I know there is a biography board and I may post something more thorough there. I realize given some of the politics on the board, this may be something of a hot topic, and I feel far more 'famous' (or infamous) than I wanted to be. But I think for some it may help bridge some gaps that could use being bridged.

I have been criticized in so many ways and then told I should open up. Oh the joys of groups. And I can see how it happened, and I can see why it happened. If I were not committed to working through some things I would not be here. So here are some core headlines as they may be relevant and I may add more here as the interest may occur.

I grew up in Mormonville, about as conservative as it comes. I grew up judging people like most of us have, for shopping at the store on Sunday, for drinking Coca Cola, for smoking, drinking and wearing outfits that were skimpy.

I was creative, and grew up in a non creative family, the oldest child who was pushed to be something of a protege to a father who was a scholar reading not only the Bible, but reading it in the languages it was originally written in. My mother had a history of abuse which was combined with the churches teachings in a way that made them even more conservative than many experienced.

I grew up with a certain religious schizophrenia. I could have a music album, but it was blacked out with a marker because the facial expression looked too seductive. I liked Motley Crue and was drawn to more rough music which of course was 'the devil' and I was magnetized by rebellion, and the 'cool hairstyles' of some of the local bad boys.

When I began dressing in more expressive ways, I disturbed the neighborhood. They tried to control me. I disturbed my conservative school as I would write Industrial lyrics in my calligraphy class. The seminary teacher told me it would help others if I cut my hair and would be good for their testimonies. I refused and stopped going to Seminary.

I found nightclubs and late night parties. My grades went down. I stopped caring. The more conservative they got with me, the more I sought refuge elsewhere.

I fled to a few major cities inspired by images from magazines. I wanted a 'cool life'. I wanted to get away from my stupid conservative parents. Friends died. Some overdosed. Some committed suicide.

I made money, but couldn't help but have it feel shallow as I sought 'the nice life'. There are fancier lives, but mine was enough of a rock star life, to see some things, and go some places. But I felt empty. I became self destructive. I found myself calling suicide hotline.

Somewhere in the mix of that I found Yoga and meditation. It helped me feel more grounded. It helped me have something to stabilize me. There was no real religion to it at first, but I liked going to shops for incense and they had books and cd's of chants and I went to a yoga spa.

Each element exposed me to something deeper that gave language to my thoughts and feelings, but some parts seemed strange and confusing or not quite right. I worked to find some sort of inner peace in my life, or peace with what I had been through, the loss of friends, the shallow friendships without real substance. A building serviceman dying of AIDS who I would chat with while I smoked cigarettes.

I had the ability to make money, but I was too depressed to work. Life seemed pretty empty. There was a financial catastrophe I could not have foreseen. A major break up occurred in my life. Financially I was destitute, or near enough, so I returned to my rather conservative home town and suddenly was around 'The Mormons'.

I suddenly faced all these bizarre religious questions and I hated the community. I wanted to move, but I was not in a good financial or emotional place to do so. Mormonism closed in on me. I went back to church for a bit. I met some nice people, but also could see plenty of flaws.

Then I heard some talk that pissed me off and I told my Mormon friends. They then said I was being negative (about how negative the talk was.) I left town, back to a major city for a while. There I spent time with a friend (I had known prior) who did Hindu rituals, simple things like lighting candles and doing chants.

I did a lot of crying, and raging about my life. The friend happened to have a lot of time off work at that point. He had explored a diverse body of religions. He was able to help me contextualize a lot of my own thought processes in relationship to other religions. At the time I was heavily interested in Buddhism, but learned it had roots in Hinduism, so I got curious about that. He had a fairly rebellious view on religion, unorthodox and encouraged a personal exploration of it.

But the tides changed. I ran out of funds. I was not in a good place to be working regularly. I returned. Back to Mormondom. I stayed for a while, would spend time with friends in the nearest major city. I would drink and smoke and there was more self destruction around. My body was getting burnt out and I didn't know how to process the self destruction I heard and saw around me.

Along the way I began to turn to 'spiritual, but not religious' books and 'recovery' books. Sexual abuse incidences came to light. Things I had in some cases known about, but had not considered the emotional ramifications of them. I got a crash course in sexual abuse as I fell further apart and spun through a dark depression.

I knew that the wild life wasn't for me, and Mormons seemed more sane than that, but also their own brand of insanity. I struggled between worlds. I was not mentally or physically well enough to function in any regular way.

