The Final Straw to the Last Exit

It is getting shocking. The more I engage myself in expressing my views on the LDS Church and the more I find out about how horrible the Church is at its worst, the more I am alienated from the perception I had of it only one year ago. I was breaking away, but I still thought it was all okay and very virtuous.

I just wonder what percentage of people break away who were born into the Mormon faith. I think it is much lower than for those who were converted for only a few years. It feels like I am getting away on very, very low odds.

How did this happen? Why did this happen? One thing that LDS authorities would say to me is that I should not ask why. I should ask why not. I shouldn't chafe against trials and adversity. They will only make me stronger. I should be grateful to God.

Here's the only problem. If something bad is happening to you, you should ask why. The answer to the question may get you out. I asked, "Why don't I feel like I fit in with church members? And, why does it get harder and harder for me to go to church?" If I had completely soaked in every bit of brainwashing, I would have stopped asking the question, and started forcing myself in a very cruel way to go back. But I hadn't. That was the miracle. I hadn't soaked in every piece of brainwashing. I just started to tell myself that I was different from those people. I had done everything I could to connect with them and there was nothing else I could do. I also realized that my mother and father were both from cultures that resisted some LDS ideas. And then I asked why it was harder and harder to go to church. And I wasn't satisfied until I told myself that I thought the church meetings were boring, dissatisfying, untruthful, and unpleasant. And then, gradually, I began to accept that the Lord really was telling me to stay away. And I realized that He meant that I should stay away permanently.

So, what was the final straw that broke when I finally completely left and told myself that all of it wasn't true?

It was gradual, but there were some cruel moments.

There was a time in my life when I thought I was really happy. I was happily doing some callings in my church and enjoying the association of some of the young people inside of it. I felt that I had never been happier. But things went wrong.

At a certain point, I began to feel very, very depressed. It seemed that I could never get rid of the depression. I felt physically like I was dying. I tried to get treatment. The treatment didn't work. But when I did stupid little things like taking naps and taking vitamins, I started to shake it off.

One Sunday, despite the fact that I had callings to fulfill in my ward, I suddenly decided that there was no way I could go to church. I felt oppressed by the very idea. I decided to call the Relief Society President to tell her that I wouldn't be there to fulfill my duties. I told her that if I went, I wasn't going to wear a skirt. I was going to wear pants. She started to pep talk me. She yelled that I was going to show up and that I was going to wear a skirt. She did such a good job that I showed up at church in a skirt. No woman attends Sunday meetings at that church in pants. It is considered very tacky.

By that summer, however, I was less and less active. I had gotten too old for the young single adult ward I was going to, and I found that I didn't like other wards at all. I didn't like my home ward. And I was way too nervous for the singles ward for older adults. I felt completely uncomfortable there. I couldn't speak to people. They all seemed old and decayed. And here's the kicker. The oldest people in that ward were 45 years old. They shouldn't have looked that decayed!

I began to tap into the idea that I thought something was wrong with those older single people. Somehow, I was much younger at heart. And I was truly kicking the depression. Unfortunately, in the fall, I attended my home ward for a year more. Again, the depression kicked in. I even complained verbally about it to ward members.

A year and a half later, I found myself completely unable to go to church. I developed a really bad cold, and became afraid for my physical and mental health. I stayed away because going made me feel sicker. It seemed, somehow, that I felt freer on a physical and mental level when I was out of that church. I was less depressed. I didn't suffer so much from colds. It was really, really weird. I had no choice but to stay away. 2004 was the last year that I fully attended and participated in the LDS Church. After that I could only dabble in pretending to be an active LDS Church member.

As you can see, it took way too long for me to figure out that I was in the best place not going to that church. It took me almost three more years to break from it.

In 2006, I was sent visiting teachers that I argued with. That has been covered in a previous blog entry.

In 2007, I tried going to a Relief Society book club. I still thought about going permamently back to Sunday meetings. But the last straw came when someone in the book club started racially slurring the author of the book I chose. The author was of a different race and culture. It was exactly why I picked the book. I thought the other book club members would appreciate this mind-broadening, but they didn't.

I walked out of the book club meeting seconds after the racial slurring. I went home and realized that the LDS Church was not the true church. I realized that I would not go back. I had been disgusted and treated badly by those people for too long. God had told me to stay away for too long. I finally got it. I finally broke through the curse my mind had had on it for years. I finally stopped believing everything. I finally got out my church handouts and began to go through them. I threw out more than half of them.

The people were too evil and the doctrines were too lazily and incompletely formed. Even if the LDS Church turned me onto the Bible and other good things, they were destroying my full sense of the truth.

Ever since that day, I have been reviewing LDS doctrines and discarding them. The unique LDS belief that remains in my heart is the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I really think that God inspired and helped Joseph Smith to come up with that book. Most of the other things he came out with are suspect. I think he made up the First Vision and a few other things. Despite my belief in some sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith's revelations to the church, I think that he made a lot of them up with no divine inspiration behind them whatsoever. Joseph Smith was supposed to change and shake up the world. He was not supposed to rule it.

Any person who claims to have ever been a prophet will be suspected of lying. But there are people who are prophets, both likely people and unlikely people.

Big problems happen when one prophet is so revered that the others are completely ignored. Forbid that someone should decide that someone is not a prophet because they are from the wrong tradition! But forbid that that prophet is worshipped! Only God should be worshipped.

I was not worshipping God by going to that church. I was worshipping its leaders past and present. That is not what I wanted at all. That is not what I needed at all. I am freer than I thought. I am right where everyone else is. Sometimes I think I know that truth and sometimes I think I am feeling very, very confused. I'm just like everyone else. How strange.

How strange, but how fortunate.