We (most of us, I think) think/understand that Mormons have a propensity to compartmentalize the different aspects of their lives... Is that 'normal' for our times?

Can TBMs be normal in the way most of us think of it?

GNPE Wrote:
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> We (most of us, I think) think/understand that
> Mormons have a propensity to compartmentalize the
> different aspects of their lives... Is that
> 'normal' for our times?
>
> Can TBMs be normal in the way most of us think of
> it?

I was pretty 'normal' when I was a TBM Cult Member.

I accepted science, including theory of evolution, straight up socialist, humanist, which might explain why I'm no longer Mormon. People who have an interest, end up researching their way out. But it starts with an interest. Most people just are not interested in anything that doesn't lead to their success.
Success in the Mormon sense is a house in a nice neighborhood with a whole tribe of kids, Mom staying home and Dad going off to bring home the bacon.
It's not at all a bad model.
Except when it reaches Stepford Wife level, like most of Utah has from my experience.
It's one step away from Handmaids Tale in Southern Utah.

But What's "Normal" to you may not be 'normal' to me.
To me "Normal" means a credit score around 700. Above that, you're above 'normal'. Below that, you're below 'normal'.

Now that I think about it, the very things that kept me marginalized and "different" within MORMON culture, were the things that kept me normal.

I was born and raised outside the Moridor
Yes, I loved science, too.
I loved to read, loved to learn,
I had mostly non-MORMON friends, of different races and cultures.
I lived outside the US, for a few years.
I had the courage to divorce my abusive temple husband.
My second husband abandoned us, and I raised my children alone.
I was a working mother, the breadwinner for our family.

My family came first, career second, and church came far down the
list, after friends, all of our schooling, cooking, house and car maintenance, activities, family fun, sports and fitness...way down on that list.

One or two "glitches" or deviations from "the plan", and a MORMON member takes a few steps into the normal world. The cult is so rigid, that it loses its members.

Some other examples of this is if a boy decides to NOT go on a mission, or if someone gets married outside the temple, or if a couple has no children, or if a member remains single, or if they get tattoos--and especially if they fail to make money!

I was a slacker as a TBM, which made me feel a whole lot better about the church being what it actually is. Maybe I subconsciously knew that something was wrong. No, I don’t think TBMs can be normal. Normal people don’t have their minds all tied up in knots making a bunch of contradictory stuff fit together. That’s another high cost of Mormonism. Your sanity.

My son thinks so. We left TSCC when he was growing up. He didn't get to be in it long enough to see the long term damage it causes to families and members.

He sees it as an outsider looking in now. I see it as a former insider on the outside thanking God each and every moment for my freedom from that oppression. I didn't know it was a cult for the first 34 years of my life. That's how brainwashed I'd been by it. Once it sunk in it IS a cult, then the deprogramming had just begun. Which can take years.