I'm very angry, had I not been a Mormon I would have made different choices. I feel I've been very hard on myself and others. I'm sure I've hurt many people with my judgmental attitudes. Now that I'm awake and realize that Joseph Smith was a con man and the book of Mormon isn't true I feel more love in my heart, more compassion and tolorence.

I need help.

I think taking an excessive amount of your time is one of the control mechanisms of the Mormon church. As a nevermo, when I first was learning about Mormonism, I was amazed at the amount of time that Mormons often spend engaged with their religion, starting with three hours of church on Sunday! I remember telling a TBM friend that I could never do that, and she said, "Oh, the time flies by." But the three hours, as excessive as that is, is just the start. Add on time-consuming callings, FHE, VT/HT/Ministering, scripture study, and so on, and before you know it, you have no time to yourself.

And time is really all that we have. It is a precious and finite resource.

At least now you are making choices that are better for you mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Try to focus on that. You are being more loving not only towards others, but to yourself as well.

There's no easy answer for it. It's common to feel regretful for what is lost and can't be changed.

I can only hope that those who are sad and angry about the past can eventually turn to the present and to the future. That might seem easier said than done but it's the only way to find peace since what is done is done.

Remember the old phrase about today being the first day of the rest of your life. Mormonism damaged the past, but living in the now and moving ahead means it won't ruin the time we have left.

You’re not crazy. I experienced the same things. I had to keep checking my sanity. Could I be wrong? Now that I am the one doubting, is it me?

My big revelation was it’s not me, it’s them. The blind leading the blind straight into a ditch. I try to see the GAs as decent men caught up in a corrupt system. They can’t be any worse than Charles Manson, whose followers loved him too. It doesn’t always work. I still get pissed. If Mormonism hadn’t come along, I could have been normal. But maybe I needed to be protected. Maybe I needed walls that reached the sky so that I could burn them to the ground and understand what life is really about.

Life is so much more precious than Mormons make it out to be. No wonder they devalue it, they’re pissing it away. It will all be made right in the hereafter. Yeah, I bought that bill of goods and ran the treadmill. The race to heaven while life passed me by. Yes, it’s sad. But I have the rest of my life ahead of me. My love can grow forever, without stupid limitations.

Life isn’t a linear progression. It’s about “getting it”. There’s the punch line. Mormonism is a brutally funny joke depending on how you look at it. It’s a house of distorted mirrors. You go in and think that’s how the world is. I want to smash it to bits, but I can’t. Fortunately, Mormonism is facing a generational crisis. The Internet isn’t going away. Kids aren’t staying, so who will make the babies? And forget converts.

But you have your FUTURE back. Make it a good one.

Also, I believe anger is an appropriate and healthy reaction. Don't try to suppress it. Let it all out -- but in ways that don't harm anyone.

"The race to heaven while life passed me by."

It is so true, that Mormons and their cult do not respect others. The Mormon minions are as bees in the hive. If one bee dies, others are there to replace it. They must keep multiplying to grow the hive. Feed the Big 13, and cater to them, like drones to the queen bees. Even when I was a Mormon, I always knew they were no respecters of women or of children, or of their time. YM leaders and priesthood thugs pushed through our door, to physically carry my sons to meetings on Sunday mornings, when they had a paper route to complete, or on a school day, when they had homework and team practices. The Mormons came for my children, even after I told them that my children were NOT going to participate. Mormons are no respecter of parental authority.

We never mattered to Mormons. They lay pre-emptive claim to some of our money, even before it enters our pocket, saying "It's God's money." Likewise the Mormons claim our time, because according to them, their God gave us life in the first place, so "It's God's time." (News flash: The Mormon cult is not "God." It has nothing to do with God.)

Time is what life is made of! I'm not going to give it to a JS's polygamous cult of hate.

The Mormons robbed us of our precious time, and they never even thanked us. Instead they harassed us, threatened us, spread lies to malign us, trued to ruin our life, and, finally shunned us.

Can you imagine getting a personal confirmation letter--with our NAME actually written on it--from that nasty cult, that might say something like: "Dear Exminion, We're sorry you are resigning from TCJCOLDS. We lovingly release you from all guilt and obligation, and hope you will continue to visit us. We are grateful for your life-long donations of 10% of your income. We thank you for all of the time you spent in our meetings and fulfilling our callings, and doing our busywork. We wish you the best. God loves you."

The universal advice here, which everyone seems to agree with, is take a break from church. Spend Sundays with your family doing fun stuff. Go out in nature, take day trips, whatever you find rewarding.

The anger will pass. Okay, maybe not, but it will diminish over time and flare up now and then. Like herpes.

You’ll notice a sense of freedom and an ability to empathize with people in a real way instead of a fake Mormon way. It’s good to be an exmo.

