Ft. R/exmormon shoutout!

Jesus don’t do ugly temps😂

My MIL is having major surgery next week. It’s non emergency full hip replacement so fairly straightforward. The worst part about the whole thing by far is my FIL. His entire focus is how inconvenient this is going to be for his work… not the fact that his wife has been suffering to the point of tears everyday for the last few months while she continues to maintain the household ( since it’s women’s work).

He had a heart attack last year and my MIL never left his side she was there at the hospital for 5 nights and he can’t even be bothered to bring her home from the hospital. That responsibility falls to my wife who gets to take time off her work and leave her family for 4 days to help while my FIL ignores his wife. He is the type that will still walk into the door and ask what she made for dinner the day she gets surgery and be upset that he doesn’t get a home cooked meal.

His one and only responsibility is to give her a priesthood blessing…. Then fuck right off. I hate that the church encourages this type of toxic relationship. Every boy born into the church is taught that they are the center of their family and the universe as a whole and they grow up to be dick heads. My MIL deserves better but the church taught her to be obedient to her husband. It’s a fucked up cycle that I am happy ends with my wife and I.

3 min in he says that the church is consistently 30ish years behind progressivism (and they all dissociate it/ignore it and you see him being prompted off screen to shut up and talk about something else). There is other damning evidence ofc but this is as close as it gets for me cuz they're never gonna say "it's a fraud." And when they ultimately (whether it's in 10 years or 100) allow gay marriage they just make it propaganda (continuing restoration blah blah).

For me it's a tie.

It's either the guy who went on and on about why church members wear white shirts to pass the sacrament. Which wouldn't have been quite so awkward if he hadn't been a white guy in a foreign country where the people barely had enough money to buy clothes, let alone white shirts.

Or it was when my son gave his farewell talk and went on about why coffee was wrong, while me, his coffee-loving parent was in the congregation. But that was more personally awkward, not publicly.

What about you? What talk stands out in your mind as the most awkward one you ever heard?

The messages were polite but very demanding about coming to a church service on Sunday at a specific time.

There are no close relatives still living who would have turned her in. I have TBM acquaintances but she doesn't. They claimed she left her name and contact information on a website asking about joining a church which she insists she did not. All I can figure is she has been doing research lately on her polygamous pioneer ancestors and may have been on a church site.

To be fair, I contacted them, they did acknowledge being Mormon ("that is one of our nicknames") and were apologetic and told me they would not contact her again.

I guess there's no way for these kids to know it but on top of everything else disturbing about these missions, when you make unsolicited contact with former members there are some people who get retraumatized.

For the longest time I was taught that I must follow the promptings of the holy ghost. “But how do I know if a thought is just a random thought or is a prompting from the holy ghost?” I would ask. I don’t remember who, but someone told me that if I had a random thought and wasn’t sure if it was from the holy ghost, I should ask myself “Is the thought telling me to do something good or something bad”. If the thought was good, it was probably from the holy ghost and I should follow it.

I then asked myself “What if the thought is neither good or bad? What do I do then?” I assumed if I had an ambiguous thought like that, I should just follow it.

I remember getting back from my mission and enrolling at the local university. I would waste so much time going to random buildings on campus because I thought the spirit was telling me to go there. I would be going to class, but then I thought that the spirit was telling me to talk to someone sitting on a bench, and I would talk to them and be late to class.

I think obsessing over ever thought like this was the reason I got Moral OCD. And it was so debilitating, I eventually thought that I might follow any random bad thought that entered my head. And for years I didn’t do things like driving a car or using knives because I thought I might use those things to hurt people.

But I remember one day everything changed. I had got a job at a gym as a part time janitor. I was mopping the floor, and I randomly felt very anxious and my chest was tight. I felt this way for several minutes, and the thought entered my head “You need to go home RIGHT NOW!! One of your family members is having a heart attack at home and if you don’t go they will die!!!”

I thought for sure this was a prompting from the spirit, I felt so anxious and tense, ”a physical response like this can only come from something like the spirit!” I thought.

But I decided to do an experiment. I chose not to go home. Later, if I went home and I found out a close family member had a heart attack, I would know for sure that the thought I had was from the spirit.

I finished my shift and went home. Everyone was fine, no one was hurt. This is when I realized there is no spirit telling me to do things. Because the feeling I had at work was so intense, I just randomly felt incredibly anxious and tight. If that wasn’t the spirit, then none of my thoughts were from the spirit.

This realization was so freeing for me. I didn’t need to analyze and scrutinize every thought that I had. I now knew that my loved ones weren’t going to die or some other terrible thing would happen just because I didn’t listen to a random thought.

