I'm not sure if any or many of you will remember me. I started a thread a few days ago asking "Is it REALLY a cult."

I am dealing with a lot of confusion about things. I just feel so messed up in my head.

I second guess EVERYTHING. And it's not just church related stuff I do this with either.

Sometimes, for example, I think I love my boyfriend. Then, I think, maybe I don't, maybe I'm just settling. Then I second guess that and go back and forth and round and round. That's just one example of something I do that with. I constantly grapple with whether or not I've made the right decisions/choices and on and on it goes.

I think I might have an anxiety disorder, and I think time in church may have contributed to it significantly.

I'm not really sure why I'm posting this. I guess I'm just wondering if others have felt the same feelings and what to do to sort through the craziness.

There are so many anxiety issues within my family. I found that being in the Church only made it worse. I'm feeling a lot happier and much more at peace in my life now. It's like having a huge burden lifted off my shoulders. There's a lot to be said for living a genuine life, where you're free to simply be yourself and there's no one trying to make you feel guilty for doing so.

I don't think I put an answer in the cult topic, but I'll add my take on that anyway.

I never used to think of the LDS Church as a cult, until one day while I was out for a walk with my Mom and our dog. I was going through the resignation process at the time, and coming up against a lot of obstacles from the local Bishopric.

My Mom said, "I don't understand why you're going through all of this trouble to resign from your church. When I walked away from the Catholic Church, I just left."

My answer was, "Well, that's because the Catholic Church hasn't worked really hard at bringing you back in again. They don't assign you Visiting Teachers, to contact you every month. They don't try to give you a calling, to keep you too busy to leave. They don't assign you friends to keep tabs on you, friendship you, or guilt you into returning, if the friendshipping fails to have the desired effect.

In other words, they won't track you down, for the rest of your life, trying to bring you back in." (I have friends who left in 1962 and they still have assigned home and visiting teachers contacting them regularly. They have no intention of ever going back again. They were only members for a few years and then decided it wasn't for them.)

My Mom said, "Well that sounds more like a cult." As soon as she said that, it was like a light bulb went off in my head. After years of defending the Church against such accusations, even after I'd left, I went, "It is! It is a cult!" and my thoughts about it changed from that moment onward.

"I constantly grapple with whether or not I've made the right decisions/choices and on and on it goes."

I think this is common for people who are questioning or have just left the church. It's like being out on your own for the first time without a parent to tell you what to do. For the first time in your life you are making decisions for yourself. It will get better over time as you gain more confidence in trusting yourself. I always had questions, but I put them on the shelf, because I always had an older wiser person with more experience to tell me what was right. Until the day I woke up and realized adults are just as stupid as kids and they don't know any better than I do. Make choices for you, decide for yourself and you will be ok, it will get better with each decision you make. Be true to yourself. In LDS culture this is seen as selfish, but in reality, you will never be happy or grow and learn without making your own choices and mistakes.

a cult OR some other kind of controlling/abusive relationship. Both situations mess with your autonomy and a your ability to perceive reality. So it takes a while to recover from that.

To be honest, now isn't the time to be making any important relationship decisions. Your whole world view just got flipped. You are probably going to be doing a lot of soul-searching, and you'll probably make some changes in your life. Give yourself plenty of time before you decide who you want to spend your life with. It took me a number of YEARS to sort out what I really believed and who I really was without the church. And to learn how to make decisions more easily.

I read a book on recovering from cult mind control and one of the very common things people have to go through is that they have trouble making decisions. Think about it - if you were deceived on such a massive scale as in Mormonism (because the church behaves like it has all the answers and expects all of you in return for the answers) then of course you are going to be hypervigilent about decisions in the future. And, you aren't going to be as confident in your ability to make good decisions. I went through the same thing for a while myself.

The good news is that it does get better. I'm slowly regaining confidence in myself and it's actually even better than the confidence I had previously because I did something so hard - stand up for what was right in spite of how family and friends behaved. I know I made a good decision and stuck to it so now that ability is returning stronger than ever. Hang in there and give yourself a break. You are brave and things will get easier for you in time.

