For the most part it sucked.

There were a few highly glossed high parts for me like the feeling that I was part of a large group of people striving to do good in the world.

But for the most part it was something that my brother is dealing with today - sitting in a meeting listening to judgmental people voicing opinions you don't agree with and appear to be tacitly supporting in not voicing your own.

Being in the LDS church is like being a bee in a hive that does their own thing most of the time and when threatened with having the hive throw you out, kowtowing in silence and doing the "bee's dance" in coughing up your money and your commitments to their greater good.

+1

My convert daughter told me today in a phone conversation that she is NOT going to go to some "camp" for the girls of the LDS church as they had asked her to do. She was to be an assistant of some kind. She waffled at first, but two wks. later said no....said she had to take care of her son first - and this is true- and her hubby supported her as he is taking classes and won't be able to watch him 24/7 for four days.....Her hubby was jackmormon when they married and I think he still is....She told me she is a bit tired of all the requests of her and I thought "YES"....keep it up Mormons and run my daughter right out. She will not take lightly to all your ORDERS. I was shocked that she joined to begin with....but it was love, you know.She has been in almost 5 yrs.

Yay! A glimmer of hope.

I KNEW it. I really hope she gets out of there. I anticipate the day you can say she no longer wants to be a part of it.

Thanks snuck and blueorchid....I keep hope alive each and every month and let her tell me stuff rather than me ask her.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2013 06:03PM by honestone.

I never felt completely conscious at church. Looking back now, it felt like being on automatic pilot. Doing as you are taught, as you are told, is not the same as exploring, ingesting, and discovering. I had half my brain on lock-down.

I think they cultivate this deliberately. Pressing "reverent" behavior on toddlers, squashing all child play, three hours of trying to be solemn... It's a recipe for members to shut down as they walk in.
I always felt like I was waking up when I finally walked out the doors, but I have problems with dissociating under stress, this was just probably the earliest manifestation.

You have triggered a great memory. The best part of church, even at my most TBM, was, as you say, 'walking out the doors.'

I can still feel the sun hitting me as the relief set in. I did not recognize it at the time, but that is what it was now that you mention it. Duty done. That's all it really was. Sort of like jury duty.

blueorchid Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sort of like
> jury duty.

I can imagine jury duty being actually better because it might involve salacious criminal behavior.

The train wreck of "good Mormon" attendance for me when I was believing it was more like waiting in line at the DMV to pay money for something more for the greater good than myself personally. Now it would be more like standing in line to pay homage to an idol I don't believe in...

Yes, even walking out on the dreariest winter day was like walking out of a dust filled, cobwebbed attic or basement full of musty, stale air into a spring meadow filled with butterflies.

And not because of the church smell, which must be ten times worse these days.
Because of the way I felt mentally. Ah, now I can THINK again! The looming guilt is put away for another week, the repetitive lesson heard 100 times before is over, I don't have to ache in a metal folding chair for a whole 'nother week, or hear about the nine mile long be-a-good-mormon checklist I'm falling behind on until at least after dinner...

+1

to keep programs that were worthless running and a constant struggle between participants for minor acknowledgement and church standing.

It's like waiting in a really big long line at Disney World, only to get to the very end, and be told that the rides have all broken down, and there will be no refunds.

And it's your fault that they're broken down, and you should be grateful even though they're broken down, and...

even though you are worthy, in your baker's hat, in The Celestial Room and don't have anything remotely like a spiritual experience but a revulsion at having gone through an ordeal you don't understand...

You should be grateful for it and oh, look at how beautiful this place is..

When I joined, I thought I'd be participating in a lively organization. As the years passed and it became deadly dull I had no real time for thought.

Then there were things that I thought.

Why do the leaders get up and cry and boo hoo how hard it is to find someone to fill all the callings they need to fill, yet when you offer to help them they icily snap "We have all the help we want!"?

Why are the same few families, year after year giving all the talks in sacrament meeting? We even had the same family, three years in a row; give the first set of talks of the New Year in January! Why, when in the D and C it says we are to hear from everyone, so we could be edified by everyone's experience, were so many members of the ward constantly being passed over, and not just the shy ones who don’t want to give a talk ever?

Why can't the children have fun in Primary singing all the neat songs? Why are they rehearsing the Primary Program songs all year? Why does the Primary Program become the PERSONAL reflection of the Primary Presidency's self worth if the program isn't presented as flawless as a professional children's choir?

Why are the "all discerning" Bishops not that discerning? You'd think they'd never had a revelation or intuitive thought in their life! They seemed to be acting on opinion that wasn't even backed up by basis Psychology 101 counseling class! ?????

So, why, as a faithful member, a TR holder, do I find out the YWs is telling my daughter that her fully active parents are "apostates" and she doesn't need an education...just marry a 'worthy RM" in the temple? Why would the YW's leadership undermine our parenting? We knew our daughter needed to go to college and we'd been encouraging her to do so all her life! ????

My time in the church was a lot of ???????????????????????????

Observing the words in conference and the scriptures said one thing but the people and policies did not line up with them.

That's what it was like in the TSCC....one big question mark when it kept telling you it had all the final answers because it was the "Lords church" and it was led by "Jesus Christ" at its head! You sure couldn't tell it!

Guilt, fear, submission, yet only happy if you are in church...I now feel guilt over harming other people instead of feeling it against the church. The church guilt is terrible because even when I acted good, I was never good enough.

Telling people that they have to pay up and live up, or never see their families again along with being burned alive is extortion. Extortion is a form of terrorism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xaYMdHNILw

It was like being in a slow moving car accident.

That's the only way I can describe it in 1 sentence. It was bad. I mean really, really bad.

Infinite Dreams Wrote:
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> It was like being in a slow moving car accident.

For me it was like the Zapruder Film slowed down to a frame per day. I was enduring to the end of the Mormon ride when something would hit me like a bullet to the head and end this ride.

Luckily, I stopped the car before I could get shot.

I like that.

I didn't want to live anymore if doing so meant being Mormon.

I enjoyed being made to feel that I was a deeply flawed person because I questioned the foundation story of TSCC. I enjoyed being made to feel as though I was a sick horrible person, (second only to murder dontcha know!) for doing the same things virtually every other normal young person in the world was doing. It felt good when my mother called me a "son of perdition" and wouldn't talk to me for months. Yep. nuthin but good times



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2013 06:48PM by ladell.

In a word? Boring.

I was bored at church for three hours straight almost every week. I was bored by the long, repetitive temple rituals. I was bored as a missionary. I was bored at BYU religion classes. I was bored by the bland, whitewashed picture of Mormon history the Morg tried to convince me was true. I was bored listening to "prophets" give the same old, worn-out lectures over and over again for 10 hours twice a year at general conference. But most of all, thinking you already know the ultimate answers to all of life's ultimate questions is kind of a boring way to go through life!

I so agree with the one word assessment of BOR-RING.

And to personalize this word to describe my view more completely, I would add the words, bor-ring to the get-go, but feeling oh, so much guilt because I saw the cult like this.

What was I going to do and where would I go from here?

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam
I am a child of God
We thank thee oh God for a prophet
I need thee every hour
Come, come, ye saints
Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank thee for sending The Gospel
I know the church is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, we are lead by living prophets...

You know the drill.

...a soul-crushing experience that tries to exterminate your thoughts.

It was hard for me to leave. I was a newby convert and then the ward boundaries were redrawn so I had to change to another one. But the guys in the new ward were pretty cool - I was becoming good friends with 3 or 4 of them then I had to quit.

I haven't been able to recreate that since...I miss that part.