I was BIC so belief was easy for a while. Some of what happened next seems to be inborn, some of it environmental. By the age of 10 the magic was gone for sure. It scared me at first, to feel so disconnected from the people I grew up with. I didn't know another life even though I had seen glimpses of it from family who were never mormon. And I tried HARD to fix what was wrong in my head.

I KNEW I was the problem, not the church. If I could just stop wondering what lay beyond the metaphorical fences. If I could just ignore the goodness of my Aunt K, who I had never heard express belief of any kind. If I could just ignore the disaster that had become our life in Alpine, UT. If I could just read the BOM more carefully. If I could work harder to prove my faith and desire to believe. Maybe then. I tried HARD for a few more years.

Nothing worked. And the temptations proved too strong. Some of them negative but the most important ones were not. I sought out pornography of any kind. It seems silly to think of women's underwear ads in the paper as pornography but it's the closest thing I had access to. I would experiment sexually with anyone who was willing. I tried a few different drugs. I tried to look and act tough. Obviously those were the negative things. But I was also desperate to find poetry, music, literature that were foreign to the LDS lifestyle. I can't remember how I found them now but I discovered some books called the Palace Walk trilogy. The author is Naguib Mahfouz. All about living in Cairo during the upheavals of the early 20th century. I was fascinated. Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, really blasphemous stuff by Salman Rushdie. I was absolutely intoxicated with it. I rummaged through anything religious that wasn't LDS related finally settling on Buddhism at the age of 14. I felt more at peace mentally and emotionally than I could ever remember. Of course I had to keep all this hidden.

On another thread some guy calling himself georgedubya talks about all the positive things he gained from growing up LDS. I have those traits as well. But I gained something else. The ability to hide my true thoughts and feelings from everyone. In order to get along socially I had to. It became as powerful a habit and addiction as pornography or any drug I tried. Trouble was, it has been MUCH harder to quit. I can't imagine being one of the poor people here who had to hide their sexual orientation. It's a wonder more of them don't commit suicide.

I came out on the other side a very different person than who I was as a young child. I'm told by people who knew me that I was so happy, goofy even. Careless, sociable, genuinely sweet and emotionally sensitive, intelligent. Many of those traits disappeared along the way. Maybe they would have anyway but who knows?

I'm not saying I don't have it good. My life has turned out very well. I have a wonderful wife and three amazing children. I have a challenging job that doesn't pay well but I won't trade it for anything else. I live in a beautiful area with three dogs, two goats and now a porcupine that I just can't get to leave our yard. I guess he can stay as long as he's happy and my dogs keep leaving him alone.

Do you ever sit back and wonder how things might have been different? What from your life as a mormon do you think has impacted you permanently the most?

I won't hijack this thread too much as I have been thinking about this exact same subject a lot since this afternoon.

I was a senior in high school when I converted. I felt somewhat superior to non mormons. I wanted it to be true, I told all the lies I had to tell in order to be baptized and then go on "my" own mission 20 months later.

I often think about what bad came out of my 8 years in the church. I rarely think of anything good. I have a few lasting friends and I wonder if I'd be as close to my TBM cousin if I hadn't been mormon.

I grew up in a family where you believe or else. There was never any doubt that the church was true and that was that. One of the times that I got my self in trouble was we were having Sloppy Joe sandwiches and I thought it would be clever to say Sloppy JosephSmiths. Damn! You'd think God was gonna kill my parents unless they forcefully straightened me out.

My family lived on a dairy farm in a small allwhite allmormon community when the race riots were on tv all the time, so we all knew black people were bad...not only that but it said so right in the scriptures, and they were representatives of satan, and were less valiant in the preexistence- it was obvious from watching the news. My parents, seminary teachers, Priesthood leaders all said so.

There was no choice but to go to church, Primary, Seminary, mutual but the kids hated me and I got beat up a lot so I started hanging out with the kids who were cool to me. They smoked. On my 18th birthday when I got up for school I threw all my stuff into my car and left home, called the school and told them to F-off and never set foot in a church, or my home for many years.

Everything I knew about the church was taught before 1978 and even though I did not participate as a jackmormon, I believed it because I was taught that it was a mortal sin to not believe it.

When I got reactivated Jackmormonism had taken its toll and I was seriously in need of a better lifestyle, and my future was on very shaky ground. So when I got reactivated, I saw that it was my chance at earthly and eternal salvation and I fully and completely immersed myself in it.

