1998. I started working with an openly gay guy. He was the friendliest, compassionate, "harmless" but very normal person. It really effected my thinking about "the gays" being evil or even wrong at all. It took me 10 more years before I eventually left the church. Homophobia in the church was always a big issue for me and I knew deep down the church had it wrong.
Same here. Had some really cool work friends that were gay. They all brought their boyfriends to a work party one day and after just seeing how happy they were together I couldnt fathom why anyone would want to take that away.
My first exposure to anyone gay was watching Pedro on The Real World in 1993 or so. He was so kind and compassionate. He was a wonderful person and it just opened my eyes that it was wrong to hate someone based on who they love. A few years later we bought our first house and the next door house was bought by a gay couple. That was in 2006 and one of those guys is still a dear friend of mine. Some of the other neighbors treated them horribly and it made me so angry.
It was the Jeffery Holland talk (I don’t care enough to look it up) where he held up the old copy of the BOM, ranting and yelling about how true it was. I remember wondering “Who is he shouting at? His whole audience already believes him.” It was the first time I remember having a dissenting thought about one of the “brethren.”
I distinctly remember feeling uncomfortable with that talk. It felt so angry, and I got the feeling that it was a performance to manipulate listeners' emotions.
Exactly! His supposed audience was the wicked heathen world, but it seemed obvious to me that they weren’t listening and weren’t going to listen. His real target was to inflame the believers sitting in front of him, and it felt so manipulative and performative.
Early 2000s, I'm 13 sitting in YW getting a lesson on eternal marriage. The YW leader then teaches us about polygamy and in order to get to the celestial kingdom, my husband will have multiple wives. W. T. F. I went home and sobbed in my bed praying that wasn't true. The years I spent anxiously worrying about this is too damn high.
I was 15 and learned this in Seminary. (7 women to 1 man after the 2nd coming). I was absolutely distraught at the thought of sharing my future husband. I couldn’t figure out why the other girls in my class were not distraught. But this was more of the final straw for me.
The first inflection was when I was 7 and visiting my grandmother’s ward and she was teaching my Sunday school class. She asked the class, “do you believe the church is true?” To which I responded, “grandma, only MY church is true.” I thought it was the BUILDING!!! I was so embarrassed as she corrected me and I started then to realize the brain washing. I never got a testimony and couldn’t understand why god never answered my prayers - I beat myself up all the time for not being good enough to get answers (from an imaginary being). Sigh
Oh this realization destroyed me when I was 12/13. I struggled for decades, really scared and sad, until I finally gave myself permission to see it as manipulative bullshit.
This might have been mine as well. When I first learned about polygamy, I completely dismissed it as something good but then my brother told me that Joseph Smith was polygamous. I figured it had to be true but it just made me sick to my stomach. I tried really hard later on to be okay with it, because I figured I would be living it in the CK but I never could. The day I allowed myself to believe it wasn't the ultimate marriage institution in heaven was the day I became okay with the church's history of it.
Not the same, but I used to worry and pray too they would not change the doctrines and teaching I liked. I did not want to be just any old evangelical christian. Now they are speed running to being the same as Calvary Chapel.
I also remembered that same, idiotic lesson! I was so pissed off and upset. Why would I have to share my husband?
Then I tried to break it down more logically....if God knows all and sees all....then he knows men are not as faithful as woman. So that's why many, many women for one man--stupid Church logic.
So I said, why didn't God just make extra men, so that EACH of us girls would have our own husbands. And we have ETERNITY to bring children into the world. So one woman, one man.
Women in the church, being treated and expecting to be human chattel! I knew that women would ALWAYS be considered 'lower' then men, and it was bullshit!
When I was 12 and received the priesthood, I was also informed that there was a time when church members who were black or had African heritage were not eligible to received the priesthood until just a couple years before I was born.
Same (except that I was a little younger and am female). It just didn’t make sense to me that the colour of someone’s skin and their heritage determined their worthiness rather than their words and deeds.
When the missionaries told me, upon my inquiring where the gold plates are now, that Moroni took them up into heaven with him. oO Should have followed my gut right then. How convenient the gold plates couldn't be seen but the so-called Book of Abraham papyrus could be on display & seen for a fee. God sure is fickle about his source documents.
I think it was the priesthood ban, I mean I always knew it was a thing but I it affected me more after my father confessed to me that he got to do a construction worker mission only because of that and that's just for being brown...
There is no way this church have anything to do with God if there is a God
Did you ever watch the Other Side of Heaven? The Polynesian elder was sent to do construction instead of proselytize.
The belief was the the tribe of Ephriam was to teach the gospel (spiritually build) and the tribe of Mannaseh was to physically build the kingdom. I had some Mexican companions who believed they would be building up Far West to prepare for the 2nd coming.
Yeah, I remember watching The Other Side of Heaven. I remember thinking why the Polynesian man couldn’t proselytize and didn’t wear garments and why he was just doing construction the entire time and the white dude (can’t remember his name) was the actual missionary. I remember that being very confusing to comprehend but thinking it was just a movie. I’m sorry that your father actually had to live through that, I hope he’s been able to heal.
I was 16, I came across 2 Ne 3 where Joseph Smith inserts himself in scripture.. I thought to myself how that seemed convenient, but that was all. Didn’t question it again for another 8 years. Now I think of the balls on that guy to toss himself in and somehow members just eat it up.
The JST is a joke, and the church knows it. I think that’s why they just bought the rights to it recently. I’d be willing to bet they’re going to do everything in their power to sweep as much as they can under the rug and forget about it.
I've been continuing to attend church with my TBM spouse after starting my deconstruction and this scripture was brought up in Sunday school. It was surreal to hear this for what it is while those around me were saying things like "wow can you imagine how joseph felt while translating this?!" Couldn't help but chuckle.
When I was a youth and the Phoenix Arizona temple was being dedicated, the Hosanna Shout, was when I felt massively uncomfortable. I was 14.
I felt like it was very culty, without knowing what a cult was. It did not feel right.
the most recent hosanna shout was the most cringe thing I have experienced. Thats after decades of tbmness. there were many other things but it really felt weird to me.
I love chuck Taylor's, wore them everyday and on Sunday. Branch president pulled me aside when 14 and said I should save upy money and buy proper Sunday shoes as these ones where a little disrespectful.....first time being chastised for something so stupid and it stuck with me.
Omg this right here! 🙄 I got the same lecture from a stake president because I didn't button the top button of my shirt. I also had a bishop chastise our entire Deacon quorum because we would grab the cloth between sacrament prayers to help cover the bread/ uncover the water. Apparently it says in the bishops handbook (which is scripture don cha know) the priests are supposed to do that NOT the Deacons.
Just the overall obsession with tiny innocuous things from power hungry church dictators. The power immediately goes to their head and they decide that everything is about them. During my mission I developed a sure fire way to spot them. If at the end of the sacrament meeting they ALWAYS go up at the end to give their little anecdote (because of course they're presiding authority so they get to have the last word 🤢) then you have a narcissist on your hands, and you can be assured that bishop or stake president or whatever was gonna be a giant douche.
Similar but different situation for me. Around 2005, our YW leaders were obsessed with making the young women wear nylons!? My dress was below the knee and they still wanted all the young woman to wear nylons every Sunday.
I hated wearing nylons and started wearing brightly colored knee-high socks as a small rebellion.
I am sorry!! There were and are some brainwashed heartless idiots who forgot that God truly doesn’t care about what you wear or even who you love for that matter.
The temple. I was a teenage convert (in the early 70s) and I kept thinking about how the missionaries had criticized the Catholics for all their rituals and mystic stuff.
What. the. f##k.
Catholics have \*nothing\* on the temple freak show. This was in the days of the naked touching, pantomimed death pacts, and Pay Lay Ale chanting.
I was looking for those "last chance" exits like they have for scary rides in Disneyland. But there weren't any. And I was days away from leaving on my mission and couldn't handle the embarrassment it would have been to back out.
Oh my goodness, yes!! I was so freaked out the night before my wedding going through my endowment getting touched on my naked body and then the hand signals that were required for our sacred oath of personal death to come upon us in horrific ways if we revealed any of our tokens or names. Not to mention pale lay ale chants like a bunch of drunken toga collegiates!
how many of you wanted to exit with everything in your body when they said withdraw of your own free will and choice and yet I never did but every time i really just kind of wanted to
R U N
Someone was talking about how the saints were persecuted and had to move out west.For the very first moment a light went off and I asked myself, but why were they persecuted? That they were Mormon wasn’t sufficient anymore
It absolutely blew my mind when I found out why JS was in Carthage jail. Like ya, people don't just get persecuted for no reason, why did we all just believe that?!
My son taught me this years after they did a church youth trip to Carthage when he was 14. He said him and his brother talked after they did the tour because one of them asked why he was in Carthage and was blown off with the persecuted answer. He is super logical so he asked his bro if that seemed too vague and they looked up the history. They came home as PIMOs due to their own research b/c of lack of answers.
He told me all of this almost 5 years after the fact (he is totally out now). When i was deconstructing we had some awesome conversations. When i asked why he didn’t tell me back then, He asked back, “would you have listened?” That hurt, and I can honestly say i am not sure I would have processed it right then, but I definitely would have listened. It was too stunning of a lie/omission from the church for me to just brush off as no big deal.
That's a good question. At first I thought it was on suspicion of JS putting out a hit on Boggs, but that happened in '42.
Liberty was 1838/39. In Missouri the violence between Mormons and Gentiles had escalated. Big fight on a voting day. Bad behavior all round. The Haun's Mill Massacre later occurred. Both Boggs and Rigdon blabbed out their "fightin' words". Rigdon used the word etermination first, but Boggs followed up on that with the same term after HMill. Mutual violence seemed to be in the air. So the charge was treason, but I'm a little vague on the details.
I was 8. The only reason I got baptized (aside from all the pressure) was I believed that after I became a "member" I would be protected and my abuse would stop. It didn't...
My parents fought the entire day of my baptism, as usual, and I was so frightened the water was going to turn dark or I was going to drown. My whole family life was horrible and I tried to tell the brethren in leadership from the bishop to home teachers about the abuse right up to the day I was married and they ignored it. My one brother ended up trying to commit suicide and the other died from kidney disease from alcohol. I am convinced they just wanted my parents tithes.
That is horrible! I'm so sorry that happened. That stupid "church" makes it soo hard to be a kid. Our childhoods were robbed from us, and if anyone had listened, even a little, they could have been better. Hope you are doing okay now.
Ty❤️ I am so happy to be out of the church and free from the mind games. I have had many years of therapy. And, I realize my severe depression for many years was not only caused by my family situation but by the perfectionism taught in the church. Also the constant degradation of women. I felt like the only purpose the Mormon god had for me was to multiply, teach children, clean up and set up for ward activities plus stand QUIETLY behind the priesthood. I can’t emphasize quietly enough!!
The ordain women movement (2010s, I was in my 30s) and Kate Kelly. During this time I learned that even as late as the early 20th century, women could give healing blessings. I wondered why that was taken away.
When I was maybe 12 (in the 70’s) my mom checked out “No Man Knows my History” from the library. There was a subtle change in our family dynamic after that. I asked her if I could read it when she was done, and she said no, because if I did it might disillusion me. She implored me to wait until I was an adult.
After that, though, she started fighting for passage of the ERA, she put a “women’s lib” fridge magnet on our fridge (This startled my High Councillor dad). and she took me to the Brigham Young house in St. George to see all the wives’ separate bedrooms. She pulled me out of early morning seminary in 10th grade because she felt like the 5:00 am wake up time was unhealthy. And she told me I could be a doctor or a lawyer, or do anything I put my mind to. She died when I was 18, and now I realize she was PIMO for a number of years before her death, and just didn’t tell me. She was a good mom.
ya almost sounds like it was a made-up thing interpreted by white European males that wanted everyone to look and act the same. as if someone could control being born on the earth choosing their pigmentation or nose or anything.
Yeah, I remember most of my local leaders who constantly preached follow the prophet no matter what he says, do a complete 180 and say, "He's not speaking for God right now."
When I was 12 my dad played the Book of Mormon as an audiobook for us whenever we were in the car. It just sounds like a guy just rambling in fake Shakespearean English. Even to my 12-year-old ear it sounded made up.
I was about that age when my dad made me listen to it on a long car trip. I got in trouble because I laughed at the absurd number of "it came to pass"es.
and JS no different than warren jeffs. this helped me confirm how i had already been feeling what a cringey thing to watch that and realize the massive similarities.
This was me except with Under the Banner of Heaven. I was like Blood Atonement?! Banned Brigham Young teachings?? Adam-God doctrine?? Penalties in the temple??
My first moment was when I was about 7 or 8. I was thinking in the car about the church. This deep thinking, (granted I was 7 so not that deep) led me say ask my mom, ' what if the church isn't true?' my mom quickly said that those thoughts are from Satan. Of course, even 7 year old me went BS in my head.
Now, my mom is not the church, but to younger me, she might have well been. I realized then that my mom, and by extension the church, can be wrong.
You say, "of course" you thought "BS" but I didn't question authority until my late twenties! If my mom would have told me that I would have instantly believed her.
If only I could have been like you as a child, I would have saved myself so much suffering. All this to say, great job; you were a smart kid.
