I was obedient. I followed the rules, did as I was told, and mastered being "perfect."

It's interesting how imperfect I really am. I've fucked up over and over again trying to figure out my new "rules.". Leaving Mormonism shattered my foundation, but I'm slowly rebuilding my own and in the long run it's so much better.

So what kind of Mormon were you?

I was the odd-man-out mormon. My sister and I felt we never really fit in with the other kids. Our mom worked full time and went to college. We never did family home evening, never had the right clothes, could never seem to figure out which book to find the relavent scripture in (though we did notice the bible wasn't used nearly as much as the others) and didn't really care either. We sat in back of class, we scowled, we whispered, we drew naughty pictures in our church bullitens.

One thing I find funny...another girl in my class used to join us in our little outcast group. It was quite the scandal because her mom was YW's leader and dad was bishop. She eventually married a RM and now they are both atheists just like us! I wonder if we recognized it in eachother, even then.

I was a pleaser. I learned how to watch,adapt imitate "positive" behavior. I learned how to be the perfect liar. I learned how to suppress my needs and feelings. I learned how to be a perfect follower while thinking I'm a leader. I was submissive. I was unable to draw appropriate boundaries where needed. Example: interviews-- sex questions are none of the interviewer's business. I was a mo that has no idea who I am.

I'm that discovery phase too. It is an interesting place to be.

Same same. Tried so hard to imitate, be "righteous" whatever the hell that means, be obedient etc etc. Didn't understand healthy boundaries either. So confusing.

I've been out less than 2 years and just starting to feel somewhat normalized.

Because I wasn't kewl to them.

I also got in trouble a lot for the questions that I raised in class.

Oh well.

Like this one:

Heather, if you've really "fucked up" over and over again with a new foundation - do you really think you've given up your Mormon perfectionsism?

Don't you think you can cut yourself a little slack?

Maybe it's not about the destination, but the journey?

Maybe they aren't "mistakes" so much as just "shit you needed to learn?"

WHY

That little three letter word is a swear word to bishops and stake presidents. I used that word a lot. They weren't too thrilled about it.

Usually the answer was, because I have a penis and you don't. Of course they have all kinds of code words for that. I wasn't supposed to break the code.

I was the perfect little Mormon boy to the public, but when nobody was around I was a little rebel. I chewed tobacco, drank a little, I loved to pet with the girls(even in the church during MIA) and I swore like a drunken sailor. I got very good at being two different people and that carried through until I left the church about 10 years ago. I even did it on my mission. I graduated 4 years early morning seminary and I drove the teachers crazy with my questions. I asked things like where did the dinosaurs come from, where are all the artifacts from all those wars in the B of M, why isn't there any evidence linking all those ruins in South America to the B of M, etc.

Yeah, I knew the church was bogus way back then but I was also a pleaser and I stayed and went through the motions until I just couldn't deal with it any more. When I finally left I still didn't tell my parents for several years and when I finally did my parents drove me crazy until I had to tell them to just back off or they were not going to see me any more. I love my parents dearly and I always have but they got to the point that I had to tell them that either they stopped with the church crap or they were not going to see me again. Now my mom lives with me and my wife and we get along just great.

So I have never been a TBM in the strict sense of the word. I went on a mish, married in the temple, blessed and baptized all my kids, and ruined all but my youngest children's lives trying to raise them by church guidelines, but on the inside I never believed it all no matter how hard I tried.

Did I write this and then forget?

There's a lot of us out there, just like this.

I was also a rule following stickler and a pleaser until I graduated high school.

Then I became a Jack Mormon.

Mormonism puts ppl like me (always questioning) in a tough spot.

Ppl like me 'always' want to know the details.

I shoulda been an atty.

I was a "never believed from the very beginning" type of Mormon. Never read the B of M or Bible. I just went along for the ride.....until I got ordained an elder...and never attended one EQ meeting....

I was the girl openly snickering at the
evil molly mormons when they expounded on their
spirit-chew-awl-girls camp ideas while they simultaneously
tortured the less Molly girls for their "inferiority"......
I was the 15 year old sleeping out in the family van during church......
I was the young mom who prayed her kids would start crying so I could leave whatever mindnumbinglyboring
meeting I was in.....

The worst kind. A total hypocrite.

I was having sex more days than I wasn't. I sought out the girls I knew were shaky on their testimony, heavy on sin but still acceptable enough to the bishop because they would lie or present themselves a certain way, and would "date" them. I would drink pretty heavily with friends in college. Was making fun of the church and even mocking a lot of the doctrine.

I didn't have anything resembling a testimony--I knew it was false from the first time I ever read anything about it. A con artist founded this church for fame, prestige, and ultimately what every young man dreams of--lots of booty.

