This is usually no-no territory for me to remember this. Anybody else get treated like sh#t and some crazy person by their family ever since they decided to not go on a mission. This period of time was critical and it changed me for the worse. They really made me think that the religion was legit back then and i was doing the wrong thing and there was nothing worse than not serving a mission, the internet was kind of new also. Anybody have a similar experience where this period of time changed your trajectory for the worse because of how your family made you feel and the community. I always thought i just should have faked it through the mission but i just could not do it and i paid a heavy price for it from everybody. You think i get made fun of now? this isn't anything compared to back then.

Been there, done that, have the T-shirt (without Masonic markings).

Social pressure to go on a mission is TREMENDOUS. However Mormons
will claim that the decision is purely the missionary's desire to
"serve the Lord." To them anything short of putting a gun to the
kid's head and threatening to pull the trigger doesn't count as
"coercion."

The Mormon program is simple: use extreme social pressure to get
the person to do X. Then when they do X enough cognitive
dissonance will cause them to believe X. Then point to the (even
shaky) belief in X as proof that X is true.

But first you gotta get them to do X.

I felt many guns to my head and it was the first time i attempted suicide in my life. I just did not want to do it, why was that so wrong? It didn't feel wrong to not go, i just did not want to do it. I could see in my father's eyes that he wished he had a different son and that was painful and i was forever seen as mentally ill from that point forward by the ENTIRE family including extended family. Once you are labeled by them it's over and you start to believe them, maybe i am crazy? Stuff like that, if i can't win then f#ck it type of feelings.

My father told me, "mission, Ricks, or get out." I joined the Army.

Smartest move you ever made, Don. Good choice.

But think of all the lives you didn’t ruin. That has to count for something.

Well i think about that kind of stuff since being on here but before that i was not helping the lord bring souls to him so i was a wasted human.

Being mistreated by taking that decision sucked, but at the same time It was the best decision I made this year.

Being in a strong cult family is what made the difference and a strong cult community in gilbert, az. If i had been a convert and decided not to go the treatment would have been different not saying it would still be easy though.

So you went on the same mission that Tommy Monson went on ?

Once i found that sh#t out i was pissed.

I've seen it happen to others, but sadly I didn't muster up the courage to say "no." I caved to family and peer pressure, and (to that point) lifelong indoctrination...and went.

Which, oddly, made me more "acceptable" even as an apostate than those of my friends who courageously chose not to go. Making your point. I got "brownie points" for being an RM even though I left the church -- while friends of mine who didn't go were considered thoroughly evil and unredeemable. Go figure.

Yes this is exactly what happened, about half of my friends went and left the church after and the other half did not go at all. And the difference in treatment was insane. I wished every day in my twenties that i would just had faked the d@mn mission so i would not be seen as a reject to everybody and the women, you never forget the women that rejected you for not serving a mission that sh#t sticks. The half of my friends that didn't go were all treated like spawn of satan outcasts or worse, the sons of perdition. We could not win even if we died on the cross next to jesus for all to see. So we played the role as bad guys but deep down we knew we weren't. Out of my friends and i that didn't go on a mission i am the only one that is still alive, but only kind of alive haha. A couple suicides and two were murdered. The RM friends are doing well and some have a wife and kids. The chasm is drastic. And now you know one reason why the badass is pissed at God if there even is one.

I had decided not to go on a mission years before I turned 19. I just didn't tell anyone until it came down to actually going. Of the many people I told, most said something in order to guilt me. My mom said: "All those sons and not one missionary." I obviously had several brothers, none of which went on a mission and I was her last hope.

When I went into the bishop's office to sign the paper work, I stopped short of signing it. He suggested we kneel in prayer and ask. When I finished, all I had were sore knees. He asked if I got my answer. I said no. He said I didn't pray hard enough. I asked him how hard should I pray and he said until I got the answer of yes, like he got. Uh...then what's the point of praying I asked. He didn't like that for some reason.

