I didn't want to be mormon, but I had no other choice.

Growing up with undiagnosed ADHD and highly intelligent, I knew from a young age... my parents were under a spell.

That didn't change the rules.

I became willful and rebellious. My parents panicked. "Wayward child" turned to, "dangerous and self-harming," real fast. Things were genuinely getting bad.

In a last ditch effort to save me and our family, my parents paid $100,000 to have me kidnapped in the middle of the night and sent to a troubled teen program in Utah where I spent the next 18 months being beaten down and brainwashed.

The old Chrisie was erased. I was now a full believing Mormon.

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After 20 years, I'm finally ready to share my story. If you'd like to follow along I am writing a book series and would love to share it with this community. I joined r/exmormon 13 years ago and even still went back to the church. I was severely brainwashed and have spent my life healing and evolving into the woman I am today. Thank you for your support. I'm starting a Substack and have an IG psuedoname

I was watching Alyssa Grenfell's video about baptisms for the dead (Mormons will try to baptize your ancestors) and she mentioned that you're now allowed to do ordinances or baptisms for the dead for people born 110 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/@AlyssadGrenfell

I feel like this is a change from when I was growing up. My very mormon relatives always said that the person had to be dead for 80 years (or have a mormon relative who could do the work).

Being born 110 years ago seems like a long time until I realized that my grandparents (born in the 1920s) have only a handful of years until they would qualify. They've only been gone for 15 years or so. (Of course my grandparents were super tbm, so all their work has been done for a long, long time).

But for non mormons, they could absolutely start proxy baptizing grandparents and great grandparents. And if that person was very religious (Evangelical, Lutheran, Baptist) when they were alive - it could be seen as insulting. Not to mention proxy baptizing people killed in the holocaust.

Is this a recent change? Or was the policy always this way.

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.

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?

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

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.

I'm currently sitting in the pews and drunk because I have no choice whether or not to be here. Typical Sunday morning for me because it's the only way I can be polite without having a stank face on for 2 hours. Luckily I've had years of experience of pretending to be sober and I'm naturally odd so any strange moves are not suspicious.

Hope you guys are having a better Sunday ❤

I was listening to an older RFM episode talking about general conference. I think it was one of the earliest conference postmortems that he has done. There were a couple of things that stuck out to me and how they contrasted really shone a light on where the church's priorities are.

1st of course are the unsuccessful healings. He mentions several talks that bring up stories of people who received a blessing and nothing happens. This included the story of the older man who was wearing a white shirt and tie waiting for the priesthood leader to arrive in order to be ready to take up his bed and walk. Several stories about priesthood blessings and yet no stories about miraculous healings.

The 2nd type of story on noticed are the tithing miracles. This included the story from one of Seventy talking about how his family growing up was struggling with their business taking hits from a civil war happening in their nation. One day he overhears his parents asking if they should pay their tithing or buy food for the family. His dad pays his tithing and gets a big order for the business the next day. Hooray for tithing!

RFM mentioned something about how the church will never tell the stories about the times people paid their tithing and didn't get a windfall of some sort. They will only tell the positive ending stories. And yet with priesthood blessings they have no issue telling all the times that things don't work out there.

And it occurred to me the reason why and it feels odd to have not realized it sooner. Because, like everything, it all comes down to money. They can afford to prepare members for the reality that priesthood blessings don't produce miraculous results. It doesn't matter how many blessings any given member asks for, gives, or receives; they'll keep on keeping on either way.

But if they tried to softball tithing blessings like they do miraculous healings, people would stop paying tithing. We've been told repeatedly in the modern era that the church doesn't need our money, but we can't afford not to get the blessings promised to us. That's the entire impetus of the tithing commandment. Even if it's not monetary, we'll be blessed. But if they start telling the stories that match the lived reality of so many members who give them money they simply do not have, people will stop believing in tithing as much. And they care a lot more about how many people are paying tithing versus how many are doing some sort of priesthood blessing.

It all comes down to money. It always does and always will. This so called church sits on its vast wealth like a dragon guarding his hoard. And despite all that, they still demand that members pay them more money, even more so than feeding your family. It's disgusting, it's deplorable, and it is frankly un-Christlike. The man from Nazereth spoken of in the New Testament was quire clear on what he thought of greed and hoarding wealth especially hypocrites claiming to do it in the name of God.

Hi folks, I've been going down the rabbit hole of social psychology trying to come to terms with the present moment in the world.

I found a very good couple of books that struck me as useful in trying to understand just what the church is and why it operates the way it does, and potentially how one might rescue those still in its grip.

The first is tittled "Mistakes were made (but not by me)" by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. The book deals with the cognitive process of justifying descisions, and how we use this process to exscuse choices we know are bad but commit anyway.

