Posted by:
Woman's Intuition
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Date: January 20, 2011 10:47AM
* I tried to post this on the biography board, but it wouldn't let me...but I wanted to share my story. I have been lurking here for quite a while, and decided it was time to get involved.
First off, I want to say how happy I am for sites like this. I was BIC but have not been active in the church for almost 5 years now, and for a long time, I was just happy to leave it at that. However, just this last year, my previously TBM mom finally found out about the bogus lies the church was selling and realized that her world was crashing down around her. Because of this, she began to talk to me about all the problems with the church that I did not “know” before, but had always suspected. This brought me here and made me realize how happy I am that I did not waste my life in the cult.
Growing up, my family went to church every Sunday and participated in all church activities. I grew up in Utah (Provo until age 8, then St. George) so the church was just a way of life for us. Both of my parents families were TBM and there were only a few inactive. Looking back, one of the first times I began to look at the church in a bad light was when I was eight. My parents were going through a very rough time in their marriage and my dad had moved out. They were talking about getting a divorce. I, my mother, and my older sister had gone to Colorado to visit my mom’s sisters and parents, who were all uber TBM. While there, we had a FHE together with all the cousins and grandparents. During this FHE, we sang the song “Families Can Be Together Forever” and my heart broke. I knew that my family was being torn apart and that we would not be together. I ran out of the house and went onto the side of a hill to be alone. I remember feeling such anger and sadness towards the church and the lie of the forever family. This truly was my beginning out of the cult.
Fast forward a few years into YW. I began to see the cracks in the organization when I realized that we were only to be taught to obey our husbands and live our life through them. My parents had divorced by this point and I began to wonder “what if you had no husband?” and came to the conclusion that the church would never consider me, as a female, worth anything. I began looking at the fact that the church says that it was a “perfectly restored gospel”, but had learned that there had been many changes since the beginning. If the church was “perfect” at its formation, why the need for the changes? The biggest two for me was polygamy and blacks holding the priesthood. I couldn’t understand how a god would restore a gospel and not know that what would change in the future. The timing of the “revelations” to change those two policies also seemed very suspect to me.
During seminary in my 10th and 11th grade years, we were studying the Bible. It was at this time, that I realized that the church did not worship God of Jesus like they claimed, but worshiped JS, BY and the other prophets. I remember sitting through church one week and counting the number of times God/Jesus was mentioned versus one of the prophets/apostles…I’m sure you know who one that count! Around that time, I really wanted to get a job, so my mom relented and told me I could get one where I worked weekends~ no more church!!
From the time I was 17 until I was 23, I didn’t really have too many dealings with the church. I had gone on and married a never mo (his family had been mormon, but had left the church when his mom was pregnant with him). I decided that I wanted to go back to church with my three boys that I had at the time…to give them a good foundation. Since I had never gone to any other church, I went back to my local mormon ward. Within about two months, my husband was baptized and soon received the priesthood. We stayed active through the next two years and even had my daughter blessed when she was born. I did have my oldest son baptized (a decision I regret now), but the way the ward members treated my husband that day, was horrible. The bishop told him that he would not be allowed to do the baptism, even though he held the correct priesthood, because he worked as a bartender. He did not drink and for all intents and purposes, we were living the “good mormon life”, but the job was good money and allowed us to keep our kids out of daycare. Slowly, we began to find other activities to do together on Sundays, and church began to fade out. Since that time, we have had the missionaries show up at our house and the occasional VT or Primary love bomb. I gently tell the missionaries we are not interested, and the letters go right in the trash.
I have no desire to go back to that place ever again. My children do not even remember going (thank goodness) and now that my mom is out, they will not be getting any church direction from her. My dad stopped going to church around 10 years ago (I’m not sure he ever truly believed) and is now a practicing Shaman.
Although my exit was not as traumatic as some, I still have very deep seeded negative feelings for what the church has done to my mom. My sister, who is gay, also left the church when she was 17, and never looked back. At this point, many of my cousins are also out of the church and I have the feeling that there are many relatives who are just in for family reasons…I hope someday they too will figure out the great farce the church is. I realized that I too could have fallen into the trap and gone onto become a TBM. I’m glad that now, I have more than just “feelings” that the church IS NOT TRUE, but that this intuition has been backed by the evidence that you have gathered….
Thank you