It's been a very, very long time since I posted (And FYI, it's extremely unlikely I will ever post another post again. I
mean come on, it's been over a year since my last one. So don't get
your hopes up). And for various reasons. One of them being that, as a stay-at-home mom, I find my day-to-day life to be uninteresting and thus difficult to find something to write about. Another reason is that I don't write as a catharsis, or because I just have to. I write because I like to pretend that people out there actually care to hear what I have to say. Though I seriously question that some days, I know, deep down, that YOU know that I'm always right. You just don't want to admit it.
Another reason for not writing is that I've found as my daughter gets older, I have less and less time to spend on writing. It's not important for me, so it got dropped.
The biggest reason, however, is that for the last few years, I have been dealing with a very hard (VERY HARD), very emotional (VERY emotional), and drastically life-altering change, which I did not feel capable of sharing here. I've been hiding this change from the majority of people I know for the last almost 3 years, though I've certainly dropped lots of what I felt were very obvious hints everywhere, especially on Facebook. But I've never come right out and said it, because I was afraid of the fall-out and the judgement. I honestly was hoping to never have to say anything & that people would just figure it out, but I've now come to the decision that I do need to. Even if it's only because I need to know that I am living my "authentic life" (not my favorite phrase, but it fits here). My friends are pretty smart, so I'm guessing that this won't come as a surprise to any of them, but I need to do this for me. So, the big reveal (oh man, deep breath, you can do this. STOP SHAKING, HANDS!):
I've left the LDS church.
Yep, that's right. I'm no longer Mormon. I do not believe it to be the "only true church". For my husbands sake, who is still a believing member, I haven't removed my name from the records, but I haven't attended in years (not since my daughter was about 2 and a half, and I took my garments off just before her 2nd birthday) and haven't believed in even longer. I do not consider myself a member even though I know that I officially remain one. But why did I wait so long to say something? What am I afraid of? Well, judgement, to be frank. Some members don't handle it well when someone they know leaves the church. I have heard some horrible stories, first hand, of what has happened to people for leaving: divorce, being disowned by parents and siblings, ostracization by friends and neighbors of them and sometimes of their kids, insults, people no longer trusting them to be good people, accusations, dismissal, the list goes on and on. Sometimes Mormons can be horrible to those who don't agree with their beliefs. For a long time I was willing to pretend that nothing had actually changed because I didn't want to be thought less of. But now, I'm ready to move on. I'm no longer afraid of the judgement of people whose opinion of me doesn't actually matter. People can think what they want, but one thing I have learned in this journey is that MY opinion of myself is what is most important. I can honestly say that I look in the mirror everyday and I am proud of who I am. And that's what matters.
In my explanation for why, I'm going to be borrowing heavily from this article written by Brittney because she writes what I felt and feel much, much better than I can (and more concisely. I tend to vomit words. I'm sure you readers haven't noticed that, though). Anything in quotes and italicized comes directly from that article.
I had originally written out a very, very long post here detailing my trip down the road that led me out of the church. But I deleted it. I feel like writing all that was an attempt to justify my decision to leave, not explain it. And I don't need to justify it. But basically, it started because I felt completely and utterly unhappy with my life in the church. I felt stagnant. I hated feeling this way, and I completely blamed myself.
"I have always been the kind of person who wanted to do the Right
thing. It didn’t matter to me if the Right thing was hard, or unpopular,
because Right was Right, and I wanted to do the Right thing. In every
aspect of my life I tried to do the Right thing, but especially when it
came to my Faith."
I can't say I was never inactive, because for a couple of years, due to severe depression and an almost debilitating fear of people and crowds, I technically was since my attendance was so sporadic. But even though I was not attending my meetings all the time, I was still faithful. Every Sunday, I read Ensign and General Conference articles, or church books. I made sure to listen to "appropriate" Sunday music and do other Sunday "appropriate" things to keep the day holy as best I could. I was still miserable, but I did my best until I was able to go back to church. And once I was able to, I was happy for a long time. I believe that I was right where I needed to be. I was faithful and living my life the way I was "supposed" to. Yet even so, I never had what Brittney calls my "Joseph Smith Moment". Not even when I was very first investigating the church. While I do recall feeling like I knew the church to be true, I never felt that way about Joseph Smith, or any of the men who claimed to be prophets and apostles of the church. And every time I specifically prayed about it, to receive that knowledge, I got a very very horrible feeling in my heart and my brain would just shut down. I would just turn away from that feeling and tell myself, "Well, if the Book of Mormon is true (which I felt I had received confirmation of), than Joseph Smith must obviously be a prophet, as well as those after him. Because if he's not, then neither is the Book of Mormon, and neither are they. And I have a testimony about the Book of Mormon, so I must have one that he's a prophet." Oh, cognitive dissonance, what a beast you are. And then, through many twists and turns and discoveries and realizations, I ended up doubting everything. And I really really didn't want to. But there it was, this huge question mark in my head and in my heart. So, in the words of Brittney again:
"I did everything I was told to do…Read my scriptures…Go to all my
meetings…And the Temple…And all the extras . . . . , and of course
I prayed. I prayed so much and so fervently that by the time I was
done, I was usually a quivering pile of jelly on my bed. I asked the
Lord, I pleaded, I implored, but always with the acceptance that His
will be done, and if I didn’t receive my answer, then I assumed that
meant the answer was to try harder…and so I did."
