Not in the way TBMs think, but in the sense of getting rid if so much baggage and whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I was thinking about my exes and how I used to haul their baggage around for them. They were so attached to it, still are. I had plenty myself.

But then I found out my whole life was a lie, which thing I had not considered. The trip down the rabbit hole was the craziest thing that ever happened to me. I lost all kinds of judgments, all kinds of beliefs and assumptions. I developed a habit of tossing out baggage because I had to. It was like waking up in the middle of a garbage dump.

Maybe I have better mental hygiene now than if I'd never been a Mormon. At least it gave me a tolerance for stupid beliefs and empathy for awful people. I can look at a TBM and think I was once that asshole. Yup, God bless the assholes. If you can crawl out of that hole, you can crawl out of others. We all have our mountains to climb, going places we'd never dreamed. Because really, what are the limits?

The empathy I see on display in this board is off the charts. It's not normal. Something happened on the way out of Mormonism. I think the experience leaves most people better off. So to be honest, when my body generated my "spiritual witness", it made the right call. I followed my heart and it led me through hell. That's what I call wisdom. I call that a bargain, the best I ever had.

Hmm, that's a good question.

I attended a financial wellness conference once where the motivational speaker who made a fortune selling her program told us that when good people come into a fortune they become better people for it.

When people who are sociopathic &/or evil they become worse for coming into a fortune.
.
That was one of her observations working in the financial field.

With Mormonism there are some really fine people and then some total jerks. Religion for those jerks didn't really improve them, they just became bigger jerks - especially those in leadership positions.

Did Mormonism make us nicer people? Or did we leave by virtue of our empathy and kindness, because we couldn't stand the hypocrisy that masqueraded as religiosity?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2017 08:38AM by Amyjo.

The process of being out made me think a lot of things, you know when you were in a cult, you think how I could be so blind and stupid, that's not going to happen again and you learn to not to trust easily in institutions.
Also when you left and you realized that you lived a fraud, you became more humble and you understand better all the people who was decieved because you were one of them.
And I think you also appreciate better your freedom.
And to finish, I think that our values change for the better because we realized that our TBM values are crap based on nonsense and we focus our minds on values based on love and respect like the famous "liberté, egalité, fraternité".

Agree. First it makes you stupid, then later working through and past it, it makes you smarter! :-)

It's like advancing from child to adult thinking.

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Agree. First it makes you stupid, then later
> working through and past it, it makes you smarter!
> :-)
>
> It's like advancing from child to adult thinking.


^^^ This might be more correct than simply being nicer. We move beyond our childlike Mormon cult mentality and become more humanitarian.

"It was like waking up in the middle of a garbage dump."

Love that line Babylon. It made me think of this which reminds me how I felt during the extrication process, the putting down the bags process you have alluded to . . .




"Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn’t do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition." —Florida Scott-Maxwell



STAY VERY AFRAID MY YOUNG FRIENDS

“Some seeds lie dormant for years before the seed coat is scarified enough to allow germination, but whatever grows in the end, whatever flower chases the sun, whatever fruit is born, could only come through that cast-off shell.

“The worst of being in the Mormon church or any cult is that it stops germination of the spirit. It keeps the seed coat intact. Everything you could possibly be in life lies in embryo underneath that coat. This state of being feels safe, but it is a prison. you accept it because you are familiar with it, not because it is good.

“Safety is dangerous. Familiarity breeds stagnation as well as the contempt it is known to foster.

“Danger, therefore, if this is true, gifts you with true life. Why? Because danger will keep your senses alive. It will shuffle and reshuffle your mind. It will cause you to consider every clue, every sound, every sight, and weigh its importance to the survival of your spirit, for what good is a healthy body if the spirit is dead? With danger present, every thought will be suspect and must be interrogated for veracity. This is the onus of danger.

“Do not fear danger—use the rush of adrenaline that panic brings as a fortification of your own inner strength. Danger champions anti-complacency. Danger is the enemy of the beguiling shell of comfort that will lead you slowly, step by step, to...emptiness.

“So the seed that is you may get stepped on by a passing mule, or gulped and then shat out whole by a bird. Maybe you would be tossed to the harsh gravel or even be one of the seeds that was soaked in a bucket and then plunged into fertile earth amalgamated with compliance and obedience disguised as advantage.