Didn't serve a mission, and came up with countless lies for why I couldn't go. Presented them in such a way that I was never ostracized, and I think once I was endowed, most people FORGOT that I had never gone. It also helped that I spent years in a YSA ward where MAYBE 10% went and actives numbered even less that that. Counted one Sunday where we had 12. TWELVE!

Never tithed because I leveraged my position as a pilot in training to prove I was never earning money and only losing it.

On the other hand, I was an animal in church. I shared my testimony almost every month. Kept it funny, amusing, and faith-promoting. Made the other members love me. Talked the talk and walked the walk. Wasn't "obnoxious" but the fun, enlightened guy who still was quite orthodox in his doctrine, all the while treating every one as an individual (that wasn't all fake, I really believe in being there for people who need it). I had very extensive knowledge of scripture and Israelite practices (in addition to aviation, I also majored in religious studies and focused on the Old Testament). I was asked to speak quite regularly and people always seemed to love the talks. My temple attendance was off the charts.

And I was lucky that I was born with the right appendage, which makes all the difference in the LDS church. The right haircut. The right clothes. The right height and body shape. Charming. Very athletic. Very persuasive while still appearing "meek." Helped to reactivate several less actives when I was ward mission leader (that one still haunts me today). The bishop just thought I was the greatest thing ever. I got an unusual Patriarchal Blessing (and bear in mind, I had to wait until I was 22 to get it, before I went to the temple--I converted at 18). It said that although I wasn't BIC and came from the outside, I would rise up to extremely high levels of leadership, in a way that I would find out was less conditional than the average patriarchal blessing. I still have the personal letter sent by the patriarch to me that said in his twenty years of performing the blessings, it was one of the most powerful and spiritually filled experiences he had yet seen. I was what the Mormons liked to see in every way, shape, and form.

Ironically, my recovery from Mormonism is a recovery from the very distasteful person I was, really starting around age 14 and ending with my exit from TSCC two years ago. I commented on someone else's statement that they think many of the Big 15 are sociopaths, and I had to agree. I think in a way, I was too. Maybe not to the same level, but the lying, the identity that Mormonism gave me--I was addicted to it. I loved my position, I loved that people looked up to me, I loved that all the while I was playing a game and winning it. I was a total hypocrite and saw NOTHING wrong with what I was doing between the sheets Saturday night and my railing against it Sunday morning. Maybe I really felt that way. Maybe subconsciously, I really hated feeling as weak and fake as I did.

I hate that I did that now. In all other facets of my life, I had always been a brutally honest and ethical person. In just two years, I've come so far since getting out of that cult.

I don't think you've "fucked up," Heather. You've been controlled, manipulated, and lied to for a LOOOOONG time. Undoing that is a really long process, and you basically have to try everything out to see who you really are as a person. Life can be quite easy when you let other people turn you into their little canvas, but being your own person is a long journey filled with a lot of life's lessons. You got a later start on that than most people--but you're going to catch up quick. Just enjoy it--and know that there's no overbearing leadership that will judge you or punish you for ANY mistake you make from here on out!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2012 02:59PM by flyboy21.

Hell. Flyboy, I was always looking for a sinnin' Mormon girl like that but had zero success so I started looking afield and fell in love with a nice Catholic girl....

.. there's a LOT more of 'em. More and more putting off marriage to a later date, going all the way through college, getting jobs, and even--gasp--having careers. At BYU? Not so much, I would guess. There are still a good several hundred other colleges and universities across this great nation that LDS girls attend, where the pressure to be perfect little Mormons isn't quite so high. Where a brief, errrr, vacation from the LDS church is possible, and no one EVER has to be the wiser.

If you were looking for a phone number, well, I can help a fallen brother out... ;) Are you from Lethbridge, AB? One of my best friends in the whole world hails from Shelby, MT--used to go to the dentist up there. I'm in your neck of the woods at least once a year. Beautiful country.

You're a charming, athletic, exmormon pilot?? Uhh...if you're ever around Alberta, you need to give me a call. ;)

Cool, pretty and popular Mormon not paying attention to anything. The calling I've most frequently had is YW Pres. Put together and obedient enough for leadership but not so obedient that I was off putting and weird. Most of my days as a TBM revolved around social stuff. My husband and I were well-liked and respected in every ward.

However, something made me stop, breathe and open my eyes and once I scratched the surface I was like WTF!?!?! Goodbye!

However, they tried and tried but I remained true to myself. Okay, I followed the rules on WoW, paid prayed and obeyed within the bounds of what I considered decent, necessary and thankfully chose to follow my own path, weaving my way around the chains that could never bind me, or catch me.

I did the unforgivable, got an education, a career and delayed marriage until I was ready at 23. The priesthood disapproval didn't phase me but made me question the wisdom of the cult's ideals and attempts to stifle one's basic humanity and hunger for learning.

