Author's Note: I've been a long-time reader of this board, and I want to preface this story by saying that I respect everyone else's experiences and stories immensely. I recognize I have nowhere near the level of hurt or familial destruction that others experienced. I skated in and out pretty clean, and some may even been thoroughly disgusted with my experiences altogether as it seems like I was never honest during my tenure in the TSCC. All I have to say for myself is we all have our stories. This one isn't flattering, but it's mine. And my hope is that it will shed some light on the "Priesthood Powers" for those honest souls who may be in doubt or knew all along that they were bunk.

Ok folks, let me introduce myself. I'm a late 20-something airline pilot. I come from a very well-off family, with a father who originally immigrated to the United States to study marine biology and a mother who descends from the "Old South," although was extremely progressive and even a part of the Civil Rights movement in our native Virginia. I come from the Eastern Shore region, for those who know it. My father, despite getting a Ph.D. in Marine Biology, never really got into it professionally. He had worked for a company installing marine radios and selling boat equipment to pay off school debts, and eventually wound up owning the company. He ran it out of Annapolis and had a branch in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. My mother had a Ph.D. in education and worked for the state of Maryland. We lived on the Maryland shore in a beautiful house directly overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. Our boat was moored at our private dock, and we would use it when we weren't getting to travel all over Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. Life couldn't look much better than that, right?

Well, there were times I think I was raised a little too liberally. I had little to rebel against. My parents were pretty much of the mind that I could make my own decisions and they wouldn't interfere, as long as I was going to school and displaying the sort of scholastic achievement that they felt was appropriate. I never had a problem there--straight As, national merit finalist, blah blah blah. If I had wanted to get a Mohawk and eyebrow piercings, they would have been cool with it, I think.

Up until I was 13, I think I was never too special. I was pretty athletic, but I'd say average in ability because I never was the fastest (although perhaps fast) or the strongest (although I could hold my own). The only bit of tragedy I ever tasted was my grandfather dying and the fact that I was raped when I was 9 (by a sociopathic neighbor of ours, and that story is neither here nor there, but it would have a coming impact on my life).

Then, when I turned 13, things started to change. I grew to six foot one. I had muscle definition that wasn't characteristic of the average 8th grader. In sixth and seventh grade, I had numerous crushes but no girl really noticed me all that much. I was awkward as all hell. Braces. Skinny. Short. That changed pretty quickly too. I suddenly was the fastest, strongest kid out there. I made varsity sports teams in football, basketball, and soccer my freshman year. The accolades came rolling in. The girls came rolling in. And my friends suddenly thought I was, somehow, the coolest thing on two feet.

I started becoming bad--all without giving any signs of it. I was sneaking out at night with my new-found "cool" friends to drink (and I discovered, with my Eastern European genes--that I was quite adept in that field as well), fool around with girls, and do stupid things like lighting off fireworks or petty vandalism like egging, etc. All the while, I was a proud member of the National Honor Society, getting straight As, nailing AP exams, winning academic award after award, getting my private pilot's license at age 17, etc.

How does this have anything to do with Mormonism? Well, basically it doesn't--yet. My junior year, I started to calm down a bit. I started dating a long-time childhood friend, Rachel, a girl who was as beautiful as she was edgy. I had never even tried to have a serious relationship, but oh man did I fall hard for that one. We dated for a year and a half and were so heavily in love--of course, until that day senior year that she randomly fell out of love. Realizing I was leaving the area and she probably would be too, she decided unilaterally that there was no point continuing.

Pretty natural stuff, of course, but I was devastated. I immediately started going back to my previous ways, drinking like a fish (I even played a football game half-drunk once; talk about a disaster), and being a general idiot--until a certain young Mormon girl named Abby moved with her large family to our little neck of the woods. Her dad was a government scientist and was working for some defense contractor on the Western Shore. Abby was stunning. One look at her--like the rest of the boys--and we totally forgot any heartache we had ever known. I had to have her. There was only one problem.

What in the hell is a Mormon, anyways?

Oh, I tried. Tried and tried and tried. Used every trick in the book. I could tell she was attracted to me, found me funny, and was digging the Southern tidewater accent, but she was also smart. She'd never had a boyfriend, and she knew what I was probably after.