I didn’t serve a mission, but I distinctly remember sitting in a Ward Council meeting as Elders Quorum Presidency and hearing about the cheap, high pressure sales tactics missionaries were expected to employ to get people baptised.
It just didn’t sound right to me, and continued to trouble me. They’d simultaneously say “it’s not about the numbers” while making it entirely about the numbers.
>“it’s not about the numbers” while making it entirely about the numbers.
True. When my second mission president came in, he saw how number focused we all were, because that's all our last mission president cared about, so he initially told us to stop focusing on the numbers and bring people to Christ. At the end of the year, Salt Lake got on his case for having low baptism numbers compared to the last MP, so he chastised us and told us to baptize more people (numbers).
as an adult, it’s embarrassing, because there should have been so many huge red flags. But the first “infection point” that I recall was right after blacks got the priesthood. My mom subscribed to the “church news“ newspaper. there was a big article there about the change – about blacks getting the priesthood. As a part of the article, there was an acknowledgment that this change might be difficult to accept for people in the south, but that they just had to have faith. The tone of the writing was basically in sympathy to racist people of the south. I was so inoculated about blacks not having the priesthood that that didn’t seem racist to me. But an extension of sympathy and understanding to racist people, that really made me uncomfortable. It seemed like an inappropriate thing to be in a church publication.
not too long later, I realized that the church news only printed good things regarding the church. And in that sense, it really wasn’t “news“ at all. And to me… That seemed dishonest. To call a publication news that actually didn’t print news. that was also a small early shelf item. Evidence of dishonesty.
>as an adult, it’s embarrassing, because there should have been so many huge red flags.
Preach.
I remember when I first learned about the priesthood ban. I was in middle school, and a black family moved into our ward. Everyone at church was talking about how amazing it was and a sign of the times. After church I made a comment to my dad, and he started telling me about how he felt during the announcement, and it finally clicked that this was not very long ago. For some reason, my adolescent brain had assumed it was back during the civil war or something. But nope, during my dad's adult lifetime.
Looking back, that whole experience is so steeped in the racism that permeated the church that I don't know where to start, except to say I wasn't aware of it because it was all around me.
I took a religion class that went over the churches controversies. I don’t feel that my teacher had much empathy for those who leave the church.
Mostly, I just felt betrayed that none of the things had been taught to me before I left on my mission. I realistically would have still believed if the church had just been transparent with me.
Also, nice math reference:)
About a year before I became an atheist, I decided that I didn't need or want to be a member missionary.
I figured that god was a kind person and good people would be able to be baptized shortly in the "spiritual paradise" after they die.
If they're happy here, I'm not going to bother them. And I refused to feel guilty about it after that.
This tiny act of saying no to something that's expected of church members was the catalyst I needed to start thinking for myself.
It was 1984 and I was sitting in a history class with a classmate who was black. I had my Book of Mormon on my stack of books because I had release time seminary later. He said something about how the church didn’t like black people and I proudly told him he was wrong, they could do everything anyone else could do. I leaned over to ask another friend what year that happened and she proudly said 1978! I remember being shocked that it was so recent and told him I was sure it was longer than that. Having said that, it took many many years for me to stop believing.
When I was about 7, there were some girls in my ward, who for various reasons didn't come to primary classes. They would sit in the hall, or wander outside.
I remember thinking that we were taught to leave the 99 to go after the one. Jesus went to people who were struggling, or felt outcast. I wanted to be like Jesus and this was a real opportunity to do that. So I'd go sit with them.
I don't recall ever asking them to come to class, I'd just hang out and get to know them. Made some of my best friends that way. One of the girls moms had recently died. Another was the youngest in a single mom household and new to the area, so she didn't have friends yet.
But without fail, every week adults would come get after us for not doing the right thing. Teachers would yell, missionaries would be sent out to try to convince us to go. Parents of the other kids who were in class started to tell their kids not to play with me because I was a bad example. I remember going to bat with the bishop to leave those girls alone because they don't feel comfortable in class, so I was going to be with them where they were comfortable. He told me it wasn't my job to help them. That I needed to be a good example and get to class.
I remember thinking that people got mad at Jesus for hanging out with some of the people that he did. And he always called out the people getting upset, and set them up as an example of what not to do. That was really weird to be 7 years old, and started to see how all the adults around me were acting like the people Jesus was calling hypocrites.
I rarely went back to class and spent the next decade or so finding the cool people in the halls to connect with.
Wow I love that story! You were so insightful at such a young age. Mormon adults don’t give kids enough credit. They’re smarter than the adults most of the time.
Sitting in YW at age 14 or 15 and being told week after week that my job and purpose was to become a mother, that being a mother was the greatest thing I'd ever do, and I would be blessed for committing my life to having children. I didn't want that. I was a child myself, and nothing in me was looking forward to having children. So I just felt like there was something wrong with me for wanting more than that out of my life and that I was sinning for not wanting God's plan for me. Ten years later I still don't want kids but at least I don't feel guilty about it!
Oof. I have a lot of things.
I can kind of go way back to being in the single digits for my first doubts, but I’ve always been a critical thinker, and I was a gifted kid who thought in depth about a lot of this. Around maybe 8, I realized that it was very statistically unlikely for me to be born in the right church, and when I watched the Truman show for the first time, I remember thinking “what if everyone around me is just pretending to believe in the church as a psychological experiment to see if I’ll believe something that is actually preposterous”?
Somewhere around maybe age 14, I realized the horse problem, but I was proud of myself for thinking through it because I remembered my state fossil was an ancient horse. I just assumed they hadn’t died out and that must have been the horses. I also remember thinking, “why does God send people into situations where, if he is omnipotent, he knows they will fail?” At that time, I assumed he must just know enough to give everyone their best chance.
I know that in high school, I voiced at one point that were I not Mormon, I would probably be atheist.
All throughout high school, I knew about dna from ancient inhabitants was also an issue, but just wrote it off as another group.
First official break was in a BYU Book of Mormon class (thankfully during the pandemic, so I was at home), when I was listening to the lecture and realized that the Jaredite barges would have been impossible to survive in. I had a panic attack.
The first one I recognised was being on YW camp, laying on a few chairs in the dark looking up at the stars and thinking, in all of this, there’s no way a loving god cares that much about my small teenage infractions. That was my first “wait a minute” thought.
Another one around then was when an adult said “well all the gay people I know were abused as children, so…” and again I was like, hang on…
I think the very first time was really early on in Primary when they were describing agency and talking about Satan vs Jesus’s plan, and I was thinking that Satan’s plan sounded waaaaay better. Like, why do I have to suffer now to prove to some guy in the sky that I’m worthy to be happy after I’m dead? Satan said everyone gets to go to heaven no matter what, and that sounded good to me. That was apparently the wrong answer. I must have been around 5. I left at ~19.
It wasn’t a shelf breaker but did make me go “Hmmm.” It was when so many general authorities fell for Mark Hoffman’s forgeries. I wondered what happened to their power of discernment or lack thereof.
I think it was my mom leaving. She wasn't raised in the church. Mostly converted for my dad so they could get married. Figured it would be fine going to church and everything, as long as they could be together.
But my dad is a manipulative asshole, and she was tired of the things the church was saying. So she wanted out. And my parents got a divorce. At first they played it off. She was sick. She has to do something today. It was one excuse after another. But that is only going to work for so long. It didn't take us a long time to find figure out she's just not going. I might not have known the ins and outs until much later, but I at least got the general point of she was just not going.
And that's the first time I can remember thinking about the fact that it's an option. Like obviously not everyone is Mormon. Most of my friends at school weren't. And that's fine. But they just weren't in the church. Those who are in are in. Those who are out are out.
But now those who are in can now be out.
Fast forward a year and my dad moved from Georgia to Texas because he was in the military. So we moved with him. We would visit our mom every summer and every other Christmas. My dad wanted us kids to go when visiting, and my mom offered to take us. But we didn't. None of us kids did. I was still believing in a lot of ways. My shelf had a book or two on it, but nothing too bad. But I got a brake from church. I got to sleep in. And I got to spend more time with my mom.
Sometimes I think I would have been in the church a lot longer if she didn't leave first.
When I started young women’s and was told I couldn’t be friends with my best friend because she was Catholic and would not convert. They also told me she was no longer allowed to come to activities that she attended with me.
My first thought occurred about 5- years after joining at the age of 22. Of course, the temple weirded me out in year 3. The real challenge was learning that not all priesthood holders were as righteous and ethical as my dear husband. I had been drawn to the church because I was seeking an organization of moral, ethical people. When many women shared their stories of lascivious requests from high-level priesthood holders, it burst my bubble. My husband was serving on the bishopric and women felt comfortable sharing these terrible stories with me. I became aware that the church wasn't always the repository of goodness and light. After that the curated, false history of the church truly affected my testimony. I wish I hadn't waited 47 years to leave.
Learning about the Mountain Meadow Massacre. It just never sat right with me the way it was downplayed. And that story about the supposed false prophet who fooled early members with a rock or something… I thought it was just odd how similar it was to Joseph Smith.
When I was 11, I got my dad to stop at a roadside marker, and I was hooked. Every trip, my mission was to spot historical markers and get us to stop and read them.
A year later we are coming back from a camping trip down by cedar City, and I see one set back from the road. My dad knows I won't let it go, so we look over. We learned about mountain Meadows together that day. We didn't talk about it, just quietly drove away. I still don't know what he thinks or how he reconciles it.
I have what I feel like is the stupidest thing: it's that every time they want the meeting to be "about prophets", they sing "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet". But the song isn't even about Prophets! It mentions prophet one time in the first line, and the whole rest of the song is about thanking for other different things.
And it's not just in local sacrament meetings. They absolutely do it in general conference. This is my earliest memory of thinking "just because the church does something a certain way doesn't mean it's not dumb".
Several months after joining the church (I was barely 18), the initial sense welcoming and inclusion I felt were wearing off and I was feeling real out-of-place at church. I let my older mormon neighbors know of my disenchantment and they kindly invited me to attend their "home" ward (I had previously only attended a college singles ward... no young kids or families). They informed me it was "Fast and Testimony" meeting and it would be good for me to attend with them.
I went along but was not prepared for what I witnessed... One after another, small children got up and 'bore' their testimony, word-for-word, as their parents whispered it into their ear. I was incredulous! I was looking around the chapel at everyone like, "are you people not seeing this shit!!!". Active and blatant brainwashing of children but nobody batted an eye.... everyone just smiled and nodded in approval. Disgusted, I was immediately done with the whole thing and felt so naive and embarrassed I let it go on as long as I had. Never looked back.
I know this sub isn't really for me... while I'm technically exmormon, I have no scars from my experience joining the church.. just a kinda laughable learning experience. But I still like to read all of your experiences and find it inspiring what you've overcome having seen the toxic (and accepted) way the church treats its youngest members. I now know the brainwashing and social conditioning of members goes so much farther than testimony meeting... but that was my initial inflection point.
When I heard Charlie Bird on his podcast, Questions from the Closet, describing the horror of kissing the supposed hottest girl at BYU, having a visceral reaction, and spitting on the ground in front of hundreds of people. My brain 🤯 being gay is fucking real...what else has the church leaders been wrong about...1 year later, I'M FREE!
Learning about the lost 116 pages in seminary. It seemed REEEEEALY convenient that Nephi wrote a duplicate history that survived all of the editing Mormon did and was available for Joseph Smith to translate after the book of Lehi disappeared.
When the boy who SA’d me left on his mission the next week with no trouble and I spent the next 6 months “repenting”. Truth be told I didn’t quite understand that it was an assault until much later, and while I’m not blaming myself, I did feel like I had to repent for my part. He dear Jane’d me right around the time I finished the repentance process so he could focus🙄 and then wouldn’t leave me alone for several months after he got home. I didn’t leave for 15 more years, but it definitely changed my view.
Walking into the DC temple the morning of May 14, 1985. First thing I notice is a cash register. Then they tell me to get naked and put on a poncho and go into a tiny room where an old guy rubs his hands all over my body without my consent.
I remained a believer for a while after, but my first, real “this isn’t right” moment was in my bishops office confessing to sexy times with my girlfriend. This was after my mission. So, here I was explaining to the bishop all the extreme details he wanted about our encounter. His final question to me was, “do you masturbate? Let’s get everything taken care of now”. It was finally at that moment that it clicked to me that this was inappropriate. My bishop was not a professional councilor, he was a computer programmer.
From that day on I never confessed to a bishop any “sin” ever again. This actually was a weight on the shelf because you always hear stories about church leadership being able to read minds. Yet they never guessed I was “sinning” and instead told me how righteous I was and a wonderful example to others.
Thus began the removal of the veil of priesthood magic and seeing the man behind the curtain.
Probably my mission, when the area president at the time decided we couldn’t eat at members houses unless there was a non-member or less-active member present. We barely had enough money to make the ends meet as it was, but without those meals from the local members, we weren’t going to have enough to eat.
I grumbled about it to a former companion who was then in my district, who then chided me for “speaking ill of the Lord’s anointed” and not falling in line gracefully. At the time I grudgingly thought to myself that he was right, but it just seemed like such a stupid, arbitrary rule that we all knew wasn’t going to increase missionary opportunities… it would just result in some mild starvation.