The best thing I can offer you is the suggestion to take time getting to know who you are. This is not a short term project either. It's a long journey that will never end, however, you will figure lots of things out along the way. Maybe start with simple things, like what types of music do you actually really like to listen to? Not what you think you should like, not what seems cool, but what moves you? Next, think about the activities you feel best when you do them. A suggestion I read a while back is to get a notebook of some sort and start collecting images or words or ideas to which you are drawn. Don't over think it, just act on gut feelings. In time, things will reveal themselves. Like maybe you think you like subtle decorating colors and themes yet your notebook has lots of color and whimsy. Now you know better how you'd like your personal space to feel, what would better reflect your as a person.

If you are like me, I did not really know the answers to some of these truly basic questions about myself. And the things I did know, I did not view as being special. I'm still delighted when I have these definitive flashes of "I like (fill in the blank)!" The more I have learned about myself, the more I can trust in my decisions.

Embark on a journey of self-discovery! It can be so much fun!

called "The Artist's Way" by J. Cameron. It's not just for artists.

They start to turn left, then change their mind and start to turn left, then end up going straight, but slow to a crawl in the middle of the block, stopping at green lights, etc? We wish those people would just pull off the road until they figure out where they are and where they're going.

Maybe that applies to your relationship. Maybe you just need to put it on hold while you figure things out. Sometimes it's easier to see and understand a situation when you're not in the middle of it. With the boyfriend and other things you struggle with, let go of the feeling you need to make a PERFECT decision RIGHT THIS INSTANT. Give yourself permission to make the occasional wrong choice, because there aren't many decisions that are permanently life-altering bad. Mistakes can usually be corrected. Simplify your life as much as possible.

This may or may not apply to you but......

The kind of indecision you describe is a symptom of my depression/anxiety. Before I went on meds, I remember laying awake at night wondering if I should go to the post office first or the grocery store first in the morning. I weighed the pros and cons, made up my mind, changed my mind.....for hours.

Once I went on meds, I stopped doing that. Years later, that way of thinking came back, and my doctor suggested changing meds.

Just a thought.

When I went through my "black night of the soul" I found myself questioning constantly my decisions and choices. I began reading a lot of good "spiritual" stuff (not religious). Philosophy, New Age. poetry, etc. and found incredible wisdom in these writings and teachings of people who had no interest in converting anyone to their particular belief system - just musings and a more clear understanding about life.

I also realized that now it's like I'm not on the street corner trying to decide which way to turn or which way to go, but rather it's like being on top of the building seeing clearly the direction I now want to take - navagating through the streets, cars, people, etc. with a much more clear perspective.

Hope this will help you . . .

I took the fam to church yesterday (Xmas) because my best friend was blessing his baby. I thought "there's really nothing wrong with this service itself." Which was true- it was 70 minutes of Christmas- no harm no foul. Then I considered a major factor in why my wife and I dont do church. Fact is that when it is the "fabric of your life" the church is a horribly complex social order that invades your most intimate life. Is that something you want? We don't. And that's hard for TBMs to understand: "why don't they just want to commune with US?" I am divergent in any social structure or setting; the church is no place for divergent people. It doesn't accommodate for anyone who even slightly doesn't fit the mold.

Back then, there was no internet and no RFM. For the next 20 + years I constantly questioned my decision to leave. It was quite a mind-f**k to say the least.

Then I found this place. Can't tell you what a relief it was to discover that I was not alone. I had long suspected there might be others, but never really knew until 1998. Even so, it took a while to get over the fact that I had once belonged to a religious cult.

Most folks believe cults are few and far between and only crazy people join them. As it turns out, however, there are more than 5,000 cults in the US alone that are actively and successfully recruiting people of all ages and all walks of life. Mormonism is just one such operation.

I suspect your confusion stems from the fact that you were purposely deceived by so-called religious authority. Priests, popes, prophets and pastors beg us to give them our trust. It is and ought to be expected that said trust should be honored and respected. When that trust is violated, which happens all too frequently, it is only natural for the victim to feel used, betrayed, anxious, raped or any number of not-so-pleasant emotions.

That the perpetrators of these crimes take no responsibility for their actions and express no remorse for their deplorable behavior are clear signs that they are no more in-tune with god’s will than is the average garden slug.

Really sorry that your experiencing this horrible man-made bulls**t. Just hope it’s a comfort to know you are not alone.

Timothy



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2011 04:02PM by Timothy.