We started being good friends, and eventually, I could tell she finally saw the more serious side of me, the one with the burning desire to know more about the world, study languages, my passion for aviation, and that in addition to the lively jackass I could be in school, I also had a tender, caring side. I genuinely laughed at her stories and she could cry on my arm when she felt like she would never fit in. She discovered that sometimes, the strait-laced world she was accustomed to didn't have all the answers, either.

Finally, one cold January day, she asked me the question that changed my life.

"So, uh, do you want to go with me to prom or what?" It took me all of five seconds to decide what to do there. She also had another question.

"Ummmm... I don't even know how to say this but... I'd kind of like to maybe... go our sometime too? Would you be, I dunno... interested in getting dinner and going to a movie?" Uhhhh... yeah. There was a catch.

"My family wants to get to know you better. Would you be willing to come to church with us on Sunday and then hang around after?"

Church. Hmmm. That would go over like a lead balloon with my militant humanist father and my mother, who respected all creeds but found all to be ultimately a waste of time. Or maybe they wouldn't care. I decided to tell them that I might not be going out for our usual Sunday brunch because I was going to church with Abby.

My mom smiled and said, "well that sounds nice. Maybe that would be nice for you to go there." I think she had suspected for quite some time that I was living a life of, hmmmm, how shall I put it? Not a whole lot of morality? Drinking and rampant sex? Yeah, something like that. Plus, Rachel was the farthest thing from a "good girl" you could imagine. Those were the halcyon days where edgy girls wore their thongs hanging four inches out of their low-rise jeans. Rachel would dress that way around our family gatherings. My mom had to know what was going on when Rachel and I were "taking boat rides" and not getting back until 6:30am.

Abby, on the other hand, was as polite, respectful, and modest as a young lady could be. It all chalked up to a winning formula, in my mom's book. Except for one thing.

"Don't let those Mormons talk you into joining, though," she said nonchalantly. "They're pretty persuasive, and I think once you're in, you're really in."

Sage advice, mom. Too bad I was thinking with the wrong head.

And thus began an eight-year career in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And the period of my life for which I am least proud.

Basically, all I really wanted to bear my testimony that Abby was the hottest girl I had ever seen in eighteen years of life, I wanted to drop it like it was hot, live happily ever after with someone who I knew I would get along beautifully with, and yadda yadda. Obviously that was out, and I couldn't BS this entirely. I realized early on that for us to be anything, I was going to have to be a member. I had just become a "golden contact" in a mission that never baptized anyone--save for a few people who weren't, you know, all there? It was a rare thing around these parts, indeed.

So, yeah. The missionaries were having a field day. Quarterback of the football team (honest disclaimer--we were 2-8 after years and years of a winning tradition, so it's not like I was Mr. Star Athlete or anything), all-around well-liked with a short, clean haircut. I dressed super preppy and could sell just about anything. My family had quite a bit of social standing. I was headed for big things, presumably. On track to be valedictorian. When I was younger and had more ego, I figured the bishop of that ward just thought I was so cool. As I got older and wiser, I realized that for better or worse, whoever I was, an area of the country where the LDS church has historically struggled heard some cash registers clinging.

Maybe it was going to start being cool to be LDS at my high school. Abby, who previously had never gotten along incredibly well with the bishop (for reasons I would find out later), was suddenly the daughter he never had.

So, maybe the LDS church was using me. Much like it's used most of you. What they didn't know, though, was that it was 100% mutual for the duration of my stay. I wasn't about to give them anything. Much less my soul. I cranked through the discussions in a couple of weeks. Even skipped school to hang with the missionaries during their P-day. Elder --------, sorry. Somewhere out there, I bet you sit back and wonder what happened to that teenage kid you baptized. If you're reading this story, you clearly know who I am. Heck, maybe you're reading this as an ex-Mo now and we can go get a drink someday.

Did I have any questions for the elders? Uhhhh, yeah. Question one--how the heck do you believe this stuff?

I wasn't that naive. I read all the anti- stuff on the internet. Even discovered sites such as this one back then. I knew it was all a sham. The story on its face almost made me laugh. I never really felt bad for the people inside the church--I thought they must be insane to believe this. The Book of Mormon especially--or perhaps the D&C. The insanity that is the papyri translations in the PGP. Joseph's revelations. His absolutely pathetic explanations as to why he did X or Y. Or so I told myself in self-righteous assurance.

