I learned the truth about Mormonism a few days ago. I feel like such an idiot for ever thinking this stuff was true. It breaks my heart to now know how much the manipulation and deception is careful and planned out.

I'm sure there's been thousands of posts like mine, but I have a particular problem I've been struggling with. I feel like I've just thrown the last few decades of my life away. It's all that wasted time, energy, and--of course--money that I will never get back. It has made me feel particularly depressed, and I don't know how to deal with that.

Welcome to the group! It's hard to think of all the time and money you've put in, but there's nothing you can do to change it so do your best to move forward. THat said, it's okay to take time to grieve!

You haven't wasted those decades. Things may have been different had you found the truth earlier, for better or for worse, but you can't say that every moment is now a regret. If you did what you thought was right, then you can be satisfied with and fulfilled by your choices. You've been true to yourself.

So, the question is, where do you go from here?

Yes, I agree with this! Whatever happened yesterday is water under the bridge. Now its time to move on and be happy.

Oh honey, I remember being there. One minute I was researching a sharing time as a member of the Primary Presidency and, thanks to a google search I went to bed a shocked disbeliever. When I showed up at church the next day, the Primary president said I looked like I lost my best friend. In a way, I had. I went to BYU, served a mission, made every major decision of my life in my teens, 20s and 30s based on the church's teachings rather than what I wanted or who I truly was. That is a hard place to be in - you have my sympathy.

First, forgive yourself. Lots of people are duped in life and not just by Mormonism. Second, you are obviously a good, decent person with a lot of strength and integrity. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to face the truth. So you may have wasted some time but the end result is a good person so maybe things aren't as bad as you fear. Finally, unlike a lot of people, you are now free. You know the truth. They never have to get another minute of your time or penny of your money. And that is due to your study and your courage. You didn't mention your age but you now can build a life for yourself that you want. You can find out how you really want to live and what direction you head in. So my advice, if you want to consider it, is take some time, do some research, talk things out and when you are ready, walk away from Mormonism. Because you can. You still have that. Good luck and post as often as you like. Everyone here is a huge help. :)

. . . in terms of the truth about Mormonism that you've just learned?

Was it, for you personally, one particular aspect of Mormonism or a culmination of events, realizations, doctrines, practices and/or discoveries?

So how are you going to tell all of your friends and family?

I have felt the exact same way and just want to offer you some encouragement the shock will fade some eventually. It is a hard realization to come to that you have been the victim of a fraud and if you are like many, altered life decisions and based varying things in your life on what a corporation started by a con man said to do. Your post is a common one but I like to see them because it means one more person is clued in to the scam that is TSCC.

In my experience I learned a little and right away knew I couldn't be mormon anymore but it was only the beginning of the things I learned over the next few months as I dove into it. It was really hard and still can be even coming up on 2 years later but this board is a great place to come for support and at times a little entertainment.

I'm curious what you found out that made you realize the truth?

One comfort I have found when I get down is that even if it's later than I would have liked, at least I'm realizing now vs. however much longer I could have been a member.

Hang in there! The stages of grief are normal, Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance.

This forum has been very helpful to me. All my family is LDS. It has helped me to look at the good things that I learned while in the church such as honesty and hard work.

I actually talked to an atheist friend of mine who was very helpful with this. I told him I thought I wasted 2 years of life on my mission. He said, in effect, "you didn't waste 2 years. You were able to experience a different part of the country than where you were raised. You learned how to relate to people. You learned conversation skills."

Your life hasn't been wasted. Look at all the good things, things that make you happy. Then add to that freedom: freedom to follow the dictates of your own conscience. YOU get to decide what you want to do on sunday. YOU get to decide what to eat/drink. YOU have been liberated.

It gets better.

To paraphrase accounting - Don't throw good thoughts/efforts/emotions/learning after bad thoughts/efforts/emotions/learning.

Been there! I would highly recommend looking up some Bob McCue threads at the main page and get moving on.

On the bright side you could have discovered this even later in your life.

Good Luck!

Look at all of those still TBMs and feel proud of seeing through the expertly devised web of lies.

Welcome to RfM. I'm glad to have another smart contributor.

Welcome to the rest of your life, lemonsalt! Really. Now that you've realized that the foundation of Mormonism was a bunch of lies and the LDS 'house', so to speak, was 'faith'-promoting church propaganda combined with a lot of concocted requirements to keep Latter-day Saints busy, busy, busy, you're psychologically free to do with the rest of your life whatever you want.