Unfortunately, many things I had been taught in my youth were now non-teachings, and many times people pretended not to know those things, and when topics came up they were acknowledged by a knowing wink or nod. I understood that it was an inside teaching and we didn't talk about it because it seemed weird to investigators, so I played along.

One thing my mom told me was that since moving to the East Coast, I had turned into a bleeding heart liberal. It was sort of true. I saw that Black people were not satans children. I saw that there really were homeless people who were not winos. I saw that many of the paranoid smalltown ultra-rightwing beliefs I was raised with were simply not true. It was also obvious that many people who went to nonmormon churches were seemingly happier and more at ease with life than many of the mormons I knew.

Not only that, but I was having a hard time with the church teaching many of those same things. I was still hearing that if people would join the church their problems would disappear- and yet we had several very faithful and devoted members who were suffering, and paying their tithing on funds given to them by the church. And I was fully immersed in the politics of the church which became a burden on my awareness. Yes, I was too liberal to be a good member, but it was essential that the church be true.

In 2007 after many years of church life and full dedication and leadership positions, I watched the PBS show The Mormons, googled seerstones, saw the reality of the Book of Abraham, Polygamy and Seerstones and it was all gone. My hopes, dreams, eternal family, exaltation, truth, hope and honor. Gone.

Gone unless I could salvage it. I tried really hard for the next two years to prove that the church was true. I studied every topic over and over and over again, but every single thing that the church teaches has either a different and/or accurate version from before, or it isn't really even an actual event.

Two things that I learned was that friends will turn on you when you change you mind about their church, and secondly, that it is okay to lie if it keeps people in the church. My bishop said so.

A third thing I learned was that everything I learned as a child from primary teachers to the prophets can be dismissed at the drop of a hat, and that you can get into trouble for repeating the words that you heard the prophets speak. That the only true LDS gospel is commitment to duty.

Now, I have fully accepted that the church is not true. That its foundation is a myth, and that when Joseph Smith started boinking other women, the church started to change drastically and tragically until it had lost its way. That whatever it had was lost when Brigham took it out west. The church was already false, but Brigham Young made it evil.

The hardest thing for me to accept, that the church was the vehicle that God used on my behalf, because it was familiar, and that I would have amazing suport from my parents and that there would be an instant support system in the church. Something other churches should strive toward...

Despite all that it has done for me, and all that it gave me as a man, I have had to accept that it is not true. I tried very hard to make it true, apparently, even when I was active...but in the end, it was really an exercise in remaining committed.

For the longest time as a young TBM, SAHM in Utah I was miserable, stressed and felt like I'd slipped through the looking glass into a weird universe that made no sense - where normal achievement wasn't respected and dumbing down seemed to be necessary to fit in. But it never occurred to me that the church was the problem. I guess I'm stubborn - I wouldn't change who I was to fit the culture but I wouldn't believe anything against the church either. Finding out the truth about the church on the internet was completely accidental so the process went like this:

1) "They are lying to us"
2) "I have to research and find out the truth
3) "But the truth isn't going to prove the church wrong"
4) "OK, the truth is proving the church wrong - I have to study more. 3-4 hours every night, up past midnight. I have to get the church's side down too.
5) "The church's side makes no sense. If this is the best they can do, the so-called anti-Mormons are right and the church is a fraud."
6) "OMG, the church is a fraud"
7) "Now what?"
8) "Tell DH...OK that was fun debating him for a while but now that I keep winning, he doesn't want to hear any more."
9) "But I still want the children to go to church, learn about God, not be snubbed by their friends, not to go through a crisis of faith before they are even teens. I want them to have friends with high standards (what a joke that turned out to be)"
10) "Stupid, nosy bishop butted in. Now I have to make a stand - I can't just go along to get along."
11) "Kids know everything. Husband just bought iced tea for me at lunch. Garments came off in step 7 1/2."
12) "Don't care what the neighbors think. I've moved on

Thanks for the breakdown CA Girl. I'm at step 9 right now.

I tried to prove it correct with everything at my disposal, everything I could find with research and by cutting out parts of my own soul where I found contradictions, I buried inconsistencies for years thinking I had my equations set up wrong - that there was something wrong with *me* when the pieces didn't fit.

Of course the pieces never fit, it wasn't until I finally turned the equation upside down and allowed myself to approach it starting from the premise that 'maybe it was false' that everything cascaded and all of the pieces fell into place - but I'd spent 28 years giving it everything I had and sacrificing and following *ALL* the rules, trying to prove that it was true. It never was.