The real truth was, I wanted to be with Abby. And I was prepared to do what it took to get there for someone that wasn't even seriously dating me yet. So was I less naive than the people there? Of course not. I just thought I was. I was 18 and right about everything.

So I developed a pattern that served me well as I slowly but surely moved up in stature in the LDS church as a total fraud--I lied my ass off. Forgive me if these weren't the actual questions asked as it's been twelve years now since I've had the discussions and I successfully weaseled my way out of ever being a missionary. I do remember being asked if I had any sexual sin in my past that I needed to repent of. "Do threesomes count?" I wanted to ask. Instead, I simply replied "nah, you know, I was honestly so busy with school all the time..." Masturbation? "Uhhhh, like three times a day, dude! I'm a friggin teenage boy! What the hell do you think?" Maybe that's what I should have said. Maybe it all wouldn't have gone so off track. Instead, I diligently answered, "you know, I did when I was coming of age more, but as I grew up, I just kind of lost interest in it when I was doing more and more schoolwork and with sports--heck, I wouldn't even have the time!" The fact that people believed that just made me aghast. Seriously?

I have a talent for memorizing things. And with all the independent study I was doing, all night long--I sounded like a legit Mormon just a couple of weeks in to this whole deal. In part by studying so much anti-Mormon and ex-Mormon literature, I had a great idea of what would be asked and expected of me. Far more than if I had just read the assigned passages. I think the Bishop must have been on cloud nine. Not too good to be true--one of the elect. Definitely one of the elect, sent down to a non-BIC family, but of course making his way back to the fold. What sort of missionary would HE make?

I was baptized the weekend after my 18th birthday. Knowing full well who Fanny Alger was. And Nancy Rigdon. And all the others. Heck, I started even feeling close to ol' Brother Joseph because I imagined if I was in his shoes, that sword-wielding angel would have threatened me in a similar fashion. At least it would have when I was at that stage of my life.

I didn't care. I phoned in the spirituality times a million. I was on fire. I was called as a ward missionary pretty quickly, and actually devoted some time to it. I started believing my own hype when I got two kids who had gone inactive at school to come back. "Hey if **** is doing it, maybe there's some cred to it, right?" My friends actually showed up at church and started coming to play basketball during Wednesday nights. The Bishop even tried to corner me into applying to BYU, but my mind was made up--I was going to a school well known for its aviation program out west, and I was going to be a pilot. End of story, end of discussion, and he respected that.

Some of my friends thought I was lame because I also gave up partying (at least as hardcore as I had been). Stopped drinking altogether. I thought I was on top of these Mormons, but in effect, I was becoming one of them, little by little. I saw Mormon movies more than I saw Hollywood releases any more. Abby and I started dating. And then we kissed one night. Which was followed by about three hours of making out. Which was followed by a relationship that went from zero to sixty in about two seconds. Which was followed by talk of marriage and babies, our friends intertwining lives with one another, our families getting closer, and of course me being at church about four nights a week when I should have been living it up with my friends.

I was almost converted, my initial experiences be damned. I think I may have forgotten all those things I had read on the internet.

However, there was something else I didn't know about Abby. It didn't really start until the weather started getting nice. If it weren't for this, the possibility may have existed that I would have wound up going fully Mo and possibly never came back.

I found out, though, that the reason Abby and the Bish weren't exactly buddy-buddy when I first got there was that she had a major problem--with masturbation. MAJOR problem. In fact, in all my years on the planet, with all the girls I've dated, I never came across someone as susceptible to their hormones as her.

Damn it all. For about five minutes, I thought I was really going to start living a life as a Mormon. But the moment I felt her hand slide into my undies, I knew all bets were off. Within days, we were having sex sometimes five, six times a day. Totally unknown to her parents, the other members, anyone. We'd have sex in the bathroom at school. Or in my car. Or on my boat. Or when we were supposed to be having scripture study. We stopped GOING to school all that much, just because we could knock three of four times out in the late morning/early afternoon. It got to the point that it wasn't even fun any longer. It's all she ever wanted to do, and after a fifteen/twenty minute break, she needed more. Abby was definitely a sex addict.