Some Mormon ideas frankly felt more comforting for me, more familiar. There was a sort of nostalgia to them, like returning to my origin/roots - like fairly tales for a rather wounded child. There was a lot of comfort in them. But then all the God, devil things mixed in haunted me and I became more self loathing. There was no place for me in Mormonism.

I would vacillate looking for a social environment that fit for me. I didn't feel safe among the party crowd. I didn't feel safe among Mormons. I explored New Age circles, but they often seemed too 'fluffy' for me and like another form of inebriation.

A couple of friends of friends committed suicide. I started to take my own suicidal thoughts more seriously. Off and on over the years I had been studying psychology to deal with my own. I tried all sorts of alternative healers, and some things very much helped, at least for a time.

Along the way, even with my own wounds, as I struggled to sort them out, the thought processes became useful for others. I could at least point them somewhere that would help them. They could sometimes point me places that would help me. They made changes in their lives. I made changes in mine.

I met various folks sometimes Mormon, sometimes people online who were not Mormon. I developed friendships around the country and some internationally.

With them, I shared a lot of tears and anger with people. I listened to a lot of people. I often became the one who listened and listened and listened for hours to their issues, asking questions, listening as they talked through sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other things. I had time. I would sometimes work for money, or they would donate funds. I was the guy to call when someone was going through a hard time.

But in the midst of being the listening ear, it happened that like many parents, my needs took a back seat repeatedly to their's. I was helping them sort out their lives, but not necessarily sorting out my own. I felt stuck in some ways and didn't know how to get through it.

Partly I was helping people through things who were not sorting out what I wanted to sort out for myself. I found other friends who were sorting out more similar issues and it became more friendly and equal.

I realized partly in my case, I had things to sort out about Mormonism that were my own. I began looking at the Mormon stories podcasts, partly just to understand the Mormons that I was in relationship to. Partly to make sense of why I felt so different from them. As I did, I liked parts of it. My attempt to heal the rift, did somewhat, but brought up new internal conflicts.

My study of Mormonism started to give me cultural and familial roots. I related to them more than I had prior. I felt more connected. But then I also felt further disturbed by the theology and the ideas about valuing or devaluing people. It became more of an irritation. I would listen to Mormon stories partly because it would help deconstruct the paradigm, but it also seemed to construct the paradigm as well where it had not been prior.

I stopped listening to Mormon stories and looked for other online connection, but the anger about Mormonism (understandably) then had me feel more separate from family. I felt torn between worlds rather than just separate which was lonely.

I recently stopped a lot of the endless stream of phone calls coming in and people coming to me for support, because I wasn't holding myself together well. I turned to art and to the support group setting to try to make sense of me.

Part of me is very compelled by the history of Mormonism. That was NEVER something I expected. The history of Mormonism certainly has its issues, but it makes for compelling history. I felt rooted somehow knowing that Emma pushed a wife down the stairs who had a miscarriage. These people were not paper dolls!

My personal sense of being alive always seemed to clash with Mormon culture. Mormon history was alive with conflict and alive with Joseph having a bar in the home and Emma making him get rid of it or threatening to take the kids. These were people with emotions and passion.

Suddenly very one dimensional fairy tales because rich mythology for me. Suddenly while I may not belong in the church, I belonged in relationship to its rather messy history of convoluted people trying to make sense of the world around them.

I wanted at least my cultural roots - the interesting parts, if not my religious roots. I began to try to sift through what was good with the religion partly because I could see that there were things my family members had that I did not. I could also see that a lot of what they had seemed dead and depressing to me.

I wanted some of the structure after having so much chaos, but I didn't want the prison that structure could be. I didn't necessarily want to put them together in the ways others had. I wanted the baby from the bathwater I had thrown out.

I had not really felt much in life that I had had a home. I envied other cultural homes, and they could contribute something to me, but they could not contribute what Mormonism could in some ways. But they also did not hold all the emotions and past baggage Mormonism held.

So a lot of my strange attempts to sort some things out clearly are different than others recovery from Mormonism. Understanding that helps me feel less hurt and frustrated by some of the lack of understanding I have received here thus far, and of course not explaining where I am coming from directly also explains facets.

It is a process for each of us. Hopefully this in some ways adds to the collective, and if there is enough interest, perhaps I will write my story in some further depth on the Bio board, although I think I got some if not most of the essentials here.

Honestly it is clarifying and grounding just to write and that is perhaps worth all the pressure and conflict at least on my end to get to this point.

Here's hoping for at least a less brutal reception than I have gotten much of the time thus far.