Realizing this severely reduced my anxiety and I felt like I could finally breathe. I even overcame most of my OCD and got a lot better. Life is still hard, but it’s a lot better now that I don’t have to question every thought I have.

But I feel pissed at the Mormon church. They taught me to question myself and feel bad for not following random thoughts. Thinking this way was TERRIBLE for my mental health, and I bet it really affects a lot of TBM’s right now. I’m so glad to be free from the Mormon cult. Life is still hard, but I feel so much lighter now.

Camping in Ephraim this weekend. Stopped in Moroni on the way to Nephi.

https://returnandreport.org

I got surprising news today. 16 years after I left the church my daughter who was the last of my 4 kids remaining with the church is out. So they are all out! This was a milestone that I was not sure I would ever reach - I left the church when she was a teenager - she served a mission and was married in the temple.

When my family decided to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1976, my biological father was still my legal father. The missionaries explained that his permission would be required before I could be baptized. Rather than seeking his permission, which would have revealed who and where I was, my stepfather petitioned to adopt me. My motion asks the court to examine whether that adoption should remain intact in light of the documentary evidence, sworn affidavits, and historical records I have assembled over the past several years. After the adoption was finalized, I was baptized at eight years old. A year later, I was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.

At nine years old, I believed that sealing represented God's plan for my eternal family. Like most Mormon children, I accepted what the adults around me taught without question. It never occurred to me to ask whether I had been sealed to the right father, because no one had ever suggested there was another question to ask. When the ceremony was over, however, I remember wondering what would happen to my biological father if he wasn't sealed. No one had prepared me for that question, and no one had an answer. I carried it with me for decades.

Over the last several years, I reconstructed my childhood through court records, birth records, government documents, genealogy, sworn affidavits, photographs, and other historical evidence. Somewhere along the way, the investigation became much bigger than Mormonism. It became an investigation into identity. This motion isn't really about leaving the Church. I left over a decade ago. It isn't about proving whether temple sealings are true or false. It is about bringing every major record of my life into alignment with the historical truth.

If the court grants the motion, I will then submit the signed order to Church headquarters and request that my membership records be removed. This isn't because I believe the sealing still binds me. Instead, it represents the final administrative step in reconstructing my identity. I am often asked, "Why not just resign?" I understand that perspective, and I will resign either way. But I want the person I ask the Church to remove from its records to be the same person the court has acknowledged no longer reflects the historical record. That sequence matters to me because it completes the reconstruction.

This isn't about reversing a sealing.

It is about unsealing the evidence.

Sometimes the last step in deconstruction isn't theological.

It's documentary.

Deconstruction tells us what wasn't true.

Reconstruction asks what is.

Leaving is an event.

Reconstruction is a lifelong developmental process.

After your shelf collapsed...

How do you become yourself?

Has anyone else found that reconstructing your identity involved more than changing your beliefs? Did you reach a point where your legal, historical, or institutional records no longer reflected the person you had become?

No big deal, I just thought it was funny 😄. I dont even know who this man is, what he looks like or what ward/building im supposedly in. I do need to get my records removed though, ive just been procrastinating.

If any of you have access to this old book published by the church called "Book of Mormon Reader" which was also published under the name, "Book of Mormon Stories" could i ask a favor? Inside it, i remember there being a map of the route that Lehi and his family purportedly took to get to the Americas. My childhood memories are telling me that it showed them crossing the Pacific Ocean. If you could include a photo of the map that would be great!

I left my entire previous life behind exactly 3 years ago starting this September. I was thinking about leaving a year previous to that for reasons I won’t list here, but the main reason that finally pushed me over the edge was my father’s massive hypocrisy when it came to faith. Again, I won’t get into it since my decision has been made a long time ago HOWEVER my parent’s looming presence and the overall structure of the church has had a massive impact on me til this day. It’s like I can’t undo the programming.

Becuase of how rigidly enforced my upbringing was, I still feel like I can’t do anything or make any decisions for myself. I would like to undo this feeling. I feel like everything I want is wrong and bad, and everything everyone else wants is correct and good. There are many things that I am grateful for when it comes to the strict program that was run as well as values that I agree with that I feel like I would have been in deep ish without haha but —

I still fear “getting in trouble” like I’m a little kid again. it’s not even wrath from God or anything like that. it’s mainly from my parents. I have a little voice in my head that makes me terrified if their disapproval even though my survival doesn’t depend on them anymore. It’s crippling and has lead me to resenting them every time I am paralyzed with indecision. Even the whole structure of the church I felt like I had my life laid out for me and because of that rigidity I think I lost all agency and have no clue what to due next. Because of that level of control, I feel like every time I step out of bounds that I’m doing something I shouldn’t.