I only had one friend who gave a remark that was not a guilt-ridden plea. He made me feel kind of bad personally. Still love that guy.

From the first time as a little kid in Primary that I heard about serving a mission, the idea had little appeal to me. Still, by the time I turned 19 years old I sent my papers in because that is what I was supposed to do. I had screwed around with a BYU girlfriend of mine the year prior and knew that I would have to confess beforehand. I was told that I would have to speak with a General Authority to get clearance to proceed.

The G.A. was a very sweet, nice, old guy. So sweet and nice that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that my girlfriend and I had banged again just two weeks before my interview with him. I only shared with him what I had done during my time away at school. When we parted he told me, “Be careful out on your mission. There are all kinds of women who would love to jump a missionary’s bones”. So much for the “Power of Discernment”. I thought I would be hit by lightning as I walked to my car.

In the MTC I succumbed to being guilted into confessing the rest of my story. Long story short - I met with the MTC Prez and another G.A. During the process they pissed me off to the point of me referring to them as “sons of bitches” (they had breached my confidentiality) and walking off of my mission at that point (after five weeks in the MTC).

Flying home I had no idea if anyone would even show up at the airport to pick me up. After getting off of the plane I noticed my father waiting for me at the gate. There was no offer of a hug, just an extended handshake with him saying, “You look good…I can’t say I am glad to see you.” For the entire 30 minute ride home from the airport he screamed at me at the top of his lungs. I had to sit there and take it…I had nowhere else to go. It was late at night when we arrived home. The house was dark. I ran to my room, closed the door behind me, and dove and hid under the covers of my bed.

The next morning there was knock at my door. When I opened it my older sister was standing there in tears saying, “How could you do this to our family?” I slowly closed the door on her. My own mother couldn’t face me for three days. I just barricaded myself in my room. A few days later word got out that I was back. Once my best friend heard he drove to my house and yelled my name until I dashed out and dove into his car. He told me he loved me and that everything would be O.K. He saved me.

The members in my ward were great towards me. It was my own “loving” family who were assholes and were dead set on making me pay for the shame and embarrassment I had brought the family. Outside of providing me a place to live with some meals, little assistance was offered to me. I spent my last penny to get some transportation (it was made very clear to me NOT to ask to use a family vehicle) and I was able to land a full-time job. Several months later, seeing that I was finally pulling my head above water, my father dropped a bomb on me saying, “I think it would be best for the family if you were to leave”.

My experience taught me (and what I share with prospective missionaries) is that it is FAR EASIER to NOT go on a mission than to go and return early. I have a soft spot for early returned missionaries. I know what they are going through. For those who are on their missions and considering leaving but stay out of fear of what they might face at home…those fears are VERY real. There is always some IDIOT out there saying, “Just walk off…You are an adult…You can do whatever you want…”. IDIOT!!! It is not that easy. Especially if there is no family support at home when doing so. My heart goes out to those kids.

I can see how returning home early could be rough as f#ck didn't think about that one. I heard a story when i was younger that my uncle had sex on his mission and his father my grandpa said on the phone that he wanted him sent home in a box. Which obviously meant he would rather his son be dead. My other uncle told me that story.

My heart broke for you Jaxson, as I read your post.

I love you for the courage you had in enduring all of that.

You're the type of person I would welcome into my life as a true friend.

Thanks for the kind words.

A week or so ago on another board I was reading about a kid currently serving a mission who wanted to leave. He knew he couldn't go home because of the abuse he would receive from his family, so he was appealing to the board for any type of help and assistance. My heart broke for him and I wept at the many unconditional offers of housing and support from the board members to get this kid the help he needed. It made me proud to be an exmo.

Since then, his story and my history began to resonate in me. I know there are other early returned missionaries out there whose story is more painful and agonizing than mine. There is something inside of me that wants to give them a voice...ease their pain...let them know that they are not a failure. So...I've been mulling over finding and interviewing those ERM's and perhaps compiling those into a documentary of some sort. I don't know...we'll see. But something is definitely bugging me lately.

