I was reading Kolobians post about leaving the board to complete his recovery. It got me thinking. I've been out of the church for 27 years and resigned 4 years ago.

I would like to think that I've recovered from the brainwashing but I find myself coming to this board sometimes for entertainment and sometimes to reinforce the decision I made to leave. Does that mean I haven't recovered? I feel like I have, but the fact that I still feel the need to visit this board make me doubt that. Do any of you feel the same way?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2012 01:16PM by brett.

I consider myself fully recovered, but I need to do something to pass my "work" day.

This board helps me get my resentment towards how the TSCC lied to me and screwed up a large portion of my life.

It's helping me grow in ways well beyond that though...

I'm hoping at some point I'll be able to leave all things Mormon and exmormon behind me.

I'm a bit envious of Kolobian :)

But I'm here to stay a while.

I'm long past any need to "recover" from anything to do with Mormonism. I particularly like the humor on the board as it's a natural part of my personality and so important in our lives.

One of the reasons I post here is to share my story, share the principles I have used to get past the past, and get on with my life in a more productive, free manner. I've learned what it means to take my power back and own it.
It's a matter of "paying it forward" in my view.

I've long ago "Made Peace" with all of my life, includes the decades in Mormonism. I am one that knows the power of grateful for everything, forgiveness for everyone and everything, doesn't do regrets bitterness, resentment, hate, rage, etc, or anything else that will sabotage the joy in my life. I refuse to be bound to that negativity and give others that kind of power over me. Not worth the energy, in my case.

I was a young woman convert. I understand how religion- a belief in a deity and/or a savior is part of the core of our human heritage in almost every case. It's ancient, it's patterns are very nearly the same: they provide the same kinds of answers, social, familial connections, and comforts and rituals around the important parts of our lives like: birth, coming of age, marriage, death, etc. They are here to stay. Mormonism is just one of them, an American God Myth that has taken hold and has a strong heritage that will continue.

I live with and love Mormons, and always will. It's their life, their choice, it's about them, not me.
Mormonism has been part of my life and I will always be grateful for my friends, and loved ones. I have my family because I converted, including a nearly 50 year marriage.

Ammunition, baby. If you're going to fight on the side of truth you need a lot of ammo.

That question is for each person to answer individually.

I realized recent.y that I had been giving Mormonism too much power. Being on this board after I thought I had recovered helped me realize that.

T-Bone

I consider myself recovered, but still find this site full of good conversation and amusement at times. I think it's up to each individual person to decide what they are getting out of visiting RfM. For me - I still enjoy it.

Yes, I believe so. I consider myself recovered but I find myself coming back here from time to time. I've gone over a year without perusing the RFM board, but I always come back.

Trying to figure out why myself. I think it's mainly because there are not many of us out there. There isn't that many Mormons to begin with, and even less exmos especially out east where I live. So it's hard to find someone who can relate to how I feel about mo'ism other than you guys. My nevermo hubby & friends don't get it when I try to explain things. I even got sort-of offended by a friend who tried to tell me "I know I was never a Mormon but.. (get over it basically)." My response to him was "No, you never have been a Mormon." And we left it at that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2012 02:24PM by peglet.

I have been coming here daily for almost 8 years. I check in for a few minutes 3 or 4 times a day. Sometimes I don't stay long, just read the headlines, so to speak. And sometimes I get involved and I'm stuck here for over an hour. Not a problem, I'm retired, so I have the time. I like to read, and some of these people are very smart. Too many to list, but I love it here. I keep up with what's new from tscc and that sometimes gives me a one up on my TBM relatives. So,Mitsubishi all good, I'm recovered and I like it here.

Is there anything right now you feel you can't do because of Mormonism?

Being recovered doesn't mean forgetting the past, it's not letting the past interfere with your life.

Some people need distance for that to happen. Others need to talk about it more. Still others want to help people in the same situation they were in. And some just find the subject interesting.

There's no one person, one way. Anyone that says so is selling something.

"Being recovered doesn't mean forgetting the past, it's not letting the past interfere with your life."

That's an excellent point. I was thinking that to be fully recovered meant not having any interest in anything connected with TSCC. But it's true that it will always be part of my past, and there will probably always be a part of me that holds a passing interest in it. I'm happy to say that it hasn't had an influence in my life for a long, long time.

