Mag wondered how long the mixed feelings linger after leaving the mormon church community. Good question.

Thinking back and trying to come up with an answer, I remembered Deenie and Kathy Worthington both saying that walking out of mormon church buildings for the last time to go their cars, they danced and gloried in their freedom from the morg.

I felt the same way starting the minute I realized I never had to go back to a mormon church for the rest of my life. I'd been depressed for years and the sadness lifted and I felt clean and free.

I think that many of us stay in the morg or continue some attachment to it for a very long time until we're ready to sacrifice everything and everyone we've ever known to get out of it. That's how I felt. Once I realized I could have freedom if I gave up all of my friends and family, I was actually relieved because I knew I would no longer have to be a cult captive.

But others are still torn for a long time after leaving. They study and find out they've been lied to but they still feel ties to mormonism and hate to give it up. They do their grieving after they leave while Deenie, Kathy, and I went through the mourning process with so many mixed emotions before cutting the connection.

Some posters have denied that I could have been so thrilled to leave and not look back. They must be among the ones who did their grieving after the fact and not before.

Either way, it's usually heart wrenching to separate emotionally for those who were deeply steeped in mormonism for all or most of their lives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2010 05:17AM by Cheryl.

I was one of those people who had a superficial understanding of the Church and never knew of the dark secrets they swept under the rug.

When I left my husband and realized that the church wanted to take over the role of dysfunctional husband/father and run my life. I didn’t need another pompous, entitled, authoritative, manipulative man/men keeping me busy and keeping me worthy while exploiting my resources, the discovery and realization was sudden and I really doubted myself and my conclusions off and on for awhile.

In fact it was finding this web-site that really allowed me to validate my suspicions and realize it really wasn’t true and they had the evidence and facts to back it up.

but I learned ugly facts beyond imagination and my former ideas of reality from coming here.

After 22 years in the church, you know what I found? It was deathly quiet in my life. Almost total stillness after I quit going. Phone stopped ringing, no mind-boggling scheduler to manage, fully-free weekends and Wednesday nights... just quiet.

I like quiet, except when I'm exceedingly laughing out loud and promoting light mindedness.

Ron

I was 18 or so when it finally sunk-in that mormonism no longer controlled my life. I'm just not able to describe the joy I felt at that moment. It was most cool, but not the coolest!

I love my family, Cheryl. Just not so much that I’m willing to sacrifice my emotional well-being for their happiness. No person or group is worth that price. I tried to fit in, but they always rebuked me and all but spat on my beloved nevermo spouse who, as far as I know, has never done anything to offend them other than be alive. I quickly ran out of patience with the a**-holes, so I offered them a nice warm cup of “F**k You!” and walked away.

That was, without a doubt, the most liberating experience of my FITTY-Three years on this planet!

People who haven’t tasted freedom don’t know what they’re missing. I highly recommend it. Some say its possible to “make it work” with believing spouses or family members. The old mechanic in me says you can make it work, but the goal is to get it to operate at maximum efficiency. That’s not going to happen when you’re trying to force square pegs into round holes!

Said it before and I’ll say it again. One cannot fully recover from the cult until one completely disconnects from the cult. That’s a fairly scary thought for those who live exclusively in the moment.

Timothy

is that it isn't worth it to sacrafice lifetime happiness to please a parent. Nor is it a good idea to sacrifice the happiness of a spouse to this lost cause.

The mormon church sets families up for for disappointment because reasonable adult children must so often leave the parental cult to find any kind of satisfaction in life. If they stay in a miserable situation for a lifetime NO ONE involved can live happily including the parents.

I was BIC. Up through my 12th birthday when I was ordained a Deacon, I was just a semi-rowdy child who attended church only because my parents said I had to. I never paid much attention to the lessons or doctrine.

But starting around age 12 I paid attention to the lessons and thought about them. It soon became obvious to me that it was time to either believe it or leave it. In a science class at school I learned about the Scientific Method. I realized that absolutely nothing about Mormonism (or any religion) could be examined by the Scientific Method. Any believe in Mormonism would have to be based on "faith".

It soon became apparent to me that I had NO faith. Science won out. I could not believe in magic, and the whole basis of religion is unverifiable magic. The HOLY GHOST??? Gimme a bleeping break! So somewhere between age 12 and 14 I lost all interest in religion, and I knew that I wanted to leave it. My three best friends were never-Mos and that gave me insight into what life was like in a normal non-Mormon family.

But I was still living with my TBM parents and I was not able to move out and go my own way. I gradually reduced my level of activity in the Mormon Church, as I skipped out on classes and left meetings early whenever I had the chance. My father was the Stake Clerk so he was never around on Sundays. That really helped me to curtail my attendance. From age 14 through 16 I cut back on my activity level, and at age 17 I totally quit attending meetings. I planned other things to do with my Sundays. Within three months my mind felt as though I had never been in the Cult.

As I read the stories of people here on RFM, I realize that I was fortunate to figure out that Mormonism is a scam and get out at any early age. Getting out of Mormonism never caused me any grief because I didn't ever buy into it.

Congratulations. : )

I stopped going to church in July 09. I quit going because of the disgusting behavior of my dh and continued not going because of the disgusting behavior of my bishop. When I got on line and realized the church was a crock I was THRILLED!!! I was so happy to be out of there and now have absolute reasons to never go back. I wen thru no mourning at all...which tells me I think I knew it wasn't true for a long time and/or I never had a testimony. I know I can do nothing about my 4 tbm kids. I will not win them over because I am their mom. And I don't care about dh to much...although of course it would help if he also realized the truth. From this day forward (I'm afraid I might need to say that more than once) I will only worry about myself and my 2 youngins' Everyone else are adults and will do what they need too.

I'm glad you found the information to free you from a nasty cult and I'm glad you're here.

I heard an interview on PBS the other day. It was a prominent Christian minister in Atlanta, married & divorced, adult kids who finally "came out" to his congregation. His ex-wife had known about his secret even before they married. She finally convinced him to be honest with himself and his congregants.

He said that he had always been troubled with insomnia, his entire life. But the night after he told his church about his secret, he said he slept the whole night peacefully for the first time in his life.

His sermon began by saying that the Lord had impinged two times upon him during his life. One time was by giving him the "call" to the ministry, and the other was when God made him gay. He said that part of the congregation got up and walked out as soon as he said that. But that others told him afterwards that if HE felt that God had made him gay, they were going to have to rethink their beliefs about gays.

I found it very interesting.