I would wager to say, you are searching, but not for religion, or mystic methods, or even peace in agnosticism/atheism, you seem to me to be searching for the real wonderer. Makes the name fitting.
What you are searching for does not come from outside of you. But you need help, so you are looking for someone to help you the way you feel you have helped others.

Anagrammy is close, but I think not narcissism, I have something else in mind. A real psychologist would do more good than all the armchair psychologists on this board.




Haha, ok I get it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2012 04:32PM by WinksWinks.

No girlfriend(s), no wife, no children, no mission, no temple, no bishops, no interviews, no callings, no struggles which involve relationships with others in the church setting. No real exit story.

You say you were heavy into Buddhism yet you posted the worst post I have ever seen on the subject.

You say you belong in the world of Joseph Smith, Emma and the bar in the home because of the drama, that the one dimensional fairy tale for you became a rich mythology.

You may be a New Order Mormon. They are the ones struggling to keep opposing views in mind as both true. Based on this post, I would say that may be the problem with you here on RfM. Most of us quite frankly understand the family reasons that keep people in the church, but most of us have made a choice to leave, or are considering leaving in order to lead authentic lives.

You don't mention a family and said you left long ago, so you are choosing to stay. You won't get support for maintaining your cog dis here. That group posts elsewhere.

Anagrammy

Who died and left you in charge here?

Since when do you get to define everyone's experience?

How old are you?

How long has it been since this part of your life: "I fled to a few major cities inspired by images from magazines. I wanted a 'cool life'."?

Thanks.

I dont think I've commented on any of wonderer's posts, But I've read a few.

I don't usually get involved with judging people...........I freely admit, I was one of those who was fooled by that tart, last year, with the sob story about bringing her TBM sister out.

but this doesnt gel. it doesnt ring true.

he's an outsider party animal.....he 'fled to a few major cities'.... he has a capacity for making money, but doesnt even hint anything about 'a job' [is he a counterfeiter?]


That's my last comment at/about this poster. I'll go back to lurking on his posts again and keeping my thoughts to myself. I dont plan to get played by another storyteller

I agree. It reads like fiction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18Sua_QTDs0

yeah sucked me in too!! i also am seeing a lot of vagueness here...it may be for privacy reasons...but i hope it aint "stormy skys" again!!
justa sayin!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2012 05:45PM by bignevermo.

I am not going to church regularly, so I am not choosing to stay in that way, but you may be right, the 'new order mormons' may be a group worth me checking out.

I posted what you say is one of the worst posts on the subject of Buddhism, but it was one post and I have posted other posts on it, and in the context I was probably defensive and wounded, and feeling admittedly scattered. Plus honestly I just didn't feel like going into more depth on the subject. It is not really where I am currently working through things. In that way I may be recovering from Buddhism.

In my situation I have elderly family that I am concerned about which keeps me more around some things than I have shared thus far, and some other nieces and nephews. I guess I am looking for bridges or at least to explore that option vs. walls.

I will check out that group and see if it further meets at least some of my needs.

Cheers.

EssexExMo

I didn't hint at having a job? I had a consulting job when I was in the cities. I currently am between projects. I have done various forms of freelance.

I guess that is why it doesn't sound like a 'job' is hinted at. I don't work a standard position. I do art. My work has been various forms of specialized support for the last number of years. I am vague given that this is a board that is public, and I would prefer certain things be private.

I was something of a partier, but it is more complex than that.

I don't know what you as a board have been through in the past. I don't know what someone else made up last year, or whenever else. I have worked to be as forthcoming as I have felt comfortable being in an environment that feels very hostile sometimes. But I am understanding further why.

xyz... I am older than 30 and younger than 45.

It has been a number of years since the cities, but off and on.

wittyname... It reads like fiction probably because I am holding back elements of the story like the specific details. Additionally, I will say that a friend said my life sounded to him like fiction and he thought I was making it up, then he met and talked to some people and realized it was not fiction.

There is something to me that is surreal when I tell the story and does feel like parts of it happened to someone else. Perhaps an element of disconnection to it given the wounds around some parts of it. Also I was trying to headline things vs. go into a lot of depth, so you don't get specifics about where, why, how some things happened.

That said, when I listen to other peoples' lives sometimes they seem surreal to me. So different. My life sounds like fiction to me sometimes when I look at it like that, and I left out a lot. Additionally I am studying fiction writing, so it may also have tints of the craft in the mix. My desire has been to fictionalize something based on the experiences - to protect the innocent so to speak and just to avoid further issues from people who lived it with me and/or those from their lives.

After sorting through it,
This is what I got out of your story.