I feel like i need to be a voice of some kind as well. I know there are teenagers in my exact situation i was in right now hiding their true feelings within themselves.

Well I was lucky to have the burden of making a choice lifted by a young apostle of the lord who made that choice for me.

Yeah, it hurt at first but I got the last laugh on Gordon Bitner Hinckley.

I did cave to the pressure and went on a mission. It was the opportunity I needed to really look at the church up close and realize it was false. Might not have left without the experience. Reminds me of a fun story:

One time on the mission we were having a weekly zone meeting and the zone leader asked us to go around in a circle and say why we came on a mission. Everyone says some sappy BS like "I felt the lord call me" or "I wanted other to have the gospel". I couldn't bear the weight of the lies any longer and just said what everyone was thinking: "I went on a mission so that I wouldn't disappoint everyone". You'd have thought I just took a shit on the floor in front of everyone. but nobody could argue it. After that, however, one fellow elder did feel safe to confide in me that he had less than 100% sterling testimony of what we were doing.

bad stories of missions. I thought it was so important because I listened to the leaders, BUT I could have never gone on a mission myself. THEN they sent my disabled brother out and he came home a changed person. He has never recovered and it has been about 30 years. Actually he came home the end of November when my kids were 2 and they are now 32. Then I started to think different about missions. I NEVER THOUGHT he should go. I couldn't believe they sent him.

So right then and there I started telling my son he was not going to be serving a mission. He told me just recently that when they would sing "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" in primary, that he could breathe a sigh of relief because he knew he didn't have to go. He doesn't have the personality to be on a mission. He would have been bullied, just like my brother was.

My brother actually came home thinking he was gay because they all called him gay. Having a gay husband . . . I told my mom which therapist to take my brother to as I knew he wasn't gay.

You should read "Heaven Up Here" by John Williams. If you e-mail me, I'd mail it to you. I love the book, but I know you don't have much money right now. It just tells the reality of his mission to Bolivia.

We have a friend whose nephew just came home early. He was actually in a good mission, BUT he couldn't handle how mean the leaders were and he became suicidal. They tried to keep him in the mission home, but a psychiatrist nonmormon who they sent him to said HE HAS TO GO HOME. Of all things, his parents take him to the temple often. Now he is at BYU.

Thankfully, my parents never expected their kids to serve missions. My disabled brother is the only one who served a mission of all my parents' children and grandchildren. Nowadays, I am sad for anyone who leaves on a mission. Actually, one of the mothers down the road comes to talk to me after her kids leave because she says I'm realistic and understands that it is so very difficult to let them go when others tell her about all the blessings. Oh, I waited for a missionary. He and his companions and zone leaders were horrible to me once I told him I wasn't waiting any longer--because of his behavior. Thank God I never married him.

It was a great service you did not to go on a mission for all concerned.

As bad as your recovery is now, I can see you'd be that much worse had you taken out your endowments and temple covenants. That would have driven you right over the edge.

Think of all the lives you saved, including your own.

Feel like i barely saved it but still saved it to this point. Still get triggered even with anxiety meds. My father across the street just does not get the hint to leave me the f#ck alone but i am planning on moving in secret when i get accepted to a cheaper place. It is the only way i feel is to move away without telling anybody, and finish my recovery while starting a new life somewhere else. I can't be around mormons if i can help it.

I could have sailed through the interview because I was the only virgin in the priest quorum. However, I just didn't want to waste two years selling religion door-to-door. Hoping to gain a testimony, I enrolled at BYU, where I remained a virgin because no BYU coed wants to screw a non RM.
BYU made me very depressed, but not nearly as depressed as I'd have been had I gone on a mission. Two years of "faking it" does a strange thing to a guy. He learns to lie in order to live a lie. The reason Utah abounds in con artists is because said con artists actually believe that their pyramid scheme is legit. They are genuinely surprised when the Feds come knocking!
Yes, the years immediately following my decision not to serve were hard, but they were necessary. By and by I discovered that there's a whole, wide world out there. Once free of the Mormon chains, I became a happy, well-adjusted person. Best decision I EVER made was to NOT GO ON A MISSION!

