NOM

I just saw a comment reply by John Larsen on Reddit to someone posting about their struggles after leaving the church.

As an old timer who has been at this a long time I will let you in on a secret.

Leaving the Church is very hard and most people who do so experience tragedy and loss. Your experience is very common--it just isn't very fun to put up posts like this. Leaving the Church is kinda like "vanlife." It looks very sexy from the outside but at the end of the day you're just shitting in a bucket.

Also, never trust anyone posting how great their life is to strangers on the internet. People with really great lives don't bother to try to get likes from strangers.

Do you know what the only thing worse than leaving the Church is? Staying in the Church.

Thanks John for your words of wisdom.

When I first went down the rabbit hole, for whatever reason one of the first podcasts I came across was Mormon Expressions and I must say that John's humor was really helpful and he gave a few quotes/analogies that really resonated with me then as they do now.

This quote is great and it is very true - almost everyone who leaves is going to experience problems at least initially. I do think there are people who have come out the other side (whether or not it took a while to get there) that want to help others online, but I fully admit that sometimes we often make it sound a lot easier than it is to lose belief and walk away.

I had a bit of a rough night. First the missionaries came over (kid ran up the stairs, told me "you deal with this"). They left their bikes in our driveway, we are on some list, they had us in the schedule for a long chat - I did not let them walk in the door. I did not know them, was busy, as politely as I could told them we had left awhile ago, we did not need anything - they kept asking if we were ok, and through the door I kept telling them we are fine, they offered to do yard work, told them no (we like to support local business, pay others do our yardwork). I felt a bit bad about it, I should have asked if they were doing ok, should have let them know if they were not doing ok, that we could be a safe place for them, asked them if we could help them in any way poor kids.

Then I had talk with a relative who is worried about our kids... this relative is a bit paranoid schizophrenic, watching all these crazy conspiracy theories... had to talk them down from their delusions that our kids were in terrorist groups .... Ugh.

Both episodes opened the door to talk with the kids, and we ended up having a really good family conversation about everything from racism, sexism, to cults, and brainwashing. We talked about growing up with basements full of rotting food storage and guns for WW3 that never happened to not being allowed to play D&D or watch normal movies. Apologized to the kids for the time they had to spend at church, that we were just trying to do what was socially acceptable, supposed to grow up, get married, go to church - we were just following the crowd trying to be responsible - sooooo sorry kids!!!! That we are now slowly de-programming and un-brainwashing ourselves. ..... spending $ on vacation rather than rotting food, spending time with family rather than time "serving" in pointless rituals and cult propaganda.

It really is a mental illness. That is how I am now treating those who think we are " in trouble". We do not do drugs, we do not drink alcohol, we are not sleeping around, our kids are not in terrorist groups. We have never been better financially, never been healthier - emotionally, physically. We are doing really well.

I need to turn it around, they are the ones who need help, they are the ones struggling, they are the ones who we need to get into a better frame of mind.

This quote reminds me of that Chruchill quote, that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others we've tried, haha

The church teaches that there is such thing as a perfect life, and that its teachings is the one way to obtain it. I think sometimes as disaffected members we've internalized that notion, except we apply it to leaving the church. The "ideal" is to completely disinfect our lives from everything to do with the church. But for pretty much any longtime member, that's not possible without cutting off or severely damaging family relationships. I have to constantly remind myself of this.

sparky wrote: ↑Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:19 am The church teaches that there is such thing as a perfect life, and that its teachings is the one way to obtain it. I think sometimes as disaffected members we've internalized that notion, except we apply it to leaving the church. The "ideal" is to completely disinfect our lives from everything to do with the church. But for pretty much any longtime member, that's not possible without cutting off or severely damaging family relationships. I have to constantly remind myself of this.

I listened to a "No Stupid Questions" podcast recently that talked about the perfect day and what it was, and it bugged me that they would talk about it like that because it's kind of a bad premise. There are too many types of days (work day, weekend, vacation), and too many possible good things. So instead I changed it to what makes a more perfect day. Then you can really dial in on what is getting in the way of a good day, and what activities make a better day. And realizing that most days you have to do stuff you would prefer not to, but that you can make those activities as pleasant as possible while also adding good stuff around them.

I think approaching a more perfect life is similarly helpful. Some make the decision to attend church to support a believing spouse, which probably sucks, but there are things we can do and attitudes we can have to make it suck less. And then do the things that we like around it. And relationships with believing family and friends are strained and will likely never be "perfect", but we can make it better by focusing on common interests and giving them space to be believers while protecting our own space to believe as we do.

The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is "life is suffering," the idea that everyone suffers and that suffering is part of the world. Regardless of what you believe, it's probably a good idea to keep that in your back pocket to help maintain perspective.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Thu Jul 08, 2021 6:51 pm The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is "life is suffering," the idea that everyone suffers and that suffering is part of the world. Regardless of what you believe, it's probably a good idea to keep that in your back pocket to help maintain perspective.

It's a good point. To connect it to Link's points, we can also remember the second Noble Truth, that suffering comes from craving, desire, attachment. We crave that perfect life despite knowing that it can't exist, and that gap between craving and reality creates a lot of suffering, not enjoying the moment and the good things we have going because our attention is on what we wish life were.

I delved into Buddhist philosophy during my initial faith crisis, and I think it actually helped me quite a bit. I don't buy into everything of course, but there are teachings in it that help you see the world more clearly. I should brush up on it a bit.

sparky wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 11:10 am I don't buy into everything of course, but there are teachings in it that help you see the world more clearly. I should brush up on it a bit.

I think you can find useful things in most religions if you strip away the embellishments (gods, demons, etc.) and stick to the underlying concepts.

I'm trying to think what that would be for Mormonism but I'm afraid it might all be embellishment. Actually, I think the concept that we are gods its the most valuable and unique if you open it up to more expansive interpretations. But, of course, that's exactly the aspect that the current leaders are trying hardest to distance themselves from.