I grew up mormon. My father is smart, my mother is mental. I was a rebellious teenager. I made some stupid choices, and so did my friends.
I want to be seen as a rich rock star. I can't seem to make that happen without having mental breakdown. I'm the creative type. I've tried other ways to be spiritual. People cry on my shoulder, because i've led them to think I can solve their problems. I've tried self help psychology in an attempt to fix myself. It hasn't worked. Mormon history is interesting. My life is a mess. I don't fit in anywhere. I want people to think i'm intelligent. I like to manipulate people. I get frustrated when I can't. I crave attention.

HAHA exactly!

This is not the best place to work out your issues.
I would suggest one or more of the following:
1. Your own blog
2. A diary or journal
3. A therapist

Who died and left you in charge?

Take your own advice.

I made some sincere suggestions, which wonderer seemed to appreciate. Get over it.

She wasn't demanding, just making suggestions. A personal blog would be ideal. Wonderer has personal issues to work out and treating RfM like a personal blog with allllll the posts and all the MANY posts babbling isn't helping him. A personal blog would be ideal for him, he could work his personal stuff out there and then contribute here in a style like most typical members. Plus a personal blog would give him a way to track his progress and go back and read his past posts all in one spot. Wonderer clearly has more to work out than exiting mormonism, and his posts here are bordering on using RfM as a personal blog, so why not get one.

As for the therapy suggestion, people offer that as advice all the time to people who obviously need some help getting perspective and getting out of whatever emotional chains they are bound by. Wonderer needs this. His issues are mostly beyond the help we can provide here.

Well, your story seems a little disingenuous and illusive after reading your previous posts.

I'm not sure you will be taken as sincere after some of your posts. Like EssexExMo, this clawed butterfly is going to lurk from a tree and keep her thoughts to herself.

Wow, thanks Mia. Maybe I should read your story and some of the others in the Biography.

I am not a rich rock star and I don't want to be seen as such. I was using the term as a metaphor.

I agree with the Bad Girl though... based on the comments, this is not the place to work out my issues. I am seeking other places that are more conducive to the issues I am dealing with, at least many of them.

I'm sorry that a segment of the peer group on this board has determined that their definition of what recovery from Mormonism means is too narrow to include you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2012 04:53PM by bc.

bc... I appreciate the sentiment. I am not gone, (yet?) but I do agree with some assessments that I should look for certain support elsewhere and some of the suggestions where to look for that support (even if I may look for some of that support elsewhere).

Obviously there are very different desires and paradigms and phases of recovery around on this board and many boards. Obviously what I am recovering from is part Mormonism and part other things and some of that may be better served elsewhere. Some of that may be beautifully served here, some already has been (somewhat uncomfortably) served here.

Sometimes one goes through a hazing and comes out a better person as a result. But my oh my what a hazing it has been so far. I do appreciate the support from those who are partially and/or fully supportive.

I obviously have a lot to work through and the agendas people have can vary extensively and the definitions of what recovery ultimately is or what it means as far as the process one goes through and what is acceptable or unacceptable in that process.

Cheers.

I call BS and am not following the wonderer anymore. The post was a lot of nothing. Sorry.

I find your story interesting because of the extremes. You grew up in an incredibly Mormon town where they said your hair was causing other people to lose their testimonies and your style of dressing disturbed the neighborhood. This is exactly the idea of Mormonism that some exmos and a lot of nevermos feel is a reality.

On the other hand, immediately after you left Mormonism, friends died from overdoses and suicides. You went so far towards the other end that you have probably partied harder than 99% of everybody on this planet. This is also exactly what Mormons think that exmormons do.

Part of me doesn't believe this story. If any of this is true, your experiences are easily the most extreme I have ever read.

wonderer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I MET VARIOUS FOLKS SOMETIMES MORMON, SOMETIMES PEOPLE ONLINE WHO WERE NOT MORMON. I developed friendships around the country and some internationally.

> With them, I shared a lot of tears and anger with people. I listened to a lot of people. I often became the one who listened and listened and listened for hours to their issues, asking questions, listening as they talked through sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other things. I had time. I would sometimes work for money, OR THEY WOULD DONATE FUNDS.

**********************************

So this is how you make your living?

Wonderer

I simply take what you've written in your opening post at face value. I have no interest in judging you, based on what you may or may not have written in other posts.

I'm a skeptic by nature, but not being god or thinking I can read your mind, I simply accept what you've written.

I really hope you find a place where you're at peace. The mormon cult tends to torture the human mind, and the effects of that abuse I guess can persist for a long time.

Please stay in touch and let us know how things go for you.

A friend.