There are many chains to break free from for sure. I still don't feel like a free man and i feel i have worked pretty d@mn hard.

Heavy price?

What if you went?

Price-less

M@t

Dad asked me if I wanted to go after I got back from Ricks. I said no. End of discussion. Never came up in conversation again. Dad respected my decision.

badassadam1, I'm sorry for all of the hurt you endured. I hope your hopes for a new apartment works out and things get better for you. I do hope that if it works out, that the people in the community are genuine people that will be beneficiary to your life, like some of the people on this board have been.

I'm a woman that converted to TSCC at twenty-two. I got a temporary temple recommend at twenty-three to do baptisms for the dead. In hind-sight, I only did it because that was what I was supposed to do. It was the next step after getting your "patriarchal blessing." I never questioned or asked about anything. I just blindly did it (for the sake of "blessings").
After talking about my temple experience in Relief Society, one of the "sisters" said, "I see you serving a mission soon" in which I responded, "But I plan on going to college" to which to said, "I see you putting off school for a while." But I was more interested in getting my degree. That same "sister" would pressure me into going on a mission for about a year which would frustrate me. At time I felt bad for feeling that way, because I felt like I was "cheating god" for not wanting to. For putting school ahead of "him." The pressure got so intense that I asked a friend and the bishop to give me a "blessing" to figure out what I should do. After that my friend said, "Maybe there is something else that you were meant to do. No pressure." He never served a mission, so he was understanding to my dilemma, which I appreciated.
So back to the "sister." She ended up serving a mission with her husband after he retired. I gave her flowers as a send-off gift. She would then send me a card from Utah talking about her mission and then expressing how she hopes that I'm called to the MTC soon to do the "lord's work." I then wrote a letter telling her about my college courses and how I enjoyed them and how it's helping me to grow as a person and learn so much. I did not get another letter since.
I did eventually cave in and began putting in the paperwork for a mission. While in the middle of it, my family lost their home and we ended up living in a hotel for a while. I felt that I should hold off going on a mission after that. After a while I would stay with my (former) co-worker's mother in law. With no clue as to where my life would go, I decided to forget about serving a mission.
I would end up moving into an old inexpensive townhome with two other people by the end of the summer (since I had classes coming up, I felt that I needed some stability) and I knew that my serving a mission was out of the question. I would get a letter from that same "sister" after a year (a Christmas card) and I remember feeling petrified that she would pressure me to go on a mission, when it was obvious that I wouldn't be able to. Luckily she didn't...
Until she returned home.
She talked about how wonderful her experiences were, and how she couldn't wait for me to have the same experiences. I just smiled and stayed silent.
Some months later, I would fall ill with a cerebral hemorrhage at twenty-six. Since I knew I was going to be out of work for a while, and wouldn't be able to keep up with the rent, I moved out of the townhome and put most of my stuff into my friend's garage for storage. I would move back in with my family (who eventually got a new home).
One of my coworkers (who is LDS) decided to take me to the ward Christmas Party where I ran into that same "sister." She mentioned the mission thing for me again in which I thought, "I just got out of the fucking hospital for a fucking brain bleed. I'm still in recovery mode and trying to walk straight, see straight, get my intellect back and handle my emotions, and all you can talk about is me going on a fucking mission?!" I felt bad after that thought though.

In hindsight I have no regrets especially after discovering that the church is a fraud. I wouldn't have wanted to bring others into that trap of a church. And after giving it some thought, I probably only would have only done it because of the pressure, and because I thought that it would give me a testimony since I exhausted myself for the twelve years I was in TSCC to get and keep one.