I feel like I'm mostly recovered (whatever that means) and I'm still here often, and I'm not going away anytime soon. This site is informative, entertaining, and helpful. I especially love it around conference time... I get all the 411 on what was said without me actually watching it. :)

I am surprised at the discovery of the tentacles of cult-think appearing in so many areas. These are covered often in threads here but include:

> how to parent without guilt, fear and authoritarianism
> rediscovering marriage or romance relationships
> excising self-loathing and the constant cult self-judgment
> how to find and make real friends
> replacing "truth" as the central axiom of a belief system or spiritual path

and so many others.

Often discovering that, once again, you were unwittingly damaged and f*cked over by the cult, can re-ignite feelings of anger and confusion. As others have said, this parallels the pride-cycle.

Discovery
Realization
Understanding/comprehension
Anger/betrayal
Resolution
Integration/accommodation
Evolution

This has happened enough times I have to wonder how deep the dysfunction goes. Personally, I have benefited from access to wise exmos to help process this sort of stuff, long after my need to hear again about shocking history has passed. Our dear departed Kolobian may yet drop back around.

I am still largely mired in the church--but I need to come here, because, as I tried to explain to my wife, there is no place or forum for airing grievances or asking big questions in Mormonism. I don't think that there is much to "getting past" the issues here or not needing recovery. To a greater or lesser degree, the only people that can understand your world view are people who have experienced the world like you have. I can't explain my Mormonism to people who haven't experienced it, just like I can't co-opt a black experience or a Jewish experience because I haven't been either one of those--I don't know what it's like.

It's easy for outsiders to agree that you've been hoodwinked, but it's harder for them to understand how or why. Identification can only come through people who have had the same experience, and for all of those who've ever been to a ward outside of their own, you know that it's the same, boring experience everywhere you go (which is, ironically, one of the church's bragging points). So, if I'm ever able to get out relatively unscathed (i.e., with my marriage and family intact), then I will likely still return, if for no other reason than to have people who know me shout "NORM!!!" when I walk through the door.

This forum helps me understand human nature, and not just mormons and mormonism.

Developing one's understanding of human foibles is a lifelong endeavor. And the knowledge gained is applicable across a broad range of activities.

I think we "heal" and as far as that goes, I'm pretty much done.

Timothy

I resigned in the 90's. I am recovered! I read this forum daily, rarely post. I like what the people here talk about. I can relate. I also read Joe My God, a gay website and I am a hetero grandmother. I like to read the discussions there. Go figure!

Serendipity! That's what I'm here for. I keep finding things I didn't even know I was looking for, and they are gems.

Plus, most of you make me laugh my ass off.

Many of us are here to help others recover.

Like Socrates2 said. I'm grateful there are so many people who have gone through what I just started going through a week ago! The support is great.

along with the good people that posted here, were all I had. I will always be grateful to those who helped me out when I had no one to turn to.

Happy to pay it forward.

I come to the board so as not to miss anything...I get more nuggets of information here than just about anyplace else.

Plus, all my family is still entrenched. I want to make sure I am on top of what is going on in mormonland.

Exactly. Since I was baptised and confirmed, but never really entrenched, I never had to recover. I am so grateful for that. But part of my family is, and I come here to try to figure out where their heads might be. My visits are especially frequent after temple weddings. RFM really helps me deal with it all.

I consider myself recovered. I've been here forever. I stay for a few reasons:

The entertainment value

Finding people who I relate to because we have a similar history

This is probably the only place I vent about Mormonism and religion in general. I am not confrontational in real life and generally do not share my views about religion

Here I can find others who lack religious beliefs. It's nice to know I'm not the only one when you live in the Bible Belt

I love the book recommendations I have gotten here over the years

The people I've met from RfM have been great and interesting people- a notch above the people I meet randomly everywhere else

I've learned a lot. Maybe something I can share can help someone else the way this board helped me many years ago

I continue to learn from other posters

I used to post heavily on this board about 6 years ago under another moniker. I was on RFM several times a day. I would post in almost every thread and started many of my own. Anything Mormon related made me a volcano of rage. I can say I am fully recovered. I visit this site, but mostly just read a few posts, and I can count on my hand how many time a year I post here.