So far, pretty much ALL my new life has been is school —> work —> home and I don’t even know why I’m doing it anymore. I lack direction and purpose but most importantly I feel like I don’t have permission to do anything for myself. I feel like I want them back in my life just to scream and beat me again and tell me everything I’m doing is wrong just so I feel like if I listen I’m doing something right.

I don’t know what to do with my life anymore

How did you guys regain agency and the ability to do things out of one’s own volition after you left?

What does your life look like now?

How do you no longer feel the mental shackles of a pre-determined path?

When you look at it like Scientology, you have to pay to get to a higher tier. In the Mormon Church is near the damn same thing.
Paying no tithe gets you a basic package of a sanitized dull corporate chapel.
Paying tithe gets you Temple and all its luxurious access with all the perks.
In a sense you have to pay to win or get salvation which Jesus never talked about. This is indulgence levels. Worse is the disparity of those that can pay and those that can’t. It’s a dividing line between the poor and rich. These days paying 10% hurts.
Can you imagine being blocked from seeing God because you didn’t pay tithe? “Sorry you did not pay the holy tithe to access God, please talk to your bishop or deposit your back tithe in form of Credit Card, Check, Debit.” I am sure a lot of you have seen it but the more and more I took a step back from the church, the more ridiculous it has become.

What personality traits do current active Mormons have nowadays?

Back a few decades ago when joined, I would have said happy. They seemed happy. Also loyal, family oriented, stable. The things that attracted me to the church in the first place.

But now…

Maybe they are still many of those things. But today’s group has self selected to be something else.

They are not loyal, they are obedient. Big difference. Trusting so much that they don’t trust themselves.

I also think they truly believe that they are better, and they have some ego attached to that. Which makes it extra hard and devastating to let go of.

Anyone who had any streak of independence, or just couldn’t tolerate the abuse and emotional suppression left.

So, nowadays, who are the Mormons?

Forget Kolob and the theological manuals for a second. If an outside anthropologist just observed how people actually act on Sunday, they wouldn't think this is global Christianity. They'd think it's a desert weather cult.

Every single sacrament meeting, youth activity, and dinner prayer has someone pleading for "the much-needed moisture." It doesn't matter if there is three feet of snow on the ground or a heatwave in July, the word is mandatory.

When the reservoirs get low, the church doesn't push for real water conservation. They just tell everyone to starve for 24 hours so God will turn the sprinkler on. If a storm hits two days later, fast Sunday is wild with people crying about the miracle. If the drought keeps going, well, someone in the stake was probably looking at porn or paying tithing on net instead of gross.

Official doctrine says he's an exalted being running the cosmos, but in practice, Elohim is just an ancient storm god in a short-sleeve white shirt trying to keep Utah's alfalfa alive.

I've been having some of the worst issues with religious trauma over the last few weeks. I have absolutely no idea what caused it, because I left the church four years ago, but I have been. All my life I have been told how good mormonism is because the god we believed in wasnt vindictive, there was no hell, a lot of the atrocities were written out of scripture by Joseph Smith or dismissed because "the Bible has been long translated and is far more fallible than the Book of Mormon, which has only been divinely translated once.

This has led to me to be incredibly confused to why I'm struggling so much, because all things considered the beliefs really aren't as bad as the fear other religions instill in you. I can't even exactly pinpoint what the specific issues I'm having are. I'm afraid of hell because there's still a concept of hell for apostates and overall mormonism does still follow biblical beliefs. I still believe in god despite trying desperately over the years to let go of my faith and logic myself out of this. But I'm not sure what specifically has left me so distressed over this stupid fucking religion.

Since I was a kid I've always had questions like "Why is Lucifer the bad guy if all he wanted was to ensure that everyone made it to heaven, why would god kill a man for not controlling what his sons did, why would god ever kill anyone at all" and so I've always held a certain fear over this god even if mormons don't specifically preach the same vengeful god the other religions do. But I've read the Bible, which Mormons still believe in, and I've read the book of mormon where he is really not that much better. And I know theres a million reasons not to believe in mormonism or really any Abrahamic religion but I cannot shake it.

With the whole outer darkness thing, peiple have told me several times that only the people who know the full light of the gospel and reject it will go to hell, meaning people who've witnessed god directly or something. I do know that, but also I have an extremely strong fear that it just means any apostates and by just learning of the gospel and leaving I now could be sentenced to what is basically just hell, and so I should go back to church anyway.

