I ask this in all seriousness, because I think I need to reflect on it myself. I keep coming here even though I resigned the faith 17 years ago - and I ask why? What else am I looking for?

I feel like I need to figure out the structural impediments that make me want to keep discussing the thing that I left. It's not as simple as "not being able to leave the church alone".

In thinking about it, I feel there are parts of my personality and self image that I continue to define in terms of their LDS context. Fundamentally, I know that traits like honesty, helpfulness, and resourcefulness, or even my ability to speak French aren't due to anything I learned from the church's teachings nor from my mission experience. If anything, it's the reverse: the LDS church leeched on my own natural abilities and my talents.

And that's probably something I need in my recovery. The recognition that there are parts of my self image that I consciously and subconsciously tie to the LDS context, rather than recognizing that the church used me parasitically, like it uses everyone else.

Tyson

that is a good thing came from mormonism. I believe we are born the way we are. I saw the movie "Joy Luck Club" years ago and they said something like that.

The only things I still carry around with me is the negative. I'll always be impacted by what happened to my life because of my beliefs and I can't help but regret some things like how it impacted my children. My daughter is TBM. That bugs me, but I have hope someday she'll find her way out again and she married someone who I'm sure would follow her out of the church. The church doesn't come between us as much as it used to.

But I have hangups and issues that come from my experiences as a mormon like bishopric interviews and dealing with the leaders over my gay boyfriend/eventual husband. The leaders were horrible. I couldn't explain if I tried. The emotional and mental abuse will forever impact me. I always knew I was someone that couldn't deal with discussing sex with those leaders and here I found myself in the situation I was in. I found out more about sex from the bishop than I ever knew before. If my dad knew what they put me through, he would have been on the war path. I knew I wouldn't handle being left by my husband very well. Somehow I made it, but it was at a huge cost to myself and my children.

We are in a "good" place for now, though my son has mental health issues and some of it I blame on what happened. Some of it is hereditary.

So I do find myself still coming here and other places and I talk a lot about it with my family (most are out) and my "husband" and others. I'll be FOREVER GRATEFUL that I made it out.

I guess now it means laughing at the past me with people who had a similar experience.

Even though I feel used and that my ancestors were naïve fools for joining, it still contributed to who I am. I can focus on the good things from the culture I picked up (like my work ethic). But was it really from church? I'm convinced all the traits we have are likely to have developed just the same without the church taking credit. There is no way to know how much better I could have been without wasting so much time and energy in the religion, so I've moved away from wallowing about it.

. . . to the becoming your Own Authority.
To no longer ask alms of kind strangers.
To becoming Whole.

Freedom to stand alone, against the wind, without fear.

Line upon line, experience by experience, less and less influence over my mind is what this means to me.

I will never recover. I will simply be less traumatized, triggered, and tripped up by Mormonism as the years keep tolling by towards my death which is when I will be recovered.

The other day my daughter kept talking about her friend's sealing. I kept wondering about her friend's ceiling. I don't even think of my marriage as a "sealing" but just a weird ceremony I went through to be with my wife.

The infamous "They" say that the first 8 years of a child's life are the critical formative years and much of the child's personality is set at that point.

Other "They's" say your brain isn't fully formed until into your twenties and then you are stuck with what you got at that point and you can spend the rest of your life dealing with the mess. Well "They" didn't say it exactly that way but I took their words that way.


That would imply for us BIC's the "influence" (damage?) of Mormonism is irreversible. Doesn't mean you can't make the former indoctrination work in your favor, however, even if the past cannot be erased.

For instance, the passive aggressive ways of getting things done I learned do have their use, haha. Post Mormon me however knows how not to be passive aggressive as well.


So my Recovered-from-Mormonism personality? An amalgamation. Lots of ingredients in this cake. I feel like a fine wine I read a description of once where in you could taste leather and roses and herbs and straw and berries and cedar all at once with a lingering acidic after taste of Lemon coating your tonsils and nodding to the terroir of the grape. In my wine the dominant flavors were introduced after Mormonism and the Mormonism part fermented and blended adding an edge.

I worked at a company once where I learned everything not to do. I feel the same way about Mormonism. I learned how not to be and that is valuable.

Been out almost 48 years. The fact that RFM still interests me even though Mormonism has no hold whatsoever, and the fact that I love the camaraderie of other Exmos, speaks to the truth of what "They" and "They" said about our early years.

I get a connection here on the forum that I like. Being understood is one of life's most necessary pleasures.

> Being understood is one of
> life's most necessary pleasures

And then you seek to be appreciated . . . Even if it’s just by one person.

Intoxicating, isn’t it?

Intoxicating times a million.

Leaving it was enough for me. I always knew it was the messed up one and I wasn't.

Exactly

it's been over five years but not yet ten. i could wax on about so many things, but just wanted to share a recent experience our mostly out son had with his mostly in spouse and their small kids. She had been reading to them something about Nephi from a children's book. Their four year old named Fox, with flaming long curly red hair later stated around the dinner table, "Nephi was a loser". Lots of chuckles between me and my spouse over that insight.