Grey

When I was just coming out of Mormonism I was on a spiritual high of sorts and I thought I was going to enlighten the world with all my awesome wisdom which I had learned from all the eastern philosophies and science books I had studied.

So I came here and got my a$$ handed to me. Then I left for a year and came back with a slightly more humbled attitude, and realizing that I didn't know anything. I now admit I have far, far more to learn from people on this board (even the impatient ones with razor-tongues) than I have to teach. I don't think anyone needs to leave the board unless it's just not the right place for them. But you do need to know the ropes.

I try to participate. Sometimes I just plain need support. Sometimes I learn. Sometimes I share. Sometimes I still say stupid stuff and get a quick rebuke. But the latter gets rarer all the time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2012 07:32PM by kingbenjamin.

Wonderer-
I loved reading your story. Alot of what you say I can relate too but was not sure how to phrase it. Please don't stop posting.

snb...

You know it is interesting to me to hear you say my story is the most extreme you have read. I can assure you what I wrote is accurate.

However, the assumption that I personally partied harder than 99% of the people is actually not accurate and I will clarify that. I did not even drink much until I was of legal age. Then I did certainly have my head in a toilet more than once.

Some of the people I was around were certainly on drugs. There are details I could add. One of which was witnessing a rape of sorts while another person was on drugs. There were more times than once that I was the only sober person around I am sure. I can't remember every detail. But something like that may be better for personal interaction or in a longer story on the actual biography board.

My story included a number of things which for me were quite normal and a lot could/would contextualize other things. As I said, I am holding back. Partly I think it is a lot for me to make sense of, and even just writing what I wrote made me think that maybe it would be therapeutic for me to write the whole story. People have said I should write it before. A writer friend said he wanted to sit and take notes sometime of my past. He has his own rather complex past.

A lot of writers have PTSD and I have thought I may be dealing with some of that. As I say that I think that is probably something I need to realize is how much of my recovery is from my reaction to what I experienced outside of Mormonism.

The friends who committed suicide in some cases did so after I was no longer around them. The one who died, was one of the deeper places where I found emotions I never knew I had.

To you it is one of the more extreme cases, or I think you said the most extreme case you have heard. I can tell you my life was nothing compared to stories I have heard and witnessed.

I felt unsafe plenty of times. I went to jail at one point. (Thankfully not for long) A friend was wanted by the authorities. (I am holding back there or that could/would be much more dramatic). I was attacked at one point as a child and then there were other threats over the years. (in a Mormon neighborhood by Mormons who were in the local ward). I was jumped after a church dance walking home by others who were at the dance.

I guess that could sound like fiction to people. It is not. I had a bully apologize to me years later.

I have done some therapy and healing for these things which has helped. I have faced it in layers over the years. There is a lot clearly I have to work through, and I have been working it through for years. I often just deal with pieces of it at a time. So to lay it out in such a short way (which is clearly long for many) is actually for me strange to see.

There are reasons I have thought about writing fiction with it all. Partly because telling the details could/would make a lot of people angry. Our 'sweet little' Mormon neighborhood had a lot of secrets that were buried by the leaders with the best of intentions and consequences that a number of us have spoken about the last few years.

Grey Matter... Thanks for your support.

KingBenjamin... I am glad to hear you went through such things, and can appreciate it. The irony is that I am not sure sometimes how much I am focused on the Eastern stuff at this point anyhow. It all just went through a big odd reactive phase for me.

I have shared a lot with other ExMo's but I am usually able to gauge more where people are and I interact one on one, but the group dynamic for the conversations makes it a lot more complex. I have rarely interacted with ExMo's on the subject and I can appreciate more why it has been disturbing at times, but alas, my reputation has been established to whatever degree.

We shall see.

I would not have posted this story on the board except for enough people had said they wanted to know my story and then when I shared it some of those same people were the least interested and most critical. It has all been a learning experience.

jenn...

I am glad you appreciated my story. I am sorry if you can truly relate to some of what I have been through and in that way perhaps we share a kindred spirit dynamic. It is both sweet and sour to hear.

Summer...

My living has been made in diverse ways - some creative. Some less so. In spite of what some may assume based on my ignorance and fumbling through the board, I can be very competent in some crisis situations and people have relied on me for it.

I also have done some creative work with people that was well respected. (No Emmy's, Grammy's, etc... - referencing someone else's Emmy nomination mention on another thread). If I wanted to make up something I would certainly make up something better than what my life is and has been. That said, my work has been engaging and I have been fortunate. I have been paid extremely well at times and quite poorly at other times.