You get to choose what's best for you, to create the type of life you desire. Cultic Mo-ism is about praying, paying, and otherwise obeying. It's also about mentally regurgitating ideas, including many nonsensical ones, that came from the minds of Joseph Smith and other Mormon 'prophets' since the early 19th century.

You were never obliged to believe what the LDS 'tribe' has believed. It was always your right to question and scrutinize what the LD$ Church systematically indoctrinated you to believe was 'true', 'the will of the Lord', and 'of God'. Crucially, you have the right to always think for yourself.

There is info. online about the psychological effects of Mormonism that may be of interest to you: http://members.shaw.ca/blair_watson/

One or more of the books listed at the bottom of the webpage may 'speak' to you.

The remainder of your life - a few decades, I imagine - is about you experiencing what you desire. As you go through your process of psychologically moving past Mormonism (people on this board are helpful in terms of providing encouragement and useful info., BTW), you'll likely discover new things about yourself. Greater self-awareness is a good thing; personal growth depends on it.

Kindly know that there is no question you can't ask here and no subject you can't broach. Leaving Mormonism is typically a big challenge because of how it mentally and emotionally defines people and creates their LDS ego (sense of self). Post-Mormonism involves learning to create another, much healthier psychological framework for oneself as well as accepting ourselves just as we are - and being authentic.

You might want to consider some professional counseling to help you through this transition phase in your life. Other former Mormons have said that counselor or psychotherapist support was very helpful to them.

There are also ex-Mormon support groups:

- http://www.exmormon.org/helpers.htm

- via the drop-down menu (Our Community > Post-Mormon Chapter - states, countries, etc.) at http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/#

Best wishes!

lemonsalt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm sure there's been thousands of posts like
> mine, but I have a particular problem I've been
> struggling with. I feel like I've just thrown the
> last few decades of my life away. It's all that
> wasted time, energy, and--of course--money that I
> will never get back. It has made me feel
> particularly depressed, and I don't know how to
> deal with that.

Yes, there have been thousands of posts, but not like yours. Every one of our stories is unique and every situation is different.

Yes, it can be depressing if you dwell on the years "wasted" (my wife and I spent about 40 of our 60 years alive in the $%^&$&*^ cult and raised our six kids to be in it). But don't dwell on that. Instead focus on the beauty of what is now yours: The freedom to live a genuine life, the freedom from being subject to a crazy cult that demands your time (to an insane level), demands your money (more than 10%), and demands your compliance with inane rules. You're out, you're free!

Congratulations. You escaped. Life is tough now (all of us here know what it is like--truly), but I _PROMISE_ you it gets infinitely better.

Welcome, Lemonsalt! Look at it this way: you did the best that you could with what you had at the time. When you know better, you do better.

You still have many good years to have lovely Sundays, a ten percent raise, etc. Give yourself the level of kindness and understanding that you would wish for others to give you.

I was 40 years old when I finally threw in the towel on Mormonism. Like you, I felt I had wasted a lot of time, effort, and devotion--and I felt betrayed and angry.

The best advice I can give is to acknowledge your feelings, let them out, and don't let anyone tell you what you should or should not feel. You can't work through the hurt, the anger, or whatever else you're feeling if you try to suppress it. RfM is a great place to express your feelings to people who aren't going to judge or attack you. You will get a lot of crap from Mormons who tell you that you should shut up, or you're bitter or headed to hell, or whatever. Own your feelings, and spend time investigating why you feel what you do and how the church contributed.

You can't really "move on" with your life until you've processed the loss you are experiencing and the feelings that go with it. When you're ready to move on, you'll know it, and you'll have the whole world open to you. That's an exciting prospect, but it's hard to see when the wounds are fresh.

I'm always around if you need support: runnertx@hotmail.com

As you will see as you read this board, there are some brilliant people who post here. Most of them were just as deceived as you were. You're not an idiot, you are one step ahead of a lot of brilliant people who have not yet found the truth about TSCC.

Take the good that you've experienced in the last few decades and cherish it. Take the bad and chalk it up to experience.
Take the rest of your life and live it. You are free. Congratulations.

Just know that you are not alone and that there are many who have come before you.

Know that there is as much or as little support that you want and need.

Know that for now on you, and only you, decides how you want your life to proceed. (Even if you decide to continue to participate as a Non-Believing Member. At least now you know the truth and can make a decision based soley on what YOU WANT.)

