I've posted a blog a few weeks ago about my leaving the Mormon church. It was very raw and revealed some strong emotions about feeling lied to and betrayed. Well not a SINGLE mormon family member or friend has responded to it. I WANT them to.. Someone PLEASE start the discussion with me about why I left.. I would LIKE to hear your reasons why I am wrong. Nothing?? No one has ANYTHING to say?? So does that mean you agree with me that there are no answers to the questions I bring up?

How can they continue to live in ignorance?! Listen to that little voice in your head that says "Hmm what? That doesn't seem right."

I am so frustrated that I haven't had a chance to really pick the brain of a TBM because NONE of them will talk to me about my leaving. They don't want to be accidentally un-converted.

Sorry I just needed to vent because I've started having dreams where I confront TBM friends and explain to them why I left. Its affecting me. haha

Been there, done that.

You don't need their permission to move on with your life. You stated your feelings publicly and you don't have to respond if they respond. It's a hard thing to get past and it takes some time. The need to be validated for your decisions by friends/family who are still believers is a left over mind screw from the teachings.

Your are gone from the church and that is that.

Accept yourself, be happy as possible and move on.

I'm not looking for validation or permission to feel the way I do, I am looking for an opportunity to show them that the logic doesnt make sense. To have an adult conversation about it. But no one will even talk to me about it.

Had an argument with my mother, she told me that she doesn't want me to take away her faith. She said it as if her faith is all she has, and without it, her life is nothing. I didn't know what to do, so I just stopped talking about it.

I actually just wrote a poem this morning about that subject. It's basically saying, "how can you have these views, when all logic points the opposite direction"?

You are not alone here, Mormons don't care about the Truth. They care about their Church.

You are now a threat to their Church. I like to think that the effort is best spent on exposing Mormonism into the general community rather than rescuing loved ones from the cult that don't want to be rescued.

Mormonism mainstreamed about 60 to 70 years ago, now with the help of information and community through the Internet it can be beaten back into the box shaped like Utah.

One area that I am working on is pointing out to reporters the error of the self-reported membership numbers. So far the response has been mostly positive or neutral. Others can do this as well, just a quick email stating that Mormon membership is provably less 14 million, please don't use the Mormon PR number, it's fake. I wish MormonThink or another source would provided a reference site for a link to the issue for media. Media would use the more credible source.

Think of the Mormon minds blown when the world stops parroting back the 14+ million official number of the Church and starts using 10 million, 7 million, 3 to 5 million. All of these numbers are more accurate than 14+ million. I think this is a good way to get the attention of people who won't listen to you and won't talk to you. Wake up them up with a splash of cold hard truth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2013 11:25AM by gentlestrength.

Perhaps they're secretly worried you might be right and can't face reality.

Mormons only want to have discussions they can win.

If you post a link to your blog here, maybe you'll have a chance to get into a lively discussion with a troll.

"Someone PLEASE start the discussion with me about why I left.."

My comment is completely non mormon related...

That said, I've found over time that when your family members ignore you, don't or won't discuss the serious things going on in everyone's lives (like elderly parents and the care they NEED, but no one including my parents, won't get)...they will never visit for holidays nor even call...it's like that feeling in Jr. high school, high school, and/or mid-20s's where she "just isn't that into you"....

Sometimes you will have to left some people/family in your life drift away, because they are really just completely unconcerned with you, your life, etc...

I think you may have hit on the deeper meaning in this thread. My TBM parents know how to act like normal people, but they don't have it in them to truly relate, except at the most superficial level. They are my parents who raised me and did their best, and I love them. But I will not spend my energy trying to be heard in any meaningful way. Maybe it's not, "They're just not that into me," but more, "They just don't get it." And don't have the capacity.

I'm beginning to think you're right about the "They just don't get it." and not having the capacity. Maybe they wont have the capacity until it sinks in. I just feel like, if I can reach into the cult and spark thought in at least ONE current member to think for themselves.

I have learned to just find things in common and let the churchy stuff they say go. I think at this point, you have been up front and honest. Now you might want to decide how important your relationships are. I often find ways to interject seemingly innocuous ideas into conversations. They know they can reach out to me, and a few have.

I totally understand. I've been out for years and, while I appreciate that they haven't made any attempts to re-convert me, it frustrates me that no one in my family will talk to me about it. It's not even that I want to show them how wrong it is, or get them to leave TSCC - it's that leaving the church was a really hard thing I went through, and it turned my whole life upside down, and I just want one of them to CARE. I want them to care that I lost all of my old friends, and that my worldview went topsy turvy, and that I had to start over with figuring out who I was as an adult. But they won't talk to me about it at all! So agitating.