Recovery is different for everyone, but I was able to finally move on and away from Mormonism. One day you will wake up and all of sudden you just won't care about Mormonism or what the church is doing or what lies they are telling. It just won't be important to you. I used to blame the church for many mistakes I made in my life like serving a mission, marrying/ having kids too early before getting established financially and so forth. Now none of it matters to me and I rarely get angry. It is liberating.

I just like knowing I'm not the only person in the world dealing with the fallout. I consider myself recovered in the fact that I am disenchanted and I will never go back. Also you people make me lmao and thats why I keep coming back

I do not believe there are any angels with flaming swords preventing a fully recovered ex-mo from visiting this board. Truth is, it never hurts to have a good laugh, and you will always be in on the inside joke that we all share.

I think you can be recovered and still come here.
I have to admit that I'm still pretty angry about the church's imposition on my life as a young child, but I've really needed this board to help me cope with having my TBM brother move in with us. Mostly because we have 2 TBM sisters who could've given him a home, yet it was us apostates who threw our doors open to him. It's been difficult because he attempts to indoctrinated our kids with Mormon rhetoric, and we are now on the offensive. The kids understand, though. They can see that he isn't happy & we are, so for now, I think that's enough. But it helps a lot to have this community here.

This board:
Laugh
cry
validation
vent
explain
information
laugh
cry
vent
explain
information
until you're done. Then come home to visit every now and again. Where else do you get this when it comes to being exmormon?

I think this is a really good question. I am a member of 40+ years, a non-believer for about 4. I find myself needing to talk about Mormonism less and less and yet I am still on the boards some each day.

Just this morning, I was telling my wife I feel the emotional need to get my name off the records of the church. Part of the recovery process as far as I am concerned.

I feel I will not be fully emotionally recovered until I do not feel the need to participate in discussions of Mormonism. At some point, if I can't let go of my anger, I don't think I have recovered.

I want the church to disappear in the rear view mirror, something that has not yet happened.

I was a believing BIC Mormon until I was 31, and married with 5 kids. At that point it FINALLY hit me that the Church was bogus (duh). There was no internet then...no support group for ex-mormons. I thought that I must be the only one in the world.

One of the main services that RFM supplies is letting others who "wake up" know that they are not alone--they are not "weird" and they are not a small minority. What they are going through others have gone through and are going through.

When the first 31 years of your life were Mormon that means that they built all your buttons, all your thoughts and attitudes, all your hopes and aspirations. They gave you your moral outlook and worldview. That is extremely difficult to just walk away from unscathed. To walk away from it in isolation is much worse.

So being an ex-mo is a lot of who I am. Someone who has not been through it can't really grasp it. So being part of an exmo community can continue after the recovery process has gone forward. Helping others who are going through what I went through is a big part of being recovered. That's why many of us old-timer exmos are here.

Yes you can be here after you've recovered. Where you CAN'T be, is at the wardhouse.

I think recovery has many facets. Personally I never believed the Mormon hogwash in the first place yet they called me a Mormon somehow anyways.
I don't know how I managed to slip into their records. I have since found fault with the entire conversion process. For instance, when they did the conversion thing on me they asked me if I believed Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I said "yes" but at that time I did not even know what a prophet was. I thought it simply meant church representative or "preacher". I did not understand that it meant one who actually officially communicates with God. There are some other errors in the conversion process that in my mind annuls the conversion process.
Then it turns into a battle of wills. They may insist that because I am on paper as one, I am a member. I have done things that would have me removed from their church since then. (as you can see I refuse to even talk like one eg "their church" rather than "the church"). They will never know about these things as my life is none of their business. I refuse to acknowledge that they have the right to force me to ask their permission to leave. I know darn well they will keep nasty records on me no matter what I do and that my asking them only acknowledges they have authority to force me to ask. I don't trust them as far as I can throw them. I rather enjoy mocking this church by being considered an inactive member but going quite afoul of it routinely.
But above all my perspective is amount of time wasted worrying about it. I feel I can argue that I am doing other people favors by warning them of it. But I can't argue that I am more concerned with saving people from Mormonism than any other act of kindness I might do for someone. Since I am the person that will give the stranded motorist a gallon of gas or help someone fix their computer, I can justify an occasional attempt to help someone out of, or to avoid Mormonism as well. But if I am obsessed with offering such help, I could not justify it in perspective of other acts of kindness I do without perhaps considering I am not 100% recovered.