Worst of all, she was even more interested in lying to the bishopric and her parents about it than I was. She had "gotten clean" for me, she assured the Bish. And with her needing to stay that way to get in to BYU the following year, we assumed our new identities as Peter Priesthood and Molly Mormon. That's when things got especially out of control. I was lying every single time I talked to the bishop. With sports and flying, I was way too busy to have a job, so it's not like I ever had to pay anything in tithing anyways (and I would finagle that in later years to ensure that I've never--NEVER--paid the Morg more than about $150--total). Abby and I probably had sex over 500 times that summer before I went off to college, sadly no exaggeration. I literally did nothing else. I probably saw my best friends I had grown up with a sum total of three times. My parents were going to Turkey and I had wanted to go to for months, but said no because I realized we could have the whole house to ourselves and just, well, you know. I was seriously worried about myself. I was kind of freaked out. It was weird. Even my most trusted friends thought it was weird. "Uh, dude... you know I'm all about the ladies... but what you're doing isn't natural, bro," my best friend told me.

Anyways, the skinny of it with Abby is that it didn't work out. I burned out of that real quick. I went off to college and forgot the LDS church that year. I had the freshman year an American teenager hopes to have--booze, casual, no-strings-attached dating, I got to fly a ton, and played on the soccer team in college. It was fantastic. Abby shaped up a bit her senior year, didn't date anyone, and eventually went to BYU. I would eventually get that call "apologizing" to me for what she had done (apparently she decided to repent). I guess she was suspended from the Lord's University for a year and then eventually graduated and promptly started cranking out kids with her TBM RM clone of a husband. Or whatever. Sucks for that guy, because I know whatever his job is right now, he won't have it too long with her routine.

I thought I was mostly done with that chapter in my life until the LDS folks from back home became "concerned" about me. They knew where I went to college, and contacted the singles ward there. I had missionaries at my door by April. Shit. I didn't need this kind of image on campus. There were virtually NO Mormons at my school, which was fortuitous, but there was another college in town where a number actually went, and quite a few attractive young females. The tiny college I went to had a very limited number of possibilities, and once you had a reputation as a "player," you would never live it down. So I decided, what the heck? Let's give this another shot. I couldn't stay away from women. I played the whole extended absence off as a "needing a year or so to focus on flying and what I wanted to do in life because I had some difficult decisions to make." I explained why serving a mission wouldn't work for me, etc etc. To my surprise, no one jumped down my throat. No one told me I was making a mistake.

"You are a fine young man, from what I've heard," my new bishop simply said. "And we'd just like to have you, you know? If you can't commit to doing a lot, no problem. We don't care about that. But we would like to see you." Wow. Didn't really jive with the ex-Mormon stories I'd read. To this day, my biggest regret is lying to that man. He was genuine, caring, and never judgmental. He was what everyone would have wanted in a bishop. His favorite pastime seemed to be joking about the realities of single ward life, and not as dogmatic or pre-programmed as one would expect.

So I went, for the rest of college. It was good for me. It kept me from drinking--as much. I loved to binge drink, so that probably had a major impact on me not doing too much of it. I would still party on Saturday nights and occasionally bring a young lady home, but I kept it away from my church life. I executed my calling to the best of my ability--which wasn't great, but I could BS a lot in a short period of time. I was called as an elder before I had gone inactive (somehow without even having waited a full year), and that removed an hindrance to moving up the ol' ward pyramid. Thanks to pretty anemic activity in the ward (and I mean anemic), I wound up as second counselor in the Elder's Quorum presidency, even though I had never served a mission. The Bishop gave me a temple recommend my senior year. And yes, you guessed it, I lied my teeth off to get it.

I drove to Nauvoo on my way home from school to be endowed. I even stopped at Joseph's grave and asked him: was it all worth it? "I know you, man. I know who and what you are. Was it worth it? Are you prouder of me than those who really believe?" The questions I asked him disturbed me more than anything else ever did. Especially because some part of me felt like he probably was.

Being endowed wasn't that much of a life-changing experience. I guess it WAS cool to go to the temple. So few people have access to one. Many people who hated the church kind of wish they did to get in. I find religious ritual fascinating so I guess that part of it was all pretty neat. However, I had the whole thing memorized more or less from before I even set foot inside. You better believe I had read all variations of it over the years, what changes there were, I knew where everything was going to be. I probably looked disturbingly NOT lost making my way around. I definitely realized I screwed the pooch when after, in the celestial room, one of the workers asked me quizzically if a parent had practiced the whole veil thing with me. "No one gets it that right at first, typically." I assured him that I had no family in the church, which seemed to satisfy him totally. "That means you were paying attention," he said proudly. Oh yes. I was paying attention, alright.