The bishop told me I was a 'maverick' and he was right.

I'm pretty much the same now that I've rejected the church. My standards are every bit as high as they ever were (despite my love of the odd vino collapso) and therein lies my reason for leaving the mormons behind as an old and worn out chapter of my life.

The church is one huge lie piled on top of a heap of nasty.

I'd like to add, to clarify, when I was growing up in Lancashire, England, mormonism was just a back-room religion. I knew a handful of families who converted about the same time as my mother but these families emigrated to the US so the figures over here in Lancashire remained low. My own family, father being a non-member, had strong family roots here and father's work took him Eastward rather than Westward so we remained. As I grew older more Americans joined us and I always wondered why they took themselves so seriously. I subsequently found out why.

I was really raised in a mainstream Christian tradition with tinges of mormonism (what I call mormon-lite). I never realised that mormons set themselves so far apart from other religions, to which my main friends and peers belonged. We just thought we had a purer strain of what others had with some extra scriptures. There were times when I told my friends this and risked the friendship, then I learned never to mention that I was 'different'. When one is 12 years old it isn't wise to hang up one's coat with JWs and Christadelphians amongst mainstream folks.

Briggy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2012 03:29PM by brigantia.

Most of the time I was a good TBM, but whenever I noticed conflicting pieces of dogma, I had the annoying habit of bringing them up so my concerns could be resolved. It was not appreciated, and remembering things is frowned upon in the church.

As a child I was sure that I was evil. Pretty sure that the second coming was around the corner and I was going to be burned for being a bad person. I got older and decided that if I was going to be punished for evil then I better have a good time doing it. As a young adult I couldn't figure out why I couldn't bear my testimony. My mom and her family believed it to be true and she was smart so therefore I must not be seeing the picure. At Ricks I made it my mission to release as may people as I could from their beliefs just because that place was so annoying. Then I grew up and realized my mom wasn't always right, so what else was she wrong about? Long story short, just about everything that I was taught to belief. I would say this makes me an absolutely terrible mormon.

To other mormons, I was the good girl who never broke the rules but had knowledge of worldly things.

To non-mormons, I was the good girl who they were always shocked to discover was LDS.

To myself, I was the good girl who never quite fit in.

I was the ugly duckling. Always wearing the same dress, bad hair, chubby, and so conditioned to just shut the hell up already that I had zero social skills.

I'm the one the mean Mollys liked to ridicule and "make over" with bad clown make up when they had already mastered the smokey eye look and cheekbone sculpting.

I figured out fairly early that all the adults were just fucking with my head in many ways, and most of my peers were too. That included everybody at church, making it something I didn't want to belong to.

When I fled home at 18, I set about making up for lost time. Trying to socialize myself with real people who didn't have an agenda. Trying to maintain the scrap of myself that made it out from under the oppressive thumb that was my adolescence.

I'm still backwards enough socially that I may genuinely be someone with asperger's syndrome... But at this point, I blame my upbringing. I am frequently amazed at some of the stuff that comes out of my mother's mouth directed at me, my sister or her children... designed to put an end to conversation.
"You sure do talk a lot."
"Oh, that doesn't interest me at all."
"I think I'm needed in the other room."

Gee, wonder why talking felt like a waste of time for so many years? Unless it is relating something unfortunate she can gossip about, or church related, she's totally not interested.



I bet most of you knew a poor unfortunate soul like me. Guess who I grew up to be?

A swan.
Suck it Mollys! You're all fat with seven children now. There really is something very true about those who peak in their highschool years.

Hell yeah, swan! Love it!

Very true about the swan. I know of many individuals from my high school who are just pitiful to look at now. They thought they were god's gift to everyone and now they have nothing to show for it and I'm sure they wish they could go back to high school and re-live their lives. Me, on the other hand, I'm like wine, I just keep getting better with age.

I had to present a good Molly image to my TBM mom and the ward members...except for my Mo friends. I watched both of my sisters rebel and subsequently get thrown in a loony bin more than once, so I learned from that experience.

I said and did all the right things, but I realized lately I never truly believed it. I did what I wanted with my non-Mo friends and kept up the image until I left home. I wnet balls to the wall after realizing how much freedom I finally had.

However, Staying in a constant survival mode and being two different people can really mess your your mental and emotional health.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2012 04:22PM by Itzpapalotl.

Mormonism requires duplicity of everyone because no one can ever truly meet the ideal. It's a wonder more of us aren't crazy

sd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mormonism requires duplicity of everyone because
> no one can ever truly meet the ideal. It's a
> wonder more of us aren't crazy


+ 100,000

It was schizophrenic. I tried really hard to believe, and often succeeded but in the end I found myself always filled with doubts. And since I've always been a lonely guy I spent alot of my time trying to figure out why, unfortunately mostly beating up myself about it.

