Posted by:
MyExMormonLife
(
)
Date: September 29, 2017 04:22PM
The whole narrative that Mormons believe about your life falling apart after leaving Mormonism is such a crock of shit.
Three years ago next week I stood on the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport, Oregon intending to throw myself off. This is what Mormonism drove me to. I had been a Mormon convert of 28 years and stopped believing in it a few years after joining, but stayed because I had married and had children. I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 2012. By 2014, my life had become utterly without hope. I had lost faith in Mormonism, was in a failed Mormon marriage, with an incurable illness, and the poor lapdog of a Mormon spouse who sought pity because of me. On the night I announced I was divorcing my (now ex-) wife, my RM son cornered me in the kitchen and beat me, while I shook with the tremors of Parkinson's Disease. Life could not have been more desperately unhappy.
So when I heard one of the Mormon Apostles say "What will you do and where will you go if you leave the Church?" I decided to make a list. I divorced and left the Church in 2014. This is my list, and it's 100% true:
I spent the holidays in 2014 in Vienna, married civilly in January 2015, and got cured of Parkinson's Disease (my kind was reversible, as it turns out, thanks to a doctor whom my new wife knows), finally started seeing a therapist to deal with the issues that drove me to Mormonism in the first place (a horrible birth family), started playing the bagpipes again and played at my father's funeral (I had given them up due to the Parkinson's), spent three weeks in Athens, flew to Rome for the weekend to stay at a country villa for a wedding, got married in a tiny church on the beach in Greece to my college sweetheart (whom I knew before I became a Mormon), honeymooned on Greek islands, started working again for my own company (I had been on disability for years due to my illness), spent three weeks in Scotland, went back to Greece for a month, spent a few weeks in Mexico at a 5-star resort, went back to Greece for two weeks to be a featured performer in Athens at the 3rd Annual Celtic Music Festival, flew to London for a week to be in a commercial, then went back to Greece for a month to work and vacation, and tonight I'm headed to Turkey then on to Greece for a film premiere where the Greek Prime Minister is expected to be in attendance.
The list goes on and on...I work internationally now, doing what I love - video production and editing. I've met some of the most skilled and important doctors in the world, have become friends with people from a dozen countries, have dined in some of the finest restaurants in the city, have been the dinner guest of multi-millionaires and their families, have met ambassadors and important politicians, have helped cancer patients who are desperately ill and without hope to find healing and peace, volunteer to raise money for poverty alleviation in Uganda using my newly found skills, raise awareness for a volunteer cancer care non-profit that take lifesaving drugs to the poor in villages and islands in Greece, have become friends with some of the most kind and decent people I've ever known, self-published my first book, have learned a new language that we speak at home, and now I have a family that I married into scattered across the globe whom I love, and who love me dearly. When I tell them what I once believed they shake their heads.
Yes, I paid a price when I left. The price I paid was losing my children, who remain true believing Mormons. I also lost every friend I ever made in Mormonism (is that really a bad thing?), my entire life savings, my house, my cars, and left with one single carry-on suitcase containing all my worldly goods. But would I pay that price again? Yes, absolutely. I have hope that someday my children will come to their senses. I left things that I once valued, but I have received more than I ever imagined - health, happiness, peace of mind, and above all else freedom. I didn't know how unhappy I was until I experienced what real happiness is. I never knew love until I was finally, truly loved, without conditions.
The truth is, life gets better - beyond your wildest dreams - when you leave Mormonism behind and embrace the beauty of forging your own path in life, of facing your inner demons with courage, of making your OWN decisions, and of experiencing and learning real, honest-to-goodness love rather than the conditional acceptance love found in Mormonism.
Where will you go if you leave Mormonism?
Anywhere. You can go anywhere. You can do anything. Your life has no limits.