Anyone offer a little advice?

[_mms]

Thanks for the background, mms, but you never told us what you wanted advice about.

So. . . what do you want advice about?

"I want my relationships to be the way the were before I learned what I know, as it seems that some within my close circle no longer trust me or value what I have to say about anything because they believe I have lost my way with regard to the most important thing. I want to think about other things, talk about other things, get rid of my anger and find some "good" to hang on to since I seem to no longer be able to hold on to the "Mormon" good. I want to forgive those who are so quick to make assumptions about why I am where I am.

But I am struggling."

Those are the things I wanted advice about -- how to help the relationships/trust; how to not be so consumed by my "loss of faith"; how to get rid of my anger; how to find some "good" outside of the "Mormon" good; how to forgive. I think I have received some good advice. I appreciate it. Of course, the continuing bottom line advice is the obvious--I have to figure this stuff out myself.

[_Jersey Girl]

Jersey Girl--Thanks and upon reflection, I have started down some of those roads and maybe concentrating on them more will help me worry about this stuff less.

Why worry, mms? Do you worry about your life coming apart? Your relationships becoming strained? I think you can navigate this part of your life by being gracious and kind to those around you for in the end, the only person you really need to learn to live with is you.

Maybe there are parts of you that you can further develop, something that will serve as a form of self-expression to carry you through this transition and then forward?

Do you write? Play music? Dance? Something like that? A creative outlet?

You don't say (or at least I didn't read it) whether or not you retain a belief in God. If you do, I really-really-really don't think this is a good time to jump head long into another religion. I do think that this is an optimal time to engage in prayer, meditation and/or self-reflection. Let thoughts and feelings come to you as they will and push them away when you need to, if only until you're ready to deal with them.

Do LDS have the hymn "Count your blessings"? Count your blessings, name them one by one...you know, that's a pretty good way of going about life even if you don't believe in God.

Think about what's good in your life and what is good in you...and camp there.

:-)

[_huckelberry]

mms, consider Jersey Girls advice. It is all good sound advice that you could take seriously. But I would not be a bit suprised if you sensed, just a bit, that she doesn't know your particular pain. She has never been LDS and has never seen the change fromthe inside out. There could be something a bit frustrating about that. There is a whole world full of people who have not experienced your particular painful passage. They, like Jersey Girl, may have good thoughts despite that. But good thought or not they never know or can share the peculiar pain.

In fact it may be that the peculiar pain of leaving Mormonism seems more important than it is. There is a whole world of what matters out there, to be seen past seeing the immediate peculiar pain.

[_ktallamigo]

So I have been around a while and mostly lurk but I have had my moments of involvement here. The short story is that it has been quite a while now (couple of years) since I first started down the road of doubt. I know this will disappoint some, but it was not because I wanted to sin, but because I read RSR and saw a different Joseph Smith than the one I had known through currciculum materials. So I then read FARMS/FAIR stuff and was struck by the number of things that the apologists admitted to be true. Like many others, I spent hours and hours and hours and then more hours devouring all that I could. Some things made me very angry, I must admit. In fact, I am still disturbed by the Church's failure to be forthcoming about so many things (in the current Joseph Smith manual, on the Joseph Smith website, etc.).

I know it is hard for the apologist/TBM mind to believe this, but this is the very last thing I wanted for myself--to conclude that people are LDS not because it is the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, but because they want it to be true or because their parents insist that they believe its true or because the pressures surrounding them are so great that they simply have no choice but to believe it's true. I cannot stop thinking about it; it nearly consumes me. So I look again at everything I spent so much time looking at before, in hopes that I will find something to salvage my testimony. But I simply become more convinced and start to wonder how anyone who has truly looked at this stuff objectively (as objectively as possible) without the need to draw a certain conclusion can possibly have a "feeling" overcome the evidence.

I do not want to change anything about my life. I do not want to drink, cheat on my spouse, take up golf on sundays, or do anything differently than I did before I traveled down this road. I want my relationships to be the way the were before I learned what I know, as it seems that some within my close circle no longer trust me or value what I have to say about anything because they believe I have lost my way with regard to the most important thing. I want to think about other things, talk about other things, get rid of my anger and find some "good" to hang on to since I seem to no longer be able to hold on to the "Mormon" good. I want to forgive those who are so quick to make assumptions about why I am where I am.

But I am struggling. (by the way, Still going to Church--sit in the back and try not to be bothered by how little people seem to know about their church, remembering that I was there.)

Dear mms:

I could have written this exact post (though perhaps not so eloquently as you have).

It has been two years since I started looking at the church critically. I also sit on the back row. I don't share my doubts with others, but keep it to myself. I certainly don't want to put others through what I have gone through the last two years. If they want to know for themselves, the information is just a mouse-click away. Let them choose!! I won't try to force anything on them.

I think we have to go through a process of de-programming ourselves. That's why we can't "leave it alone" -- at least until enough time has passed and we have come to terms with the fact that the church is not true.

I feel there is a mountain of evidence that the church is not true -- but my programming or "brain washing" is so strong (47 years) that sometimes I still doubt myself and wonder if it's all true after all. It takes time to work through these things and begin to think and feel like a normal person again.

One positive consequence, so far, is that I no longer live with constant guilt and fear. However, it is difficult to be "in the closet" about something so important.

Almost every person in my life - family, friends, co-workers, and boss - are active LDS. "Coming out" would destroy my life.

It's hard.

[_Dr. Shades]

I want my relationships to be the way the were before I learned what I know, as it seems that some within my close circle no longer trust me or value what I have to say about anything because they believe I have lost my way with regard to the most important thing. . .Those are the things I wanted advice about -- how to help the relationships/trust; . . ."

Ain't gonna happen. Click here and read the essay called "The Believer and the Apostate" by Curt van den Heuvel.

The sooner you recognize that you're never, ever going to go back to the way things were with them--unless and until they, too, go apostate--the sooner you can move on.

I want to think about other things, talk about other things, . . . how to not be so consumed by my "loss of faith"; . . .

Don't force it. It'll come on its own. When one has been conned, it's only natural to be heavily concerned with how and why it happened. The bigger the con, the longer the timeframe of the concern.

. . . how to get rid of my anger . . .

Why get rid of your anger? Accept it. Own it. Let it stay as long as it wants. Eventually it'll get bored and leave on its own.

. . . and find some "good" to hang on to since I seem to no longer be able to hold on to the "Mormon" good. . . how to find some "good" outside of the "Mormon" good; . . .

You can never "find" good. You can only "make" good. If you want to find good, go out and make some.

I want to forgive those who are so quick to make assumptions about why I am where I am. . .

Forgiveness first requires understanding. If you haven't already, you really need to read the essay I linked to just above, called "The Believer and the Apostate" by Curt van den Heuvel. Once you've read and digested that essay, you'll learn that those who quickly make assumptions about you are not doing so out of spite, but merely because they've been programmed to do exactly that.

One does not get angry at a horse for eating grass. One also does not get angry at a turtle for walking slowly. That's simply the way they've been built; so it goes with your friends when they make assumptions.