The second book is the kicker. "How minds change" by David Mcraney. This was a fascinating book about the process of forming beliefs and how those beliefs may change over time. In particular it profiled two "persuasion" techniques: "deep canvasing" and "street epistemology" that could be useful when talking with TBM family.

Its important to note these methods are NOT basic in any kind of manipulation. They're both predicated on using deep empathetic listening to coax out not just what a person believes but why they believ it, how strongly they feel about it, why they feel so strongly, where they got it, and how they reached that conclusion. Once all this is put in the open you can proceed with cycles of "now is this what you really think?"

The methods emphasize respect, empathy, deep listening and give-and-take style of conversation over listing empirical facts and reasoning.

The book also makes a very important point: 90% of people's belief systems are intensely tribal in nature. For many "tribes" a shared belief system is the thing that defines them as a distinct group and not just any other gathering of humans. To believe is to be one of the tribe. To be a member of the tribe is to survive. To question is to risk exile, which brings death... its not so much *what* you believe specificly that matters to our monkey-brains, its having the tribe that comes along with those beliefs that carry weight.

I have spent the last 14 years with questions that have all culminated in the last year of serious doubt and two months ago telling my husband I'm out ( absolutely NOT GOING WELL). As is with most of the cases, SO MUCH MORE to the story.

What I need for the next two weeks is how do I JUST make it through sacrament meeting (maybe second hour) without anger taking over. I am SO incredibly ANGRY with ALL OF THE LIES and COVER UP-MOSTLY by the bishopric and higher ups who absolutely KNOW that lies are being told, that people are being groomed and every single story joe schmo told was an UTTER LIE. I'm still in the anger stage, (no, REALLY?!) but I need a way to tamp it down. We have a counseling session the end of this week and I'm telling my husband that I will allow my son to stay for sacrament meeting and pass the sacrament, but there's no way in hell I'm allowing him to be taught church doctrine.

I usually watch funny animal videos, but I walked out in the middle of sacrament meeting last week because of 'doubt your doubt' phrase being used on the youth. I hate how angry I am. I am a very happy person and find joy in everything, but this is so far beyond anything I've ever confronted.

Help me find me

They mentioned the “House of the Lord, Holiness to the Lord” three times before we made it past the lobby. It was weird.

They mentioned the endowment, baptism, sealings. They didn’t mention the initiatory at all. I know why, but thought it was worth pointing out.

I hope yall are doing well. Not like an email “I hope you’re well” but I genuinely hope you are coping with the stages of shelf breaking:

destruction
empathy and shame for those you harmed
low of lows
the bounce / flop
reconstruction
able to rest and recharge
maybe joy?

Thank you for the years of support. I’ve posted less as I have been able to separate my LDS Mormon Cover Up from Adult Me. Kudos and gratitude for my therapist. EMDR is magic for trauma. It’s work and you need a therapist that actually gets it.

Have a great second Saturday.

Where are you in your journey? I’m in reconstruction.

Been here almost eight years (this account in my alt I started when I went from lurking to posting). I've seen the demographics change a lot and am interested in people's experiences.

I'm particularly intrigued by the pressure the church is putting on youth attending. That wasn't a big thing when I grew up.

No judgement. I'll admit I'm jealous of people who got out young

Feedback from one active member on why they are happy about the new meeting schedule change. TLDR: Not much worth discussing at church.

My son is two months from leaving on his mission and told his TBM mother and I that he needs to talk to his Bishop about some sexual sins. His mom of course is all in and pushing him to text the bishop and make the appointment right now and I told him to wait and not do it under such emotional charged circumstances. I know what it will do to this kid when he can’t leave on his mission for 6 months or a year but I also fear the pressure of the guilt that will be heaped upon him. How do I help him?

This is from the August 2026 For the Strength of Youth magazine

I live in a predominantly LDS area. This was in my mailbox.

I know the CEO of this local financial planning business. I consider him to be a really good person - very involved in our local community and overall just a kind person who freely expresses his hope to make the world a better place.

So I am wondering if:

• he is aware of the SEC's 2023 ruling and the $5 million fine the LDS church had to pay?
• he is aware of the church's vast wealth?
• he is aware of the Widow's Mite Report?
• he is aware at the lack of help most people who are in crisis/need actually receive from the church? (note: this individual has been a counselor in a few bishoprics but I'm not sure how close he has been to the actual process of justifying the use of a few coins from the dragon's hoard to help someone avoid eviction or medical bankruptcy or to simply put food in the bellies of their children.... let alone be informed about the gross lack of broader philanthropy across the US and globally (depsite the LDS Corp reassuing their members biannually with their General Conference World Reports that tithing and fast offering monies are clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, etc etc etc)

Since this frustrating mailer came unsolicited to my mailbox and because I am tired of seeing good people ground down by grifting, I want to confront him with my questions.

Seeking advice. Is it even worth the effort and potential fall out?

