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forestpal not logged in
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Date: May 02, 2025 06:22PM
Elder Berry, after a lifetime of trying as hard as I could to remain in the Mormon church, I finally reached a beaking point--well, many, many breaking points. I can’t possibly tell all the details of my struggles, but here are a few that had little to do with the doctrinal contradictions, and seemingly random changes (later discovered to be money-driven, not Christianity-driven, not family-driven, not faith-driven.)
I am too exhausted after reading your brief analysis of “how to cope.” My reality was that there was no way to cope with being in a cult, without paying the price of my valuable time (valuable to me and my family), my career (being a divorced woman in a man’s world, as sole financial support of my children), the love and closeness of my children (good, Bible-raised Christians, who were questioning Joseph Smith. I was paying the the price of losing “Heaven” (the Celestial Kingdom) forever, because my Mormon husband abandoned me and his children. In reality, we were not to blame for that, yet I and other divorced females in the Single Adults group were blamed and judged at every Mormon encounter. There never was any “community” of support that you mention--not for us--and our situation was only made worse.
Yes, this is all doctrine: The Temple, The Celestial Kingdom, only Temple marriages are “forever,” men and their Holy Priesthood have dominion over women, men will have multiple wives in the CK, because polygamy is part of “God’s Plan of Salvation”, members will not get into the CK unless they pay 10% of their MONEY, and so on. It follows naturally that current cult members act on these “principles” and “doctrines”, believing that these come directly from God, through His Prophet Joseph Smith, et al through Russel Nelson.
It was all too exhausting! I can deal with ambiguity, but not with nonsense. My grandfather, who was a in the First Presidency told us grandchildren that no one knows for sure exactly what the Hereafter will be like. “No one has ever died, gone there, and come back to tell about it.” I was fine with that, for several years, as an active, temple-married Mormon. When my children started learning fear, and experiencing brainwashing, then coertion, they reacted to it, and luckily came to talk to me about it. Later, we experienced abuse--and I admitted to my kids that they were right all along, and we all officially resigned together. I prayed about this, and we had no choice but to leave. We have thrived, since.
Trying to imagine our loving God wanting an unloving, abusive, blindly judgmental, adamant, elitist, sexist lifestyle for His dear children, in which families are separated now and in the hereafter, creates an explosiion of cognitive dissonance that I cannot reconcile. Never. Never. There is no “cope” >^..^<