My life, being back in the church, was no different than it was before. I found plenty of interested young ladies, but I went for Ashley. She seemed pretty bad. Well liked, but there were the "skeletons in the closet" that everyone murmured about behind her back. No matter how good people in a ward are, the gossip is always deafening.

Anyhow, Ashley sounded good to me. The rumors? Turned out to be 100% true. Ashley and I drank our asses off on Saturday night, had sex, she would smoke weed (I didn't get near that stuff because of flying), and then on Sunday, we played the good little church couple. Eventually she had a breakdown, realized how disappointed her father would be in her, dropped out of college, and moved home to Idaho to get her life together. At least she never said anything to the bishopric. No biggie. In moved Brittany, a girl from Alaska. You could tell she was bad, and she could spot it in me a mile away. What is it about us that we can always find each other? It was like an endless cycle, a wheel I would never get off. All the while I lied to the bishopric endlessly.

How real could this stuff be? Even the patriarch who gave me my blessing before I went to the temple told me just how special a person I was and how I had been so well rewarded for my righteousness and faithfulness. We all know, my friends, that I had no faithfulness, zero testimony, and as for righteousness? Please feel free to pile on your jokes.

Finally, I decided I would get off the wheel. I was graduating from college, and I was sick of being this "slumming" kid who came from a good family but couldn't seem to get a hold of himself. It was the worst possible thing to happen to me--because it started to make me believe TSCC. I thought, wow, all these antis and exs say these horrible things, but there must be something to this message and lifestyle. If I were to follow it, I'd stop doing this crap. Does that make any logical sense? Of course not.

So I cleaned my act up. I quit drinking--cold turkey--for years. I was never addicted, I mostly just did it socially because I enjoyed it. I went and got therapy. Turns out, a lot of it had to do with what had happened to me as a child and my inability to process that. I also talked to an LDS member I implicitly trusted. Someone who actually did have a bit of authority, too. His advice was unbelievable. He didn't judge me in the least. He thought my situation had been extraordinarily complicated, wanted me to know that my Heavenly Father loved me, etc. You've all heard it before as you no doubt have experienced good, caring, kind church members who genuinely made you feel "the love of Christ." I never knew what that was until that moment. I suddenly decided to run with it.

Being a pilot is a tough life these days. I spent the last two years of college as an instructor, and then took a job flying night freight. That was not the most fun way to make a living--but it was a living when other people I knew from school struggled because of the economic downturn. I stayed single. I was super active in the church. I was eventually called as a ward mission leader in the singles ward I was in. I even... ugh... repented... for what came before. I expected excommunication, especially as I was an endowed member. The bishop was extraordinarily loving and kind.

"Look, we have to get you on the right track, brother," he told me. "But what happened to you wasn't your fault. Sometimes people are in a position where they think they're making choices, but they're not, you know? You obviously know what's right. And so the way we're going to handle this is for you to take a couple of months off the garments, and the sacrament, and all that good stuff, and then we're just gonna make sure we can do this, ok?"

"I know you're sorry for any pain you've caused anyone. I think it's just time for you to forgive yourself and move on."

If only I meant it. Wow. I felt like a real scumbag at this point. Invoking my deepest pain, just to justify what an asshole I was. He totally bought into it, and that just furthered the cycle of me having no respect for the Church. I certainly wasn't going to bear my soul about my lowest moment in its entirety to this man.

The only good thing to come from that was that was the final straw that convinced me to at least LIVE like I had my act together. Not as a member per se, but more as a human being. I NEVER, repeat, NEVER avoided things like Rated R movies, swearing, "music that chases the spirit away," or any of that. I went out to eat on Sundays when I wanted and did whatever I wanted. I was a normal American 20-something, and refused to give that up. I guess the one thing the Church did get me to change were some habits that were probably keeping me from having the kind of relationships I wanted to have in life, though. I suppose that was a plus.