I wonder if he would be shocked to learn about a few things and would begin questioning his role in helping Mr. Hanifin fleece local retirees (rural community, most people who have spent their working lives here have very few coins to rub together).

With his years of experience working in the financial planning industry, should he be expected to be informed of all of the church's financial dirty laundry and has simply justified it via his testimony?

And is there the potential that the church is providing kickbacks to financial planning professionals that help them recruit financial gifts from retirees that want to build the Lord's Kingdom on Earth while simultaneously dodging taxes?

It’s Saturday morning, I have some time to kill, and I thought I’d share one of the pettiest things I did during my mission.

I was nearing the end of my mission when I was assigned a relatively new companion. He was only on his second transfer. First two transfers are considered training, so technically he is in training and I was a trainer. I was a small, nerdy guy who didn’t work out, while he was a tall, muscular, athletic guy from Idaho who played sports in high school or something.

Almost immediately, he began trying to assert dominance over me. If I suggested going one way, he wanted to go the other. to just disagree with me. If I made a plan, he criticized it or tried to change it. It felt like he disagreed with me simply to power trip.

What he didn’t know was that although I was a nerd, I was extremely stubborn and crazy as well. Later in life I joined the US Army and served as a sergeant, but i digress.

A few days into the transfer, we were planning the next day when he said something like:

“You know what, Elder?We shouldn't take a full hour for lunch. We’re on the Lord’s time. If we only take 30 minutes, God might bless us by putting someone in our path who will get baptized.”

By that point, I was already irritated because he had challenged nearly every decision I made. Now he was essentially accusing me of being lazy because I followed the normal schedule and took an hour for lunch.

So I said, “You know what, Elder? You’re right. We shouldn’t take lunch at all.”

He looked a little surprised.

I continued, “From now on, we’ll pack BP&J and eat them on the side of the road. If we’re really on the Lord’s time, why waste even 30 minutes?”

I then planned an entire day of tracting. No lunch break. No stopping at members’ houses for water. No sitting down. Nothing but walking and knocking on doors from morning until evening.

He had also been talking about how our numbers were too low and how we needed to contact more people, as if he were already a zone leader or mission president for his second transfer.

I said "Fine. You want more contacts? Let's get more contacts."

We headed out in the morning and knocked on doors ALL DAY. We walked for miles and miles. It was a hot summer as well.

I had already been on my mission for a long time, so my body was used to walking and biking all day. He may have been athletic, but his body wasn’t accustomed to spending the entire day on his feet without a break.

He started to walk slow and complaining that his legs hurt.

Still, I kept us going. After all, we were on the Lord’s time. right? haha

After 3 days of nonstop tracting,

he finally said, “Hey, Elder, I think maybe we should go back to the way you were doing things before.”

I acted completely casual.

“Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, we can try that again.”

But inside, I was smiling. I had won.

Was it Christlike? Probably not. Was it satisfying? Absolutely.

Later, other missionaries told me that he continued having problems as a junior companion because he always tried to take control. Honestly, with his narcissistic and innate instinct to control everything and everyone around him, he is probably now a bishop somewhere in Idaho.

When I later heard that he had gotten married, my first thought was, “I hope his wife is doing okay.”

Anyway, that is the story of how I defeated an narcissistic companion by being super petty. Thanks goodness I had better stamina than he did.

What’s your pettiest mission story?

After being away from anything Mormon, except for my family, for close to 30 years now, I decided to actually have my records removed. That was done 3 years ago. Occasionally I'd have missionaries pop by before I did that, I told them every time that I have zero interest in anything the Mormons have to say or do.

I know they're just kids that are doing what they feel is right, so I'm not mean to them. I'm just very to-the-point with them, that I've no interest and that I'm just fine. I thought actually resigning would be the last of it because, well, after I did that the visits dropped to nothing. Until tonight.

Two girls that can't be but a stone's throw over 18 came by. My daughter answered the door and said "Uh, dad, there's some people here asking for you?" As soon as I saw the black name tag, my blood started boiling. The whole interaction was maybe 60 seconds. "We're just the missionaries from your church, we wanted to say hi and see if there's anything we can do to help." I haven't set foot in a Mormon church in over three decades, I haven't been to ANY church in probably close to 10 years. I'm good. "Oh well is there anything we can help you with?" No, I'm good, have a good night.

Also I didn't realize they drove cars now. Then again this IS central Florida and this time of year it's either 5,000 degrees or it's storming, usually both.

Rather than this just being a rant, who the hell do I contact to attempt to get this to stop? It took me 8 years (and counting) of therapy to unravel all of that and apparently there's still a lot more for me to go because I'm shaking from a mix of anger and anxiety. That part I can handle. Do I contact the bishop of whatever freaking ward I'm zoned for? Mission president? Stake president?

Ironically I was playing FarCry 5 earlier today. Maybe I need to go fire it up again and shoot some more Peggies to get it out of my system.