I am angry at having been vegiformed.
The shape I (and others) have been forced into to suit the demands of that cult does not reflect my truth as an organic, free Being.
The circumstances I (and others) am(/are) in is constricting at best, and seems an inescapable predetermimation, an inherent impediment to growth as a human capable of sustaining one's own life.
It feels (in this moment) that one is doomed to fail, as true growth has been impeded, destroying the once sweet, tender fruit which should have been allowed to claim it's birthright.
The circumstances I have found myself in is a diabolical mess-of-a-life of which I feel ill-equipped to handle. Though I now fumble with the shears, alas, I have not been trained to be The Gardener; experimental pruning has brought painful, unforseen consequences.
This 'life' is an aberration of what could have been...dare I say SHOULD have been...truly beautiful.
I suppose it has beauty...
but what 'should have been' cries from the dark earth of night to rip deep roots from the soil
and hopes for some escaped seeds to freely sprout anew.

I know what you are saying. Well put,and Vegiform, yeah!

This is how I see it and what helped me once I realized after I left the Mormons church I had been robbed of personality and so many opportunities:


"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

"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." ------ "Free Electricity."



I don't know how old you are. I am old now and I spent quite a few years after I left Mormonism not even realizing how stunted it had left me. When I did realize it I spent a lot more years undoing the damage. I have had a lot of years since, when I finally felt like myself and went hard and heavy to be what I wanted to be. I hope every exMormon gets that chance.

Think of it like the quote says--lying in embryo. There is still time to grow and learn and explore once the Mormon shell is cast to the ground and you crush it beneath your feet as you walk away.

Excellent quotes; thank you so much, D&D!
I guess every new layer peeled away reveals painful, but brilliant green new growth.
I'm looking toward the day when the scales balance.
28 *years* in, (TWENTY EIGHT YEARS OF. NOT-MY-TRUE-SELF)...only a few to go to reach half & half status.
I want MY life.

I think many of us were so sure we had all the answers that we never even realized we didn't even know what the questions were. That is the brainwashing part.

I've almost been out twice as long as I was in. Sometimes it feels like there is no escaping playing the hand you were dealt even if you have left the table and are out of the game. And then other times, I just feel so damn good! What church? All I know is being out is infinitely better than being in no matter what we lost.

Ah, but the price has been so devastatingly dear...

Uh oh ....

"Vegiformed..."

Hehe. I like that.

It's like the difference between a real burger patty, and a TVP patty. The latter is so...fake. Bland. Tasteless. Artificial. But it's vegiformed...

'I think many of us were so sure we had all the answers that we never even realized we didn't even know what the questions were. That is the brainwashing part.'

This, D&D.
I was so naive, yet arrogant, a recipe for disaster!
Combine those factors with low self-esteem (the *real* kind of esteeming one's self, not the puffed-up 'We, Superior Beings know The Truth and are Special because of our Superior Knowledge and sacred role as pure mothers in Zion' brainwashing), the sudden devastation of awakening from that deep sleep (thank you, RFM!), and the warning silently delivered in the form of a strategically-placed Vietnam death card (at my computer table) where the awakening took place...(etc, etc, etc...)
It was, and still is a cluster-f**k.
Tragically, my 'Story' echoes from so very many others' experiences...
I am not alone in having lost my precious children to my freedom, at having my beautiful family shattered beyond repair, and struggled upstream against a smear campaign of epic proportions, left to wonder whether this one single life is really worth all *that*...or maybe they're right...
Yet, for whatever I am or am *not,*
I am still HERE.
My Calling and Election as a certified Daughter of Perdition has been made damn sure.
Though it does bring momentary comfort to learn one is not alone in grief, it pales with the realization of the pandemic destruction this cult has wrought upon the minds and souls of human beings worthy of peace and happiness.
(Thank you for this thread, and for the snort-laugh, ificouldhietokolob!)