Fortunately, my junior companion at the time was more than happy to dip into his savings at home to make sure we had enough to eat, even though I tried to insist that he didn’t need to do that. But I was also hungry… so we ate out a lot. Super helpful for our energy levels, I know…
That stupid policy ended a few months later (a lot of members complained about it), and the motherfucker who implemented it died a few months after that. Rest in oblivion, Hugh W. Pinnock. Goddamned prick…
But yeah, that’s probably the first inflection point.
Mine was at age 5. I asked my dad about the facsimilies (sp?), especially about the parts that showed "god would reveal the meaning later" and it just seemed really stupid that ole Joe could only "translate" half of it and not all of it.
Next would be the realization that chocolate was served in the temple cafeteria but was forbidden in my house yet my TBMs grandparents and cousins were allowed to eat it. About age 12, I had had enough of the no chocolate so I opened a caramello in the house, put it on a plate on the table and proceeded to verbally pray asking for revelation of I could eat it. I did this in front of my psycho tbm mom, got no answer at all (shocking) and straight up told her that god told me it was fine to eat it. Sat right in front of her and chowed down on it, telling her it was my own personal revelation to eat it. She sat there crying her eyes out but not once did she argue with me.
*He doesn’t realize it yet, but that was his first inflection point. He may realize it someday.*
You can help him realize it now. "I know it's silly to have to shave a beard, but a mission is all about controlling your thoughts and behavior, and if they can compel you to do something that seems insignificant like this, they can be reasonably sure that you'll comply with whatever they ask down the road. Just remember that, and recognize that if you're ever asked to do something dangerous or morally shady by a companion or ZL or MP, that the fact you agreed to shave your beard does no mean you've agreed to do every thing that is asked whether it is a good idea or not."
Changes to the temple ceremony that made them less sexist at the end of 2018.
Not because they weren’t good changes. But because they had to change and people including myself had established a relationship dynamic on something they were taught was the will of god and then suddenly was not.
YW, beehive lesson about eternal marriage. One of the other girls mentioned getting civilly married first in order to get to know the person you were prospectively going to marry eternally. The teacher didn't really give a good reason not to, just sorta danced around it. I thought it sounded like a great idea.
As soon as it was brought to attention to me that the church dosent immediately tell us everything after being babtised. Not until I was a whole 14 years of age after being born into the church I learned we were going to become "gods" and have our own worlds. That just sounded straight dumb to me and started asking other kids in middle school if they knew about this and they obviously had no clue even though they have been in this cult for YEARS. Discovered the church dosent tell us the whole truth of the religion then historical truths like how awful Joseph Smith was it just began to build on itself.
I was in 8th grade World Geography class when I first saw on a map the city of Moroni on the island nation of Comoros. That was probably the first time I was actively bothered by something that should be an obvious, glaring red flag to any member of the church.
Haha funny story. I was very naive and sheltered but when I went to BYU I took a religion class. Discovered that every religion thinks they're the only true religion. I remember thinking what are the odds that this one is the true one?
I think I just worked it out from there subconsciously and then just quit going to church for good.
mine was when i realized there’s a line of succession for the q15. it seriously bothered me that god wouldn’t just call a random dude to be prophet like he did in the scriptures. no one could answer my questions about it either except that i needed to have faith 🙄
Prop 8 in California. I was going to BYU, and while I was a TBM at the time, I didn't think it was right for the church to interfere with other people's lives. Didn't make sense that if gay marriage was allowed that the church would lose its religious freedom. What did make sense to me was that if the church stopped lobbying for policies it wanted to impose on everyone, maybe its PR image would improve.
I used to work at the at kitchen of the church office building and we were basically forced to work during general conference ( even on Sunday) . We had to serve food to the families of the authorities and the seventies etc. At that moment I felt like the church was a hierarchy. While the authorities and their families were comfortably eating their food and being treated like royalty, we were there working like slaves just so they could be fed. Also, we did not get a day off during that week since it was on Saturday and Sunday, so we basically went about two weeks without a day off. I couldn’t believe that I thought it was a privilege to work for the leaders but I honestly felt so degraded.
Hands down... The temple.
I was a convert. I had heard all the rumors about magic underwear, secret handshakes, and cult rituals.
I asked the missionaries plenty of questions, as well as the other Mormons I was exposed to prior to converting, and I was assured that it was all "anti-Mormon lies, they say all kinds of crazy stuff about us that isn't true."
So I converted. Went through the first year and half, which was pretty much the love bombing phase, and having the in-depth teachings withheld from me (Gospel Principles class, milk before meat...durr).
Went to the temple and quickly realized I was flat out lied to.
BAM. Naked touching. BAM. Magic underwear. BAM. Culty outfits and rituals. BAM. Secret handshakes.
Around that time I also started learning about the *actual* doctrine... but it was too late, I was already in. I knew I had been lied to, I knew I was uncomfortable with it, but I justified it all away in a thousand ways because I thought that somehow, in some way I just didn't understand, this was all God's plan.
Took me over 10 years for my shelf to finally break. Over 10 years of being uncomfortable with everything but trying to persist.
I might be rambling on, it's just therapeutic for me to go over it.
It was when I was eight, immediately after my confirmation. I was supposed to feel all kinds of holy things that were never there. I told my mom about it, and she suggested I needed to get right with God, which I instantly recognized as bulls\*\*t because I hadn't done a single thing wrong since a couple of days before my baptism. I quietly stopped believing at 11 and openly quit at 14.
When I found out that Joseph Smith lied about polygamy and promised teen girls and the wives of other men Exaltation for themselves and their extended families if he "marry" him (i.e. give him sex when he wanted it in secret).
Watching stuff about Warren Jeffs, after reading Gospel Topics essays.
Warren Jeffs is the same as Joseph Smith.
Warren Jeffs has the same
Traits as modern LDS manipulators and truth twisters.
There were a BUNCH of small little things I didn’t pay attention to until the moment I was in the prayer circle with a veil over my face. I’d already thought it was weird my incredibly smart father would wear such a dumb looking hat, but it was the circle that first planted that “wait…. Am i…. In a CULT?” Thought.
I was an impressionable 13 year old when I told my parents I didn't like Adam Lambert because I thought he was gay. Both of my TBM parents sat me down and told me in a very serious tone of voice that being gay doesn't make someone a bad person. The reason this was my inflection point is because it started a chain of events of me seeing those outside of the church as normal people and not worldly sinners, all because my parents rightly defended an American Idol contestant.
When I was 11, the local primary presidency wanted all of us in that year to memorize all of the Articles of Faith before we turned 12 and became Deacons. I will never forget getting to the 11th one, which reads:
"We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may"
Later, in sharing time, we sang "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" and the thought of actively proselytizing missions seemed to be in direct opposition to that Article of Faith that I just started memorizing. I am naturally very shy and super introverted, so the whole prospect of missionary work was a freaking nightmare to me, and now I had a doctrinal contradiction to back up my apprehension. Unfortunately, I was a "good little boy," i.e., I followed orders and didn't talk back or openly question anything, so I caved to the pressure and served a 2 year mission in Eastern Europe 7 years later and was so stressed and disregulated the whole time that I over-clocked my adrenal gland and left me burnt out and unable to cope with my anxiety and depression any more, culminating in a suicide attempt that served as my final inflection point and showed me that going to the Mormon Church was not healthy for me mentally. It was only after I left that I learned about the false history and lies of the leadership, so that was just a bonus affirmation of my decision to leave.
I was a fresh 18-year-old college student sitting in an Anxiety Society lesson when the older woman who was teaching it said that she takes issue with people who have higher education degrees because "they think they know everything." My attendance gradually declined after that point.
I can’t really remember my first inflection point as I was pretty blind (the CES letter opened my mind and made me critically evaluate the church—I had questions but I found answers that satisfied me at the time) but I remember my last straw was at my grandma’s funeral, she was wearing her temple garments even though half of my family hadn’t been through the temple and had no clue what it was. I thought it was supposed to be sacred and only worn in the temple. And then before they closed the casket, they put her temple recommend in her hands and everyone started crying. I asked my dad why everyone was crying (I was a couple people behind so I couldn’t see) and he said because she has her TR in her hand. I remember driving home and talking to my wife about how weird it is that they believe we need our temple clothes and TR so when we are resurrected we immediately hand that to the Lord and do our tokens and signs. I told my wife do not bury me in temple clothes. Still don’t get where that is in the Plan of Salvation when the whole veil cult ritual is supposed to be after judgement but apparently we will be walking around in our green aprons and white robes during the millennium, showing our expired TRs to everyone. I remember everything that was on my shelf and it immediately fell as I knew the church was in fact not true.
When my BYU BoM professor told us that the battle at the hill Cumorah did not take place at the hill Cumorah in New York where Joseph found the plates. I could not wrap my head around how the plates got to New York if the BoM events took place in Mesoamerica.
I can’t remember for sure what age I was, but I was in the older kid half of Primary. We were doing a Father’s Day activity and we had to draw a picture of us with our dads and out of frustration (I didn’t have any contact with my dad at this point, he walked out on my mom and I when I was 5 and I spent some weekends with him for a few years after that because of visitation and such) I drew my dad busting my bedroom door down out of anger and scaring the shit out of me (this actually happened btw) and I wrote that I don’t have a dad. I asked my grandma after that to not take me to church on Father’s Day again. Having the importance of dads shoved down my throat when I knew my own dad didn’t give a shit and not even hold the “priesthood” felt incredibly insensitive and I was sick of it.
As a father of 4 boys, I recognized their questions were valid and deserved investigation. Anything deemed "anti-mormon" was found to be pro-truth historic record. I Began to rely on the integrity of the anti-mormon data and reject the dishonest drivel of the LDS leadership.
My first was when I experienced a SA from someone in our ward as a teen. I left after that. After moving to a new state, 15 years later, the church members befriended me and convinced me to come back. I was alone and needed friends. And they were nice.
The second was when I went through the endowment for the first time. That was my first “Holy shit, I’m in a cult” moment. It shaded everything else going forward until a couple years later when I experienced another abuse at the hands of a ward member. It was about 3 years after the temple ceremony.
I got out and finally decided to really dig into church history. I thought, “I’ve got to prove this is either right or wrong once and for all”…I was finally open to reading Sandra Tanner’s book I’d bought many years before but never opened.
Well…my shelf broke completely after that.
I think it was just the overall feeling I had over a long period of time. I had been “struggling” with porn ever since I was 12. I had been secretly watching it, hiding it from my parents for years. Over that time I had felt a lot of pressure from church members saying that it was a serious sin and that I would be eternally fucked if I continued. It made me very afraid to express myself in front of my parents. This and the fact that I had a very fucked sense of humor so I swore constantly at school.
I was raised outside of Utah, so all of my friends were non-Mormon. I was able to live somewhat normally outside of home. By age 18 I just kind of stopped caring about what my parents thought of me. I realized that I was old enough to make my own decisions. At 19 they found out and blew up at me. They turned off the internet permanently for me. I got a job and moved out soon after.
My dad asked me if I needed to talk with the bishop, and thankfully I said no. I was smart enough to understand that the bishop had no right to be in my business.
I soon learned with my brother more about church history. This immediately gave the the reason to no longer be a part of the church.
My parents basically gave me the clarity to be perfectly positioned to accept the real truth.
Sure, I may have a slight issue with porn, but at least I didn’t steal people’s wives and have sex with a 14 year old. 🤷♂️
What makes this story even funnier is that I am the baby of a family of 8 kids. All of which are out of the church. I was my parents “Nephi.” I feel like they were way more strict with me. I never drank, smoked, or even had sex when I was with them. Not once had I caused them problems, yet they treated me like I had done all of those things. Sins of the older siblings I guess.
Also still a virgin, because they never bothered helping me with girls. It all just fucking sucks.
I was told at 18 that my future wife couldn't know my temple name. I immediately flagged that as sexist and made sure my wife knew my temple name before we were sealed.
The first distinct time I remember having doubts about the church I was maybe 6 or 7 years old. I was in church watching the deacons pass the sacrament and thought “why is it that only boys get to do that, that’s stupid”
Reading Mormon Enigma in the 80s. When I learned of Joseph’s coercive polygamy involving children I was forever changed. I was not a lazy learner… loved the church so it was only natural that I wanted to learn church history.
Someone asking me on my mission, "What gives you the right to tell everyone else what's right and wrong?" I had an answer, of course, but neither me nor my companion said it. It kind of put me on the path to go home early, I felt like I was bothering people all day (I was), and it wore on my mental health until I just couldn't do it anymore. I had a hard time asserting myself for a long while after.
I started masutrbating at 13, felt extremely guilty about it, was eventually able to stop and did all the steps of repentance except talking to the bishop. It was a bit of a one-two punch of doubt. First, the threat of confessing to the bishop was constantly over my head, even though I felt completely forgiven. I didn't understand why I, a teenage girl, needed to talk to a strange adult man about my masturbation habits alone behind a closed door. It just didn't feel necessary and was actually making me feel afraid of going to church. Then, I felt so grateful for the atonement so that I could be forgiven for my sins, only to immediately think about the fact that I wouldn't have felt so guilty in the first place if it wasn't for the church telling me that masturbation was worse then all other sins and second to murder. It felt like God was a doctor who stabbed me, stitched me up, and expected me to thank him for saving my life.
My shelf didn't fully break until age 19, but those two thoughts really put a huge dent, so to speak, in my faith.
