My exit story is a long one. I suppose I don't actually expect anyone to read it, but I hope it will help to get this off my chest.

I was born into the church. My mother's family had always been Mormon, though my dad was a convert. As far back as I can remember, I never liked going to church. As a little child I thought it was boring and stupid. Actually, every Sunday when I was a kid and we had an early meeting schedule, I would purposely sleep in as long as I could or just stay quiet and motionless in my bed, "praying" that my parents would sleep through their alarm so we could skip church. I remember one time when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I was engrossed in playing when my dad came out and told me to get ready for church. I just ignored him and kept playing. Finally he came out again and asked why I wasn't getting ready, and for the first time I told him straight that I didn't want to go to church. My dad has a pretty long temper, but that was probably the first time I saw him lose it. He got really angry and yelled at me to get ready, that I was going whether I liked it or not. He yanked on my arm and pushed me towards my room. Don't get me wrong, my dad isn't a violent man and he never hit me or abused me physically. But the look on his face that day terrified me. I didn't try to stand up for myself again after that for a very long time.

I remember the day of my baptism after my 8th birthday, and I remember that I didn’t want to go through with it. I didn't want to be baptized into this silly church that my parents put so much stock in. I remember fretting by myself, worrying about the coming event, wondering endlessly what would happen if I actually spoke up for myself and refused to be baptized. But I knew that it would upset my parents and all of my extended family. I didn't want to disappoint them like that. I was so deeply entrenched by all the people around me that I thought I had no choice. It's ironic; I was supposed to be of the age to make my own decisions and be "held accountable" for my sins, and yet I couldn't even stand up for myself and tell the people around me that I wasn't interested in their religion.

That's not to say I never tried. I did. Following my baptism I really tried my hardest to be righteous, reading the scriptures every day, praying and fasting. I prayed a lot, but it never did any good. Maybe I was already irredeemable for not wanting to be baptized in the first place, I don't know. Then I entered middle school and was constantly teased and bullied by everyone around me. The teachers in Sunday school and priesthood meetings implied that I must have been given a trial. This life is a test, so getting mercilessly bullied was just part of my test. They also taught that I would never be "tried" beyond what I could handle. But all of these things they said never sat right with me. When I sat alone in the basement of our house on the weekends, crying myself sick because I was so lonely and frightened, I wondered why God didn't step in and help me. Why didn't the Holy Ghost give me comfort? I thought it must be because I wasn't righteous enough, so I tried even harder. I prayed harder. I did everything they said I was supposed to... But I was never "comforted" or "healed." Quite the opposite in fact -- I very nearly committed suicide because the pain became too great to bear. I believe I have been "tried" FAR beyond my limits, and very nearly crumbled because of it. I think I may have started to realize then, if only subconsciously, that perhaps all the great "truths" they preached every Sunday might not be so true after all.

Of course the next step in my disillusionment with the church came when my parents discovered the stash of "porn" in my room. None of it was actually hardcore pornography, just some lingerie mags and some sketches I had done myself. Nothing to get too crazed over. But then my parents were diehard Mormons, and pornography and especially masturbation were such great "sins." I'd never seen my parents so mad at me before; they really scared me. I guess it was such a shock because I had always been such a good child for them, always doing what I was told so they didn't scold me often. And then, this one time when I went against their rules and teachings and did something purely for ME, I was severely punished for it. Maybe I could have taken that much; I DID feel bad for upsetting my parents. But for the Mormons, it isn't enough to scold your child yourself. No, they have to be hauled off to a special emergency meeting with the bishop of their ward the next Sunday. Because finding out about your child's burgeoning interest in sexuality can't be kept private; they have to tell the "spiritual leader" so he can set the kid straight. Well, it was that meeting with the bishop that really galvanized my resolve to keep doing what I wanted, no matter what they said. It's not that he was particularly mean or insulting or anything. He was actually kind of a nice guy. But that day his expression was so solemn -- I'd never seen that before. He asked me straight out if I had ever "touched myself," because masturbation is such a grave sin that I'd have to repent really hard if I had done such an atrocious thing. Of course I had been masturbating for awhile, but I was so terrified of this meeting and the look on his face that I fervently denied it. While bawling my eyes out, I might add. I was frankly unwilling to give up the ONE thing in my life at that point that brought me real comfort and joy. I remember thinking, 'how dare they try to tell me what I can and can't do with my own body?' And I refused to believe that looking at beautiful images of naked women could be so wrong. I was hurting NOBODY by exploring my own sexuality. My body was changing, my hormones were raging and frankly my sexuality needed expression. It was the only relief I could find in a world filled with spite and intolerance. And they tried to repress it, to deny it... That was the first time I can actually remember thinking to myself, "Maybe this church isn't true after all."

