have dated more. I would have been more carefree. Add I think I would have ended up married to someone who is more compatible with me.

I joined the cult as a teen even though my atheist (and out-of-state and somewhat estranged) dad warned me against the brainwashing.

I would have invested all those years of needless 10% church fire insurance "donations" in stocks and would have been retired already.

Even before I joined the church, I had sworn off drugs, booze, and cigarettes, so that would not have side-lined me.

I would have become a nice, polite atheist much earlier in life.

I probably would be much more experienced with the ladies, too.

Maybe I'd have better social skills. I'd have saved more money as a teen instead of paying it to a false church. I'd probably be a Methodist because that's the church my mom and I attended before she joined the Mormon church when I was very young. I'd probably know more about Christianty instead of trying to learn it now and getting all the false Mormon crap out of my brain.

I've thought about this for several years (yes, I really have)

Disclaimer: Yes I'm currently a member of this church. No I don't go (haven't for quite some time) and I'm hoping to help awaken my spouse and kids to what the church really is.

I left the catholic church many years ago to join the mormons. Both churches have helped me with my communication and social skills. If I hadn't joined the mormon church I wouldn't be affiliated with ANY church. I really believe that. And I wouldn't be where I am today.

IMO I think that would be very bad. I started to awaken and to grow spiritually over a decade ago. I kept going to my meetings but wasn't getting anything spiritual from them. The spiritual growth was coming from other experiences that were not related to any organized church. I started to realize our story is much more interesting than I had ever been told.

I used to speak up in my meetings. Giving my opinions of what I've learned and sharing it with others. MANY heads were nodding as people agreed with what I was saying. I think it pissed off the leaders because I was asked to stop talking at one point. I'm looking at history. Researching and discovered evidence which I presented. I'm not a professional researcher however I do have some skills and training when it comes down to it.

This pushed me to spend more time looking outside church resources for my answers. And I found what I needed.

I'm ... disappointed with the church and it's leaders. I 'think' for the most part they believe in what they are doing and saying. Though I hope they realize it's all a sham.

Today I'm thankful for both the catholic and mormon church for placing me on the path I needed to get here. But like Richard Dutcher, I appreciate the boat for getting me to the other side of the river, but it's time for me to leave it at the river. I don't feel the need to carry the boat. I don't need it.

I appreciate you allowing my ramblings. I'm new here and have been lurking for some time :-)

Great idea for a thread! Let me think, if I hadn't been born into that terrible cult...

I might have been freer to disbelieve in the fantasy that is religion from an early age, so I wouldn't have had to put on the "believer" facade for decades; I wouldn't have had to lie for so long. I wouldn't have wasted so many Sundays going to church and nowhere else because it was supposedly "sacred." I wouldn't have seriously believed for many years that I was a terrible sinner, that I was never good enough, that God hated me and that I was damned to hell. Consequently I doubt my depression and anxiety would have been nearly as bad as they were. I might have been "allowed" to have more fun growing up instead of always being the obedient child who never did any "wrong." I might not have been dragged before the bishop when I was 12 to "confess" my sexual "sins" after my parents found my lingerie mag stash, and subsequently might have had a much healthier view of my own sexuality. I wouldn't have been conflicted in my teens as to which group I'd rather hang out with, the "church kids" who I never really liked or the outsider, sinful "non-church kids" who I obviously was drawn to more. I certainly wouldn't have wasted the best years of my life as a total outsider and closeted nonbeliever at BYU Provo if my parents hadn't told me my whole life about their "dream" of having their child attend that institution. Ultimately I KNOW I wouldn't be suffering from Religious Trauma Syndrome.

Okay, I'll admit I'm still pretty damned bitter. Sorry if this offends anybody. I positively disliked the church for most of my life, though for the first few decades I never would have admitted it. Now I adamantly hate it. Maybe I've just come to use the church as my scapegoat. Maybe I put too much blame on TSCC for failings that are really my own; I don't know. But I truly believe that I would have been much better off if I had never encountered it at all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2015 09:46PM by oneinbillions.