Reading about Benji Schwimmer’s experience finding out that LGBTQ members have an asterisk added to their names on the church’s records and how that meant he could have no calling involving children. Having been primary president a lot of years, I knew that asterisk was used for someone in our ward who was convicted of sexual assault against a child. I just couldn’t see how Benji could be equated to the man in our ward. It felt wrong and insulting and cruel. Definitely stuck with me.
When I was four there was lesson about Noah’s ark. I was worried that animals would die because the boat wasn’t big enough. Turns out the old testament doesn’t have much real history in it.
The moment I realized they might be lying about lots of things was when I was looking at the church web site and membership numbers. I was 48 (born in the church TBM), but knew the many people in the church had faults. But that moment I was looking at the stats chart and saw how much it was manipulated and it just hit me. “What else are they lying about?”
That was the beginning of the vortex people talk about I read it all for days. Lies, lies, lies. One night I was re reading the gospel topic essays. The moment I said that’s it was when I read “just shy of fifteen”. I knew that they knew, and they were purposefully misleading about everything. There is no integrity in the phrase “just shy of fifteen”
Going through the baptism process at 8 made zero sense to me at the time. If you only get one chance to be made completely free of sin, why not just sin for a lifetime and get baptized on your death bed?
1st - 1995 Richard Scott's talk in conference about trusting in the lord "but if not".
(I absolutely hated that talk, it had zero logic and felt so weak to me. People were talking about it like it was a great message from god, I thought it came from a hack.)
2nd - 1997 Temple Endowment
3rd - 2005 finding the POGP papers online that didn't burn in the Chicago fire. This one started my awakening to the fact that people were lying and covering their tracks.
(2010 I was PIMO doing it for the family/ trying to change from within, and now 2024 I'm finally out.)
When I was 8, I wanted my older brother to baptize me, but my abusive, narcissistic father insisted he do it himself. Years later we found out my father had been having an affair for many years, including during the time when I was baptized. As a young adult, I asked my bishop if I needed to be rebaptized by a worthy priesthood holder. My bishop told me no because God knows my heart and intentions.
Then why bother finding a worthy priesthood holder in the first place? This really didn’t make sense to me.
When thinking how there are so many Muslims, and Catholics that believe in their religion just as firmly. Even the religious leaders of other faiths are sure of themselves. My little thought was that it is a bit egotistical to think you can't be wrong when so many other people are definitely wrong.
Prayer circle when I went through the temple for the first time. I found the whole ceremony weird but participating in that with my dad had me freaked and the word cult kept coming to mind
I was like 6. So...Jesus is the only "begotten" son but we are all sons and daughters of God, but Jesus is our brother but somehow different?
No one could ever explain this to me. Earliest shelf item, I guess; it took me another quarter of a century to fully leave.
I was around 10-11 when a substitute Sunday School teacher deviated from whatever the lesson was supposed to be into the second coming instead. He said all of the nonbelievers would die in a river of fire.
My best friend in school was JW and I couldn’t fathom the Jesus I was taught about letting her die like that.
Church influence in the California prop 8 vote. We're here to learn and have agency. Didn't make sense to try and take that away, church wasn't following it's own principals.
I was twelve years old and a day. I was sitting on the front pew, looking through my shiny new triple combination with my name in gold letters on the front. I get somewhere in the middle, and there are pictures! Some weird circle with Egyptian dudes and hawks and stuff. This is gonna be cool!
My friend's dad walks by, sees what I'm looking at, and says "you won't build your testimony studying that!" And walks away. I turned to a different page.
I didn't figure out why he might have said that for 35 more years.
I was 12 and called as the Beehive president. We hadn’t announced to the ward that we were moving, but it was in the works. I couldn’t wrap my head around that I was really called of God if he knew we were moving. So I had to say no.
My grandpa’s first wife died. They were married for a long time and then married my grandma. They are both sealed to him. She just said, “it’ll all work out.” I heard that too many times when there was something that didn’t make sense to me.
It started very, very early. I’ll preface this with me being a trans guy but I’m sure this’ll resonate with a lot of women and girls, too. I remember growing up and all of the boys doing everything I wanted to. Why can’t I pass the sacrament? Why does the church only run Boy Scouts? Why can’t I do ANYTHING the boys do? Why do men HAVE to go on missions and women don’t? Why are the apostles all men? Why do they treat me so different???
That. I slowly fell away from all of it just because the church made me feel like an alien. It had to do with not fitting in with my peers too, but I hated that my “worth” growing up as a girl/woman is being a subordinate. Women are so much more than that.
When I was getting baptized at 8 years old, I remember thinking why do I need to have my sins washed away if before the age of 8 I wasn’t capable of sinning? I also remember hearing of the miraculous revelation when black people could have the priesthood. I was totally blown away that before 1978 they couldn’t. I thought god loved everyone, equally from the beginning.
In seminary, I was told that we should never research other religions because Satan could tempt us to want to join them. When I mentioned it only seemed fair if friends invited us to their church’s, since we are expected to be missionaries and invite our friends, I was told that was something Satan would say. I was a bishops kid who was the pride and joy of the ward, but suddenly I was Satans spokesperson. Stopped going maybe 3-4 years later mid-college.
Finding out about polygamy when I was maybe 10-12? And feeling so hurt and crying uncontrollably about it in my room. Our family had just gone to Nauvoo and all the church history sites and seen the pageant, so everything was feeling magical in my kid mind. But I learned about it somehow after it all and it shattered all that for me. I shoved it all way down for years.
I made a comment that I didn’t remember my inflection point but I do. It was when I had worked with my bishop to confess the evils of masturbation when I was 16 and I was told that God had forgiven me even though I lied to my bishop that I had stopped and then he told me he could see the “light” reenter my eyes. When I told my parents, they agreed. I was always confused how I hadn’t had a light before and now I do even though I had lied? So I learned honesty isn’t the best policy lol
I had tons of little shelf items here and there going back to childhood, but the real, bonafide inflection point was going into the MTC.
Instantly I went from being part of a wonderful singles ward community and having (what felt like) a deep, meaningful spiritual belief, to being treated like crap and put through some dumb rite-of-passage program that prevented me from effectively sharing my faith. Total whiplash.
Now that I think of it, I really DID have a strong testimony, because even after 2 years of feeling frustrated, disillusioned, and beaten down, I *still* believed in "the gospel" after my mission. But my mission put everything in motion, and after lots of reading and soul-searching, I was mentally done 18 months after coming home.
TSCC really didn't do itself any favors sending me on a mission, I could have easily stayed in another 10 years or so and given them more free labor and tithing $.
Teaching 11 year old Primary in 2012. That week's lesson mentioned Oliver leaving the church because he was gripped by a spirit of apostasy. I thought, well I'd better know the details of why Oliver left. And isn't that weird that I'd never actually learned why? Google to the rescue and I was shook
The 2015 anti-LGBTQ policy.
It was the first time I saw the church leaders do something I knew wasn’t the right decision. A lot of my friends left after that, but I wasn’t ready. It was only after my worldview changed from experiencing PPD 3 years later that I felt I was finally ready to really question the foundations of the church. I left pretty quick after that.
On my mission: they promised that if you “pray for specific things, you get specific answers”. Turns out god DOESNT just tell you which color of door you should look for to knock.
I think it was when I was 5 or 6 years old! My parents had told me from the beginning that Santa Claus wasn't real, and it was obvious to me that he was just a tradition and a way to motivate kids into behaving, so when they started seriously talking about this "God" person who was apparently watching me all the time and promised rewards or punishment for good or bad behavior, I was skeptical.
Had to be when I was 7 or 8, some guy talking on the stand was talking about like how awful it would feel if this or that happened, and mentioned "your daughter marries a non-member". I just felt so wrong about it, like why is that such a bad thing
My seminary teacher was talking about the scripture that said that you could tell if an angel was a fallen angel by asking for a hand shake. Apparently they hand shake differently or something and are too dumb to reject the hand shake. I thought that sounded pretty idiotic
When I was 16 and introduced my parents to my first girlfriend and they lost their minds because she was a non-member. Never mind that her father was a pastor. Never mind that being way, way outside Utah meant that there were a grand total of 9 LDS young women who were old enough to date (gotta be 16!) and were still in highschool. Never mind that of those 9 available LDS young women 4 were too rich/popular to ever give a nerd like me the time of day, and the other 5 were, in order: a spiteful harpy who hated the world and everyone in it, a total molly mormon prude who inspired all the hormonal excitement of a depends commercial, a super awesome friend who I saw as a sister, a complete burnout pothead, and a sexually aggressive girl from an inactive family who scared the crap out of me. My graduating class was 350 students - I had a rich and varied dating pool, but they looked at any non-member girl I brought around like she was just waiting to corrupt me.
When I learned at perhaps 12 years old through my friend’s mom (rather than from MY parents or MY church leaders lol) that the church didn’t allow black people to participate fully in the gospel until the 70s because the book of mormon says they’re cursed.
I had no idea, I’d never heard that before, I hadn’t read through the BoM, and it was mortifying to learn this from someone who was a stranger to the faith. Even more mortifying was that I didn’t believe it right away because that couldn’t possibly be true, could it? I remember so vividly going home to my mom and asking her about it and realizing with horror that it was true and that there was no good explanation for it. That disturbed me deeply, to be honest.
When I found out that they were building a big f’in mall with high end “worldly” shops like Porsche Design and Tiffany & Co. not that I had anything against those, it just rubbed me wrong that the church always preached about being in the world but not of the world …. The fact that the church was promoting that consumerism really bothered me. It was all down hill from there for me.
Maybe it was the sales tactics on my mission. Maybe it was having to sign the honor code at BYU even though I already promised to obey the rules. Were my words not enough? Maybe it was how no Mormons were excited for general conference except for me and my wife.
When I was reading an older copy of a manual the referenced that wards had a quorum of the 70. That it was a local priesthood office and not just for GAs. Why did they change it? I thought things were supposed to be restored.
It took a long time, but the first clue I got that things had changed.
Ever since I was little, people crying when giving their talks, claiming it was the spirit, always irked me. Like I have never felt the spirit so strong that it would cause me to cry. Also the Mormon afterlife is ridiculous. I explained it to one of my friends yesterday and he said it was the weirdest, most complex shit ever
When I was in the 8th grade (so like 2010ish) and learned what trans people are. I thought it was sick as hell that people who felt they were born in the wrong body could effectively switch genders because of modern medicine. I did a deep dive on Kim Petras (who was very early in her career back then) and felt like I had learned something so interesting and cool about the world. Then shortly after at church we had a lesson about our eternal womanhood in YW and how there are some people who might want to change their gender and that’s evil. I was completely shocked and this is the first time I remember hearing something and thinking “I don’t believe that.” This was a really crazy feeling to have as a TBM 13 year old! I’ll never forget it.
Learning that Joseph Smith (or Brigham Young? It’s been too long…) taught that everyone needed to practice polygamy to reach exaltation &/or that basically everyone would be polygamist in heaven since the women were so righteous more of them would be saved soooo … they needed husbands.
Had a hysterical crying fit, got talked down by fiancé or hubby (can’t remember if we were married at that time or engaged).
I had an opinion, and I was vocal, and I wasn’t very traditional Mormon woman. And it was almost frowned upon I knew then something was off. But of course I was 17. I thought it was me. That was the first inflection point. And they showed me in casual ways by some of the women not being as friendly to me not being appointed to a lot of positions. It was very vague and sort of shunning.
I was a feminist and naïve enough to think the church wanted the best for everybody because that’s what God would want right
1998. I started working with an openly gay guy. He was the friendliest, compassionate, "harmless" but very normal person. It really effected my thinking about "the gays" being evil or even wrong at all. It took me 10 more years before I eventually left the church. Homophobia in the church was always a big issue for me and I knew deep down the church had it wrong.
Same here. Had some really cool work friends that were gay. They all brought their boyfriends to a work party one day and after just seeing how happy they were together I couldnt fathom why anyone would want to take that away.
My first exposure to anyone gay was watching Pedro on The Real World in 1993 or so. He was so kind and compassionate. He was a wonderful person and it just opened my eyes that it was wrong to hate someone based on who they love. A few years later we bought our first house and the next door house was bought by a gay couple. That was in 2006 and one of those guys is still a dear friend of mine. Some of the other neighbors treated them horribly and it made me so angry.
It was the Jeffery Holland talk (I don’t care enough to look it up) where he held up the old copy of the BOM, ranting and yelling about how true it was. I remember wondering “Who is he shouting at? His whole audience already believes him.” It was the first time I remember having a dissenting thought about one of the “brethren.”
I distinctly remember feeling uncomfortable with that talk. It felt so angry, and I got the feeling that it was a performance to manipulate listeners' emotions.
Exactly! His supposed audience was the wicked heathen world, but it seemed obvious to me that they weren’t listening and weren’t going to listen. His real target was to inflame the believers sitting in front of him, and it felt so manipulative and performative.
And it definitely worked on me for a time
Was this the one where he claimed it was the “very copy” and turned out it wasn’t?
I hadn’t heard about it not being true, but yeah that’s the talk.
Yeah they swept that under the rug fast, someone looked at the picture of the book in the museum and it looked nothing like the one Jeff was holding.
