I still feel very blessed that I was able to make my escape just a year and a half after returning home.

I was fortunate to get into a college that wasn't BYU, and once I moved away, that was the last time I ever set foot in a chapel.

Home October 1991.

Learned the truth 2000.

Damnit. 9 years.

Formal resignation after BKKKP sneered October 2010.

Around 17 years.

Home: 1987
Left: 1997
10 blissful, glorious years. Um, not.

I left 19 years and eight months after getting home. I'm a slow learner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2013 03:24PM by stbleaving.

Apparently, I'm a slow learner...

19 yrs. 8 mos. to say, WTF just happened?
20 yrs. 2 mos. to lose 100% belief.
20 yrs. 8 mos. to 100% quit attending.

Returned home late December, had some drinks on New Years eve

Wow. You hit the ground running. love it.

Being a missionary sucked, but it sucked so badly I knew I had to run away fast so I would 't get sucked in any further

My "leaving" was a very long drawn out process that lasted about 5 years. Two of those five years I was on my mission.

I left for good about 1 1/2 - 2 years after getting home.

Only 30 years...and a lot of tithing.

I was inactive within about 5 years, but in many ways, that was just because my marriage was more important that the church was... I was a "believer", still reading the BOM, etc, for about 10 -12 years after that before my head finally cleared and I realized how much time I had wasted.

2006: got home
2008: attended church once a month to remain in good BYU standing
2010: no more contact with the church after graduation
2013: formally resigned

If I hadn't moved to Utah a few years after my mission I might still be LDS. But about 13 years after mission I was inactive and no longer believing. Working for CES accelerated the process. Six years more and I became totally disgusted and resigned officially.

Good gravy! Just realized it took 19 years to totally rid myself of the plague! I'm going to have a huge party on the day I have been non Mormon longer than Mormon. Unfortunately I have a long way to go.

It took me 2 years after my mission to secretly lose faith, and then another 4 1/2 years to build up the courage to leave and be public about it.

About 25 years, but that was before the internet, took about 2 years after being able to read about stuff I'd only heard about, damit. I feel very fortunate that I did it all bymyself, asking the questions then following them up, I am sooo happy to be out!

I lost faith 3 months in, found the courage to go home a month later, and now I'm on the 3rd month home. I don't believe, and I found out that I need to be more clear about things, because one of the priests asked for my help with the sacrament last sunday.

I promised to attend church until i go back to college in september. I'll probably resign around that time, or maybe even next sunday. Who knows.

I'm just lucky to be a NY mormon, not a UT mormon. People are far less judgmental and cliquish.

That takes guts. Good for you. And yeah, it would be a lot different going home to Utah instead of NY. Lucky.

I made the promise when I was still in the mission, basically just to shut up my companion. It doesn't take THAT much guts, because I'm still friendly with most of the people in the ward, and I haven't publicly announced my resignation. Soon enough, I'll find out who will treat me as a pariah because of resigning.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2013 09:04PM by earlyrm.

Much respect, earlyrm, I wish I had your courage at that point. But I still ardently believed. Keep us updated!

25 years. I still can't figure out what took me so long. I think I was a social mormon for the most part.

Two years and a few months from the time I got home I was sure Mormonism was not what it claimed to be and abruptly disaffected with zero notice to my friends and family.

My third semester of college blew my supernatural worldview away with cultural anthropology 101. Then I started wondering what else I might have been wrong about. I started noticing the similarities that Mormonism had with other 2nd Great Awakening organizations and one question led to another over the next semester until I was sure that disaffection was the right path for me.

It was about five years after my mission that I was ready to leave the Church. But then I got a job working for a Mormon, and that kept me in for another five years. Finally, I started reading books like "In Sacred Loneliness," "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," and "By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus" and wild horses couldn't keep me in any longer.

I am ashamed to say, forty years post mission to really begin my journey out and fifty years before I realized the restroom stank and why would I ever go into that building again.

I got home dec 2011, I stopped beleiving Oct 2011... wait... I stopped attending in November... I literally would wander the halls and chat with another missionary, avoiding the church and everything in it

Semi inactive after about a year and a half, going only for social reasons for abou another year, made conscious decision to walk away about none months later.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2013 06:52PM by Stray Mutt.

I was totally inactive before going on a mission, got active only a few months before going.

Post mission, I did about 2 years of being pretty active (was temple married, held some callings), then moved to attend BYU and was pretty much semi-active (attended sacrament now and then).

Then I read the Tanners big blue book and said "enough", I knew it was all made up and I therefore was not bound to follow it.

Dodged church, callings, and endorsments for 2 more years at BYU and graduated, and haven't been back to a mormon church except for my parents funerals.

Just under two years. Realized the church was false, and split immediately, except for keeping up a necessary front at BYU. No Google back then, l973, had to go by my gut. MoF was the only anti mormon material I needed.

It's amazing how much you can learn JUST from church literature. When Holland spoke to us at the MTC, he spoke about the blessings of modern technology. Well, YUP. Let's look at the blessing of RfM in particular, Jeff!

Home in 2000
Truth in 2012
Resigned in 2103

TOO DAMN

Returned: 1992
Stopped Attending: 1998 (due to not being able to pray away the gay)
Found out the truth: 2007
Still haven't resigned, because I don't feel the need to; To me, resigning acknowledges that TSCC has any power over my life.
It does not.

Not able to "pray away the gay" is correct good sir, same here. Although that was probably #90 on my top 100 list for reasons tr church was not true.

Though I find your reasoning interesting for choosing not to resign. I thought about that a lot for myself...and for me, it was my way of saying directly to them "you have no power over me" in addition to the fact I like records to reflect reality.

In another board, somebody mentioned that you are legally a member of their church, thus you may be punished by them if they wish. You are actively destroying their LEGAL authority to count you as one of their ranks when you resign, not their claimed priesthood authority.

Three weeks to quit believing, and about six months to quit attending.

Around 9 years counting the last time I went inactive. Twelve years if you count when I stopped believing.

Got home - Aug '84

Left - spring of '85

Less than a year! (Stupid homophobes.)

about 8 years (gone awol/inactive; not resigned yet for family reasons)

included- married in temple, EQP, bishopric counselor, 4 kids...I was fully believing until the very day, hour, and minute that it hit me.

I basically lost my testimony on my mission reading anti-Mormon material, but it took me another 3 years to go inactive and another 2 years to finally resign after I broker the news to my family.

I would have left earlier had I not been so terrified of shocking and disappointing my friends and family. I just kept my doubts to myself and "tried to make it work" until I could no longer stand it.

Home December 2005
Went semi-inactive throughout school. Left for good November 2012

7 years, then, for me.

Wife is now on her way out as well.

But at least I stopped going and started screwing 2 years prior to losing my testimony.

Talk about cognitive dissonance!

26 1/2 long years! Damn, I'm glad to be out!

10 painful years

21 years after I got home.

Home in 2008
Graduated BYU in 2012
Resigned in 2013

Returned in 1979. Read a lot of books. Figured out for sure that it was a fraud by 1993.

Faked it, raised family, walked away in 2007.

It can take years and years to escape a cult.