After some time had passed, I started dating a Mormon girl that was quite legit. Caitlin. Very cute (if not as "striking" as the previous ones had been), but one all the boys had their eye on nonetheless. She liked seeing me go from wild child to "manageable," and we hit it off right away. She knew me better than the others did, so she knew that my transformation was actually authentic. Spent a year and a half getting to know each other, dating casually. In the end, though, we got to a place where she decided it was put up or shut up.

And that's when I had to come clean with myself. Despite being in this great place, it came all at once, rather anticlimactically. I wasn't going to marry Caitlin. I wasn't going another day as a Mormon. I hadn't reasoned to this point, or really even thought it through. She asked me to take a walk, and there she was, holding my hand, looking extra cute, probably having spent a good hour putting on her makeup. She wanted me forever, eternally. She knew that. She was the luckiest girl in the world. I think she thought it was at least going to get the ball rolling.

Man, did it do the opposite.

"I'm sorry, Caitlin. I can't be with you any longer. I don't believe in this church at all, not one word of it. You seem like a great person. I've really gotten to like you a lot. We've had a lot of fun. It's been a healthy relationship. However, I'm thinking about what my life would be if I continue this charade, and I can't. I'm really sorry, and I really hope that your life goes exactly where you want it to go."

Dick move? Probably. Ok, definitely. I hated myself. But that was the honest truth. The sad thing was, prior to taking that walk, I had "prayed about it," honestly, for the first time ever. No, I didn't get a burning in my busom. I realized how stupid I felt praying about it. I realized how stupid it all was.

For all these wonderful, great things that I had gotten from the Mormon church, the bottom line is--it's not true. I had ignored that, looking to just enjoy the whole social aspect of the LDS church. But it's not true. It's a church built on lies, by a deceitful charlatan, and what's worse--I hadn't been kept from this information. I knew it before I ever set foot inside the LDS chapel.

I was able to fool just about any authority I had ever come in contact with. Just because I'm so special? No. It was because if you project exactly what they want to see, you can probably fool anyone--all the way to the top. They don't have any power to see into the hearts of men whatsoever. The truth is, they don't CARE. Their priority isn't to get your life in order. It's to give the rest of the world the APPEARANCE that their members' lives are in order, desirable to investigators, and that's it!

Why--if the temple is so sacred and no unclean thing can enter it--do they stop at a recommend interview? And, in certain instances, the testimony of bored, busybody narcs in the membership. They really can't inquire of your family, friends, etc.? It would take too much time? Or that it really DOESN'T matter? If you're willing to go to the trouble of looking righteous to the outside world, good enough, man. That's all we really want.

Or something like that, anyways. Is this my actual hypothesis? No. I don't have one. I really don't care. I'm sure the answer would take years of study, and to be quite frank, the LDS Church is such a crock that it's not worth that kind of study. Since I'd been so juvenile up to this point, I decided to go out with three fitting words: Mormonism sucks, man.

What I did learn--and would like to graciously impart on the future me (because I'm not the only one out there, and this I do know for certain)--I realized the secret to the LDS Church. Be 1) male, 2) young, 3) what people find attractive, in shape, with your hair cut exactly as they'd like it, and probably being white doesn't hurt (sad, but quite true), 4) successful, and 5) willing to at least say all the right things, in public, as much as you possibly can and... presto! You have the makings of a great young life in the LDS church!

If you're female, forget it. They always suspect you're a closet slut. When a boy does it, he's in need of "getting right," but when you do it, oh man, you're ruined and stained for life.

Don't ever start fights or disagree with the leadership. Take every single opportunity to speak, and give the most brownnosing, sickeningly sweet yet still humorous speeches and testimonies you possibly can. Go up every FTM Sunday. Wear a suit, dude. Don't half-ass it. Wear a ****** suit. To every function. Overdress.

Kiss ass, even when you don't know who the heck the person is or if it's even worth spending your time on. It probably is, in the long run. The brethren universally LOVE their asses kissed. They have such low self-esteem and are constantly so concerned that the outside world finds them weird and bizarre that it's a guaranteed shortcut to where you want to go.

You can skip community service as much as you want, but always show up when someone needs to be moved. Try to look as heart-felt and authentic as possible.

Now, future me, I wish to impart this on you: get out while you can. You can only stay in so long before you go native. It will happen. I don't care how smart, or clever you think you are. They're getting into your head more than you think they are.