Actually, based on others experiences, I think you should consider yourself lucky.

The reality is, at some point, someone will crack and then you will get the opportunity you are looking for.

Until then, enjoy the anomaly.

I've had only one Uncle write to me about my leaving the church. All the rest don't say a word about anything to me now.

Trust me, they have plenty to say. They just aren't saying it to you.

The silent treatment is what you'll get. They don't want to hear what you have to say. They might agree with it. Then what? They don't want to touch that one with a ten foot pole. They want to stay right where they are. No change, no thinking, no challenge.

It's easier. Having the integrity to walk away from a religion that's been hammered into your every cell takes a huge amount of courage. Most mormons lack true courage in my opinion.

I feel like that almost every day.

I think this is a very, very common reaction by Mormons to anyone who leaves. We quit going about 5 years ago and only one person has asked us why we left and only one person asked if someone offended us - then cut me off when I told her no. AND it was someone from the ward that accosted me in a parking lot and I didn't even know who it was. She wanted to tell me she missed me and all I could think was "who the hail are you?"

When we quit attending, not even our best friends in the ward asked why. Not even the half dozen or so people who were nice to us (i.e. treated us the same as always instead of being awkward or cruel) asked us to explain. When my husband couldn't attend the sealing of his sister to her new husband, not even his family asked why. Nobody wants to know why you left. Like gentlestrength said "Mormons don't care about the Truth. They care about their Church." Their church is like a God they worship and they have to protect themselves from any blasphemy. It isn't about logic - it's about love and strong feelings.

So, to sum up, the same people who say "If you want to know about Mormonism, ask a Mormon" have no desire whatsoever to extend that same courtesy to anyone else. They already know why you left as sure as certain people know that Mormons secretly practice polygamy and have sex in their temples. The same people who would be outraged by being judged according to misinformed lies about their religion have no trouble spreading even more misinformed, bigger lies about what someone else believes to be true. And, since they know, there is no need to ask. Get used to it. You'll be surprised at who doesn't ask and at who makes it clear by their actions and comments that they've already made up their minds about you, no matter what you say.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2013 03:37PM by CA girl.

The second you leave the church, many of us become a member of the family in name only.

I think almost everybody is right on this thread, but I really appreciate jong 1064 summation that they "just don't have the capacity." Mormons have kept themselves so sheltered with blinders firmly in place their whole life that anything we say now is like a foreign language to them--and they didn't even take a single semester of Real Life 101 at an entry level.

It hasn't gotten any better in 40 years for me. No one wants to discuss anything at all, my opinions are amusing at best to them, and the one time I broached a touchy subject with my mother she got a look on her face like she was about to be beaten to death. Needless to say I dropped it like a hot potato.

I think one of the big reasons that members of TSCC avoid talking to those of us who left is that they've always been taught that without the church we should be miserable and it confuses them that we are actually happy...most times even happier then we were while we were active in the church. I can't even count how many stories I remember hearing about people who left and were just so miserable and had such horrible lives without the church and when they went back everything was suddenly rainbows and butterflies again.

I feel you. It was SO frustrating when I would hang out with TBM friends or hear from them after I left. I was itching to tell them everything I'd found out. I didn't have the experience of many here where people argued with them. I wish I had, because I was PRIMED!

It helped to vent on RfM. And continues to help. Good decision, though, and congrats.

When some friends left the church a few years before me, I never asked them why. I figured they had their reasons, and they had guts. I did not think they were offended or wanted to sin, but I may be an anomaly on that account because I was raised in a part member family and my non-member parent was/is great.

I only asked why they left after I had my own huge doubts. Before that moment, I was just living my life and living what I "knew to be true" so nothing else mattered.

Pretty self-important, arrogant view, but that's what mormons are programmed to do.

Hugs to you. Your family loves you. They are just scared.
And have been taught that they have lost you, because you left the church. SO MUCH DENIAL

Lavish Denial Sociology

PS: THEY HAVE SEX IN THE TEMPLES? REALLY? THEY DO??!?

They ignore me too in talking about it but continue to talk about church and their church callings in-front of me. I still have some respect for the Mormon church, it's still my heritage and I put them in the same category of a lot of religions. I am not mad at them - just want them to accept facts, talk about facts, and get over it. They have to know it's not real, or do they? To my face they still press the subject a bit- like it's true, it hasn't relented much, so you are not off into thinking and feeling what you are feeling. I am also confused.