Right now, your Mormon conditioning is causing an autoimmune response. You found out the church is everything you were taught to despise by the church itself, so you’re responding in the Mormon judgemental way. How would you know it was such a bad thing if you weren’t taught to judge? That’s why the decompression time.

one thing that I have learned in life is the most thing you can control is your present, you can't control your past, maybe a little of your future, the present is where you need to focus you energy. Just know that you are in the right place now, if you feel your are not, well use your brain and put yourself in a better situation.

Your are a lucky person. Some people are born into a life and never change and spend their whole life staying the same. Think about the knowledge you have learned.

It's okay to have these feelings, Everyone learns at different rates. I believe in spirituality. I feel that those who do not learn these lessons during earth life, will have enlightenment and more knowledge in the afterlife.

True. At this point all you can do is focus on the fact that you like who you are today. All the experiences you had have made you into the much wiser person you have become.

My life would have been different too. The opportunity cost the church robbed from us is tremendous. It was an expensive lesson but a valuable lesson. You are a better person with a bigger perspective now.

Look forward. Laugh at and learn from the past.

Hey, castlerocker! It is the most natural thing in the world to be mad when you discover you have been lied to and robbed of money, time, and energy. I have been out of tscc since 1998. I was royally pissed at screwed over, but as time passed was more immersed in being myself again and living an authentic life. It's a big world, and there so many fun and interesting things to explore. Take your life back! Love, aquarius

"The race to heaven while life passed me by." So very true.
I would give anything to go back in time when my sons and daughters were little so we could do fun things on Sunday instead of going to church. I was a TBM and Sundays were for church. We would go camping on Friday and Saturday but would always be back in time for church.
Now, I want nothing to do with any organized religion. Time and money sucking vampires who give nothing in return. Can I also have my tithing back? How can the Q15 and the GA's live with themselves? Thank goodness 3 of my 4 children are out.
All I know is that healing from the brainwashing and guilt takes a long time. My anger is still white hot but has diminished somewhat. My Sundays now are mine and I do volunteer work and have fun. F**k the cult.

Believe me, I (and many, many others here) know exactly how you feel. I’m frustrated and angry over missed experiences, lost time, and loads of money that (like my time) could have been invested so much better.

Be angry. Own those feelings, but also start to gradually accept the reality that the past can’t be changed, only the future.

No experience, no matter how unpleasant, is a complete waste if you have learned something. I learned many things from my TBM years, and even more from my journey out, that help me be a better person and do a better job of relating to others.

You are not alone, most of us have had to face the fact that not only did a lying cult take so much of our lives, it was the force behind really bad decisions we made. And you ask yourself over and over "where was my brain," because it is so freakin easy to see what a con job it is if you only look.

The more your life moves on and the longer it is--the more time you put behind it, the less it consumes you. It's natural that the regret will probably never leave but a way to help turn it around is to dwell on the good things that happen now that never would have happened if you'd stayed a believing cult member. And those things add up to where they kind of even out the things that you will never get back and the bad decisions that will always have lingering effects on your life.

Your statement "I feel more love in my heart, more compassion and tolerance." Isn't that a great improvement in your life and in all of ours? Sometimes I wonder if everyone alive should recover from a cult experience. Of course I am not serious about that, just that I find the majority of ex-Mormons, ex-JWs, ex-Fundamentalists etc. to be kind and compassionate people. They have been humbled and realize their frailties as humans. You are off to a good start. Post as often as you like. There are plenty of archives to read of people just like yourself.

"Now that I'm awake and realize that Joseph Smith was a con man and the book of Mormon isn't true I feel more love in my heart, more compassion and tolorence."

I would suggest that you extend some of this compassion and tolerance towards yourself. You aren't perfect. You weren't perfect. You will never be perfect. But you can take your life one day at a time. You can learn from your previous mistakes and try to do better going forward. It is about all that any of us can do.

Don't be so hard on yourself.

some things can’t be done, like reclaiming the past. But what can be done? Are you observing basic self care measures or are you folding in on the discomfort? Daily exercise, clean diet, positive self talk...


Feeling your feelings without getting sucked into them is important and tricky.

I adopt the view that there is only so much we can reason with ourselves. At some point, we must observe the way our cognition interacts with our bodies. When troubling thoughts come, try to simply view how your body reacts to them. It could be a tensing of muscles, a feeling of hotness, whatever. Try to give those physical feelings a gentle audience, and see whether they choose to depart on their own.

Or you could just use Martha Beck’s trick and take your anger out by chopping wood, and then later watch your anger float off into the sky as a wispy trail of smoke.

I’ve also found nonjudgmental awareness to be useful. It may not be possible in the more acute stages of post-mo surprise, but it goes like this: you notice that you are judging.