Or, you know, just don't waste your entire youth like I did. Enjoy life. Question things. Enjoy your freedom. Be the person you want to be. You don't have to be like I was, either--if you want to be a good, chaste person, if that's who you are--awesome! Rock on! But for the love of God, just be the person that you know you are.

Recognize early on that when you HAVE to lie, it's not fun, and it's not a game. You're in a bad situation. Get yourself out! From ages 13 through about 26, I'm thoroughly disgusted with the person I was, and thoroughly disgusted with how ok I thought I was with that.

It was the day I told Caitlin goodbye, the day I told her I couldn't do this, that the Book of Mormon doesn't even make solid toilet paper, that the reason that this whole church had come this far wasn't Heavenly Father's guidance but the sad, simple fact that Joseph Smith just liked him some booty (whether of the buried treasure variety or the, well, you get it). That's the cornerstone on which the LDS church was built, not revelation from some angel, not the restoration of God's true church on this planet, not the power of the priesthood, and definitely not the church that couldn't see through someone as fake as I had been. Shocker--a dude likes him some fame, position, ego, and sex with lots of hotties.

"Now why would someone make that up?" I hear the lesson manual asking.

Go read the letter he wrote to young Miss Rigdon the day after she repulsed his advances to see all you need to know about Joseph Smith. And ask yourself how many times you've heard that letter quoted out of context to show the beauty of the prophet's intentions.

It was waking up from a lot more of a nightmare than I thought it had been. Not because I had given away thousands of dollars in tithing, not because I was estranged from any family (they were patient and stood by while I ran my course in TSCC), not because I had to deal with losing friends (they're all pretty much my friends still, the ones who mattered at all). It was waking up from a nightmare because I had just lost all those years! Pretending, playing a game, unhealthily extending my juvenile life and losing the chance to grow up and mature as a person when I would have liked.

I wouldn't expect any sympathy from a Mormon. This is one of those ex-Mormon experiences that you can chalk up to the member truly being a deceitful little so-and-so, and move on with your life.

So why does any of that matter? Well, I've read countless stories where people SWEAR that there are others out there who did way worse things than them, who weren't even making an effort, but were being singled out for position and authority ahead of them, or treated better by the leadership, or something to that effect. People wondered if they were crazy. Other TBMs told them they were just jealous, it wasn't true, and that they needed to repent and stop being so jealous.

Here's a story from one of those assholes you hated. It's true. It does work that way. I'm truly sorry and I'll have a hard time forgiving myself for playing a stupid game and getting other people in trouble while I skated away, or bringing people back to Church when I knew it was crap myself. I'm a lot more sorry for the fact that for most of you, the LDS church wasn't just some game. It was your ethnicity, in a way. It was your identity as a human being. It was your family, and all your friends, and your entire life. Your time, talents, and energies were consecrated to TSCC, and you feel like you have nothing. It's embarrassing to me, honestly, but I hope in some way this brings some sort of peace to people. That's why I spent the better part of an afternoon writing this out for you all.

I'm 29 now. My life is brighter than it ever was. I have grown up a lot as a person. I'm happily single (well, at least for now), but have had a couple of short term, VERY healthy relationships since extracting myself from the Morg. I'm now an airline pilot and living my dreams. The future looks bright. I don't have to hide anything from anyone any longer, although my time as a Mormon is something that is behind me and I don't really discuss, except maybe with some people I'm particularly close with. I can just be... me. Like it never even happened.

Every now and then, there's a fleeting moment that passes where I miss the Church. It was like a drug for me, as weird as that sounds. I was getting some sort of fix from it. However, it's done. It's over.

I'd like to bear my testimony that Joseph made the whole damn thing up. I was urged at the time of baptism to walk in his shoes, and I feel I came awfully damn close to doing just that. I gained a much better understanding of why someone would use religion and fake spirituality to further their base desires in life. It all makes PERFECT sense now. And from this point forward, it's my only wish that more people come to realize that he was nothing but a scam artist and a liar, and that's why the Church mirrors that so well.

For those of you who are walking out from situations a lot tougher than mine, I just want to add--rock on, brother (or sister)! If there's anything I can ever do to help any of you, feel free to let me know--that will be my true repentance.