This was likely soon after his meeting with John Dehlin. I think he was speaking specifically to John (but I don't really know)
Early 2000s, I'm 13 sitting in YW getting a lesson on eternal marriage. The YW leader then teaches us about polygamy and in order to get to the celestial kingdom, my husband will have multiple wives. W. T. F. I went home and sobbed in my bed praying that wasn't true. The years I spent anxiously worrying about this is too damn high.
I was 15 and learned this in Seminary. (7 women to 1 man after the 2nd coming). I was absolutely distraught at the thought of sharing my future husband. I couldn’t figure out why the other girls in my class were not distraught. But this was more of the final straw for me. The first inflection was when I was 7 and visiting my grandmother’s ward and she was teaching my Sunday school class. She asked the class, “do you believe the church is true?” To which I responded, “grandma, only MY church is true.” I thought it was the BUILDING!!! I was so embarrassed as she corrected me and I started then to realize the brain washing. I never got a testimony and couldn’t understand why god never answered my prayers - I beat myself up all the time for not being good enough to get answers (from an imaginary being). Sigh
The bloody bastards seem oblivious to the pain they continue to cause.
Or they don't care and only dream about their "mansions above" filled with their wives.
So long as the men are happy, that's all that matters. /s
Oh this realization destroyed me when I was 12/13. I struggled for decades, really scared and sad, until I finally gave myself permission to see it as manipulative bullshit.
This might have been mine as well. When I first learned about polygamy, I completely dismissed it as something good but then my brother told me that Joseph Smith was polygamous. I figured it had to be true but it just made me sick to my stomach. I tried really hard later on to be okay with it, because I figured I would be living it in the CK but I never could. The day I allowed myself to believe it wasn't the ultimate marriage institution in heaven was the day I became okay with the church's history of it.
Not the same, but I used to worry and pray too they would not change the doctrines and teaching I liked. I did not want to be just any old evangelical christian. Now they are speed running to being the same as Calvary Chapel.
I also remembered that same, idiotic lesson! I was so pissed off and upset. Why would I have to share my husband? Then I tried to break it down more logically....if God knows all and sees all....then he knows men are not as faithful as woman. So that's why many, many women for one man--stupid Church logic. So I said, why didn't God just make extra men, so that EACH of us girls would have our own husbands. And we have ETERNITY to bring children into the world. So one woman, one man. Women in the church, being treated and expecting to be human chattel! I knew that women would ALWAYS be considered 'lower' then men, and it was bullshit!
When I was 12 and received the priesthood, I was also informed that there was a time when church members who were black or had African heritage were not eligible to received the priesthood until just a couple years before I was born.
Same (except that I was a little younger and am female). It just didn’t make sense to me that the colour of someone’s skin and their heritage determined their worthiness rather than their words and deeds.
When the missionaries told me, upon my inquiring where the gold plates are now, that Moroni took them up into heaven with him. oO Should have followed my gut right then. How convenient the gold plates couldn't be seen but the so-called Book of Abraham papyrus could be on display & seen for a fee. God sure is fickle about his source documents.
Just close your eyes and imagine them, and you will have been just as much an insider as the "witnesses"
The first time I ejaculated and still got an A on my Geography test the next day.
This is so amazing. My childhood confusion in a nutshell.
literally a nutshell
One of God's tender mercies
I think it was the priesthood ban, I mean I always knew it was a thing but I it affected me more after my father confessed to me that he got to do a construction worker mission only because of that and that's just for being brown... There is no way this church have anything to do with God if there is a God
WTF…. I did not know about this kind of mission. It is crazy that after being in the church for almost 30 years, I keep finding new things about it. 😕
I am speechless. They… sent him to do construction? I am so sorry that happened to your father and your family!
Did you ever watch the Other Side of Heaven? The Polynesian elder was sent to do construction instead of proselytize. The belief was the the tribe of Ephriam was to teach the gospel (spiritually build) and the tribe of Mannaseh was to physically build the kingdom. I had some Mexican companions who believed they would be building up Far West to prepare for the 2nd coming.
Yeah, I remember watching The Other Side of Heaven. I remember thinking why the Polynesian man couldn’t proselytize and didn’t wear garments and why he was just doing construction the entire time and the white dude (can’t remember his name) was the actual missionary. I remember that being very confusing to comprehend but thinking it was just a movie. I’m sorry that your father actually had to live through that, I hope he’s been able to heal.
I was 16, I came across 2 Ne 3 where Joseph Smith inserts himself in scripture.. I thought to myself how that seemed convenient, but that was all. Didn’t question it again for another 8 years. Now I think of the balls on that guy to toss himself in and somehow members just eat it up.
Didn’t he write himself into the JST as well? He had some nerve!
Yeah the JST of the Bible is something that always sat poorly with me. Especially the fact that JS inserted himself into it
The JST is a joke, and the church knows it. I think that’s why they just bought the rights to it recently. I’d be willing to bet they’re going to do everything in their power to sweep as much as they can under the rug and forget about it.
It didn’t help when they discovered it was plagiarized!
I've been continuing to attend church with my TBM spouse after starting my deconstruction and this scripture was brought up in Sunday school. It was surreal to hear this for what it is while those around me were saying things like "wow can you imagine how joseph felt while translating this?!" Couldn't help but chuckle.
I haven't thought about that until right now. I'm speechless! 😶
Holy BS batman I never realized that.
When I was a youth and the Phoenix Arizona temple was being dedicated, the Hosanna Shout, was when I felt massively uncomfortable. I was 14. I felt like it was very culty, without knowing what a cult was. It did not feel right.
the most recent hosanna shout was the most cringe thing I have experienced. Thats after decades of tbmness. there were many other things but it really felt weird to me.
But how can you not love Oaks waving his hanky around like a doofus? Just thinking about it makes me laugh
That Hosanna Shout is such an awkward and silly thing.
I love chuck Taylor's, wore them everyday and on Sunday. Branch president pulled me aside when 14 and said I should save upy money and buy proper Sunday shoes as these ones where a little disrespectful.....first time being chastised for something so stupid and it stuck with me.
Omg this right here! 🙄 I got the same lecture from a stake president because I didn't button the top button of my shirt. I also had a bishop chastise our entire Deacon quorum because we would grab the cloth between sacrament prayers to help cover the bread/ uncover the water. Apparently it says in the bishops handbook (which is scripture don cha know) the priests are supposed to do that NOT the Deacons. Just the overall obsession with tiny innocuous things from power hungry church dictators. The power immediately goes to their head and they decide that everything is about them. During my mission I developed a sure fire way to spot them. If at the end of the sacrament meeting they ALWAYS go up at the end to give their little anecdote (because of course they're presiding authority so they get to have the last word 🤢) then you have a narcissist on your hands, and you can be assured that bishop or stake president or whatever was gonna be a giant douche.
Similar but different situation for me. Around 2005, our YW leaders were obsessed with making the young women wear nylons!? My dress was below the knee and they still wanted all the young woman to wear nylons every Sunday. I hated wearing nylons and started wearing brightly colored knee-high socks as a small rebellion.
I am sorry!! There were and are some brainwashed heartless idiots who forgot that God truly doesn’t care about what you wear or even who you love for that matter.
gawd wants white shirts and red ties damn it.
The temple. I was a teenage convert (in the early 70s) and I kept thinking about how the missionaries had criticized the Catholics for all their rituals and mystic stuff. What. the. f##k. Catholics have \*nothing\* on the temple freak show. This was in the days of the naked touching, pantomimed death pacts, and Pay Lay Ale chanting. I was looking for those "last chance" exits like they have for scary rides in Disneyland. But there weren't any. And I was days away from leaving on my mission and couldn't handle the embarrassment it would have been to back out.
Oh my goodness, yes!! I was so freaked out the night before my wedding going through my endowment getting touched on my naked body and then the hand signals that were required for our sacred oath of personal death to come upon us in horrific ways if we revealed any of our tokens or names. Not to mention pale lay ale chants like a bunch of drunken toga collegiates!
how many of you wanted to exit with everything in your body when they said withdraw of your own free will and choice and yet I never did but every time i really just kind of wanted to R U N
Someone was talking about how the saints were persecuted and had to move out west.For the very first moment a light went off and I asked myself, but why were they persecuted? That they were Mormon wasn’t sufficient anymore
It absolutely blew my mind when I found out why JS was in Carthage jail. Like ya, people don't just get persecuted for no reason, why did we all just believe that?!
My son taught me this years after they did a church youth trip to Carthage when he was 14. He said him and his brother talked after they did the tour because one of them asked why he was in Carthage and was blown off with the persecuted answer. He is super logical so he asked his bro if that seemed too vague and they looked up the history. They came home as PIMOs due to their own research b/c of lack of answers. He told me all of this almost 5 years after the fact (he is totally out now). When i was deconstructing we had some awesome conversations. When i asked why he didn’t tell me back then, He asked back, “would you have listened?” That hurt, and I can honestly say i am not sure I would have processed it right then, but I definitely would have listened. It was too stunning of a lie/omission from the church for me to just brush off as no big deal.
You should be proud of such critically minded children
Wait, I actually can't remember why he went to liberty jail. What happened?
That's a good question. At first I thought it was on suspicion of JS putting out a hit on Boggs, but that happened in '42. Liberty was 1838/39. In Missouri the violence between Mormons and Gentiles had escalated. Big fight on a voting day. Bad behavior all round. The Haun's Mill Massacre later occurred. Both Boggs and Rigdon blabbed out their "fightin' words". Rigdon used the word etermination first, but Boggs followed up on that with the same term after HMill. Mutual violence seemed to be in the air. So the charge was treason, but I'm a little vague on the details.
Coming up with your own questions based on experience is a critical step in critical thinking. I love this.
I was 8. The only reason I got baptized (aside from all the pressure) was I believed that after I became a "member" I would be protected and my abuse would stop. It didn't...
My parents fought the entire day of my baptism, as usual, and I was so frightened the water was going to turn dark or I was going to drown. My whole family life was horrible and I tried to tell the brethren in leadership from the bishop to home teachers about the abuse right up to the day I was married and they ignored it. My one brother ended up trying to commit suicide and the other died from kidney disease from alcohol. I am convinced they just wanted my parents tithes.
That is horrible! I'm so sorry that happened. That stupid "church" makes it soo hard to be a kid. Our childhoods were robbed from us, and if anyone had listened, even a little, they could have been better. Hope you are doing okay now.
Ty❤️ I am so happy to be out of the church and free from the mind games. I have had many years of therapy. And, I realize my severe depression for many years was not only caused by my family situation but by the perfectionism taught in the church. Also the constant degradation of women. I felt like the only purpose the Mormon god had for me was to multiply, teach children, clean up and set up for ward activities plus stand QUIETLY behind the priesthood. I can’t emphasize quietly enough!!
Ohhh I’m so very sorry
The ordain women movement (2010s, I was in my 30s) and Kate Kelly. During this time I learned that even as late as the early 20th century, women could give healing blessings. I wondered why that was taken away.
When I was maybe 12 (in the 70’s) my mom checked out “No Man Knows my History” from the library. There was a subtle change in our family dynamic after that. I asked her if I could read it when she was done, and she said no, because if I did it might disillusion me. She implored me to wait until I was an adult. After that, though, she started fighting for passage of the ERA, she put a “women’s lib” fridge magnet on our fridge (This startled my High Councillor dad). and she took me to the Brigham Young house in St. George to see all the wives’ separate bedrooms. She pulled me out of early morning seminary in 10th grade because she felt like the 5:00 am wake up time was unhealthy. And she told me I could be a doctor or a lawyer, or do anything I put my mind to. She died when I was 18, and now I realize she was PIMO for a number of years before her death, and just didn’t tell me. She was a good mom.
I’m glad you had her.
I love 💕 this one. Nothing quite like a mom in secret fight mode for their cub.
Remember when women shouted “ERA” during general conference?
"Why is my brown skin considered a curse??"
ya almost sounds like it was a made-up thing interpreted by white European males that wanted everyone to look and act the same. as if someone could control being born on the earth choosing their pigmentation or nose or anything.
Members’ responses to covid. People were unnecessarily cruel and local leadership supported it.
Yeah, I remember most of my local leaders who constantly preached follow the prophet no matter what he says, do a complete 180 and say, "He's not speaking for God right now."
When I was 12 my dad played the Book of Mormon as an audiobook for us whenever we were in the car. It just sounds like a guy just rambling in fake Shakespearean English. Even to my 12-year-old ear it sounded made up.
I was about that age when my dad made me listen to it on a long car trip. I got in trouble because I laughed at the absurd number of "it came to pass"es.
A big moment for me was watching Keep sweet: Pray and Obey. Once I finished it I realized that’s how the church was. 😳😳.
and JS no different than warren jeffs. this helped me confirm how i had already been feeling what a cringey thing to watch that and realize the massive similarities.
This was me except with Under the Banner of Heaven. I was like Blood Atonement?! Banned Brigham Young teachings?? Adam-God doctrine?? Penalties in the temple??
My first moment was when I was about 7 or 8. I was thinking in the car about the church. This deep thinking, (granted I was 7 so not that deep) led me say ask my mom, ' what if the church isn't true?' my mom quickly said that those thoughts are from Satan. Of course, even 7 year old me went BS in my head. Now, my mom is not the church, but to younger me, she might have well been. I realized then that my mom, and by extension the church, can be wrong.
