'you can leave the church, but you can't leave it alone'

'there is no success outside of the failure in the home'

'To him who was given much, much is required'

From my exmormon gay cousin, currently understudy on the Book of Mormon the musical, "You can't live 2 lives, just like the biblical scripture, you cannot serve god and mammon. You need to be true to yourself, but what you're doing truely is admirable. because in the sense of you're straight, white male educated in TCCS, you've got it made there."

I promised myself I'd never be an angry EXmormon, and now here I am, more and more finding myself angry, ostricized, and somewhat lost.'

I think I've come to my beliefs that I find scientific truth pure and honest. I do not believe in a god with a white beard hanging out on kolob eternally impregnating scores of women. I believe in energy. With these among other personal beliefs,I also find that I'm outnumber, lost, and outnumbered in my direct TCCS family. I CAN'T GO BACK AND WOULDN'T ANYWAY. My goal this year is to fully resign from the church. I'm no longer scared of hurting my family, despite how they have mistreated me due to religion.

I find myself in an incredibly exciting universe much much bigger and astounding than the morg teaches, yet still stuck in mormon guilt ties. I know in my heart I'm not going to hell, despite what TCCS teaches/brainwashed withme/family pounding in my child, teenage mind. I did EVERYTHING. primary, leadership roles, leadership mission roles, complete activity. Until after my mission I dissappered and started living whatever I wanted to life.

While living a very laissez-faire 20's, I hate that TCCS lie to the good people living the LDS faith. I hate how they play politics by secret covers. I hate they whitewash their history. And I hate that there is little I can do for my family to see my views. they never ask for my beliefs and that what I have given is considered rude and blasphemous. They've reduced me to a basically a lost member in my own life, with pretty much has left me with zero relationship with family. Further, I honestly have no idea what a real relationship with them would look like today. They're the type of Mormons that would stop wearing the makeup if the "so called prophet' asked it.

How do I find peace and validation in a family that I consider completely closed off? How do I stop feeling angry, when I feel duped and angry about the morg? Any suggestions?

I've found you can leave the church, but the church can't leave you alone.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2012 03:42AM by NewNameNeeded.

Sorry for what you are going through. But the good thing is that you are now standing up for yourself. YOU have chosen your path. If your family can not accept you find other people who can be a family. Friends, co-workers, people ont his site. No one should ever feel lost due to the way THEIR family treats them. If they make it clear you are not important now and they love their church more than you, then separate from them at least for a bit to see how you feel once free of the guilt they lay on you, etc. YOU may actually like it and realize it is their loss. Good luck to you and you are a wise person to not be scared of hurting people who have already HURT you for no good reason.

You are pro-truth. It is just an unfortunate truth that the deceived take the truth to be hard and feel that those telling the truth are somehow "anti-Mormon."

It just takes time, brother. Being Mormon is not like being Lutheran. It's more like being a Borg. Imagine if one of the Borg rips off that claw like bionic thing on his face--it might pull off a big chunk of flesh, right. And he might even lose that eye. But he would be better off as a free human making his own choices in life based on his own perceptions of right and wrong.

This is what is the worst thing about Mormonism: they take away your right to use your own conscience to determine for yourself what is right for your life. Shall I be baptized? Shall I go on a mission? Shall I get married at 18?

It is a cult which tells people what kind of haircut is "appropriate" and what kind of underwear must be worn, whether or not color is ok for shirts, and what you can drink in the morning after a night of not drinking. Yeah--you were jerked around.

But now you've pulled off the claw and your face is hurt, but it will heal. We are here for you and I encourage you to look to the future. There is an entire universe of possibilities open to you now! It is no longer a waste of your time to read books by the great minds of the past and of our time. It is not the despised "philosophies of men" that will lead you astray, but the pretended "revealed truth" of corporate executives milking you like a tithing cow while pretending to have keys to the kingdom.

No need to be bitter about prison once you have escaped. You belonged because people took advantage of your desire to be the best person, to be the best follower of Christ. Bad on them and good on you for a wonderful new life as a follower of truth as you see it.

The time you spent in Mormonism gives certain benefits. You appreciate coffee so much more than just the average joe (lol). Sundays are a special day in a whole new way. You connect with your OWN opinions and find our who the hell YOU are now that you are in charge. This is not to be underestimated. You are obviously smart--I'll bet you are witty and will enjoy getting to know the wisdom that you have inside you that's been suppressed while you were following the dictates of the gerontocracy.

Welcome to the world. It's not a bad place after all.

Anagrammy

Anagrammy

You don’t.

You have to look elsewhere: to non-family and non-Mormons / exmos. And RfM is a great place to look!

One reason why this website gets thousands of hits per day is because it takes time to recover from the anger, the sense of betrayal, and the guilt-conditioning. It can be a big help to express these feelings where one is heard by others who have been through the same thing and therefore understand.

You have lost a faith, a huge chunk of your identity, the love and good will of your family, and the support and respect of a large community, all at once. That’s a LOT to lose, a lot to be angry about losing, and a lot to grieve over! Be as patient as you can with yourself during the process.

You have taken the first step toward a life that eventually will bring you the peace you seek—a peace that is not possible to find as a blindly obedient sheeple to church leaders who have THEIR best interests in mind, NOT yours.

Congratulations on the courage it took for you to do this! Welcome to RfM. Keep reading on this site, and keep posting! Best wishes.

Welcome to a new period of enlightenment...here you get to use your ability to reason to guide you. It's a wonderful time.

"How do I find peace and validation in a family that I consider completely closed off? How do I stop feeling angry when I feel duped...?"

The correct response to being duped is anger. It serves a purpose in the short term. It can clarify how you really feel. Hopefully it will morph into something like determination later.

The church does serious damage.

The hard part is, that, many of us are here because of the family issues. Forty years after finding out the church was a lie I can still honestly ask, "how do I find validation in a family that I consider completely closed off?", just like you.

Don't look to get any more from your family than what you get now. Open up to realizing that you can choose a new family. You can find a true partner, you can have friendships that go deeper than many family ties. Don't judge those things to be less just because there is no DNA involved. People love their adopted kids as much as their biological ones, and your adopted friends can be the same. Throw the script out and write your own.

I have to choose all the time to continue a relationship with my ultra TBM family. A lot of the time I honestly don't know why I do it.

If you get it figured out better than me, I would love to hear about it.

I'm not kidding. It's like being nervous about not wearing garments or about drinking coffee.

Once we recover enough, we usually see that "being anti" is just a silly mormon cliche and mindstopper.

We can be so-called anti or not. There's no mormon highground to either course.