“But no matter the means that brought to your shell a forceful buffeting, the husk yielded, the shell burst, and you sprouted.
You discover that sudden growth hurts: the unfolding of arms and legs, the growing up, this casting off of remnants of handed-down myth that have been willed to you by those you trusted. The muscles and ligatures have nearly seized up from misuse or even no use at all while your life has been on hold, while you awaited a beginning. The pain of ending the suspended animation of the spirit is only there to verify your future, not to mark your demise as you lie in state—not in death, but in hope of birth.

“Once you pry yourself open and stretch to your new height, once you twist and turn to face the sun, once the shell of the seed is left to the ground and can only be seen by looking down, then it is good. Then we finally know what it means when they use the beautiful phrase ‘It gets better.’

“Just hang in there for as long as it takes. Kick the sides and peer through the cracks. Push with examination and shove with a curious eye, and always fear the word same. It is a very dangerous word, same.

“You must explode your duplicitous, indistinguishable, interchangeable, obedient shell. You must see it finally on the ground and crush the shards of the discarded pod under your feet as you walk away. The waiting is now over. Life begins.”
------H.B.H.

I think that is a process that Mormons do have to go through that many others don't. Having gone through the process of losing the baggage as you put it, makes me more empathetic to those still schlepping it around thinking there is something noble about doing that. Did we all just stop being martyrs? I know a lot of wonderful Nevermo's who never were martyrs, so I really don't know . . . Glad I got out of the garbage heap, though. Done

Love the passages about the seed.

That is eloquent and rings so true.

I agree about the off-the-charts empathy on this board--I've never seen anything like it either.

Something else I've not experienced before is how frank people on the board often are, and willing to discuss uncomfortable issues. Sometimes it gets heated---but to not dare discuss is stifling. I like this better.

I never wonder that

We can never know for certain with any given person what might or might not have made the person nicer. All I can say is that the very nicest - not superficially nice, but the kindest - who would go the furthest out of their way to help another person with no possible gin for themselves through doing so, have never been members of the LDS church. Had these particular people been LDS, perhaps they would be kinder still. I'll never know.

It's possible. I'd like to think that at least something positive came out of the 30 years that I spent in that organization.

No. Mo'ism made me hate myself.

Well, victims are nice. We are obedient. We work hard, without complaining. We are polite to others, because we are taught to please others. We put others first. We put church first. I was a female victim who was very nice to my Mormon temple husband. I put him through college and graduate school. I made him dinner every night (every night, on time, and tasting delicious, or there would be Hell to pay), I listened to him, encouraged him, entertained him, looked pretty and kept the house clean, and ironed (ironed the permanent-press clothes) so we would look good at church. I was the one working full-time, and he was a full-time student, yet he never lifted a finger, doing "women's work." He beat me almost every day, until I left him, to save my life. Yeah, I carried his baggage, too.

I love Babylon's garbage dump analogy. This is exactly what I did, when I left Mormonism, though I never thought of it that way. It was actually fun, and liberating, for me to throw out all the Mormon books, music, manuals, pictures, decorations and memorabilia. I cleared my closet of Mormon jumpers with long skirts, and high heels and panty hose, and especially that ridiculous underwear.

I'm still rather submissive, and "nice" and quiet, socially, and in public, though I do rant and rave on RFM, sometimes.

The irony is that victims are not nice to themselves. In that way, Mormonism made me a horrible person. At one point, during the beatings, I didn't care if I lived or died. That's NOT being nice! (Not nice to my parents or siblings, either.)

Amyjo asks the key question: Did Mormonism make us nicer people? Or did we leave by virtue of our empathy and kindness, because we couldn't stand the hypocrisy that masqueraded as religiosity?

I would say "yes," to the latter statement. I left because I was kind, and wanted to be a good human being. I honestly felt that Mormonism was not God's work; in fact, it was an evil cult, and it hurt me to see it condone abuse, subjugate women, hate those who are "different, and separate families! I did not want that life, among "This People" for me or my children. (My children are the nicest people on the planet!)

Yup, church doctrine is disempowering by design to keep you hooked. And the leaders WANT TO KEEP IT THAT WAY. That's reason enough to leave and not look back. Even if it could be true, which obviously it can't. No cult is worth your soul.