It didn't help that the church kids my age started bullying me too, as their peers did every day in school. I very nearly killed myself, but my parents literally saved my life by taking me on a trip to Singapore, where the people I met were so much more open-minded and welcoming than anyone I had ever met in Utah. What was originally supposed to be a summer trip extended into a year, then two years, then four years. The church still existed over there, of course, and I was shipped off to early-morning seminary every day at the ward house, which started at 6 AM. I'm still not sure how I managed to keep my grades up with the tiny amounts of sleep I was getting, but I managed. Once again I met really nice people who were, surprise-surprise, not Mormon. To this day the cruelest, most spiteful people I ever met were Mormons.

Then I made one of the worst decisions of my life and agreed to attend Brigham Young University, at my parents' behest. Ever since I was just a small child they had told me about their dream of having their child attend BYU. I admit that I didn't really think it through at the time. I wanted to go to college, sure, but I didn't particularly care where I went so long as I could continue my education. I guess it never dawned on me, just what it would mean to enter a university that is actually run by the church I disliked so much. Frankly, I also couldn't stand up to my parents -- even when I turned 18, I couldn't just tell them that I didn't want to go to BYU and dash their hopes. They'd be paying my tuition and living fees in full, after all. I actually tend to sacrifice what I want to meet the expectations of others quite frequently. I've always been such a pushover. I think there was a part of me that was actively hoping that my admission would be denied so I could apply elsewhere. But it was accepted, and my parents were overjoyed. I just thought it'd be a welcome change. Hah.

Naturally I didn't fit in at BYU. When I first got there I decided to try again to be the "good little Mormon boy" that everyone always seemed to want me to be. For the first time since I started dabbling when we moved to Singapore, I put away the pornography and resolved to stop masturbating. I started reading the scriptures again and prayed every day. Some part of me thought that I could change myself that fundamentally, that I could suddenly accept everything I'd been questioning for years and turn into this person that everyone else wanted to see in me. Including a girl I liked, a Mormon girl from Singapore who attended BYU too, at first.

But there was no way I could have made such a drastic and fundamental change. When it comes down to it, faith has simply never "worked" for me. I've always been a very pragmatic person, perhaps to a fault. The idea of believing in something just because others tell me to has always rubbed me the wrong way. I need empirical evidence to believe in something, and I had never received any when it came to the teachings of the church. I never did "feel the spirit" in any way, shape or form. I was open to it, for a long time, but it never happened. So not long after my enrollment in BYU, I started considering my doubts anew. This time I actually did some research into the origins of the church, and I was floored by what I discovered. Before my first year at the university ended, I had become convinced that the Mormon church was not the "one true church" that it always claims to be so loudly. All of the evidence to the contrary, both from my own experiences and from the facts the church tries so hard to bury and keep from its members, was enough to convince me.