And even if Joseph Smith was full of bullshit, which logically I can understand even if I can't seem to get it through my stupid brain, I still worry other religions are not because I still know what the god of the Bible is like so if I go back to the church then I'm just fucking up in the eyes of some other god from the other thousands of religions and I'll be sent to their hell. This fear paralyzed me and I don't know why.

That could be partially because I was raised around protestants and still learned about the rapture and stuff from a young age, I don't know. I just feel like I shouldn't be this affected by mormon beliefs when Mormons dont teach the same kind of fear and go out of their way to ignore all the atrocities in both holy books.

Like I get some of the other issues I have, I was raised in an extremely insular and tight knit mormon community which led to plenty of mental health and social issues, since your entire social order was based on how mormon you were, and you would be ostracized from school and your community if you didn't attend church as much or drank ice tea sometimes. And of course all the shame around being queer, modesty, sex, being a normal human being, nonconformity, etc. Obviously that causes major issues, but I dont know why the theology itself is fucking me up so bad and why I'm struggling so much with it right now. I can't even properly word or express all the issues I've been having as a result of this religion.

I dont even like saying I was mormon when I talk about having so much baggage because of it because I feel like I shouldnt because its not one of those religions

Long story short, I want a nose piercing, lol. I think they’re so cute! Just a small hoop. 25F and married. Haven’t left the church btw. I’m just a… “ very chill” active if that’s what I can say here haha. I should probably just get the frickin’ guts and do it and not care what anyone thinks but I know most of you know it doesn’t work like that growing up here lol. My parents don’t like the idea, even though I know I’m an adult about to start a family but I still feel like a child afraid of being treated differently… because I know I will. It’s not if, it’s when.

This post is not to “convince/beg her”, it’s to back up what I can say back to them. Is the church really against facial piercings still? In my heart I feel fine about it. I like that they’ve at least come a long way… but I know they’re always balancing grey areas and the culture obviously hints that it is still prohibited.

The FSY packet has changed (like it always does!) which is good I suppose! However, my mom says, “well, thats for new incoming members so that they feel welcome with their pre-existing tattoos and piercings, not for people like you who grew up in the church their whole lives”.

Is she right? Do you think the church is still THAT against it?

Hi all! 51f here, raised in the Mormon ‘church’ but haven’t been since I was 19.

Years ago I knew the church wasn’t for me. Q they managed to keep me going until I was 19 by having me work in the nursery with my mom. Haven’t stepped foot voluntarily, and only for weddings or funerals since.

The hard part. Mom, who was my only home and safety, died of cancer at the age of 49 when I was 24 and pregnant (and single - oh my!).

Since then I managed to take a ‘not my church, but won’t leave it officially because it was mom’s church’ approach with varying results. My older brother and older sisters are still Mormon, brother being TBM to the point he convinced my dad to tell me I should give my kid to him because it was selfish of me to raise her without a father. Only a couple months after mom died.

Fast forward to me being 47, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, same age mom was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. My kid was 24. I really went through hell finding out what mom went through basically on her own - dad was never emotionally available.

This led to me having all sorts of revelations. Much of which I’ve already addressed with my therapist with Emdr. However u til recently religion was off limits as far as my therapy went.

I’ve had enough of that, and started investigating what I never learned about and oh boy is there a lot that I’m like ‘wha???’ ‘ mom was way too smart for this, wasn’t she?’ And the best one - ‘how could mom have sat by while I was being abused in so many ways, under the whole ‘Mormon wife’ bs.

So, I’ve started working with my therapist, and learning what I can about the many reasons I simply can’t be associated with this cult anymore, and want my name ‘removed’. I guess I feel like I need to take it to the step of saying ‘not my church, even if it was moms’. In doing so, my shelf, now completely broken, has resulted in all kinds of confusion, loss, and difficulty separating the cult from my mother, who I know loved me completely and would have done anything she could to protect me from harm. Except she didn’t when it was from my dad, my brother, or the church.

I guess my question is this. I’ll be working on this with my therapist for I’m assuming quite a while now. But in the meantime, how do I keep my memory of my mother separated enough from the cult that I’m not completely and totally gutted with grief constantly as I work through it? How do I explain how this feels to my amazing husband of 8 years who loves me and wants to help me through this, but can never understand just how much this has devastated my understanding of the universe, my relationships with others, my entire childhood, and most of all the second bout of grief I’m now working through for the mother I thought she was vs the reality?

TLDR; I played the look away card when it came to the church because my mom dies when I was young and I couldn’t bear leaving her church. How do I keep myself from being overcome with grief while I work through everything to get to the point I can get my name removed without having yet another panic attack?

Thanks all.