Your story is compelling. I'm so sorry you went through that. I'm so glad you're out and willing to share your wisdom.

Leaving Mormonism definitely has made me a more empathetic person. Not that I wasn't before. It's just that to be a good Mormon requires a lot of cognitive dissonance between what's right, true, and virtuous, versus the indoctrination by a cult.

I'm more accepting of myself and others, including limitations and imperfections. Life is not all black and white - it's more lamborghini green.

I don't think I'm nicer than I was when I was in the Church, but I know that I'm a lot more accepting of human diversity now.

Looking back, I wasn't as accepting as I thought I was back then, compared to now.

I think this is a good answer Greyfort.

TSCC certainly helped me in many ways. For example, it forced me to sit and read writings written in old english, forced me to think about them, forced me to knock doors for hours a day for two years, and to track numbers, to get up early and study.

In doing these things i learned to read better, to work in a more focused way, and it made university a breeze (study habit).

That said it made me believe we didn't evolve, that science couldn't be trusted, that philosophers were inspired by satan and not good people, that homosexuality was a sin, that sex and a litany of other things were moral wrongs.

Amidst the good's there were many bad resulting in no real net gain for society.

I think being exmo is actually the best position I've ever been in. It's a bit like leaving boring school - it was hell but then you find out you're the only one who can read latin, has discipline, knows which cutlery to use at dinner etc you just had to deal with the abuse gaining that knowledge.

My only take away is i do see a gap in secular society that we need to plug to improve community cohesion, and help people develop those skills or even realise they matter when they're at the bottom of the heap.

That said with AI on the way i genuinely question whether any of it will matter. Will we all end up with too much time on our hands and no work?

With AI coming, even the Mormons will have their phones telling them what to do. Missionaries are being equipped as we type. Learning will no longer be necessary as being "connected" is all that will count and everyone will finally truly be "just one more brick in the wall." Your phone will translate Latin phrases and tell you what the odd shaped utensil on the end is for.

Perhaps instead of Siri or Google, Mormons will have "Dallin" or "Bender" on their phone acting aS surrogate Holy Ghost?

GETTING OUT Of mormonism helped me to be a little more understanding of others; however, at the same time, it also resurrected my BS meter and I trust very few people now.

I like to think i am getting smarter, i have been forced to become a real adult in this world and not a mindless kid to be taken advantage of over and over.

I certainly think that something changed in me that's difficult to put a finger on.

But, I think it has something to do with not worrying about whether the music, movies, or other entertainment or activity I or somebody is participating in is "worthy" is a big part of it. It took a lot of energy to be concerned about such things, and I think that I would sometimes use these "standards" to be petty, vindictive or judgmental towards people.

Worrying about those minor worthiness questions in your own life also can make you freak out about small things.

Now, I don't care if people drink alcohol in my presence. Don't freak out inside when someone offers me a coffee. I'm not worried that the music someone listens to will drive away the spirit--it may suck but it's not a danger to my soul.

We can save the freaking out for more important issues.

Not caring what people think of you, and knowing that what you think of people should be irrelevant to them, is very freeing.

But don't tell a thug (of which the church has a plentiful supply) that you find him/her pathetic, because they often resort to violence, and they usually wait til you're distracted.

I don't know if it made me "nicer". It did, however, help me break out of my dysfunctional family path, which was a blessing. That said, once my healing was complete, I left Mormonism, as then I saw how screwy it's teachings were.

I was nicer when I was active. Now, I trust no one. Realizing I lived a lie for 30 years and making the worst decisions based on those lies makes me a distant, quieter person.

I have such mixed feelings about the word "nice". Especially as a Mormon, nice meant you did what you were told with a smile on your face even when you were being asked to do too much. Even when you were being asked to put church before your own wellbeing and your family's wellbeing. Nice was the equivalent of "keep sweet". Nice was the code word for chump/sucker/doormat.

I don't want to be nice. I still am--damn it. People think I'll put up with anything. Nice and lack of boundaries go together for me. I know there is firm and assertive somewhere in the middle between nice and bitch, but I haven't found it. I call it the bitch--doormat syndrome. I don't blame the church entirely. I haven't been able to cure myself yet.

If you said having been Mormon makes us kinder people, there I would agree.

I feel I had to be strong to leave the cult. I was heavily indoctrinated and I didn't know whether my TBM family would disown me