The Painful Process of Losing Faith in Mormonism

[_daheshism]

I was once a True Believing Mormon (TBM). I took it very serously, perhaps more than most other TBMs. I was beaten for my faith! Literally. I took it seriously. I did not lie, not even "little white lies". Not even "justified lies" like I saw other Mormons using all the time...all the time. I was moral and honest and respectful of everyone. I turned the other cheek, and had to many times because many Mormons offended me in many ways...liars, thieves, false accusers, mockers, fornicators. I spent tens of thousands of hours, thousands of dollars of my own money, doing research in order to answer "all" Anti-Mormons claims and to refute ALL anti-Mormon claims. It was my obsession for at least a decade. Iwas a dedicated to Mormonism as a rank-and-file Communist in the Stalinist era, and I believed the "propaganda" too; although, little by little, I was discovering that the things I had been told were "true" were in fact NOT true. Little by little, I discovered Mormon bishops were not inspired (nor even intelligent). Mormon women were not the honest/moral women I'd been told they were. They weren't inspired either. They chased rich men just like "wordly" women did, and [Telestial-caliber comment deleted] like the "wordly" women, but they "hid" it (unlike the worldly women). Church leaders could not read the intents of hearts like I was told they could. Mark Hofmann proved that. Many other things I was discovering. But, I withheld final judgment until I had all the FACTS in. I probably "lost" and "regained" my faith in Mormonism 30 times in the space of 15 years. But, finally, after many years, years after I LEFT the Church, I finally had to conclude that it was all a lie, a Big Lie.

When a TBM loses faith in Mormonism, they go through the following steps:


1) Denial: remember watching a film about Hitler in the final days of the War? He's slamming his fist on the desk screaming "Liars! Traitors! Defeatists!" when his generals are all telling him the TRUTH...the War in Lost...and Hitler is attacking the messengers instead of accepting the FACTS they are telling him. This is the first thing the TBM will do: attack the messengers instead of dealing with the FACTS they are trying to tell him.

2) Anger: finally you suddenly realize that the messengers were right, and now you are no longer angry at them, but at the Church for deceiving you. You are so angry your head wants to explode. You think of the wasted years, the wasted efforts, the wasted time. Most of you can say, "Well, I found my wife in the Church, so that's one good thing". I can't say that. Most Mormon women lied to me, or pretended to like me just to "pull the rug" from under me and laugh as they did so. No "wife" found in Mormonism, just a bunch of memories; most of them negative.

3) Depression: you realize you've been fooled, and you are no longer angry, just depressed. Very....very....very.....VERY....depressed. Perhaps even suicidal. Your world is gone. Everthing is upside down. You've wasted your life for nothing, for a lie. Again, not so bad if you got a nice piece of tail out of it (or in some cases....many nice pieces of tail), but if you got nothing out of it, it's pretty depressing. I got mostly negative memories. Some good memories, but mostly bad ones. This stage can last for years, even decades. For me, it lasted probably about 15 years.

4) Acceptance. Finally, you just accept that Mormonism is a lie, and say "HOW could I have believed all that crap?" Shake your head and laugh. You're feeling GOOD again. You feel like you've been holding your breath for YEARS but NOW you can breath freely again. It's a GOOD feeling. You're HAPPY again! More happy than you ever were as a Mormon. Wow...feels exiliarating. You're in the final stage...the stage of acceptance. Congradulations! You've made it.

[_truth dancer]

OK, so stop going to LDS dances to meet single LDS women who you obviously disdain.

You said you go to these dances because you don't like bars?

What?

You think LDS dances and bars are the only place to pick up women?

Darrick... again, MOVE ON!

Let go of your hatred toward LDS women, fat women, powerful women, rich men, bishops, and whomever else you loath.

You have started dozens and dozens of threads telling us how much you hate LDS women and rich men. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over... on it goes.

We get it.

Really, we do.

~td~

[_Mephitus]

C'mon dude. I met my fiance' on MySpace. (not kidding) there are plenty of very reputable dating sites, theres meetups, events, all sorts of things. It took me a while too (about 3-4 years) but once you start really getting to the normal birds they can be pretty awesome.

[_jskains]

Yet many of us have also done the same amount of research and did not come to your conclusion. That's interesting isn't it?

Thousands of dollars? Wow... What did you do? Hire private detectives?

JMS