For example: How do you really know it's the holy ghost? You feel a warm fuzzy feeling! But how do you confirm that what you feel is really the holy ghost and not just feelings? This problem drove me almost insane sometimes in my childhood, what was wrong with me that I just couldn't trust in the holy ghost?

The only way I managed to believe in mormonism was by being so liberal with it's doctrines that it became something else, and then I was filled with doubts again because I realized what I just did.

It wasn't my intention to be sceptical of stupid things like Noah's ark or obvious circular reasoning like the holy ghost, it's just how my brain is wired. Too self-conscious and too unwilling to accept absurd claims. I'm much happier now when I consider that to be an asset rather than a liability. Well, too self-conscious is still a pain in the butt but it can be useful sometimes.

I was the perfect TBM. Never missed a Sunday or activity, always bringing up "spiritual points" in class, always volunteering for anything, tithing paid, in the youth presidency all of the time, member of the words choir. It was exhausting. The family I grew up in was "the perfect family", everyone loved us, I had to uphold the family name. I never did anything wrong in people's eyes.
I bore my "testimony" all of the time, and once shocked everyone at girl's camp when I talked about how much I struggled with depression. Nobody had any idea because I was "always" happy and smiling. I didn't realize it at the time, but the reason I was depressed because it was hard to keep up the facade of the perfect person. It was all too much. Since leaving the church, I still get depressed sometimes, but I've actually found it has lightened so much! I am much happier now living my life on my own terms.

I was the type of Momo that questioned just about everything, but it was thoughtful questioning. I just had to understand things in order to believe in them, so I got a lot of run-around when I asked questions. I tried to fit in the best I could but I just could not relate to the other TBM's. I was definitely the odd one in all of the TBM groups. Got made fun of because I adhered to science and asked questions that made it sound like I was in opposition to the Church. How silly I was to let those low-lifes get to me.

I didn't think I was a particularly good kid at the time, but looking back, i can see that I was.

I didn't "know" the church was true (I kept my lack of "knowledge to myself, though) but fully believed it to be. I was never unkind to anyone and followed all the rules to the best of my ability while most of the youth around me had one standard of behavior at church and a different one everywhere else. I wasn't judgmental toward my peers. When I went off to a church university, I must not have had enough of the molly vibe going, because the girls who didn't know me treated me as though I was a major infidel. Those whom I knew personally were nice enough. It was almost as if, unless you were a bona fide Lamanite or Polynesian, dark hair was a sin. Maybe. I'm really merely speculating as to why I didn't fit in while I was a part of the church.

I was a nonconformist who believed that God really did talk to JS. So even though I didn’t like being a Mormon, I had to do it so that I didn’t go to hell.

I was a pretty good looking guy, so I got away with a lot of my nonconformity by being kind of popular, and somewhat charming. I was always only a counselor in the Deacons/Teachers/Priest quorums. I was never kiss ass enough to be president.

I would ask questions that shouldn’t be asked in classes, make comments that shouldn’t be made etc. But I would usually do it with enough humor or sincerity to get away with it. My Priest advisor commented in class one time that I should go into PR, because I could sell about any idea.

If a teacher was a hard ass, I’d push the limits past friendly challenges. I was asked not to come back to Priests quorum once by the hard ass science teacher advisor after bringing cookies for everyone. I kind of made a production out of it stating that if they have “refreshments” after firesides, I think we should have them for class too. So I hung out with a friend in the parking lot for about a year.

I usually walked a line that would leave Bishops and leaders have a bit of a smirk on their face thinking things like, “I don’t know about that kid” type of thoughts, but liking me.

I got married way too young. And then I was the guy who wasn’t an RM who had too long of hair and made the wrong comments in class; but did it in such a way that it would get stifled laughs from the others.

I later tried to get serious about Mormonism, going to the temple and such. But it didn’t work. I was still the guy that would ask the wrong questions. Say things in too nonchalant of a manner; like saying, “I kind of liked that Jesus hung out with hookers” during serious discussions about Jesus etc.

I taught EQ, I’d get a lot of compliments on my lessons, but I could tell that some were thinking things like, “He would give such great lessons if only he would stop saying...”

So in short, I thought I had to do Mormonism to not go to hell. I didn’t like it, so I rebelled by being flippant and challenging. I got away with it for the most part due to a certain amount of charm and likability. I left many thinking things like, “He would be such a good Mormon, if only he would….” I doubt that many were luke warm about me.

as humanly possible that is. Someone asked on this board before if there was really a "true mormon virgin." Yep. That would be me. Never drank, never smoked, never partied, never had sex, never even french kissed until a bishop assigned my gay boyfriend to 'experiment' to see if he could be married (I was 25). I was the 'golden child.' (But I also never fit into mormonism--as hard as I tried.)