"I never cried so much, lost so
much sleep, spent more time on my knees, . . . . and in communication with God than I have
during these days. I read, pondered, searched, read more, pondered more,
prayed, fasted, read, pondered, prayed, pleaded, supplicated, cried,
searched, read, pondered, probed, until I felt as though my head and
heart were going to explode."
"Now, looking back, I realize that I was approaching this whole journey
with the baseline belief that the church was true, and that I only
needed to have that belief confirmed to me. Just like a bad scientist, I
began my experiment with the results already in mind, and yet even
though I already knew what I wanted to be true, I could never
get to a point where I felt like the evidence confirmed the hypothesis…I
can’t even describe how disheartening and frustrating this wa[s] for me. I
blamed myself of course, I figured that it was because something was
broken in me, or that God was testing me, or that I wasn’t worthy of the
answers I was seeking."
And one day, when I was utterly exhausted from the attempt to regain my testimony, I mentally stepped back from everything and realized, I didn't want to get it back. I had been so very very unhappy in the church for a long time, and I had blamed myself for that. But when I mentally took the church out of my life, the relief was immediate and enormous. The pressure to be someone that I was not, that I no longer was and hadn't been for years, was gone. I felt totally free. And that realization made me start to think. But I still didn't want to give up, not yet. I was still afraid of being wrong. Because if I was, the Mormon God demands a lot of penance for disbelief (depending on who you ask, though there is always some form).
So I attempted the change the way I looked at the church. I tried to approach it as I had as a 15 year old teenager, like I had never heard of it before. I asked for the truth. Was the church true? Was Joseph Smith a prophet? I re-read the pamphlets I had received as an investigator, read all the passages in the Book of Mormon and Bible that had previously been faith-affirming for me, cried and prayed, cried and prayed, and then cried and prayed some more. And the answer I got, over and over and over again, is that I needed to do what was going to make me happiest. So I asked what that was, and I got no answer. None at all. I had to figure that out on my own. And so I thought about it. Read things. Listened to things. Paid attention (finally) to what I was actually feeling, instead of looking for what I was supposed to be feeling. And I soon realized that anything I read or listened to or thought about that had to do with the church and remaining a faithful member filled me with fear, sadness, and yes, sometimes anger. Anything that had to do with moving on made me feel happy, confident, and like I was facing forward instead of looking back. And so, eventually, I did. It was a very gradual, yet at the same time very sudden, change for me. But I have never ever felt so much joy, or felt so much freedom within my life, as I now feel. I am finally allowed to be my own person, whatever that may mean, without fear of miss-stepping or displeasing some constantly displeased higher authority.
Am I angry with the church? Absolutely not. The last ward I attended regularly (the one I would currently be in if I was still going) was amazing to me. One of the least judgmental ones I have ever attended. I have had numerous amazing and wonderful and uplifting experiences within the church. I am grateful that I was a member for a time. The church helped me with a very difficult time in my life, one that I'm fairly certain I would not have survived if I had not been a member. Being a member of the church brought me to my wonderful and amazing husband (who has been nothing but supportive of me during this time), which also means I got my wonderful and amazing daughter who I can not live without. And these experiences made it very difficult for me to leave. Yet it had become like a item of clothing I had grown out of, that I was uncomfortable in, and no amount of altering was going to make it fit again. There are many good people in the church, and there are many bad people in the church. You will find this in any organization that you come across. People are people, and everyone is good in some capacity, and everyone is bad in another. The world is not black and white, no matter how desperately some want it to be. As Brittney says, and which I completely agree with:
"I know that there
are people out there of other faiths and people of no faith who are
just as good, and kind, and Christ like as the good and kind and Christ
like members I have met within the church. I believe that the concepts
of Goodness and Kindness are not exclusive to any one religion or
denomination, they are in all of us, and they are a choice that we make
every minute of every day. I believe what Christ said when He warned us against letting our
pride lead us to feelings of superiority over any other man,
denomination, or creed. I believe what Joseph Smith said when he said
that we should allow each man to worship in the fashion that resonated
within his own conscious. I believe people are good, but that they don’t always act good, and I
believe that deep down, we are all just striving to find purpose and
meaning in this life, because none of us really knows what is coming
next. We are all just trying to make sense of it all, and if the Church
is where you find your sense, then I fully support and endorse you in
staying and in being the best dang Mormon the world has ever seen."
While I currently can not imagine any situation that would bring me back to full belief in the church after all the things I have learned and discovered, I will not discount that event happening. Because for 15 years, I believed that I would never, ever leave the church. I have certainly learned that "never say never" is one of the truest phrases I have ever heard. And I hope that those believing members will welcome me back with open arms. Just as I will be there with open arms for anyone who has their own faith crisis. I will help you pick through the mess and the emotions and the pain, and whether you decide to stay or leave, I will rejoice with you in whatever you realize makes you happy.
Now, if you choose to comment, whether here, on Facebook, or in real life, be courteous and respectful. Treat me (and everyone else) the way you would want to be treated if YOU were the one writing this post. Mean comments will be deleted here, and ignored elsewhere.