Oh and that "sister" and I are no longer on speaking terms. I unfriended me on Facebook, and stopped talking to me since I wouldn't let her control my life - especially since it is my life to live! She tried to set me up with a guy that I was not attracted to or interested in (not in that way, anyway), but she wanted me to get with him because "he was SUCH as nice guy"...and because...you know, we look alike (ick!).

I've been officially out for almost a year, and I am still trying to get it together. For over a decade, you don't think for yourself, you don't have an opinion. You have depth-less relationships with most of the church members, and you almost have to feign a happiness just to be acceptable (because the "gospel" is supposed to make you HAPPY, like some sort of drug). I'm still working past that to figure out who I am at thirty-five, and see if I have any depth (or try to become someone with depth). It's going to take a lot of work for me for sure.

I wish you all the best, badassadam.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2017 03:38PM by severedpuppetstrings.

Sorry for the log post.

Don't worry about the long post. You have quite a story to tell. That woman had no right to do that to you. I'm sorry that she did.

The long posts tend to have soul...

Keep on keeping on!

I will attest it will take a lot of work to regain a normal mentallity and become a real and authentic person with real personality. I have been out a year and 4 months. The fact that the leaders in my area know i can not step foot in church buildings also helps, i have strong counselors on my side and i would be helpless and at the church's mercy without them. I have had trauma my whole life without even knowing it, i barely just remembered a trauma at 4 years old, my memories are starting to return that were blocked. I have to face all these things in order to get truly better i think. I am not hurting as bad as i was so i won't pretend that i am worse right now. Not even i understand the healing process my mind has been going through since its been aloud to heal away from mormons and mormonism. I don't think everybody's healing will be as crazy as mine i am in a mormon community with my father across the street so i am triggered constantly. My counselor says i should keep setting boundaries instead of moving and running away again, stand my ground against my father for once and i be the older adult for a change. It should get interesting because no matter what you do mormons never get the hint, and i mean never, they will still step over your boundaries over and over and over, and continue to spin in the same circles that they were in a year ago. Just focus on yourself while they spin in circles and don't acknowledge them and continue to get better. The longer you are away from it all the more you will realize your real self returning and you might become a true badass. And yes none of them are happy, i just saw a mormon couple in the mall that i knew and they looked miserable with vacant stares in their eyes. This is coming from the most negative guy on this forum maybe even the world. They looked more miserable than ME hahaha and that is saying something. Zombies or robots to the end i say for them. The badass might actually be happier than the mormons, i know it sounds crazy but it is happening.

Think of it this way: you’re the best you’ve ever been. You don’t make excuses for a sham religion, for leaders who don’t have the balls to level with the church, or for all of the craziness that passes for normal human behavior. The residents of the asylum look down on you for being sane.

Thanks babylon, i always did feel that some of the leaders in the church should have stood against it together at least at one point in my life or at least my father doing what was right for once, but they are all part of the good ol' boy system, protect the corruption at any cost and protect our own @sses at the cost of others.

Thank you for sharing that story. You have been through a lot. You were a lot more patient with that woman than I would have been. I think at a certain point I would have told her to mind her own business, only somewhat more bluntly than that.

Thanks for sharing your story, severedpuppetstrings.

You've been through hell and back, and it was all wound up in your time in the so called morg.

"I've been officially out for almost a year, and I am still trying to get it together. For over a decade, you don't think for yourself, you don't have an opinion. You have depth-less relationships with most of the church members, and you almost have to feign a happiness just to be acceptable (because the "gospel" is supposed to make you HAPPY, like some sort of drug). I'm still working past that to figure out who I am at thirty-five, and see if I have any depth (or try to become someone with depth). It's going to take a lot of work for me for sure."

You will get there. You've given yourself a great gift - that is the freedom to be you without sacrificing yourself and identity for a cult's mindset.

((((hugs))))