In 2005, my wife and I made the significant decision to leave our church, coinciding with our departure from Utah after a twenty-year residency. This choice was communicated to our 19-year-old son, who faced the decision to stay or leave independently. Despite not being as devout as us (we were committed TBMs), he was influenced by his peers to embark on a mission and sought our financial support. However, our ethical stance prevented us from assisting him. In response, he unexpectedly quit college, which we had been funding for his education.

Since then, his life has been a patchwork of various short-term jobs and lengthy periods of unemployment. We’ve repeatedly supported him financially to help him establish independence. He once came to stay with us in California after a job loss, only to leave two subsequent jobs, expressing a desire to return to Utah and reconnect with high school friends, although he had ceased attending church. Our financial assistance was needed again for his relocation to Utah.

His employment history in Utah was unstable, and he eventually left his last job, leading to a period of homelessness and sleeping in his car. We discovered he’d been driving uninsured for half a year. With the onset of winter, he reached out for help, revealing his struggle with negative thoughts. We invited him to stay with us, offering support for his mental health and to pursue job training. However, after three weeks, he showed no interest in our suggestions. Now, he plans to return to Utah and the church, surprising us with his unannounced visit to a local LDS service this morning and his decision to go back to Utah and the church.

I don’t know what I can make out of this because all he has done in the past is to lead an irresponsible life and get into one weird belief after another including flat earth, chemtrails, etc. Now all of a sudden, now he wants to go back to Mormonism. I am not sure how I should react to this.

It is his decision. Perhaps your son feels that he had more stability in his life when he was active in the church.

He is in for, shall we say, a rude shock. If I read your post correctly, he's 37 and mentally / financially unstable. He is quickly going to learn where he fits into the Utah mormon pecking order, namely as low as possible for a straight white male to be.

If he's returning to Utah to attempt sponging off the church's largesse, wish him good luck because that will not happen. They will (pretend to) be interested in him only until they realize he has nothing they can extract from him. I suspect you'll see him once again in the not-distant future when this particular gambit fails.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2023 09:36AM by blindguy.

About age 20 or so is when some serious mental illnesses tend to strike. Your son needs a thorough medical workup and evaluation of his mental health. Perhaps you could arrange for this on his next stay with you. Until that is addressed, nothing else can happen.

I'm sorry that this is happening. It must be a source of great distress to you.

...about this issue. As someone who has a cousin with similar mental problems (though thankfully, she has never been near an LDS church), I think you should consider how much financially you are willing and able to support your son, especially if he doesn't seek assistance for his mental health issues. Ultimately, my cousin's parents had to stop supporting her financially because 1) the money was disappearing very fast with no accountability; and 2) that financial support didn't change her destructive behaviors. Good luck with whatever decision you make.

This sounds like adult onset mental illness, rather than a problem with religion. Is there any way to get him seen by mental health experts?

Is there any way to get a Mormon to see mental health experts?

Mormons have Spiritual Health experts, so . . .

Let him adult.
He’s his own man.
His potential is his own to fulfill, not his parents.
Set him free.
Maybe he will find a nice Molly Mormon girl and live happily ever after in ignorant bliss!

I think it's mostly about going back to friends when times were better for him. Unfortunately those friendships are often conditional. He's maybe willing to pay the price to go back to the good old days when everyone was trying to include him. They will drop him like a rock if they are expected to actually help him. But, he's an adult. Just maybe it will work out for him.

I think the best a parent can do is to love their children.

To many parents try to mold their children to be WHAT the Parents want the children to be.

Instead, the parents should support the children to be what the Children want to be.

Sometimes the Children want things completely opposite of what a parent would want for the child. In this instance, support them the best one can in the GOOD things the child wants to do.

Sometimes the best you can do is just to say you love them.

Once they are adults, they have their own ability to do what they want. If they do things which are self-destructive, there is no much a parent can do sometimes. They are adults, treat them as adults. Love them, but know that as adults they are allowed to do as they wish.

You can try to suggest help for their destructive tendencies, and perhaps even help cover the cost if they accept, but if they don't there's not much you can do except tell them again that you love them.

The son is his own worst enemy.

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
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> The son is his own worst enemy.

A lot of people are masochists these days.

My son is 38. It is hard to explain what he has gone through, what he was like along the way, etc. He did have a job on and off. He did better when he had his wife and then girlfriend after divorce. He has always had anxiety, etc. A few years ago, he went off the deep end. He obviously had a mental break. Finally they got him diagnosed as schizophrenic. They put him on Abilify and then I found out about Vraylar and he is on that.

He is my son back. He has a long way to go. We have a lawyer who is working on disability for him. He was hospitalized 3 times. It has been quite the journey.

It just so happens my "husband's" niece is in the same position. She has been hospitalized a few times. Her mother says she doesn't believe her daughter will ever be able to work again. She has a degree in physical therapy.

There is mental illness in both families, but more my "husband's" than mine. His mother pretty much spent her life in bed.

It is rough. I know this will be a lifelong battle. I worry about what will happen after I die. My daughter and her husband told me they'd watch out for him.

I feel for anyone who is dealing with mental illness.

I didn't say that I took my kids out of the church at age 8. My son despises the mormons. If you brought your son back to Utah, he might be very surprised by what it really is like to live amongst the mormons at his age. My daughter is as TBM as they come, but she hates Utah and so she spends most of her time outside of Utah.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2023 07:38PM by cl2.

Annonymous Wrote:
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> I don’t know what I can make out of this because
> all he has done in the past is to lead an
> irresponsible life and get into one weird belief
> after another including flat earth, chemtrails,
> etc. Now all of a sudden, now he wants to go back
> to Mormonism. I am not sure how I should react to
> this.

He will find Mormonism a lot more mainstream than he thinks. Mormonism is ultra-conformist, and its own weird beliefs are rapidly being phased out.