I don't know that I have fully recovered. My life was greatly impacted from my roughly 20 years as a TBM.

I'm happy I no longer have to make sense out of the senseless. That part of my life has greatly improved.

It's also so nice not to spend so much time in life-draining meetings. I spent an average of 10 hours every week as a youth in boring church meetings: About 3 hours on Sundays when meetings were twice a day, plus the hour youth leadership meeting following sacrament; one hour every morning in seminary (5 hours a week); one - two hours in young men's/ young women's on Wednesday nights. Soooo many meetings.

It's nice not to have to read the Book of Mormon and say my prayers every night. I still say one occasionally but only when I feel like it and not because it is a required chore.

I'm very happy I'm out. I wish I'd left sooner, like right after I joined.

You Said:

"I feel like I need to figure out the structural impediments that make me want to keep discussing the thing that I left. It's not as simple as "not being able to leave the church alone".

In thinking about it, I feel there are parts of my personality and self image that I continue to define in terms of their LDS context."

It means that I no further will be distorted in my thinking and behavior by the morg after 39 years. I look at all religious types and see the absolute same ignorance in their thinking and it all is a derivative of their belief system. We saw how weak minds were persuaded to murder Jews and others in WW2. It's all a tool to manipulate humans to do the will of sick leaders thirsting for wealth and power. Control!

Whereas, truth or fact finding has lead to great inventions and advancements in technology and the sciences. I love it. Reality, living authentic, the absence of biased thought or as close as you can make it. Objectivity.

As you expand your thinking into this realm, you will find the residue of your former TBM self will appear like a distant figure in the rear view mirror until it disappears completely. You are evolving into a greater you. More intelligent, more adaptive, more reasonable, more curious, more inquisitive, and more experienced.

From my point of view, I speak to religious folks all the time and ask them round about questions. Eventually, I can see the flaw in their belief and thinking. I see the inequitable thought that leads to their bias and bigotry.

IMO, I think that all of us here who have came out of the morg have taken that quantum leap advancing us as the antidote or cure to the human plague or cancer that eats away at our intelligence and reasoning. Religion retards our progression. It's like a huge weight that has been cut from us so that we may run faster and further than ever.

I feel so liberated. :)

For me it is understanding that my mormon experience is a human experience. That people (and groups of people) don't make sense they make patterns.

Systematically deconstructing the forces that drew me into, and kept me in the church has been important.

It's helped me depersonalize my experience and created compassion for those I know in the church who will not examine these patterns of coercion and social control. And then forgiving myself for falling prey and participating in the group.

Finally, what was really important to me was to find new ways of defining myself that were totally unrelated to mormonism. The church stole 9 years from me. Participating in the exmormon community was good for me initially, and reading extensively about it from a better perspective, and that led me to reading cults and exit stories, and then to books on atheism, etc. But at one point - about 3 years after I left the church, I made a decision to not focus on mormonism at all anymore - including the exmormon community. I started expanding my social network and pursuing and developing interests - I went back to reading fiction and non-fiction more widely, I joined a non-religious choir, I dated new people, I volunteered, I threw myself into my chosen profession, and I developed a post-cult identity that is more authentic, more me, and definitely a new set of values that is internal consistent and unique to me.

I took a long break of this board, but recently have been thinking about cults in general, my experience in particular due to some reading and documentaries I've been watching. I re-read my journals from my mormon days and was shocked at how filled it was with cult shaming about not being a good enough latter day saint (and I was a really good one) and how lacking it was on details of my day to day life and important life events that were unrelated to the church. I almost want to write a more accurate history now - especially from my new perspective. I do think I am more recovered now than I have ever been.

This article on recovering from a cult is really good:

http://cultresearch.org/recovering-from-cult-experiences-recognize-resolve-aftereffects

There is a chart below the article that address the different areas that may need to be addressed to recover. They are practical, psychological/emotional, cognitive, social-personal, and philosophical-attitudinal. You might be able to pin point what is still bothering you and think about ways to address those issues.

Maybe this is too simplistic, but I see it as no different than walking away from any other relationship: a marriage, a romantic relationship, a friendship, a job, a club, a political organization, a band, a sports team, etc. You sever the relationship and get on with your life. It may be difficult to move on, or (depending on timing and circumstances) it can be easy.

As Ann Landers often said (or was it her sister Abby?): Ask yourself, would I be better off with him or without him? You can replace "him" with "her," "them," or "it."

When it means nothing anymore.

It means that I am no longer encumbered by ridiculous rules and rituals that eliminate agency from my life and make me a SLAVE to the organization

It means inner peace, but family difficulties. That's pretty normal, I think. I can't believe I once supported the religion, knowing I didn't completely believe, but feeling that it was rich in "good family values." Stupid, stupid, stupid *bangs head on table*.

It means freedom from bondage. Sweet, sweet FREEDOM!