I'm new this forum thingie, so bear with me here. Anyways, I've never really put why I left the Mormon church into words, so I'll do it here. I grew up in the church; I was blessed and baptized. I'm the oldest of six kids. My dad served a mission in France where he converted my mother, and they later married. As the oldest child (and a female), I was expected to be exemplary to my other siblings. My whole life I was taught that I should go to school (preferably BYU) to find my future husband (who MUST be an RM), who I will marry right away, probably drop out of school, and have a million children. I learned to clean, cook, sew, and all of the normal "housewife" duties. They were expected of me, because that's what I would be doing by the time I could legally marry basically. Not knowing any better, I was okay with this until I became a teenager and moved away from Utah to Nevada. It was here that I committed "sexual sin" (the worst sin next to murder! oh no!) with someone I felt I loved. Yes, I was a little naive at the time (in terms of love), but rather than being taught about safe sex, I was only taught about abstinence from my father. Lucky for me, my convert mother knew the realities of teenage hormones and taught me about safe-sex, so I knew what to do. However, when my dad found out that I had been "sinning", he immediately forced me to go see the Bishop. I was also grounded from EVERYTHING for nearly three months. I could not use my phone, listen to music, go on the computer, see friends, watch movies, or do anything that would make me remotely happy for three bloody months. I think people on legal house arrest had more options than I did. I was stripped from all types of communication from my friends and outside family, with exception of school. Anyways, during this time I had to see the bishop every week after Young Women's. Now let me explain my ward in Nevada: There was the bishop, who was a sexist and racist man. His brother-in-law was the First Counselor, the bishop's wife was the Relief Society president, and his sister in law was the young women's president. All of the family had high up positions in the ward. Anyways, I was friends with the bishop's niece at some point, who turned out to be a psychotic person so I stopped being friends with her and this caused a lot of drama between our families in the ward, and even contributed to my family no longer going to church. My bishop's attitude towards me was rude and distant; I had to see this guy every week and tell him all of my "sins". Of course, they were sexual sins, so guess what I had to recount to some forty something year old guy? MY ENTIRE SEX LIFE. He asked about the nitty gritty details, what led up to sex, what exactly was done during the sex, you get the idea. It was very uncomfortable for me. Often times it was complete silence in his office because I didn't feel comfortable answering his questions. Still, growing up mormon, I felt extreme shame and guilt for committing these sins. My dad forcing me to go see the bishop out of disappointment didn't help either. I cried a lot, lost all of my friends, went into extreme depression (I was almost hospitalized), my family relationships with my dad and siblings were ruined...it was just a really bad time for me. I think it could have been a lot worse without my comforting, formerly non mormon mother. Anyways, I saw the bishop for a few months until I could take sacrament again. I was still very depressed during this time and my only friend that I had was my *probably* gay brother. Later, I became friends with nonmormons and it was much more comforting to not have to fake being mormon all the time! I was happy during this time because I had a better relationship with my family and I was not as depressed as I once was. Then I met my now-to-be future husband. Our relationship was rocky at first because I kept on fighting committing sexual sin out of shame and guilt. The times that we did fool around led to extreme guilt on my behalf and our relationship was nearly ruined. Trying to stay in the church, please my father, being an example to my younger siblings was very difficult and gut-wrenching. Soon I stopped caring about all of the repentance, forgiveness, guilt nonsense and just did what I felt was right. Luckily, I graduated high school soon after, my family moved to Australia and I went to University in the states. I was able to live my life as I wanted--without guilt or shame and without the mormon church. My dad couldn't make me go to church anymore and he didn't really like that since he was 8,000 miles away. I moved in with my boyfriend (now fiance) during the beginning of college and realized after a few years that he was the one for me (it took four years, not a mere 3 months like several of my mormon friends decided was enough time to know someone well enough to marry). During my undergraduate years, I maintained my relationship with my family over webcam and phone calls. My dad didn't know I was living with my boyfriend until a year into our living together, but when he found out he was devastated. He claimed he would never help me financially if I needed it unless I married right away, repented, converted my nonmormon boyfriend, blah blah blah. He said he thought he raised me better than this and that I was so disappointing and everything. I am planning to go to medical school, have very good grades, am very involved in my community, volunteer at several places, am in a successful and healthy relationship with someone I love...I'm a disappointment? I knew I wasn't a disappointing human...my mother helped me with that, I'll admit. This made me realize how brainwashed my dad was with church stuff. He made it seem like church was more important than my overall happiness, or our relationship for that matter. This carries on into his relationship with my mother as well (who is having trouble leaving the church since my dad threatened that he'd take away the rest of the kids if she did and other nonsense like this). He puts the church above EVERYTHING. Since when is it okay for things to be above your family or those you love? Anyways, now that I'm getting married soon (and still "living in sin") my dad has had trouble dealing with the fact that I will not be marrying in the temple. This is apparently a bad example to my other siblings. According to my dad, I'm the worst example there is for my brothers and sisters. At some point he even said that he would only come to my wedding in the United States if it was a temple wedding...he said he would refuse to come to my non-temple wedding. Of course this made me depressed again, because who would walk me down the aisle? Why bother having a wedding if my family was not allowed to be there and only my fiance's family would be in attendance? This was horrible for me. I hated this whole situation. It took my dad a few years to deal with this and now he is "okay" with our non-temple marriage, but would prefer if my fiance became mormon, we both went through repentance, and then we got married in the temple. UGH. I'm still dealing with this. So these are some of the reasons why I left the church: weird bishop, guilt and shame when I used to "believe" and now, I'm free from it and I've never been happier, and, of course, how my dad, who is SO mormon, reacts to my lifestyle.

Now to address the science portion of why I left the church. I'm a Neuroscience major. I've been taught about evolution, biology, psychological theories, etc. Everything I'm learning has evidence backing it up that denies what the mormon church teaches. The endosymbiotic theory...bloody evolution, for example. Explaining these to my dad, of course, was interesting. He thinks I should just go to class to get the grade rather than believe what people/professors have been studying and researching their whole lives. Basically, my dad wants me to deny these facts and go back to mormonism. Of course, I will not do that! Science is above religion in all aspects to me.

Sorry, this is really disorganized and probably more of a rant if anything. My dad also thinks my career choice (being a doctor) is not right. I should already be married with kids by now. For those of you who don't know, becoming a doctor is a lifelong path. It may take up to 20 years of school (including residency). How will I fit having children if I'm in medical school? Or busy treating a patient in the ER? So basically, my lifelong dream of becoming a doctor is wrong to my dad because I can't "procreate and replenish the earth" as soon as I possibly can.

Well, this doesn't really sum up all of the reasons why I left the church, but it sums up the major ones. I can't believe in something that isn't backed up by factual evidence; I do not believe premarital sex is wrong if I truly love the person and plan to spend my life with them. I do not think drinking alcohol is wrong as long as you follow legal rules. Coffee and tea are not as bad for you as fast food and candy are, so there's goes to word of wisdom for me. Anyways, this is becoming fairly lengthy. Hopefully someone can relate with me (especially in terms of the guilt and shame I used to feel) and I look forward to reading everyone's posts about why they left as well!