After being taken for a ride by all of the leaders in Mormonism, including parents, it is difficult to trust people. Most leaders in Mormonism are probably deluded rather than intentionally deceptive, which may actually be worse. Spending decades being led astray and wasting personal resources following those who do not have a clue, leaves a person wondering who can be trusted.

If the so called mouth pieces can be wrong on virtually every level, then a person begins to question everyone and everything.

Should we try to have that level of trust again? Maybe not. A very healthy and well exercised level of skepticism may be the best thing for a productive life.

Craig Hicks Wrote:
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> A very healthy and well exercised level
> of skepticism may be the best thing for a
> productive life.

I agree. I’ll also add this from the organizational behaviorist Edward Demming—individuals are rarely the problem, it’s systems that creat problems.

Individual TBMs, alone, are generally okay, it’s SYSTEMS of Morgbots that drive me nuckin’ futs.

I've been told the same thing about growing up in a Communist country. After WWII, those who became subject to Communist rule and went through the deprivation and suffering of war torn Europe learned not to trust.

It affected their relationships and marriages. It became part of their psyche not to be trusting of anyone.

Amyjo Wrote:
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> I've been told the same thing about growing up in
> a Communist country. After WWII, those who became
> subject to Communist rule and went through the
> deprivation and suffering of war torn Europe
> learned not to trust.
>
> It affected their relationships and marriages. It
> became part of their psyche not to be trusting of
> anyone.

That is enlightening. They too were reliant on autocratic leaders that ended up not helping anyone but the leaders. The Eastern Bloc turned into a perpetual economic and political train wreck.

Even as a die hard Mormon, the similarities between the leadership styles and the treatment of those who question was painfully obvious. It always bothered me.

The Mormon leaders don’t know the salt that they’re sowing.

This is all so sad. If only the IRS would require financial transparency. Show where the snakes are hiding. The worst part is that you find it hard to trust yourself.

We’ve had some bad times, been through some sad times, but this time your hurtin’ won’t heal.

Maybe that's a good thing. You learned a valuable life lesson from Mormons that will serve you well. Unquestioning trust is not a good thing. It is the mark of a credulous person vulnerable to the next manipulative person or group.


A high level of trust must be earned, not demanded or expected. One positive thing I took from Reagan was to trust but verify. If the verification is faith, that should be a red flag. If the verification involves money, that should be a red flag.


The first step is to learn to trust yourself by setting higher standards for what you will unquestioningly obey, support, respect or believe.


There is a lot of goodness in humanity to be sure. Just because you are probably a good person worthy of trust from others doesn't mean others are trustworthy.


Most of the calls on my phone are scammy robo calls trying to scare or fish me. Why do they have so much success? People didn't learn to quit being so gullible.

I figure we might as well view our Mormon experiences as life lessons that made us better, more responsible, and more aware of human nature.

My take:

Trust has to be earned. Not automatically given.
That's the case whether you're talking about mormon church functionaries/leaders, your employees at work, the guy fixing your brakes, or anyone else.

Mormonism demands unthinking, unverified trust in its leaders. Without earning it. So you got indoctrinated into a mindset that is the opposite of how trust works in the rest of the real world. Where you trust people who've shown they're trustworthy, and you don't trust strangers by default -- you verify that they do what they say, that they're trustworthy.

Time to let that thinking go. It was yet another mormonism that is neither true nor useful.

As the old saying goes, trust in Allah -- but tie up your camel.

Having been a father for two decades I can tell you that I've evolved in this regard. I used to demand unquestioned trust of my children. As I've pondered my childhood and how Mormonism was given to me I try very hard to just trust my children to know what they want and need.

It is not easy because being young they don't really know what they want sometimes.

So for me I prefer to trust myself and I want my children to do them same.

Trust is over rated. I've found life works better without it. You have to think and analyze a lot more so not trusting is not for the lazy. Not trusting builds self confidence.

Trust, but not mormons.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family with two alcaholic parents (one never-mo and one inactive). At that time, mormonism was the closest thing to normal that I could find. Neither parent encouraged me in to church activity. They allowed it. So for me, the church was the only source I could find while growing-up, to have what I thought were normal social interactions and friends. In my early adulthood, I realized that I was in a cult, and that it was full of a lot of screwed-up people, many of who were its leaders. After a series of events where I was stabbed in the back by several of them at the same time, I resigned from the church. Suddenly, I had nothing and trusted no one. I had to restart my life over in many ways, while refusing to allow mormonism or any of it's people back in to my life. I had to learn to trust and to confide in non-members. That was very difficult to do. But I did it.

The best long-term therapy has been through my job, and with the help of my significant other. I never thought I could have a long-term relationship, nor last for long at one company. I have been with her for twenty-four years now and with the same company for eighteen years now. Especially in the early years, she coached me through the corporate politics (almost daily at times) that allowed me to survive the job long enough to learn how to act like a professional.

I never thought previously that an employment situation would do anything for me theraputicly and socially, but it has. I work for a large company. The culture there promotes fairness and despite the hierarchy, equality on a personal level. Everyone addresses everyone else (even the CEO) by their first names. In eighteen years there, I have approached Human Resources for help with work-related-injustice situations only twice. Both times, they promptly fixed those problems for me. In one case where my Director was acting abusively and swore using obscene language at me in a large meeting in front of others, he suddenly announced to the same group a few days later that he would be taking the next week off (I assume without pay), a few days after I reported his actions to HR. We were in the middle of a project where he would never otherwise take time off right then. He seemed unhappy himself as he made the announcement. He knew I was the one who turned him in. There was no retaliation against me (he didn't dare). I don't always get what I want there (like huge raises and huge promotions which haven't happened yet). But the environment is healthy. Some people do things that are unfair or are disrespectful. The culture and everyone else knows the score keeps them in-line, regardless of who they are, or how high up the chain they are. Ten years ago, I decided that if they fired me tomorrow, I would leave with good feelings about both the company and it's people. For a person who left a cult (the mormon church) and took years to rebuild their life and recover from injustices, that attitude about any organization was a major step forward psychologically for me. So when you leave the church, you may find recovery in unexpected places.

“so called mouth pieces”

The mouth pieces of the Lord are all kazoos. Make your own music.