My Mormon lineage is strong. On both sides, my family roots trace back to the pioneers that crossed the plains in the 1840s to settle in Utah. My grandfather was a prominent professor at BYU. His name is on a plaque in the basement of the Harold B. Lee Library for twice being named "teacher of the year." On the other side of the family, my grandmother's faith was absolute.

So it's not a surprise when I tell you that I grew up in the stereotypical large Utah Mormon family. As the fifth of seven children, everything in my youth revolved around the importance of "the church." Believing was paramount. If you "chose the right," you were deemed "worthy" as a person. If you didn't, you were deemed "unworthy."

When I was young, I couldn't have believed more sincerely. I did all of the things I was told I was supposed to do. I prayed. I went to church every week. I attended mutual during the week. I attended firesides. I paid tithing. I read the scriptures.

I read my well-worn copy of the Book of Mormon five times. I prayed to know whether it was true at the conclusion of every single reading. Each time, I felt nothing. And then I convinced myself of a number of things — that I had in fact received confirmation of its truthfulness, or that it had been withheld from me because I was unworthy or didn't pray correctly, or that I didn't do something else correctly. It was always my fault — never the church's or God's or anyone else's.

But the older I got, the more my doubts nagged at me. I borrowed the idea from D&C that I would know the truth of things in my heart and mind. It didn't feel right in my heart. Yet whenever I found the courage to discuss this with other people — all of whom were in the church too — the answer was always that I should stay in the church.

I wrestled with what to do for years and years. I thought of all sorts of possibilities. At one point in my life, I thought I would stay inside the church even though it didn't feel true.

Fortunately, that didn't happen. I moved away from Utah to go to school in my late 20s. A couple of months later, I attended church on my own for the final time. I don't remember the exact words that the person presiding from the pulpit in sacrament meeting uttered that day, but the feeling that I got was that the person was a complete fraud. I didn't feel like it was their fault, but whatever he said made me feel that there was no way on earth that the church was true. I literally walked out of the building and haven't returned on my own since. (I've been inside a Mormon church building 2-3 times since when I visited Utah and went to please my parents.)

Up until that point, my lack of belief was based mostly on my feelings (which I defined from my church upbringing as "spirituality"). And then I started searching about the church on the Internet. Almost immediately it became obvious that my "feelings" were correct and that there is literally no way the church is true. Thus, I tell people that I have followed Joseph Smith's counsel of knowing the truth of things in my "heart and mind," and that the Church is not true.

Using my brain to realize the Mormon church wasn't true led me to investigate other churches. As far as I could tell, they all followed the same cliches and patterns. I learned about evolution. Growing up, I had been told over and over again how evil atheism was. Yet I found myself drifting toward believing in it.

At some point, I decided to put on the hat of atheist and try it out. I felt terrified. I took the hat off shortly after and told myself that I still believed in a God.

But the genie was out of the bottle. I kept coming back to the same thoughts. I eventually purchased a book about atheism. I read more and more on the Internet. At some point, I picked the hat back up — and it fit and felt really good.

I have since lived the last five years of my life as an atheist. My knowledge and beliefs are most definitely subject to future knowledge, but in terms of viewing the world that way, being an atheist feels true and vibrant and powerful.

I think the fact that I exist as a cognitive person is amazing. I don't have answers to the "big questions," but the answers about life and the universe seem so much more interesting and fascinating to ponder than any of the religious tenants I grew up with.

There's just one problem: My family. As far as I can tell, all members of my immediate family are still on the Mormon train. So are most of my extended family members. So are many of the friends I grew up with.

Just before I moved from Utah, a woman in my parents' ward unexpectedly passed away. She died of a heart attack in her sleep and was discovered by her husband when he woke up. It was the worst nightmare for any family.

Meanwhile, around the same time in this very same ward, a couple in their 40s (he the high priest group leader and she having held numerous leadership roles in the ward) announced abruptly that they were leaving the church. They disseminated a letter to the rest of the ward which stated that they had investigated the church and believed it wasn't true.