Know that life will still present challenges.

I was going to keep going but I'll stop...hahaha.

I'll never forget the exact moment when I finally realized it was all fake. My first reaction was actually to laugh. I had just finished graduate school at BYU, and thinking about all the time and energy I had spent on the Church. And that now I would be every connected to BYU do to my college degrees from there. I just laughed.

Days, weeks and months later I definitely cried and felt completely alone and sad. I still do at times because a majority of my friends and family are all TBM still. I can't control them though, and I just do my best to find joy in my personal journey.

Good luck on your journey.

Just think, you have a new-lease on life. You can now view everything with new eyes. Like a kid at a candy-store. Except, you have an adult-brain to enjoy every nuance of it. And a past experience that will contrast sharply with the new life. You get to live a different life instead of pedering out on the old one.

It's a very envigorating experience, once you realize how liberated you are and how unique your experience is.

I wrote a long reply yesterday, didn't send.

I hope you'll be good with focusing on the present. You did great getting here, now be kind to yourself and have the best life possible. It's not all good for almost all of us on this planet, so the deluded Mormon happy talk is not the goal.

Genuine, authentic living where when you go to sleep you feel like you were straight with people and yourself.

Best.

Lemonsalt- Be easy on yourself. Don't blame yourself for anything. None of us were born onto this Earth with an instruction manual on how to get everything right. The fact is, Life is trial and error. The contrast of life helps us hone in on what we really want in our lives. You found out that Mormonism is a fraud... you have a strong desire to align yourself with something that is truthful and has integrity. Allow yourself to adjust to this new mode of thinking. You are in charge of your destiny. You get to find out what you believe or don't believe. You have been given an opportunity to allow yourself to come to your own conclusions about life.

Focus on the present moment and the future, there are much better days ahead for you. It is like you just got released from prison and now your mind is free to follow your heart. Best wishes from someone who went through the same thing.

When you first accept that the LDS church is a fraud....

The next thing you realize is...

"That escalated quickly"

Once you accept it is a lie it is really amazing how it all falls into place and starts to make sense

Thanks, everyone, for such helpful and supportive answers. I know this will take time for me to get my mind and life straight but at least I have one link in the chain broken.

I know that I was totally insufferable for the first few months after leaving. I could not read enough could not talk about it enough and my poor friends and family who otherwise didn't care about Mormonism always got an earful. That said, I am amazed and heartened by how loving and understanding people are. It was my experience that Friends who were never members had a passing interest in Mormonism, but never really cared enough about it either way to investigate it. So me telling them about all of my reading and realizations was fun for them and really cathartic for me. Plus, I feel like I did my good deed by exposing people to the underbelly so that they would never get tangled up in all of it.

I suggest reaching out to any friends or family that you know who might have left the church. One of the first things I did was contact my former best friend who I stopped being friends with after she left the church. It had been several years but he was so sweet and happy to talk to me. His first comment to me was, "I knew you were too smart to stay."

Good luck! This board helps a lot, too.

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You figured it out.... thats alot more then the TBM's still plodding along in bull shit land. We all have felt the exact same way you do now. Its normal... please don't feel bad, the important thing is , is that now you know the truth, feel good about that and congratulate yourself. Things will get better and better and better. You will feel betrayed and angry.... thats normal too. Welcome to the land of the free. Enjoy!!!!!

Just take it a day at a time, hon. And pat yourself on the back for at least discovering the truth. They would have us fear too much to ever go searching for it.

The truth is out there and it takes courage to find it, so kudos to you.

It does get better.

Another cool thing that I got to do after leaving was figure out what was actually immoral/wrong for me vs. what the church taught- drinking, masturbation, stealing, wearing tank tops, swearing (no,no,yes,no,fuck no!)

It was exciting and liberating!

Yes! Leaving the church forced me to dig deep inside and figure out what I really thought was right and wrong. I am a much more moral person now that I don't need some old guys in Utah to tell me what to think.

LS,
Welcome!

It's a journey; not a destination.

Each of us will experience other 'Santa Ain't Real' moments throughout our lives here.

It's okay to be duped and lied to.

It's part of the game we play here.

Congradulations Lemonsalt! You figured the scam out.

This board is full of brilliant, insightful, kind, and very funny posters.

I figured it out many years ago and still laugh my butt off.

Thank gawd, the Internet, and Eric K for this helpful website.

Keep us updated on your journey.