I'll think, "Am I making a mistake?" When this happens, I literally have to stop and concentrate on the metal list of things I've learned. I've recently thought that I should actually write this list down. Visiting this board helps too, so thanks all for your posts. I may not comment often, but I lurk a lot. :)

I had to write it down too. It is certainly death by a thousand cuts. Too much for the mind to process. I have my copy ready to show DW, when she is ready. She knows I don't believe, but doesn't want to have the tough conversation.

I'll have to do a separate one for my leaders and nosy TBMs.

Yep, write them down in a journal. It beats the alternative which is one day blurting out "...you miserable bastard! You've ruined my life!!"... to no one in particular.


Ron

Just keep those big testimony-blasing facts handy whenever you need a booster.

The time it takes, is all up to you

and harrass, and gossip against you, and pressure you, and use your family to pressure you. Whenever I remember the cult's motives, I get freshly determined to not let them control and manipulate me. My life is my own, and the Mormons don't have the right to take away other people's rights.

Please, we would love to see your lists! I don't want to hijack this thread, but it would be really interesting, and encouraging, to read everyone's lists! I'll make mine after work.

Well, two lists for me: 1) LIST OF FACTS that prove Mormonism/JS is a hoax cult of lies, and 2) LIST OF MORMON ABUSE, like brainwashing children /grabbing money/breaking up families/using members, etc.

We want to recover, here! Hopefully, these wavering moments of doubt are just normal setbacks, that take place in any sort of recovery process. Stay strong!

I hope you know I’m kidding, (but that’s what Mormons think is happening), anyway it’s part of recovery, wanting to go back to the comfort of the lies we believed for so long. I do think the rewards of truth and reality are far better than serving a lie, even if it was a comfortable fit.

I'm very confident I'll never go back. The moments of doubt are easy to overcome and getting very rare. It almost feels like a mild panic attack, and once I think through my "list" I'm fine.

I'm a list maker! I make lists every day -- love checking stuff off! :-)

I made a list of how to get my self:Un-Mormonized in my initial stages. I have posted it several times. It helped me to be specific about the automatic thinking scripts that had been imprinted from over three decades of belief and practice in Mormonism.

This was part of my process of changing my self talk, and deleting and changing thinking scripts. It worked too!

The other thing I did was use Positive Affirmations to change my thinking to create my New World View. I personalized them in first person and second person and read a few to myself at night before going to bed. That helped also.

Each of us finds the method that works best for us.
Don't be afraid to try different methods -- you are creating a whole new world view and it's a huge paradigm shift so it will take some adjustment time.
Go for it!

...you'll continue to overhaul your psyche (a REALLY good thing!) and rescue your rational mind, which has been trapped by cultic Mormonism on its prison island, so to speak, and given only limited space to move around and exist/be a part of your conscious awareness.

If you search for posts done by me with links on this board... you'll have a long list of excellent online info. sources to refer to during moments of wavering. The list includes 'faith-disrupting' facts from official LDS Church sources. What kind of facts? The usual: Joseph Smith marrying other men's wives and teenage girls young enough to be his daughters, JS using a 'seer' stone and his hat to 'translate' the BoM (a real zinger from the July 1993 Ensign), and a lot more.

Go through the list, click on the website links, watch the online videos (linked in the post), and your mind will be so full of facts about the liar/charlatan/adulterer/pedophile JS and the chronically dishonest religious organization (multi-billion-dollar religious corporation for generations) that you'll come away wondering how you EVER believed in Mormonism.

The post with links also includes one to the website that discusses how Mormonism psychologically affects people and what they can do to liberate themselves from it.

Best wishes!

You just showed me up, Sweetie, by saying it better, with fewer words, and first. : )

wine country girl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> n/t

Most of us underwent brainwashing and it usually takes time and effort to recover from it.

Good job!

I have friends who used to be active JWs who have since left their "society." They go through similar feelings as mormons after leaving their religion/lifestyle. It happens to people of all persuasions who leave something that was an integral part of their lives.

One thing to keep in mind is that for every active mormon, there are a thousand other humans who aren't mormon. It isn't significant from a world perspective even though it may appear to flourish in our local culture.

Branch out... attend other churches, do some studying in world religions and mythology. Look at a globe; look at Utah, then the rest of the world. Utah is not the center!

This is what I think of mormonism, its members, and my relationship to it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_cave

Does anyone know people who have gone back? How can you unknow what you now know? What an awful pull and battle it can be.

