Posted by:
amos2
(
)
Date: May 08, 2012 03:32AM
I was a TBM right up until a precise moment- date/time/place...'nother story, but it was 2008
I went through a series of compensating layers, at first trying to fake it (or in my mind tip-toe through it avoiding what I objected to), then quitting sectist callings, then quitting all callings, then finally resigning in 2011.
I think anyone/everyone should be allowed (philosophically) to take as long as they need to, because the stakes vary. And, because it's a psychological shock and it takes time to compensate. You don't just stroll blissfully out of one universal paradigm into another. When your "testimony" collapses, especially if you didn't see it coming, you sit stunned in the rubble for a while.
My resignation is/was not without risk. I have a TBM wife who still thinks I'm just in a depressive phase, that my feelings about the church are from a dysfunctional youth in it. It's only been a few years. I don't know how this will evolve over decades.
Resigning is a commitment, because you can never really go back. Once you tell the bishop, your apostasy goes on your record. Once you resign, the church keeps a permanent record of it, including any suspected transgressions. Even if you wanted to come back to church, you're marked for life as having resigned. I'm sure you're ineligible for any prestigious callings.
You've got to be sure...
...but also I've NEVER been more driven to do anything in my life. It was an imperative, it was my own personal act of courage to proactively resign, to cast my vote by staking my name on it, permanently. It's a done deal. I'm an exmormon, and I do not regret it AT ALL.
IMO, there's no other answer. There's a strong temptation to try and salvage the good in mormonism, to get to the true core...but the damned sh1t is ALL fake/false, and you just keep peeling away layers, and when there are no layers left...there's no onion left. It's gone. The whole onion is an onion, not just the outer layers.