I overheard my mom talking to someone else in the ward one day when these two events happened. She stated that the woman passing away was such a tragedy. But, in her opinion, that was less of a tragedy than it would've been to have a family member leave the faith and then suddenly pass away.

When I heard this, I vowed internally to never tell my mom that I too had left the church. I felt — and still feel — so much fear over hurting my family. I understand where they're coming from — I think it's completely misguided and totally wrong — but I believe that they legitimately are fearful for my "eternal salvation" and believe that my well-being is at stake.

Like my journey from believer to atheist, my views on showing myself to my family have evolved over time.

I had reached a point where I had decided to show myself to my family — at some unknown point in the future — and then my life reached a crossroads last summer.

Since that point, I've been working closely with an individual therapist and attending a therapy group to face down my demons and really confront my past so that I can heal in the present. Through these efforts, it's clear that many of my issues can be traced back to the trauma of growing up in the church — and of leaving the church.

I've heard a lot of opinions about coming out to your family and telling them you've left the church — both for and against. I have decided that for my overall emotional health I need to take the plunge and tell my family who I really am — an atheist who is never going to return to the church — regardless of how they receive me. Just typing those words feels terrifying, however.

I welcome feedback and support. How have you come out to your families about leaving Mormonism? What did you wish you did? What are you glad that you did?

I came out to my mother and she was still trying to get me back to church on her deathbed. It was a damaged relationship. It would have been much easier to just let her think I was inactive. Rejecting the church, let alone God, can be seen as a message that you think someone wasted their life and that their whole life that revolved around religion is not valued. I did feel that way but no sense rubbing it in.

On one hand, you need to be true to yourself. On the other hand, others don't need to hear it.

We didn't come out to my husband's family. We never used any of the "A" words (apostate, atheist or agnostic) around them. It was annoying that they just assumed everyone thought like them, but we lived far away so we didn't have to deal with the situation much.

So, I've done it both ways. I've decided there is not a right way. Only you know they dynamics of your family and the impact it could have. Some have had families who are accepting no matter what, but many have had families who shun.

If you are doing this for yourself, ask yourself why you have to attack what they value. Remember you have been studying and are in a different place in the journey they would not understand. If you are doing it because it is impossible to act or seem indifferent, be you.

I admire atheists who stand up for their views but it depends on where for me. Work is not a place to discuss religion. Extended family should be, depending on your relationships and their ability to drop religion in their relationship with you.

Good luck!

At least when you tell people that you are an atheist, they don't have to hear you explain that the mormon church is false. I don't think mormons mind hearing the existence of ghawd doubted, compared to hearing us explain how the church is a crock.

Then they just pray for the miracle of your heart being touched by the spirit...

But laughing out loud when a point of doctrine is being discussed is a giveaway that you have lost your way. So avoid that!

Unless they're missionaries, then their entire sales pitch falls apart because there's no strawmen for them to tear down. When a mormon missionary has to start with, "how do you define god?" they go into full computer crash mode.

dagny, thanks so much for all of your thoughts! I definitely agree with the notion that there is no "right" or "wrong" of saying something or not. My Mormon upbringing to this day still tries to make me view situations from a black-and-white lens, when the world is not that way. I am not that way.

My family all knows that I'm out of the church — but they don't know to what extent and I have never acknowledged it to them. Having your mother trying to reconvert you on her death bed must've been insanely difficult. My father told me as recently as a few weeks ago that no matter what, he'll be hoping that I come back to the church for the rest of his life, so I relate to that.

I appreciate your perspective about potentially damaging relationships for the rest of my life. From my perspective, my relationships with all of my immediate family have been damaged already by me deciding I needed to walk away. I feel like I'm not good enough in my family's eyes. I worry that they'll think that I'm not good enough for the rest of my life because I don't go to church and won't be returning.