Well said elfling. That is my story too.

I can't say I tried hard to believe--but I BELIEVED. My dad was never very active while we were growing up and I was DETERMINED that I would live it to the best of my ability because I was going to make sure my family was together forever. I also thought there were only two choices, be a sinner--a perverted, drunken, drug addict, or be mormon.

AND I LIVED IT. Many people I know don't live it. They state they believe.

My son and I were just discussing this this morning--the fact that I BELIEVED. My parents even told me that I was the one child they never thought would leave the church, that I was their "golden child." Yep--that is how I lived.

I didn't study my way out. I lived my way out. As my exmo therapist says--we tested mormonism to its limits and it failed us. I went incative and when I had time to think about it again, it had all fallen apart. When I found exmo and read about all the stuff that is bull, I had already left the church just through life experience. The rest was icing on the cake.

Wow, what a really thought provoking story. You have made me think about some of the mormons in my life, especially some of the ones I don't particularly care for. Perhaps there is someone different within them that they have also learned to hide, someone less arrogant, judgemental and cold. Perhaps they even have a personality unique to themselves that they have learned to keep hidden while they strive to fit into their homoegenous culture. Thank you, I think this information will really help me in my dealings with my in-laws and friends.

I gave up everything, even family, to make the church work in my life. I was even ready, at one time, to sign my life savings away. I"m so grateful for the wake up call it saved me from a fate worse than death.

For starters, I am not all the way out yet. I am still trying to navigate the waters while hopefully salvaging my marriage and keeping my family in tact. I am angry and bitter that the One Ring to Rule Them All has so much influence over my life that I can't just make my own informed choice and be done with it. I'm sure so many can relate.

Second, I tried all my life to live up to the standard and could never do it. My guilt fest came about because I was never really good at sports as a youth and somehow, in my ward at least, that made me less of a "man" than those around me. I love art and science and learning and logic and scientific inquiry and history and theater and film. I relate better to women, in general, than I do men. Yet, in spite of that, I can most assuredly tell you I am not gay (not that I think that is bad - I DEFINITELY DO NOT). In short, I was a paradox and no one knew quite how to pigeonhole me into the whole conformance cookie cutter, so I struggled continually.

When I became a deacon, I felt really isolated and alone. I was awkward and had trouble making friends. I hung around with kids who were older than me because I could have more intelligent and reasonable conversations with them. The downside is that some of them taught me a little more about masturbation than I was probably prepared to handle and it quickly became a habit - a drug to help soothe my loneliness, boredom, inadequacy, etc. Perhaps it also helped to reinforce in my mind that I was not gay, regardless of what others thought. In retrospect, I am sure I would have learned how to masturbate with or without their guidance, but it was just an awkward and perhaps unfortunate beginning.

So, as so many others have related, the guilt/aversion/self condemnation/loathing cycle began in earnest and continued up to just a few months ago. At that point (30+ years later), I finally decided enough was enough and that I love myself just the way I am. I don't really give a phuck if the church does or not. It's no longer my problem.

There is so much more I could write here, but I won't waste your time. I did want to end on this final thought though. (I think the trolls from the "Strengthen the Members Committee" might find some use for this, so listen up if you are out there.) In all the hooplah over President Packer's painful address this past conference, I am surprised that not too many people seemed to pick up on this one glaring beam of inconsistency that I can't seem to shake from my mind: Pres. P claims that people who have deviant behaviors can just trust in the Lord and lay them aside and lead happy, productive lives. My question is: if that is really so, where are they? Where are all the legions of gay Mormons who are living in blissful peace and happiness while holding fast to the iron rod and not giving in to their sinful urges? Likewise, where are all the countless success stories of past pornography abusers who have truly turned their lives around and seen the light and are no longer troubled by their addictions? If they are so plentiful and there is so much hope available in hanging in there and playing along, where are these people? How come they don't have their own series of "I'm a gay pornography addict, and I'm a Mormon" commercials? I think many people would be more inclined to agree with and support PP's position if there were some incontrovertible examples out there, but where are they?

My biggest beef with the Morg is that despite all its claims to the contrary, it is elitist and offers little real hope to those who can't (or don't particularly want to) conform. Does God really give a sh*t if I wear a white shirt every week or not? Will I really be denied exaltation because I have a tattoo? Will my daughter really go to hell if she has two ear rings in each ear? Yadda yadda yadda. Blah blah blah...

Excellent post. Thanks for sharing.