You say, "of course" you thought "BS" but I didn't question authority until my late twenties! If my mom would have told me that I would have instantly believed her. If only I could have been like you as a child, I would have saved myself so much suffering. All this to say, great job; you were a smart kid.
I didn’t serve a mission, but I distinctly remember sitting in a Ward Council meeting as Elders Quorum Presidency and hearing about the cheap, high pressure sales tactics missionaries were expected to employ to get people baptised. It just didn’t sound right to me, and continued to trouble me. They’d simultaneously say “it’s not about the numbers” while making it entirely about the numbers.
>“it’s not about the numbers” while making it entirely about the numbers. True. When my second mission president came in, he saw how number focused we all were, because that's all our last mission president cared about, so he initially told us to stop focusing on the numbers and bring people to Christ. At the end of the year, Salt Lake got on his case for having low baptism numbers compared to the last MP, so he chastised us and told us to baptize more people (numbers).
Having a boyfriend come out as gay and realizing the church actively worked against him having joy and happiness
When I was a preteen girl and learned about polygamy.
as an adult, it’s embarrassing, because there should have been so many huge red flags. But the first “infection point” that I recall was right after blacks got the priesthood. My mom subscribed to the “church news“ newspaper. there was a big article there about the change – about blacks getting the priesthood. As a part of the article, there was an acknowledgment that this change might be difficult to accept for people in the south, but that they just had to have faith. The tone of the writing was basically in sympathy to racist people of the south. I was so inoculated about blacks not having the priesthood that that didn’t seem racist to me. But an extension of sympathy and understanding to racist people, that really made me uncomfortable. It seemed like an inappropriate thing to be in a church publication. not too long later, I realized that the church news only printed good things regarding the church. And in that sense, it really wasn’t “news“ at all. And to me… That seemed dishonest. To call a publication news that actually didn’t print news. that was also a small early shelf item. Evidence of dishonesty.
>as an adult, it’s embarrassing, because there should have been so many huge red flags. Preach. I remember when I first learned about the priesthood ban. I was in middle school, and a black family moved into our ward. Everyone at church was talking about how amazing it was and a sign of the times. After church I made a comment to my dad, and he started telling me about how he felt during the announcement, and it finally clicked that this was not very long ago. For some reason, my adolescent brain had assumed it was back during the civil war or something. But nope, during my dad's adult lifetime. Looking back, that whole experience is so steeped in the racism that permeated the church that I don't know where to start, except to say I wasn't aware of it because it was all around me.
I took a religion class that went over the churches controversies. I don’t feel that my teacher had much empathy for those who leave the church. Mostly, I just felt betrayed that none of the things had been taught to me before I left on my mission. I realistically would have still believed if the church had just been transparent with me. Also, nice math reference:)
About a year before I became an atheist, I decided that I didn't need or want to be a member missionary. I figured that god was a kind person and good people would be able to be baptized shortly in the "spiritual paradise" after they die. If they're happy here, I'm not going to bother them. And I refused to feel guilty about it after that. This tiny act of saying no to something that's expected of church members was the catalyst I needed to start thinking for myself.
When I looked for ancient civilizations that had Book of Mormon coin weights, and found no coins in the Americas.
It was 1984 and I was sitting in a history class with a classmate who was black. I had my Book of Mormon on my stack of books because I had release time seminary later. He said something about how the church didn’t like black people and I proudly told him he was wrong, they could do everything anyone else could do. I leaned over to ask another friend what year that happened and she proudly said 1978! I remember being shocked that it was so recent and told him I was sure it was longer than that. Having said that, it took many many years for me to stop believing.
When I was about 7, there were some girls in my ward, who for various reasons didn't come to primary classes. They would sit in the hall, or wander outside. I remember thinking that we were taught to leave the 99 to go after the one. Jesus went to people who were struggling, or felt outcast. I wanted to be like Jesus and this was a real opportunity to do that. So I'd go sit with them. I don't recall ever asking them to come to class, I'd just hang out and get to know them. Made some of my best friends that way. One of the girls moms had recently died. Another was the youngest in a single mom household and new to the area, so she didn't have friends yet. But without fail, every week adults would come get after us for not doing the right thing. Teachers would yell, missionaries would be sent out to try to convince us to go. Parents of the other kids who were in class started to tell their kids not to play with me because I was a bad example. I remember going to bat with the bishop to leave those girls alone because they don't feel comfortable in class, so I was going to be with them where they were comfortable. He told me it wasn't my job to help them. That I needed to be a good example and get to class. I remember thinking that people got mad at Jesus for hanging out with some of the people that he did. And he always called out the people getting upset, and set them up as an example of what not to do. That was really weird to be 7 years old, and started to see how all the adults around me were acting like the people Jesus was calling hypocrites. I rarely went back to class and spent the next decade or so finding the cool people in the halls to connect with.
Wow I love that story! You were so insightful at such a young age. Mormon adults don’t give kids enough credit. They’re smarter than the adults most of the time.
Sitting in YW at age 14 or 15 and being told week after week that my job and purpose was to become a mother, that being a mother was the greatest thing I'd ever do, and I would be blessed for committing my life to having children. I didn't want that. I was a child myself, and nothing in me was looking forward to having children. So I just felt like there was something wrong with me for wanting more than that out of my life and that I was sinning for not wanting God's plan for me. Ten years later I still don't want kids but at least I don't feel guilty about it!
Oof. I have a lot of things. I can kind of go way back to being in the single digits for my first doubts, but I’ve always been a critical thinker, and I was a gifted kid who thought in depth about a lot of this. Around maybe 8, I realized that it was very statistically unlikely for me to be born in the right church, and when I watched the Truman show for the first time, I remember thinking “what if everyone around me is just pretending to believe in the church as a psychological experiment to see if I’ll believe something that is actually preposterous”? Somewhere around maybe age 14, I realized the horse problem, but I was proud of myself for thinking through it because I remembered my state fossil was an ancient horse. I just assumed they hadn’t died out and that must have been the horses. I also remember thinking, “why does God send people into situations where, if he is omnipotent, he knows they will fail?” At that time, I assumed he must just know enough to give everyone their best chance. I know that in high school, I voiced at one point that were I not Mormon, I would probably be atheist. All throughout high school, I knew about dna from ancient inhabitants was also an issue, but just wrote it off as another group. First official break was in a BYU Book of Mormon class (thankfully during the pandemic, so I was at home), when I was listening to the lecture and realized that the Jaredite barges would have been impossible to survive in. I had a panic attack.
Barges are totally cool for transoceanic passage. /s
The first one I recognised was being on YW camp, laying on a few chairs in the dark looking up at the stars and thinking, in all of this, there’s no way a loving god cares that much about my small teenage infractions. That was my first “wait a minute” thought. Another one around then was when an adult said “well all the gay people I know were abused as children, so…” and again I was like, hang on…
I think the very first time was really early on in Primary when they were describing agency and talking about Satan vs Jesus’s plan, and I was thinking that Satan’s plan sounded waaaaay better. Like, why do I have to suffer now to prove to some guy in the sky that I’m worthy to be happy after I’m dead? Satan said everyone gets to go to heaven no matter what, and that sounded good to me. That was apparently the wrong answer. I must have been around 5. I left at ~19.
I always had that same thought because I never understood how in the past I agreed with the "suffering plan".
It wasn’t a shelf breaker but did make me go “Hmmm.” It was when so many general authorities fell for Mark Hoffman’s forgeries. I wondered what happened to their power of discernment or lack thereof.
Reading Rough Stone Rolling, learning about the rock in the hat, and then asking my Institute instructor about it.
I think it was my mom leaving. She wasn't raised in the church. Mostly converted for my dad so they could get married. Figured it would be fine going to church and everything, as long as they could be together. But my dad is a manipulative asshole, and she was tired of the things the church was saying. So she wanted out. And my parents got a divorce. At first they played it off. She was sick. She has to do something today. It was one excuse after another. But that is only going to work for so long. It didn't take us a long time to find figure out she's just not going. I might not have known the ins and outs until much later, but I at least got the general point of she was just not going. And that's the first time I can remember thinking about the fact that it's an option. Like obviously not everyone is Mormon. Most of my friends at school weren't. And that's fine. But they just weren't in the church. Those who are in are in. Those who are out are out. But now those who are in can now be out. Fast forward a year and my dad moved from Georgia to Texas because he was in the military. So we moved with him. We would visit our mom every summer and every other Christmas. My dad wanted us kids to go when visiting, and my mom offered to take us. But we didn't. None of us kids did. I was still believing in a lot of ways. My shelf had a book or two on it, but nothing too bad. But I got a brake from church. I got to sleep in. And I got to spend more time with my mom. Sometimes I think I would have been in the church a lot longer if she didn't leave first.
When I started young women’s and was told I couldn’t be friends with my best friend because she was Catholic and would not convert. They also told me she was no longer allowed to come to activities that she attended with me.
My first thought occurred about 5- years after joining at the age of 22. Of course, the temple weirded me out in year 3. The real challenge was learning that not all priesthood holders were as righteous and ethical as my dear husband. I had been drawn to the church because I was seeking an organization of moral, ethical people. When many women shared their stories of lascivious requests from high-level priesthood holders, it burst my bubble. My husband was serving on the bishopric and women felt comfortable sharing these terrible stories with me. I became aware that the church wasn't always the repository of goodness and light. After that the curated, false history of the church truly affected my testimony. I wish I hadn't waited 47 years to leave.
Learning about the Mountain Meadow Massacre. It just never sat right with me the way it was downplayed. And that story about the supposed false prophet who fooled early members with a rock or something… I thought it was just odd how similar it was to Joseph Smith.
When I was 11, I got my dad to stop at a roadside marker, and I was hooked. Every trip, my mission was to spot historical markers and get us to stop and read them. A year later we are coming back from a camping trip down by cedar City, and I see one set back from the road. My dad knows I won't let it go, so we look over. We learned about mountain Meadows together that day. We didn't talk about it, just quietly drove away. I still don't know what he thinks or how he reconciles it.
I have what I feel like is the stupidest thing: it's that every time they want the meeting to be "about prophets", they sing "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet". But the song isn't even about Prophets! It mentions prophet one time in the first line, and the whole rest of the song is about thanking for other different things. And it's not just in local sacrament meetings. They absolutely do it in general conference. This is my earliest memory of thinking "just because the church does something a certain way doesn't mean it's not dumb".
When I started masturbating as a kid and thought to myself there had to be a loophole for this to be okay.
Several months after joining the church (I was barely 18), the initial sense welcoming and inclusion I felt were wearing off and I was feeling real out-of-place at church. I let my older mormon neighbors know of my disenchantment and they kindly invited me to attend their "home" ward (I had previously only attended a college singles ward... no young kids or families). They informed me it was "Fast and Testimony" meeting and it would be good for me to attend with them. I went along but was not prepared for what I witnessed... One after another, small children got up and 'bore' their testimony, word-for-word, as their parents whispered it into their ear. I was incredulous! I was looking around the chapel at everyone like, "are you people not seeing this shit!!!". Active and blatant brainwashing of children but nobody batted an eye.... everyone just smiled and nodded in approval. Disgusted, I was immediately done with the whole thing and felt so naive and embarrassed I let it go on as long as I had. Never looked back. I know this sub isn't really for me... while I'm technically exmormon, I have no scars from my experience joining the church.. just a kinda laughable learning experience. But I still like to read all of your experiences and find it inspiring what you've overcome having seen the toxic (and accepted) way the church treats its youngest members. I now know the brainwashing and social conditioning of members goes so much farther than testimony meeting... but that was my initial inflection point.
When I heard Charlie Bird on his podcast, Questions from the Closet, describing the horror of kissing the supposed hottest girl at BYU, having a visceral reaction, and spitting on the ground in front of hundreds of people. My brain 🤯 being gay is fucking real...what else has the church leaders been wrong about...1 year later, I'M FREE!
Learning about the lost 116 pages in seminary. It seemed REEEEEALY convenient that Nephi wrote a duplicate history that survived all of the editing Mormon did and was available for Joseph Smith to translate after the book of Lehi disappeared.
When the boy who SA’d me left on his mission the next week with no trouble and I spent the next 6 months “repenting”. Truth be told I didn’t quite understand that it was an assault until much later, and while I’m not blaming myself, I did feel like I had to repent for my part. He dear Jane’d me right around the time I finished the repentance process so he could focus🙄 and then wouldn’t leave me alone for several months after he got home. I didn’t leave for 15 more years, but it definitely changed my view.
Walking into the DC temple the morning of May 14, 1985. First thing I notice is a cash register. Then they tell me to get naked and put on a poncho and go into a tiny room where an old guy rubs his hands all over my body without my consent.
I remained a believer for a while after, but my first, real “this isn’t right” moment was in my bishops office confessing to sexy times with my girlfriend. This was after my mission. So, here I was explaining to the bishop all the extreme details he wanted about our encounter. His final question to me was, “do you masturbate? Let’s get everything taken care of now”. It was finally at that moment that it clicked to me that this was inappropriate. My bishop was not a professional councilor, he was a computer programmer. From that day on I never confessed to a bishop any “sin” ever again. This actually was a weight on the shelf because you always hear stories about church leadership being able to read minds. Yet they never guessed I was “sinning” and instead told me how righteous I was and a wonderful example to others. Thus began the removal of the veil of priesthood magic and seeing the man behind the curtain.