Thus, I avoid talking to my family because I can't take the pain of them trying to push me returning to the church when we talk. I frequently get conversations from my dad when I do talk to him about how I need to return to the church, about how I need to make "course corrections," about how it'll be my "loss" if I don't go back to church.

I don't want to talk to them about my feelings from a place of attacking or hurting them. That's why I have avoided it for so long. I want to confront this issue because I am tired of feeling hurt by them — hurt by the implicit and explicit messages that I am not good enough. In my gut, it feels right to come out to them, though it is scary and, like I said, I definitely don't think there is a right or wrong solution.

I can understand where you are coming from.

They are not able to stop judging you and feeling "sorry" for your fallen state. It's all they know. The trick is not caring what they think. It's harder than it sounds.

is going to have much of a difference in how they treat you. They'll still just be thinking you really believe deep down and that if they just keep praying and putting your name in the temple and having little chats with you about how they will always hope . . . blah blah blah

The cat is already out of the bag. You don't believe. I think it would be interesting to hear what the reaction is if you do choose to tell them.

Luckily, because of my life experiences and the fact my parents weren't your typical mormons, they listened, but at the end, my dad was still hoping I'd go back and he's the one I never would have expected that from. My mother had completely accepted where I was. My dad told my TBM daughter just after my mom died that she needed to keep going to church, so that will be something that might keep her in longer than she might stay. I hope she gets out. I think she thinks if she does things different that she won't suffer my experiences (not recognizing she already has in a fashion). My dad was never all that active and he was more of a believer at the end and I'm sure it had to do with death being close. AND telling my daughter after my mom died to stay in the church, well we know where that was coming from. He died 2 months later.

BUT no matter what you do or what you say, once you've taken that step out, I think the attitude is the same no matter what you've decided to become. I was my parents' most devout child. I was much more devout than my dad.

Anyway, I don't think it is going to make much difference one way or the other. If you feel the need to tell them you are an atheist, do it.

Facebook... took care of the telling for me... I am an equal opportunists when it comes to religion and my MORmON family got a big dose when proposition 8 was hugely supported by the church... boy did I have a hay day with Facebook post!

So it seems that what you want is acceptance. You want to be a valued family member.

What you are battling is years and years and years of indoctrination. That indoctrination has worn grooves in the brains of your loved ones. That way of thinking is not something that they can easily abandon.

When I was in college, I took a course called "Jesus and the New Testament." One of the ideas presented in the course was that Jesus used the parables as a way of combatting entrenched thinking such as your family members have. The idea of "the good Samaritan" would have been mind-bending to Jesus's audience. How can a Samaritan possibly be good? Such an idea was unthinkable to his listeners.

So with that in mind, how can you jar your family's thinking enough to get them to consider new ideas? One way might be to state, "The Mormon faith does not align with my personal morals and values." Give examples, perhaps some from the early days of the church along with some contemporary examples. I would keep the emphasis on, the Mormon church might be acceptable to them, but it is not an acceptable, moral, values-based organization for you.

Of course, your family members might find this POV insulting. Perhaps there is another way that you could jar their thinking.

You may or may not be able to pull this off. There is a reason that the church demands high engagement from its members.

I appreciate all of the thoughts from everybody. I do agree that ultimately my healing will come from loving myself and accepting myself — not from them loving and accepting me, which I know they’re not capable of doing

Personally I think it is important to be clear with your family, especially your children, about your personal beliefs, so they do not get the mistaken impression that you support the abusive CULT you inherited. At the same time I personally felt a real responsibility to replace the faulty moral/ethical structure I inherited, with a more true, authentic and stable moral/ethical structure.
Atheism didn't offer me anything because it is a meaningless identity to me. Its just a rejection of a bogus myth, not a philosophy or a moral/ethical structure. I spent a lot of time articulating a more tennable existential foothold than the one I inherited, not just for my own sake, but for my children and Grandkids sake. I read the biographies of people I respected, Jefferson, Franklin, Einstein, the Dali Lama, Malala, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Jane Goodall, Emerson, Aurelius, Epicurus, Hawking. Taken together,