Realizing the truth about the church means realizing that only WE can know what path is best for us.

Great post! Good luck, Spooge. Hope your wife recognizes the truth at some point.

Hard. Really hard. I've been trapped by the "is it true or isn't it" conflict for years.

I'm exmo and gay male. Being gay is what really ended my church involvement. I even went to church for awhile after I wasn't a member but felt more and more like I didn't belong.

I always had some doubts, I think most LDS do sometimes, but I would would push the doubts away because I wanted it to be true in spite of any evidence to the contrary. The basic doctrines made more sense to me than any other church's. I still think they do.

That's the real problem..."The plan of salvation", along with the other doctrine, with all the explanation concerning how we came here, why we're here, how the Earth was created...etc...etc...etc...is the most reasonable (to me) stuff I'd ever heard.

I used to hope I'd pick up the morning paper and read a headline something like; 'LDS Church finds letter by Joseph Smith. Says it was all a joke...Haha'. What a relief that would have been. Well, probably no such letter is forthcoming so I simply try to live my life apart from the Church figuring what will, will be. I'll try to do the best I can without it.
I doubt there's any turning back.

Excellent post also. Thank you for posting it.

Chris, you are an amazing young man ("young" from my standpoint, at least!) I always enjoy reading your posts. You have more wisdom than most of us less-young ones had at your age! And from what you have said, you managed to snag a wife who is an excellent match for you. That is wonderful!

When my "shelf" became heavy, I realized that I had hard but sincere questions and that THEY DESERVED ANSWERS. At the same time, it finally hit me then (I do not know why it never had, before) that one does not ask questions in the Mormon church. It is not done; it is not acceptable. (It is claimed to be the same as questioning God himself—patently untrue.) AND I realized that it was not God or Christ but THE FALLIBLE, ALL-TOO-MORTAL CHURCH LEADERS who were afraid to address questions. THAT was when my “shelf” fell off the wall!!!

So I began conducting my own search to find the answers to my questions. I found those answers; and they led me to ask more questions, and more questions, all of whose answers showed that the Mormon church was built on a foundation of deception and lies.

As to the impact: I was an active member for several years. This cost me very dearly, both financially and otherwise. Nevertheless, I have learned so much from the experience that I'm actually thankful to have had it. The two major lessons:

1) I now understand first-hand the entire process of how cults work: how they succeed in enticing otherwise intelligent people and how they hook them in deeper and deeper over time; and

2) NEVER AGAIN WILL I BELIEVE SOMEONE OUTSIDE MYSELF TO BE AN "AUTHORITY" ON WHAT IS BEST FOR *ME.* This was a very hard-won lesson… but the lesson was indeed learned.

I've been thinking about my wife a lot lately. What did I ever do to deserve someone like her? I don't believe in fate but she's the only reason I ever consider the possibility.

A really funny detail: I met her just after I had left the church for good. She was a BYU student and I assumed she was LDS. She assumed the same of me and we both disqualified each other. We were friendly coworkers for several months before going on a date. Of course, she was the one of the two of us to be less shallow and asked me out. Man, I can be a dumbass sometimes.

With all my heart.

Self abuse was not a euphemistic reference to masturbation in my case. It was actual, guilt-induced physical damage I inflicted upon myself to suppress all sexual emotions; to subvert, control, and tame the so-called natural man within myself, because that is what I was taught to believe was my purpose in life.

Then I realized it had been making me mentally ill.

At age 14 the lessons in Priesthood and Sunday School were trying hard to turn me into a TBM.

In 8th grade science class we learned about the Scientific Method. That allowed me to understand that religion is based on magic and that the SM cannot be used to evaluate it. I decided that I could not believe in a magical sky god that I talk to using magical prayer. I decided that the magical holy ghost was a ridiculously impossible concept.

So I essentially abandoned the church and started down the pathway out. Since I was living in a TBM household I had to conceal my feelings and be sneaky about it. But by age 17 I totally quit attending meetings and went about living my life as I chose to do. I was an atheist, and within three months Mormonism disappeared in the rear view mirror. That was in 1959.

He was my 9th grade biology teacher. I remember his name still but won't type it here. He started talking about evolution as a theory and invited us to do some research on our own and pointed us in the right direction. After a few days of this he asked us not to tell our parents what he was saying. He didn't want to lose his job. At the time I didn't realize the impact of what he was teaching and it took me a few more years to figure it out. Such a simple idea can be SO powerful.