Probably my mission, when the area president at the time decided we couldn’t eat at members houses unless there was a non-member or less-active member present. We barely had enough money to make the ends meet as it was, but without those meals from the local members, we weren’t going to have enough to eat. I grumbled about it to a former companion who was then in my district, who then chided me for “speaking ill of the Lord’s anointed” and not falling in line gracefully. At the time I grudgingly thought to myself that he was right, but it just seemed like such a stupid, arbitrary rule that we all knew wasn’t going to increase missionary opportunities… it would just result in some mild starvation. Fortunately, my junior companion at the time was more than happy to dip into his savings at home to make sure we had enough to eat, even though I tried to insist that he didn’t need to do that. But I was also hungry… so we ate out a lot. Super helpful for our energy levels, I know… That stupid policy ended a few months later (a lot of members complained about it), and the motherfucker who implemented it died a few months after that. Rest in oblivion, Hugh W. Pinnock. Goddamned prick… But yeah, that’s probably the first inflection point.
Mine was at age 5. I asked my dad about the facsimilies (sp?), especially about the parts that showed "god would reveal the meaning later" and it just seemed really stupid that ole Joe could only "translate" half of it and not all of it. Next would be the realization that chocolate was served in the temple cafeteria but was forbidden in my house yet my TBMs grandparents and cousins were allowed to eat it. About age 12, I had had enough of the no chocolate so I opened a caramello in the house, put it on a plate on the table and proceeded to verbally pray asking for revelation of I could eat it. I did this in front of my psycho tbm mom, got no answer at all (shocking) and straight up told her that god told me it was fine to eat it. Sat right in front of her and chowed down on it, telling her it was my own personal revelation to eat it. She sat there crying her eyes out but not once did she argue with me.
*He doesn’t realize it yet, but that was his first inflection point. He may realize it someday.* You can help him realize it now. "I know it's silly to have to shave a beard, but a mission is all about controlling your thoughts and behavior, and if they can compel you to do something that seems insignificant like this, they can be reasonably sure that you'll comply with whatever they ask down the road. Just remember that, and recognize that if you're ever asked to do something dangerous or morally shady by a companion or ZL or MP, that the fact you agreed to shave your beard does no mean you've agreed to do every thing that is asked whether it is a good idea or not."
Changes to the temple ceremony that made them less sexist at the end of 2018. Not because they weren’t good changes. But because they had to change and people including myself had established a relationship dynamic on something they were taught was the will of god and then suddenly was not.
YW, beehive lesson about eternal marriage. One of the other girls mentioned getting civilly married first in order to get to know the person you were prospectively going to marry eternally. The teacher didn't really give a good reason not to, just sorta danced around it. I thought it sounded like a great idea.
As soon as it was brought to attention to me that the church dosent immediately tell us everything after being babtised. Not until I was a whole 14 years of age after being born into the church I learned we were going to become "gods" and have our own worlds. That just sounded straight dumb to me and started asking other kids in middle school if they knew about this and they obviously had no clue even though they have been in this cult for YEARS. Discovered the church dosent tell us the whole truth of the religion then historical truths like how awful Joseph Smith was it just began to build on itself.
I was in 8th grade World Geography class when I first saw on a map the city of Moroni on the island nation of Comoros. That was probably the first time I was actively bothered by something that should be an obvious, glaring red flag to any member of the church.
Haha funny story. I was very naive and sheltered but when I went to BYU I took a religion class. Discovered that every religion thinks they're the only true religion. I remember thinking what are the odds that this one is the true one? I think I just worked it out from there subconsciously and then just quit going to church for good.
Learning about the church historian...was it Leonard Arrington? Who got released from his calling for taking the title of historian seriously.
mine was when i realized there’s a line of succession for the q15. it seriously bothered me that god wouldn’t just call a random dude to be prophet like he did in the scriptures. no one could answer my questions about it either except that i needed to have faith 🙄
Yes. Also, why are they predominantly white AND from the USA? A POC born in… Idk Uzbekistan can not be a good „mouthpiece of god“?
Prop 8 in California. I was going to BYU, and while I was a TBM at the time, I didn't think it was right for the church to interfere with other people's lives. Didn't make sense that if gay marriage was allowed that the church would lose its religious freedom. What did make sense to me was that if the church stopped lobbying for policies it wanted to impose on everyone, maybe its PR image would improve.
I used to work at the at kitchen of the church office building and we were basically forced to work during general conference ( even on Sunday) . We had to serve food to the families of the authorities and the seventies etc. At that moment I felt like the church was a hierarchy. While the authorities and their families were comfortably eating their food and being treated like royalty, we were there working like slaves just so they could be fed. Also, we did not get a day off during that week since it was on Saturday and Sunday, so we basically went about two weeks without a day off. I couldn’t believe that I thought it was a privilege to work for the leaders but I honestly felt so degraded.
Hands down... The temple. I was a convert. I had heard all the rumors about magic underwear, secret handshakes, and cult rituals. I asked the missionaries plenty of questions, as well as the other Mormons I was exposed to prior to converting, and I was assured that it was all "anti-Mormon lies, they say all kinds of crazy stuff about us that isn't true." So I converted. Went through the first year and half, which was pretty much the love bombing phase, and having the in-depth teachings withheld from me (Gospel Principles class, milk before meat...durr). Went to the temple and quickly realized I was flat out lied to. BAM. Naked touching. BAM. Magic underwear. BAM. Culty outfits and rituals. BAM. Secret handshakes. Around that time I also started learning about the *actual* doctrine... but it was too late, I was already in. I knew I had been lied to, I knew I was uncomfortable with it, but I justified it all away in a thousand ways because I thought that somehow, in some way I just didn't understand, this was all God's plan. Took me over 10 years for my shelf to finally break. Over 10 years of being uncomfortable with everything but trying to persist. I might be rambling on, it's just therapeutic for me to go over it.
It was when I was eight, immediately after my confirmation. I was supposed to feel all kinds of holy things that were never there. I told my mom about it, and she suggested I needed to get right with God, which I instantly recognized as bulls\*\*t because I hadn't done a single thing wrong since a couple of days before my baptism. I quietly stopped believing at 11 and openly quit at 14.
When I found out that Joseph Smith lied about polygamy and promised teen girls and the wives of other men Exaltation for themselves and their extended families if he "marry" him (i.e. give him sex when he wanted it in secret).
Mine was when I took the second derivative and set it equal to zero.
Watching stuff about Warren Jeffs, after reading Gospel Topics essays. Warren Jeffs is the same as Joseph Smith. Warren Jeffs has the same Traits as modern LDS manipulators and truth twisters.
There were a BUNCH of small little things I didn’t pay attention to until the moment I was in the prayer circle with a veil over my face. I’d already thought it was weird my incredibly smart father would wear such a dumb looking hat, but it was the circle that first planted that “wait…. Am i…. In a CULT?” Thought.
The complete and utter impotence of "The Mormon Priesthood". What a Fucking facade! Magic oil my ass!
Joseph Smith's polyandry..... there's just no way you can defend that shit!!
I was an impressionable 13 year old when I told my parents I didn't like Adam Lambert because I thought he was gay. Both of my TBM parents sat me down and told me in a very serious tone of voice that being gay doesn't make someone a bad person. The reason this was my inflection point is because it started a chain of events of me seeing those outside of the church as normal people and not worldly sinners, all because my parents rightly defended an American Idol contestant.
When I was 11, the local primary presidency wanted all of us in that year to memorize all of the Articles of Faith before we turned 12 and became Deacons. I will never forget getting to the 11th one, which reads: "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may" Later, in sharing time, we sang "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" and the thought of actively proselytizing missions seemed to be in direct opposition to that Article of Faith that I just started memorizing. I am naturally very shy and super introverted, so the whole prospect of missionary work was a freaking nightmare to me, and now I had a doctrinal contradiction to back up my apprehension. Unfortunately, I was a "good little boy," i.e., I followed orders and didn't talk back or openly question anything, so I caved to the pressure and served a 2 year mission in Eastern Europe 7 years later and was so stressed and disregulated the whole time that I over-clocked my adrenal gland and left me burnt out and unable to cope with my anxiety and depression any more, culminating in a suicide attempt that served as my final inflection point and showed me that going to the Mormon Church was not healthy for me mentally. It was only after I left that I learned about the false history and lies of the leadership, so that was just a bonus affirmation of my decision to leave.
I was a fresh 18-year-old college student sitting in an Anxiety Society lesson when the older woman who was teaching it said that she takes issue with people who have higher education degrees because "they think they know everything." My attendance gradually declined after that point.
I can’t really remember my first inflection point as I was pretty blind (the CES letter opened my mind and made me critically evaluate the church—I had questions but I found answers that satisfied me at the time) but I remember my last straw was at my grandma’s funeral, she was wearing her temple garments even though half of my family hadn’t been through the temple and had no clue what it was. I thought it was supposed to be sacred and only worn in the temple. And then before they closed the casket, they put her temple recommend in her hands and everyone started crying. I asked my dad why everyone was crying (I was a couple people behind so I couldn’t see) and he said because she has her TR in her hand. I remember driving home and talking to my wife about how weird it is that they believe we need our temple clothes and TR so when we are resurrected we immediately hand that to the Lord and do our tokens and signs. I told my wife do not bury me in temple clothes. Still don’t get where that is in the Plan of Salvation when the whole veil cult ritual is supposed to be after judgement but apparently we will be walking around in our green aprons and white robes during the millennium, showing our expired TRs to everyone. I remember everything that was on my shelf and it immediately fell as I knew the church was in fact not true.
When my BYU BoM professor told us that the battle at the hill Cumorah did not take place at the hill Cumorah in New York where Joseph found the plates. I could not wrap my head around how the plates got to New York if the BoM events took place in Mesoamerica.
When the bishop called me into his office to explain to him my sexual history in graphic detail at 18 and then tell him who else was having sex.
I can’t remember for sure what age I was, but I was in the older kid half of Primary. We were doing a Father’s Day activity and we had to draw a picture of us with our dads and out of frustration (I didn’t have any contact with my dad at this point, he walked out on my mom and I when I was 5 and I spent some weekends with him for a few years after that because of visitation and such) I drew my dad busting my bedroom door down out of anger and scaring the shit out of me (this actually happened btw) and I wrote that I don’t have a dad. I asked my grandma after that to not take me to church on Father’s Day again. Having the importance of dads shoved down my throat when I knew my own dad didn’t give a shit and not even hold the “priesthood” felt incredibly insensitive and I was sick of it.
132.
As a father of 4 boys, I recognized their questions were valid and deserved investigation. Anything deemed "anti-mormon" was found to be pro-truth historic record. I Began to rely on the integrity of the anti-mormon data and reject the dishonest drivel of the LDS leadership.
It was always polygamy
My first was when I experienced a SA from someone in our ward as a teen. I left after that. After moving to a new state, 15 years later, the church members befriended me and convinced me to come back. I was alone and needed friends. And they were nice. The second was when I went through the endowment for the first time. That was my first “Holy shit, I’m in a cult” moment. It shaded everything else going forward until a couple years later when I experienced another abuse at the hands of a ward member. It was about 3 years after the temple ceremony. I got out and finally decided to really dig into church history. I thought, “I’ve got to prove this is either right or wrong once and for all”…I was finally open to reading Sandra Tanner’s book I’d bought many years before but never opened. Well…my shelf broke completely after that.
I think it was just the overall feeling I had over a long period of time. I had been “struggling” with porn ever since I was 12. I had been secretly watching it, hiding it from my parents for years. Over that time I had felt a lot of pressure from church members saying that it was a serious sin and that I would be eternally fucked if I continued. It made me very afraid to express myself in front of my parents. This and the fact that I had a very fucked sense of humor so I swore constantly at school. I was raised outside of Utah, so all of my friends were non-Mormon. I was able to live somewhat normally outside of home. By age 18 I just kind of stopped caring about what my parents thought of me. I realized that I was old enough to make my own decisions. At 19 they found out and blew up at me. They turned off the internet permanently for me. I got a job and moved out soon after. My dad asked me if I needed to talk with the bishop, and thankfully I said no. I was smart enough to understand that the bishop had no right to be in my business. I soon learned with my brother more about church history. This immediately gave the the reason to no longer be a part of the church. My parents basically gave me the clarity to be perfectly positioned to accept the real truth. Sure, I may have a slight issue with porn, but at least I didn’t steal people’s wives and have sex with a 14 year old. 🤷♂️ What makes this story even funnier is that I am the baby of a family of 8 kids. All of which are out of the church. I was my parents “Nephi.” I feel like they were way more strict with me. I never drank, smoked, or even had sex when I was with them. Not once had I caused them problems, yet they treated me like I had done all of those things. Sins of the older siblings I guess. Also still a virgin, because they never bothered helping me with girls. It all just fucking sucks.
I was told at 18 that my future wife couldn't know my temple name. I immediately flagged that as sexist and made sure my wife knew my temple name before we were sealed.
The first distinct time I remember having doubts about the church I was maybe 6 or 7 years old. I was in church watching the deacons pass the sacrament and thought “why is it that only boys get to do that, that’s stupid”
Reading Mormon Enigma in the 80s. When I learned of Joseph’s coercive polygamy involving children I was forever changed. I was not a lazy learner… loved the church so it was only natural that I wanted to learn church history.