I think the final straw came one day when a bishop I hardly even knew called me in for a regular endorsement interview. Before I could even greet him, he launched into an angry rant about how he had seen me in church maybe two or three times that year, and then told me in no uncertain terms that he would personally kick me out of BYU if I missed just one more church meeting. And he wasn't gentle or nice about it either -- he was incredibly blunt and basically sounded like he was ready to kick me out then and there. I was shocked that he could be such a jerk. I should note that I wasn't just skipping church because I wanted to that year -- in fact, my mother had had surgery to remove her gall bladder and at the same time developed some very bad arthritis in her knees, so she was bedridden for over a month. At the same time my dad had to go out of town on business, so I went home every weekend to help my mother around the house. But this bishop wouldn't even deign to hear my explanation. He demanded that I show up at church, "or else." I understood then how most Mormons prioritize their lives -- Church first, and everything else, including family, way behind. It reminded me of the stories I had heard concerning a few acquaintances in my life. One kid in my ward in Utah eventually came out to his parents as an Atheist, and was immediately disowned and kicked out of the house by his parents, even though he was only like 16 years old. Even when he later developed testicular cancer, his parents still didn't care about him, and he died alone. And then there was a kid I knew from the ward in Singapore, who cut his mission short because he just couldn't do it anymore, and his parents promptly kicked him out. I've heard a lot of stories like that in my investigation of the church, and every one of them sickens me greatly. That a person could hold such illogical beliefs above the wellbeing of their own children... I'm appalled and disgusted by such people.

It was around my second or third year at BYU that I firmly decided that I was an Atheist. I'm extremely fortunate to have understanding and loving parents; they didn't even seem surprised when I announced that I wouldn't serve a mission, though they had always talked about how I'd be the first person in my dad's line to go on one. I hid my Atheism from them for a long time, though, fearing that perhaps I'd meet with the same fate as so many other kids and be promptly disowned. I guess I should have known them better. I finally came out last year, told them directly that I didn't believe in the church and considered myself an Atheist. My mom cried, of course, and even my dad got teary-eyed which is rare for him, but they understood and accepted it. I haven't attended a church meeting since my last weekend at BYU before graduation -- it's been almost seven years now. Sometimes I feel a stab of guilt because my parents became inactive when I did... But that was their choice, I guess.

Nevertheless, I never resigned. I'm afraid that I'm too much of a pushover, so when the bishop and his flock inevitably come knocking after learning of my intention to leave, I wouldn't be able to stand up for myself. Of course it doesn't help that I've developed some serious mental disorders including clinical depression, social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I believe that much of my anxiety stems from my experiences with the church, and especially from leading a double life for over a decade. I've told so many lies just to keep everyone happy, to make them believe that I was the ideal Mormon boy. I kept going to church, putting on the happy face and swallowing their bullshit when I truthfully didn't believe a word of it. My own hypocrisy disgusted me, every day. Even now that I haven't set foot in any church buildings for years and live as a professed Atheist, I still can't seem to get rid of this lingering anxiety. Therapy didn't help, mostly because I'm stuck in the middle of Utah again with no hope of finding a secular therapist who can actually talk about religion without preaching at me. I tried; the jerk constantly told me about HIS beliefs.

I have a lot of nightmares, probably due to my anxiety. There's one in particular that bothers me, though, where my dad comes to me and "forces" me to go back to church. Even though I'm now 30 years old, I still live with and depend on my parents, so I think there is a non-zero possibility that they could try to "save" me. And that possibility eats away at me like a cancer. I want to bring it up with them, but I'm afraid.

TL;DR: I never had any faith to begin with, so telling me that I've "lost" it doesn't make sense. As I told my parents, somehow religion just never "clicked" with me. Even when I tried so hard to be righteous and do everything they told me to, I never once "felt the spirit" or experienced any kind of supernatural event. Maybe my brain is just wired wrong and I'm somehow biologically incapable of connecting with religion. I don't know. I just know that it has caused me an incredible amount of grief and pain over the years. Nevertheless, I am thankful for some of their teachings, like the Word of Wisdom that prevented me from ever smoking, doing drugs or drinking alcohol; I'm pretty sure I'd be a hopeless drunk by now if I had ever started drinking. There was some good among all the bad. I just wish I could formally resign and then leave Utah. I believe that being among so many Mormons is bad for my mental health.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2015 07:21AM by oneinbillions.