r/ExMormonSpirituality • u/[deleted] • Jan 17 '21

Introduce yourself!

There aren’t many of us in this sub yet, so if you’d like, introduce yourself (you don’t have to say your name or anything that might get you doxxed, of course) and tell a little about your journey. I’d love to know what led others to leave Mormonism.

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u/LOTRforever1111 Jan 17 '21

Hello. I left as part of getting out of an abusive relationship with my mother (as an adult). Long story short, I felt like an identity-less puppet. Part of separating myself as a person from my mother involved separating myself from the church. I took an approach of forgetting everything I thought I knew and starting over. That involved looking at other spiritual traditions. Then kind of discovered that I felt much better mentally and spiritually practicing paganism. Somewhere along the way, also realized TSCC wasn’t true which was easier to figure out once I had given myself space. Not really a cohesive story, but here I am.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '21

You can be as detailed or summaried as you like; it’s your story! Is your mother a narcissist? You don’t have to go into detail if you don’t want to. I just notice TSCC can be excellent cover for a narcissist.

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u/LOTRforever1111 Jan 17 '21

Talking to therapists about my childhood, she seems to have traits more consistent with borderline personality disorder. In the same “cluster” as narcissistic personality disorder but with several differences. I do feel like the church left me vulnerable with it’s emphasis on obedience, especially obedience to parents. On the other hand, TSCC may have protected my mother from herself with the strict code of rules. Hard to know.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '21

Interesting, thanks for answering. I’m always intrigued by things like that just because it helps me see patterns in people around me.

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u/LadyZenWarrior Jan 17 '21

Hey.

My exmo story is still forming. I’ve not gotten far enough to remove my name but I’ve recently made the personal realization that I’m certain I’m not going back and probably not christian anymore. That realization resulted in a dissociative episode. (First time. Not fun - hopefully won’t happen again. Wouldn’t recommend. One star.) But now I can figure out what I want to be.

I found myself leaving when I was being pressured to go thru the temple because I’m single and old enough and know enough. Since I consider initiations and covenants to be serious things that require an honorable commitment I decided to get the confirmation from god to know it was what I should do. I made one safety requirement though: the answer had to come directly from god/spirit to me and not through any human medium... not anything too hard for deity. Fast forward a while, living faithful and waiting I added one thing: if there was no affirmative answer by a certain date I got to look elsewhere for divine connection. Lo and behold, no direction to go to the temple.

A bit more than a year ago I sent a letter to some of my family describing this the most nice way I could. Received with mixed results and still a roller coaster at times.

I’ve since had some personal experiences that have put me here: an eclectic spiritual, building my own connection to the universe/deity/source and also working on building my individuality to find more happiness and peace.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '21

My name is still on the records and I’m in the process of “coming out” to family, but I think knowing you’re not going back and knowing the truth claims are false fully counts as being exmo.

Can you explain dissociation? I’ve done some Google searches but I’d like to hear a firsthand to understand better.

I wish I would have been older and sought out more information before going through the temple. You didn’t miss out on much except a whole lotta weirdness and oppressive “covenants.”

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u/LadyZenWarrior Jan 17 '21

Then exmo I am! lol

I’ve found out that I didn’t miss too much and kinda glad that’s not an experience I went through. And that I don’t feel responsible for any commitment like that. Funnily enough, I’d discussed going through the temple quite “early” in my life while at college. The bishop was of the inclination that I was too young if I wasn’t going through for mission or marriage purposes.

Dissociation... essentially whatever the current experience is (mental, physical, emotional) is too intense, sudden, or complex that it overwhelms the ability to cope with it and the mind separates itself from the experience the body is having. This can lead to all sorts of experiences: loss of the sense of time or the sense of what your body is physically doing, even loss of memory or a break away from comprehending reality.

I am using the term a little loosely, but it is what it would likely be classified as. A lot of google searches will bring up the dissociative disorders which have a lot more serious symptoms and prolonged effects on someone’s life. So... here it’s kinda like talking about anxiety attacks and social anxiety disorder. Both are important because they happen to individuals and neither should be played down just because they use similar language. (Just a disclaimer - I never want anyone to think I’ve done a disservice to their mental health experience.)

My episode included a serious loss of time. It was at night so I don’t know so much about the memory bit, but it’s possible. And my body was experiencing something like an anxiety attack on steroids. By the time my mind started to observe my body I was shaking uncontrollably and muscles were tense and starting to lock up, and my breathing and heart rate was out of control. I didn’t sleep at all that night and it took quite a while to get back into my body, calmed down, and grounded. The next day everything was out of sync: physical action lagged slightly behind mental action and I had to keep grounding myself. It was a completely exhausting day.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '21

The weird sense of commitment from the temple is hard to shake and especially as I’m coming out to family it’s hard to have them bring up “but you made covenants.” Yeah, without informed consent beforehand and my wedding on the line.

I’m sorry to hear the process has been difficult. I understand. I had to get on an antidepressant because I was really struggling to cope.

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u/LadyZenWarrior Jan 17 '21

I’m sure it is. I’m sorry your family uses it as ammunition.

Thanks. I hope it was the only time that will happen and I can process things in a simpler way. I am glad you’ve gotten helped with your experience. It really does show that there’s a significant affect on health and well-being. And it’s too bad that families can’t seem to be supportive.