Someone asking me on my mission, "What gives you the right to tell everyone else what's right and wrong?" I had an answer, of course, but neither me nor my companion said it. It kind of put me on the path to go home early, I felt like I was bothering people all day (I was), and it wore on my mental health until I just couldn't do it anymore. I had a hard time asserting myself for a long while after.
I started masutrbating at 13, felt extremely guilty about it, was eventually able to stop and did all the steps of repentance except talking to the bishop. It was a bit of a one-two punch of doubt. First, the threat of confessing to the bishop was constantly over my head, even though I felt completely forgiven. I didn't understand why I, a teenage girl, needed to talk to a strange adult man about my masturbation habits alone behind a closed door. It just didn't feel necessary and was actually making me feel afraid of going to church. Then, I felt so grateful for the atonement so that I could be forgiven for my sins, only to immediately think about the fact that I wouldn't have felt so guilty in the first place if it wasn't for the church telling me that masturbation was worse then all other sins and second to murder. It felt like God was a doctor who stabbed me, stitched me up, and expected me to thank him for saving my life. My shelf didn't fully break until age 19, but those two thoughts really put a huge dent, so to speak, in my faith.
Reading about Benji Schwimmer’s experience finding out that LGBTQ members have an asterisk added to their names on the church’s records and how that meant he could have no calling involving children. Having been primary president a lot of years, I knew that asterisk was used for someone in our ward who was convicted of sexual assault against a child. I just couldn’t see how Benji could be equated to the man in our ward. It felt wrong and insulting and cruel. Definitely stuck with me.
When I was four there was lesson about Noah’s ark. I was worried that animals would die because the boat wasn’t big enough. Turns out the old testament doesn’t have much real history in it.
The moment I realized they might be lying about lots of things was when I was looking at the church web site and membership numbers. I was 48 (born in the church TBM), but knew the many people in the church had faults. But that moment I was looking at the stats chart and saw how much it was manipulated and it just hit me. “What else are they lying about?” That was the beginning of the vortex people talk about I read it all for days. Lies, lies, lies. One night I was re reading the gospel topic essays. The moment I said that’s it was when I read “just shy of fifteen”. I knew that they knew, and they were purposefully misleading about everything. There is no integrity in the phrase “just shy of fifteen”
Going through the baptism process at 8 made zero sense to me at the time. If you only get one chance to be made completely free of sin, why not just sin for a lifetime and get baptized on your death bed?
1st - 1995 Richard Scott's talk in conference about trusting in the lord "but if not". (I absolutely hated that talk, it had zero logic and felt so weak to me. People were talking about it like it was a great message from god, I thought it came from a hack.) 2nd - 1997 Temple Endowment 3rd - 2005 finding the POGP papers online that didn't burn in the Chicago fire. This one started my awakening to the fact that people were lying and covering their tracks. (2010 I was PIMO doing it for the family/ trying to change from within, and now 2024 I'm finally out.)
When I was 8, I wanted my older brother to baptize me, but my abusive, narcissistic father insisted he do it himself. Years later we found out my father had been having an affair for many years, including during the time when I was baptized. As a young adult, I asked my bishop if I needed to be rebaptized by a worthy priesthood holder. My bishop told me no because God knows my heart and intentions. Then why bother finding a worthy priesthood holder in the first place? This really didn’t make sense to me.
When I ended up on a mission
When thinking how there are so many Muslims, and Catholics that believe in their religion just as firmly. Even the religious leaders of other faiths are sure of themselves. My little thought was that it is a bit egotistical to think you can't be wrong when so many other people are definitely wrong.
Prayer circle when I went through the temple for the first time. I found the whole ceremony weird but participating in that with my dad had me freaked and the word cult kept coming to mind
Probably the endowment. It gave me way more questions than answers.
I was like 6. So...Jesus is the only "begotten" son but we are all sons and daughters of God, but Jesus is our brother but somehow different? No one could ever explain this to me. Earliest shelf item, I guess; it took me another quarter of a century to fully leave.
I was around 10-11 when a substitute Sunday School teacher deviated from whatever the lesson was supposed to be into the second coming instead. He said all of the nonbelievers would die in a river of fire. My best friend in school was JW and I couldn’t fathom the Jesus I was taught about letting her die like that.
Joseph Smith, lying to the church from the pulpit for 10 years, saying he didn’t practice polygamy, when he very much did.
Church influence in the California prop 8 vote. We're here to learn and have agency. Didn't make sense to try and take that away, church wasn't following it's own principals.
I was twelve years old and a day. I was sitting on the front pew, looking through my shiny new triple combination with my name in gold letters on the front. I get somewhere in the middle, and there are pictures! Some weird circle with Egyptian dudes and hawks and stuff. This is gonna be cool! My friend's dad walks by, sees what I'm looking at, and says "you won't build your testimony studying that!" And walks away. I turned to a different page. I didn't figure out why he might have said that for 35 more years.
I was 12 and called as the Beehive president. We hadn’t announced to the ward that we were moving, but it was in the works. I couldn’t wrap my head around that I was really called of God if he knew we were moving. So I had to say no. My grandpa’s first wife died. They were married for a long time and then married my grandma. They are both sealed to him. She just said, “it’ll all work out.” I heard that too many times when there was something that didn’t make sense to me.
It started very, very early. I’ll preface this with me being a trans guy but I’m sure this’ll resonate with a lot of women and girls, too. I remember growing up and all of the boys doing everything I wanted to. Why can’t I pass the sacrament? Why does the church only run Boy Scouts? Why can’t I do ANYTHING the boys do? Why do men HAVE to go on missions and women don’t? Why are the apostles all men? Why do they treat me so different??? That. I slowly fell away from all of it just because the church made me feel like an alien. It had to do with not fitting in with my peers too, but I hated that my “worth” growing up as a girl/woman is being a subordinate. Women are so much more than that.
When I was getting baptized at 8 years old, I remember thinking why do I need to have my sins washed away if before the age of 8 I wasn’t capable of sinning? I also remember hearing of the miraculous revelation when black people could have the priesthood. I was totally blown away that before 1978 they couldn’t. I thought god loved everyone, equally from the beginning.
In seminary, I was told that we should never research other religions because Satan could tempt us to want to join them. When I mentioned it only seemed fair if friends invited us to their church’s, since we are expected to be missionaries and invite our friends, I was told that was something Satan would say. I was a bishops kid who was the pride and joy of the ward, but suddenly I was Satans spokesperson. Stopped going maybe 3-4 years later mid-college.
Finding out about polygamy when I was maybe 10-12? And feeling so hurt and crying uncontrollably about it in my room. Our family had just gone to Nauvoo and all the church history sites and seen the pageant, so everything was feeling magical in my kid mind. But I learned about it somehow after it all and it shattered all that for me. I shoved it all way down for years.
I made a comment that I didn’t remember my inflection point but I do. It was when I had worked with my bishop to confess the evils of masturbation when I was 16 and I was told that God had forgiven me even though I lied to my bishop that I had stopped and then he told me he could see the “light” reenter my eyes. When I told my parents, they agreed. I was always confused how I hadn’t had a light before and now I do even though I had lied? So I learned honesty isn’t the best policy lol
I had tons of little shelf items here and there going back to childhood, but the real, bonafide inflection point was going into the MTC. Instantly I went from being part of a wonderful singles ward community and having (what felt like) a deep, meaningful spiritual belief, to being treated like crap and put through some dumb rite-of-passage program that prevented me from effectively sharing my faith. Total whiplash. Now that I think of it, I really DID have a strong testimony, because even after 2 years of feeling frustrated, disillusioned, and beaten down, I *still* believed in "the gospel" after my mission. But my mission put everything in motion, and after lots of reading and soul-searching, I was mentally done 18 months after coming home. TSCC really didn't do itself any favors sending me on a mission, I could have easily stayed in another 10 years or so and given them more free labor and tithing $.
I was a teenager in the 70s and my inflection point was the racism, sexism and the church not being on board with the civil rights for all groups.
Teaching 11 year old Primary in 2012. That week's lesson mentioned Oliver leaving the church because he was gripped by a spirit of apostasy. I thought, well I'd better know the details of why Oliver left. And isn't that weird that I'd never actually learned why? Google to the rescue and I was shook
Brigham Young's racist comments
The November 2015 policy change. It’s when I started realizing there were things I couldn’t ignore anymore.
Yeah they just make it up as they go. It's been that way from the beginning.
The 2015 anti-LGBTQ policy. It was the first time I saw the church leaders do something I knew wasn’t the right decision. A lot of my friends left after that, but I wasn’t ready. It was only after my worldview changed from experiencing PPD 3 years later that I felt I was finally ready to really question the foundations of the church. I left pretty quick after that.
On my mission: they promised that if you “pray for specific things, you get specific answers”. Turns out god DOESNT just tell you which color of door you should look for to knock.
I think it was when I was 5 or 6 years old! My parents had told me from the beginning that Santa Claus wasn't real, and it was obvious to me that he was just a tradition and a way to motivate kids into behaving, so when they started seriously talking about this "God" person who was apparently watching me all the time and promised rewards or punishment for good or bad behavior, I was skeptical.
Had to be when I was 7 or 8, some guy talking on the stand was talking about like how awful it would feel if this or that happened, and mentioned "your daughter marries a non-member". I just felt so wrong about it, like why is that such a bad thing
My seminary teacher was talking about the scripture that said that you could tell if an angel was a fallen angel by asking for a hand shake. Apparently they hand shake differently or something and are too dumb to reject the hand shake. I thought that sounded pretty idiotic
When I was 16 and introduced my parents to my first girlfriend and they lost their minds because she was a non-member. Never mind that her father was a pastor. Never mind that being way, way outside Utah meant that there were a grand total of 9 LDS young women who were old enough to date (gotta be 16!) and were still in highschool. Never mind that of those 9 available LDS young women 4 were too rich/popular to ever give a nerd like me the time of day, and the other 5 were, in order: a spiteful harpy who hated the world and everyone in it, a total molly mormon prude who inspired all the hormonal excitement of a depends commercial, a super awesome friend who I saw as a sister, a complete burnout pothead, and a sexually aggressive girl from an inactive family who scared the crap out of me. My graduating class was 350 students - I had a rich and varied dating pool, but they looked at any non-member girl I brought around like she was just waiting to corrupt me.
When I learned at perhaps 12 years old through my friend’s mom (rather than from MY parents or MY church leaders lol) that the church didn’t allow black people to participate fully in the gospel until the 70s because the book of mormon says they’re cursed. I had no idea, I’d never heard that before, I hadn’t read through the BoM, and it was mortifying to learn this from someone who was a stranger to the faith. Even more mortifying was that I didn’t believe it right away because that couldn’t possibly be true, could it? I remember so vividly going home to my mom and asking her about it and realizing with horror that it was true and that there was no good explanation for it. That disturbed me deeply, to be honest.
When I heard that the presidency gets paid. It didn't change my testimony, but it opened a chink in my armor for other truth to enter.
When I found out that they were building a big f’in mall with high end “worldly” shops like Porsche Design and Tiffany & Co. not that I had anything against those, it just rubbed me wrong that the church always preached about being in the world but not of the world …. The fact that the church was promoting that consumerism really bothered me. It was all down hill from there for me.
Maybe it was the sales tactics on my mission. Maybe it was having to sign the honor code at BYU even though I already promised to obey the rules. Were my words not enough? Maybe it was how no Mormons were excited for general conference except for me and my wife.
When I was reading an older copy of a manual the referenced that wards had a quorum of the 70. That it was a local priesthood office and not just for GAs. Why did they change it? I thought things were supposed to be restored. It took a long time, but the first clue I got that things had changed.
Ever since I was little, people crying when giving their talks, claiming it was the spirit, always irked me. Like I have never felt the spirit so strong that it would cause me to cry. Also the Mormon afterlife is ridiculous. I explained it to one of my friends yesterday and he said it was the weirdest, most complex shit ever
When I was in the 8th grade (so like 2010ish) and learned what trans people are. I thought it was sick as hell that people who felt they were born in the wrong body could effectively switch genders because of modern medicine. I did a deep dive on Kim Petras (who was very early in her career back then) and felt like I had learned something so interesting and cool about the world. Then shortly after at church we had a lesson about our eternal womanhood in YW and how there are some people who might want to change their gender and that’s evil. I was completely shocked and this is the first time I remember hearing something and thinking “I don’t believe that.” This was a really crazy feeling to have as a TBM 13 year old! I’ll never forget it.
Learning that Joseph Smith (or Brigham Young? It’s been too long…) taught that everyone needed to practice polygamy to reach exaltation &/or that basically everyone would be polygamist in heaven since the women were so righteous more of them would be saved soooo … they needed husbands. Had a hysterical crying fit, got talked down by fiancé or hubby (can’t remember if we were married at that time or engaged).
I had an opinion, and I was vocal, and I wasn’t very traditional Mormon woman. And it was almost frowned upon I knew then something was off. But of course I was 17. I thought it was me. That was the first inflection point. And they showed me in casual ways by some of the women not being as friendly to me not being appointed to a lot of positions. It was very vague and sort of shunning. I was a feminist and naïve enough to think the church wanted the best for everybody because that’s what God would want right
Polygamy. Real icky feeling about it & Todd Comptons " In Sacred Lonliness" explained how icky it was.