NOM

After replying to the thread about garments describing how I now have to choose clothes to cover up that I am NOT wearing them I have been very depressed today.

I have realised that I have just swapped one cage for another. The new one is bigger but has Indiana Jones style spiked walls that close in without warning.

I start to see why people choose not to keep reading and asking questions. The cage is small but it is padded and someone feeds you and tells you everything you need to know and keeps you so busy that you don't see the bars.

I have rejected the zookeepers and have to find my own sustenance and learn for myself, but the bars are still there, and my family is tied to them.

I feel like the hooks are sunk in so deep that I will never escape.

Give it some time. As they say, time is the salve that heals all wounds...

I can specifically recall a day when I thought I was going insane. The pressure was intense from not meeting everyone's standards and wanting to live a more genuine life seemed like an impossible dream. Given enough time, my family have all mellowed out and come to accept me. There are occasional flare-ups, but much more manageable now that I have been able to set healthy boundaries. Baby steps for sure.

I love this.

Wait until you figure out the cage doesn't have a locked door. You can walk out anytime. Yet you can't/don't.

Make small changes that don't feel drastic. The bars eventually disappear and Mormonism becomes a big religious tent that to visit on Sunday when you step in at the back with one foot in and one foot out.

LostGirl wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 12:23 am I feel like the hooks are sunk in so deep that I will never escape.

I completely understand this sentiment.

I hope time does actually heal the wounds, but many of the folks around me have the deep hooks also. Those same folks claim they enjoy the hooks, and they tug on the hooks of others around them constantly; So personally, I'm not sure if/when the pain of the hooks will go away. Ouch...

RUSH! wrote: All the world's indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage...

As others have pointed out, patience is a virtue, and probably even more important when dealing with believing friends and family. The gentle end of your faith transition will sneak up on you as you increasingly discover that you are bored with the church. It's doctrine and history is no longer interesting and you rediscover your real interests outside of the LDS church. The correct, long-term attitude towards the church is indifference. Admittedly, it's hard to stay at that stage in a mixed-faith relationship. But it does get easier as you figure out what you actually want to do with your life.

I still have days like this too. I bet a lot of us do.

Wait until you figure out the cage doesn't have a locked door. You can walk out anytime. Yet you can't/don't.

Yes that is probably the worst part - that the open door is visible but the cost to walk through it is still too high.

What a beautiful post. Someday...taking it slow..just breathe and walk away. There is a quote I got from the gym on one of 15 TV's. I don't even know the show and caught this quote that has helped me so much.

"If I fall, let me fall. The person I become with catch me".

Time to be true to you self...while that "self" is still here.

Hugs..

LostGirl wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 1:33 pm

Wait until you figure out the cage doesn't have a locked door. You can walk out anytime. Yet you can't/don't.

Yes that is probably the worst part - that the open door is visible but the cost to walk through it is still too high.

Amen sister. I daydream about walking through the cage door every day, but it would destroy the world around the cage. Ultimately the world around the cage would recover in a new form that would probably be good too, but I'm attached to how it is now and don't want to go through the huge turmoil of destroying it.