It was the clincher for me because I asked the mishies straight up if the BOM conflicted with the Bible and they lied.

Was man created physically first or spiritually?

BIBLE

1Cr 15:46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. (New International Version 2010)


BOOK OF MORMON

Moses 3:7). And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created; but spiritually were they created and made according to my word”


Anagrammy

PS. That was back when I was a diehard Bible-believer, of course.

I had doubts and questions about a lot of things, not just Mormonism and it's teachings.

At times the two conflicted, and not at other times.
Much of the teachings from my youth meshed quite nicely with Mormonism, especially universal religious truths such as; what's not to like about "Love One Another."

I suppose, in a way, I adapted my two decades as a Christian into Mormonism quite naturally.

Go ahead. Have doubts and questions. I recall I had questions about the Bible when I was about 13, and got into a discussion with the pastor. He was a big condescending as he said I would understand when I was older. Hmmmmph! :-)

But it is not nearly as often or as scary. I'll tell ya though, it was a nightmare for about a year and a half, and then after that it began to taper off more and more. Part of the process is to recognize why you feel this way, and the rest of it is to know for a certainty that the facts which disprove the church are solid. For me there could be no room for error. It had to be proven false or I might end up in outerdarkness and lose my eternal family for my foolishness.

So I studied and studied rechecked and obsessed over information and when all was said and done it was really just a matter of accepting the conclusion.

And it is funny, because while I could very simply show you how and why the church is irretrievably false, or at least not what it says that it is, I still find myself wondering sometimes if I was wrong to leave it.

And yet all the chips are accounted for:
False scriptures-check.
Falsified revelations-check.
Lying for the Lord-check.
False teachings-check.
Obsolete eternal doctrines-check.
changing the unchangeable word of God-check.

Man is that he might have joy- fail.

In the end, I see it this way- if the church had been true, it became too corrupted to trust with my salvation.

Get the book by Marlene Winell, "Leaving the Fold." She is a therapist and expert on helping people get out of cults. Her book has suggested exercises, activities, and self-help methods for freeing yourself. It is not specific to Mormonism, but all these oppressive, controlling cults use similar methods and have similar effects.

I had doubts. I knew it was all bogus, but figured there MUST be something to it, right? Went back for 2 weeks and realized what a total waste of my life the church is. Never went back.

My most frequent fear-inducing thought was almost identical to yours. It was, "What if I'm wrong?" Did they somehow install that in our brains?

As if being wrong after making a sincere search for truth was the worst sin in the world ;-)


Like you, I had to just catch myself when I started going down that pathway, and remind myself why it didn't make sense.

Something to keep in mind is that your emotions are in a different, more primitive, part of your brain. Even if you intellectually KNOW the church is bullpucky, the fear of eternal damnation has been drilled into you and the thought of it may still start the adrenalin pumping.

Maybe you could find some thought to calm yourself with when those fears crop up. Or humor. Have you ever watched "Religulous"?

We keep having waves of fear and guilt long after we logically realize the whole thing is a lie.

This is what helped me...

I left at age 18 (BIC) because of the racist doctrine. Anytime I felt any wavering, I just asked myself if I wanted to spend eternity in a heaven with a racist god and/or people who had swallowed that garbage. ;-)

Worked every time.

Since then, the same reasoning has applied to both sexism and homophobia. Yeah... Not the kind of god/church I want anything to do with.

It really wasn't until much later that I even cared about the other numerous problems with the church. Pick an issue you have with the church that means the most to you, and ask yourself where you would stand on that issue even if the church WAS true.

Many decent reasonable people would refuse to contribute to a racist, sexist, homophobic organization even if some of its doctrine had merit.

I too have moments where I doubt my doubts. The message board, my research of the actual history, and my DH help me out. But, I'm not going to lie there are times when I think, "Sh;t, what if it is true? I'm screwed!" I don't want my DH to resign yet because of my doubts, and although I'm done I don't know that I'll ever resign. We haven't practiced or attended meetings, other than the occasional 6 month stint to keep a recommend, in six years. But it's just been in the last year I've come out as a non-believer. It's a hard and scary thing to come to terms with the lies & give up what I've believed for so long. And I've definetly mourned the loss of my religion. But I try to remind myself why I've left and the things that the church is doing now that I disagree with and can not in good conscience support & it helps.