That’s the only step I’ve needed. Once I notice that I’m judging, choosing an alternative is quite natural. Then my mind says “things just are...” and I am at peace.

As a perpetual over-thinker, I can attest to what testiphony is saying. When I got sucked into my feelings (rather than just releasing and feeling them), I'd go into a thought loop of what-if's. When I became more aware of my physical response to that over-thinking, coupled with the idea that negative past experiences were only (very expensive) tuition that enabled me to learn about the preciousness of life and what I truly value, it helped.

I'm less angry with the time lost when I realize I really like the person I became. It feels like going through life with a terrible compulsion and one day waking up in total relief you don't feel like doing that thing anymore.

Like a race. It is over and you won.

I'm going to share part of how I handed what I call my; Very Personal Exit Process from Mormonism. Everyone does it their way. There is no one true way, no manual, no list of steps, either.

When I left the LDS Church after spending most of my adult years as a convert-member,(about 40), I had a choice to make. I could be upset,angry, hateful, resentful, etc. or I could go another direction and find the a way to make peace with it, accept that it was my past, and I could go forward, changing anything and everything. I was temple married to a true believing husband with a family that were members, from staunch believers to non-believers.

I set myself on a path to protect myself. I was determined to keep my self respect and self confidence. I was going to take my power back and own it! I was not going to allow anything that happened to me to destroy my peace of mind. And, I was going to get to the laughter, the humor, the funny side of all the bizarre nonsense. I knew that was where the healing place.

I was never really angry. I got frustrated, and annoyed, and perturbed at my process. However, I could see the lessons I learned that taught me things that prepared me for other experiences in what to watch out for and what to avoid.
I won't go into all of those lessons, here. I've posted about my process here off and on for many years.

The point I am trying to make, is you get to figure this out yourself. What you feel is valid and it's your process to get through. People can make suggestions, commiserate,and you can use ideas that resonate with you that may or may not work.
It takes as long as it takes. Everyone has a whole list of unique circumstances they have to deal with.

If I could give you a little advice it would be to go easy on yourself. You didn't do anything wrong. You're a normal human being changing your mind and figuring out how you want to live your life from here on. It's an evolutionary process. Try to have as much fun with it, that you can.

Hi there and nice to meet and greet you.

I think you will enjoy this board, this spot that is safe with a bit of challenge also. It helped me find my voice.....my voice that I had stilled by incidents in my life like my mixed-up homelife where I learned that to be quiet kept me safe and the MormonCult which taught me to think or ask questions outside the box was evil and not allowed.

Healing, I can vouch from experience, takes time, time, and more time and does vary on an individual basis. What works for one gander might not work for the goose. Do, as has been said, take good care of yourself....if you need extra sleep, get it, and getting out in calming nature and fresh air does wonders for one's psyche.

I LOVE that I am out of the clutches and claws and craziness of the cult. FREEDOM is the result - freedom to think and find out for onesself.

Best of luck!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2018 02:35PM by presleynfactsrock.

Gosh you write just like my sister does. And I could totally see her using the exact same username that you are using. I have 9 siblings. They are all TBM, well except for maybe one who is crazy, but whenever she complains about the Church I change the subject because I don't want to get any wrath from my TBM parents or other 8 siblings. Were you born in a city whose name has the letter "r" in the 3rd position?

Be very careful about what you share on this forum or anywhere else. I can imagine you have a hard time trusting anyone and anything. That's normal for people who figure out that they were duped by Mormonism. I've been out of the Church for quite a long while. Its been lonely not having any siblings who I could really talk to about all this. Fortunately I have 2 aunts and an uncle who I could talk to about all this. But most of my relatives are so deep in Mormonism that its nauseating.

In reality my life has been much better as an exmormon. But I'm sure my family really doesn't understand this. If they did then they wouldn't be TBM anymore.

Many complain about the tithing they paid. That's only money.

They take your time--which is your life. They mold your time
(which is your life) to fit their needs, not yours. That's the
biggest theft of all. Against that the tithing is nothing.

Most of the anger dissipates with time, though bouts will creep up now and then. I now think in terms of the time I have left. I feel rich, not paying that tithe anymore.

Castlerockermom - I've started to write about this same topic so many times then decided not to because I have too much to say and didn't know where to stop. Just like you, I have so many regrets. I get angry and depressed if I think too much about it. Mostly hate that I wasn't smart enough or strong enough to get out until I was about 40. My life would've been much different than the one I have today. Thank you for posting about this. Some people on here get through the anger and regrets but for me it's a daily struggle to try to forget/forgive. Most days I hate myself and my life so much because of all the horrible decisions made for me, and wasted time spent in that cult. Finding RfM and reading posts like yours help me a lot. If you're new to RfM, welcome I'd love to help you any way I can.